Alex Kanellis on strength and conditioning, functional training principles, traditional weightlifting & more
Michael Hughes
Welcome to the Gymnazo podcast where you get to peek behind the curtains of what it takes to create and run a seven figure fitness facility that ranks in the top 5% of boutique fitness studios for revenue. But to be honest, that’s the least important thing about us. Founded by me, Michael Hughes, Gymnazo has created an ecosystem of services that blend performance with restoration techniques and attracts top coaches to its facility hosted by its owners, Paden, and myself and our top coaches. This podcast shares our best practices on everything, from how to build a sustainable fitness business, to how to program for maximum results to how to build a hybrid training module that’s online and in person. We have marketing secrets, movement, innovation, and breaking down trends in the industry. If you’re a fitness professional or fitness business owner, this is where you learn how to sharpen your skills and to see maximum results.
CJ
Hey, everybody, welcome back to the Gymnazo podcast. I am your host, CJ Kobliska, Director of programming here at Gymnazo. And we got Mitch Schrute, co host and as well say what’s up, Mitch, what’s up, Mitch? Thanks, brother. And we have an awesome guest here today. His name is Alex Kanellis, the creator of landmine University, we just finished up a two day Crusher of a course, dialing in, all I’m gonna think about for the next probably six years of my life is landmark, landmark, landmark, pulling the elbow into the hip. So I’m not going to do very much talking today. I actually have a lot of questions for you, Alex. And I’m sure Mitch does as well. And basically how to integrate this functional system into a group training a one on one setting, therapeutic setting, performance setting in college weight rooms everywhere across America and beyond. So without further ado, Alex, welcome to the show. My man
Alex
Thanks a lot for having me guys. Really appreciate it. Really appreciate you guys hosting the certification this weekend. It was an awesome weekend, and I’m ready to do this podcast pumped to be here.
CJ
Shit. Yeah, man. I guess we’ll kick it off first with your training history. I mean, where did you begin, man, because you are one hell of an athlete. And if I saw the definition of meathead and dictionary, you’d have your picture on Hey,
Alex
I’ll take it. Yeah, growing up, I grew up in Iowa City, and I’m an Iowa kid, my background training and athletic wise was I grew up wrestling, that was my life. And then football kind of became my life. I’ve always been really into football, played football at the University of Iowa for a couple of years. And then, really underlying the whole time, my passion was the weight room. I love lifting weights. As soon as I was old enough to sneak into the weight room I was and I just have always loved it. It’s been therapy for me. When I got done playing do little internship at the university in the weight room. And I spent 10 years as a strength and conditioning coach at the high school level. So in Iowa, I at a private school in Iowa City, I ran the full time strength and conditioning program for junior high high school, worked with some grade school kids as well. And that just fueled my passion really helped me realize that what I love doing more than anything is coaching. So I love being in the weight room. But more than that, I love being with people, I love helping people and coaching is really what saved my life when football was done. For me a big part of my identity was gone and coaching really filled that void. And now that’s just that’s all I want to do is just coach and be in the weight room. So that’s my background once I had been coaching in the weight room for a while I got into sort of the whole functional movement, rabbit hole right about how was our body supposed to move, got into the spinal engine theory got into some of David wet stuff, and actually came to California a couple of years ago. And my job at the time was to help David whack run the whack method certification classes. So I helped with that helped over there like method for a while, then the pandemic hit and we weren’t doing in person education. And really, I wasn’t doing enough with the landmine somewhere along the line, I realized that if I wanted to get the spinal agent theories across and also do what I loved the landmine was going to be the perfect tool. So I kind of started developing this system a couple of years ago. And recently, just since a pandemic I’ve been kind of on my own doing my own thing, and trying to take this landmine system and spread it and share it.
CJ
Yeah, it’s something I love so much about your system. It’s it’s easy to comprehend, like there’s no extra little gimmicky, shiny object stuff, you got to focus on all these things at one time. It’s like one thing only and it’s that landmark is that connection point of elbow to hip, and you really just murdered that thing into us. Entirely good saw here at your mouth most the time getting there.
Alex
Absolutely. I think it’s easy when you get into some of the complex movement stuff in the functional movement stuff. To make things more complicated. And when we geek out and get really into what’s going on with your body. You start looking for little things and it’s easy to Make things as complicated as possible. And that’s just not my language. Like I said, I come from a background of fifth through 12th graders and having a room full of them. And everything I do in the system, everything that I’m developing, first thing I care about is that I need to be able to share it with a roomful of 12 year olds. And that’s, that’s the way that I sort of designed the system. As soon as it gets too complicated, I’m not interested anymore. As soon as it gets too sciency, I’m not interested anymore. And as soon as it gets too spiritual, I’m not interested anymore. I’m a simple guy. And I like to keep it really simple. And I think these are sort of some complex movements at first glance, but with this system, the goal is simplicity. And to make it easy, easy to teach, easy to do. And always that’s going to be the goal. As we move forward and evolve the system, it’s always going to be aiming to make it even simpler. And to make it even easier to communicate not to add more pieces to the puzzle, or to make it more complicated.
CJ
Yeah, to make this thing more complicated. You know, as we get older, we think that we need to think on a much deeper level, when we still haven’t even set our foundations of those things of that thinking like, what are the principles of that? That process? Right? And so some of the dive into is the principles First, like that’s the first thing we we begin with, so if you don’t mind, kind of tuck it into those pieces. First, we have a framework of what we’re talking about in terms of landmine.
Alex
Totally. Yeah, so any good system needs principles, I think the principles are what answers questions, as you get into this stuff, and you start trying to apply it and use it, you’re gonna run into questions, and you’re gonna run into a lot of people say, Why are we doing this? Is this the right way? Is this the best way. So that’s why the principles are important. For the landmines system, we’ve got five main principles, which are forward intent, core driven movement, rotational and tech positions before transitions, and then progressive overload. And that last principle is where this landmine university system sort of separates itself from some of the other functional training, and falls back into that traditional weightlifting stuff, I want to set PRs, I want to get stronger, I want the numbers to show that. And my favorite part about the system is that once you get it down, once you’re really moving with it, you can slap some weight on and you can continue to make progress.
CJ
As a cool reminder for us, I mean, Mitch and I, we come from more of, I mean, we do power training a little bit and more Olympic style lifts kettlebell stuff, and kind of slowly went away from that, I think, for me, personally, because of injuries, and I just, I felt really strong. In fact, I was about 20 pounds heavier, I’m a little dude. And that was that 20 pounds made a hell of a difference. And I, that I that I identified with that. And it felt powerful, but I didn’t feel good. And I think part of the reason being was that I was trying to lift heavy weights, and that’s what I was trying to do versus trying to move better with heavy weight. And I’m interested Mitch, and kind of your, your big takeaways from the course, especially with the principles. You know, we work as a Senior coaches with a lot of individuals who Nisei aren’t performance athletes first, they’re more so looking to enhance their movement, they come in with different pains or dysfunctions, you know, stuff like bad knees or bad shoulders, so they got some kind of dysfunction going on that they need to fix first, before going into more of that progressive overload in a sense. But what I love about what you brought into this is kind of reminding us that do lifting weights is just a fucking good time. Like it feeds that that energy side, your the whole room starts getting stoked every starts hooting and hollering a little bit. And I think it’s more that you know, high school, college weight room, locker room talk, we’re just like getting everybody jazzed. And you’re feeling like man, I I’m on top of the world. So it’s a good reminder for us, I do miss moving heavy weight. But I’ve kind of steered away from that more of the flow side of things. And I think that’s where a lot of practitioners get lost, is then going all movement, but it’s really a balance, right? It’s a movement, it is still flow, but you have people to flow with heavy weight to and perform and get those lines dialed in. So Mitch, I’ve been talking a little bit about some takeaways, or just some some spots that you found gold, taking the course as an athlete.
Mitch
Absolutely. I think one of the biggest things that I took away right away is when you were said, You got kind of, I don’t wanna say sick of the movement side of it, but you just got a little, maybe bored of the movement. I’m not trying to put words in your mouth, but you know, too much movement based without the weight lifting. And I connect with that a lot, because I came came from that traditional weightlifting atmosphere originally, and then came to Gymnazo, and a lot more functional. And then it was like, do some ropes, do some other things and then you start moving better, but then you start to miss the weightlifting side of it, you start to notice a decrease in that. And that’s what I love about this, like, over this weekend, it’s like, we’ve done so much that was just movement based, and load base as well. And like, to me, that connects so much more. I’m like, Okay, I feel that translation between the two or feel that connection between the two and I can see how it translates into the greater picture of moving better as a runner, sprinter hiker, Gen pop athlete, whatever it may be. And I think that was one of the biggest takeaways for me was, this is really cool. And it’s super, you know, I’m not trying to say it’s simple but it is simple to apply to all populations. A whole demographic one
Alex
or two be simple. So that’s yeah, that’s a compliment to me. Yeah.
Mitch
Because that’s what I think, you know, you know, you said it earlier, it’s like, you know, you don’t want to get too sciency sometimes, and I don’t want to either. Sometimes it’s like, this is just a great move for you to be able to do, because it’s gonna help you be a better athlete in general. And it’s like, you know, you get take someone to that on that bar, whether they’re 65, or 60. And you’re like, hey, twist this bar 25 times each way, whatever it may be, and you’re gonna feel their core get lit up. And like my shoulders, my hips feel great.
CJ
No weight on it. To me that was just barbell. Yeah, I was just steering rotating in one side was you call it the blade? Rotation?
Mitch
Yep. And that was one of the biggest things is like, feels great. Like, you know, got a great core workout. And then we just you toasted us at the end their teammate workout,
Alex
would you call it the mom, email or minute on the minute just to each side, yeah, that’s a big finisher, it’s a really great way for us to do the dynamic method stuff, it’s tends to be a good rest period, you’re going hard for, you know, five to six seconds and then resting for the rest of the minute. And, again, I’m a football guy. I love that, that part of it because it feels like football. But man, everybody gets gassed. And I really liked what he said, as far as because to me, ultimately, this has been about connecting a couple of dots. Because when I got into the movement based stuff, and all the functional stuff, there’s no doubt that I started moving better. But I lost a little bit of strength and strength that I felt like I lost the most of was my explosive strength. I didn’t feel snappy as I did when I was lifting weights, but I knew I was moving better, I was moving smoother, I was running better. But it didn’t feel quite as explosive and quite as strong. So to me, it was about connecting dots and finding a way to get both, or at least the most of both that we can. So I want to be lifting weights in a way that’s going to transfer to me moving and doing all the flow of stuff better. And that’s that’s the ultimate goal is just to connect those dots. Yeah, that’s I appreciate feedback. And it’s been I mean, we had an awesome group. So went
CJ
really well. Yeah, it’s some athletes out there, man. Yeah, for sure. I wonder if especially for those who are kind of more on the movement flow side who maybe lost touch with that strength training, but want to get back to it. I’ve worked a lot of coaches that are just afraid to get back to strength training, you know, they, they’re feeling so much better in terms of their their fluidity, their freedom, and they’ve kind of lost a lot of tension, which is good in some regards, allows you to just rest, relax, kind of go back into that parasympathetic state and recover very well. But then when as soon as it comes back to some powerful movements, and some kind of combat some kind of martial intent, it is that releasing tension, but it is also that ability to compress, contract and to just squish, you know, into that oblique. And a lot of what you go into with those connection points with the elbow to the hip and landmark is basically just getting that oblique to fire up. What would you say to somebody who’s trying to get back into that realm of strength training, and they’ve kind of seen somebody landmine stop these seams in this power training that seems to be more functional? Like, what is that first step back into that? Is it going to the certifications and going through a workshop? Is it just getting load back into whatever you’re doing? Like, what would you recommend from Alex’s side?
Alex
So I’d say first, I’d say that even if you’re just going to use a stick, we use stick mobility sticks for some of the stuff we did, this system is going to encourage some explosive movement and some really athletic positions regardless of load. So I do think that there’s value in the system, even if you don’t want to load weight on the bar, and you certainly don’t have to. The cool thing with this, as opposed to maybe some other sort of functional tools is that once you feel really comfortable with the positions and the movement, loading is an option, right. So when you get really good with a steel mace, maybe you’ll use one that’s a little bit heavier, at some point, that Mace is gonna get too heavy for you to do what you’re doing, you get really good with the rope flow, you can grab a little bit heavier rope. But the first step is always to get really good in the positions and understand the movement and these movements. And I think that it’s one of the best ways to tap into the spinal engine, what we’re doing in the system is very core driven. Load doesn’t need to be your priority. It’s just really nice to have that as a potential next step. If you get bored, if you feel really good about the positions, then just a little bit of load is going to help make everything that much more intense. And with your athletes with the people that need to be strong and need to overcome a load at some point, then it’s going to become a little bit more of a priority. But I would stress that like 90% of certification was done with the bar this weekend and everybody was gassed. So you can get a ton out of the system. It’s going to we’re going to use that sort of centerline and that road, that centerline axis the ability to rotate the bar the ability to maintain forward intent. That creates a lot of fast movements, a lot of really athletic positions regardless of weight. So make sure you understand that the first step is mastering the system mastering the process. decisions, you don’t necessarily need a heavyweight to do that. And if you’re trying to learn more, and I’ll plug it a plug it again if you want me to later but my website landmine university.com is where it’s at. So it’s just a one time payment for lifetime access to what I have is for follow along classes. So there’s one basically called freshman year where he worked through the basically what we did at the certification in a virtual way. Another one is called Beyond the landmine where we take those principles and apply them to a bunch of different products, which we also did this weekend. So using a dumbbell using the kettlebell, applying the principles hitting some of the same landmarks. Another one is strength school. So one of my follow on classes is then specifically for the strength coach, how am I going to use this? If I want to get explosive? How am I going to use this? If I want conditioning? How am I going to use this for absolute strength? What does that look like? Also, on the website, we’ve got a bunch of tutorials that specifically break down the exercises, and then an exercise library, which is like 130 exercises that you just get to watch. And you can see, all the principles are the same. Once you go through the classes, you already know how to do everything in the exercise library. But we put a little bit of a tweak on those movements. So you can sort of pick which ones you liked the most and play with it.
CJ
How long did it take you to make that shit, man, it’s beautiful.
Alex
It took a long time. That was my year. Yeah, that was my that was that was COVID. For me, it was a crazy time, I didn’t know what the finish line was gonna look like. But I am so glad that I put the time in to do it. It’s hours of content and anybody that wants to get into the system, I recommend that they go check that out. As a first step. Now, if you’re able to come to a certification, I truly believe that there’s nothing is ever going to top in person education. So that’s the best way to get into it. But all this stuff is available online, too.
CJ
Yeah, man, I absolutely love that. I think that’s where this field needs to go. Like when we’re building these workshops, and certifications, there’s a lot of dogma that surrounds a lot of these, these courses and these methodologies. And I’m going to pump you up some more man, because it’s just something that we do too, here is like, integrate what you already do using these principles now. And that’s what you showed us with the kettlebell with a dumbbell with a, you know, you just medicine ball with a sandbag with a Bosu with whatever you want to use, but just apply the principles, apply the landmark, get your long side, get your short side and you’re going to end up walking away with more function, whatever that may be, it’s going to be just utilizing your right and left sides together. And it does become a flow because you have to use both sides. If one side is short, the other sides tall as opposed to a lot of this traditional stuff, which is so squared off and there’s nothing wrong with it. I think it’s just missing a lot of those components that can carry over more specifically, to especially things like combat sports, right, you got fighters throwing a punch with one arm, you got a long side, you got a short side, it’s just the honest to God truth that you cannot deny it. And that’s, that’s what’s so powerful about these systems is that there’s truth that you can’t deny, right? There’s a lot of things that’s esoteric and spiritual, like all look at these extra pieces you can do which are really cool and frilly. But when it gets down to the nuts and bolts of it, if you don’t know the the original intent, and what you’re trying to do, which is, like you said move forward, that’s what you do as a human. And you give us an analogy of the car, like, alright, you could have spinners on this thing, you could have tinted windows, you could have a brand new stereo with a nice kick ass system, and it looks amazing. But if that shit doesn’t move forward, it’s not gonna be very functional. And if you don’t have something that’s going to help it move forward faster and more powerful, adds more horsepower. What the hell you do? Yeah,
Alex
and I do like that analogy, basically, because I think the word functional gets thrown around a lot. And it can mean a lot of different things to different people. But ultimately, if you want to call training functional, the first thing we need to do is identify the primary function of the system of the structure. So for us, as human beings, if we’re gonna say our primary function of our muscles or bones is to move us forward is to walk, or jog or whatever it is very similar to a car and I give that analogy for a couple different reasons. So I’ll say, hey, I can make an addition to my car get new stereos, like you said, I get new spinners. What I want to say is that those are not bad additions. Those are great things. Those are cool, right? They make your car cool, but they’re not functional additions. We can do a ton of bicep curls in the gym. And I’m very much not opposed to that. I think that’s awesome. That’s what you want to tell bro. Oh, yeah, right.
Unknown Speaker
I wear that curls bout to curl
Alex
bit. So there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s just with landmine system comes from is trying to make at least some of our training as functional as possible. So if I’m going to lift weights, I really want that weightlifting to help me move forward a little bit. Right. One thing that is important to me as I try to share this stuff this information and share this system is that I don’t want an elitist view. I think ultimately when we look at everybody in our country, especially exercise is real A healthy thing. And I’m not going to bash on any type of exercise I don’t like when people talk bad about traditional weightlifting, I don’t like when people talk bad about any kind of exercise because I used to love it saved my life. And some people enjoy it. And if it’s something that if doing traditional weightlifting, is part of your life, keep doing it, man. But it’s cool to add some different things. And I think that we can get some of the same KPIs that we get with the Olympic lifts and make it a little bit more functional. So that’s the ultimate goal. The principles are all there to say, Hey, I’m gonna do a lift with the barbell, what could I do to make it more functional to make it helped me move forward? Better? So ultimately, yeah, that’s the goal is a more functional weightlifting system. But that’s not to say that all your weightlifting needs to be functional. It’s just that’s what we’re trying to do is give you a, you know, upgrade your engine, right, or get you some new tires. And instead of a new stereo,
CJ
yeah, we’ve worked with a lot of clients here at Gymnazo that come in from no training background. They come in from previous injuries from different training programs, they get in for six weeks, they’re out for three months, they get in for six weeks, they’re out for three months. And it’s like an endless cycle of, unfortunately, just a lack of awareness and understanding of the process of getting back into training. And people, especially here in America go way too hard, way too quick, because they want to get back into it. Like I’ve been out for a month. I’m going to make up for it today. Yeah, that’s not how it works. Maybe sleep that’s how you do it. Shoot me. Yeah. Tell me more. Man. Yeah, see, this guy could go for 24 hours straight and and take three months off and
Mitch
25 hours carries over? Straight? Yeah. I think I’m curious about is you have a bigger Olympic lifting background, especially with football and stuff like that. How much of that inspired you with the landmine to be more creative, we’re already used the principles of weight Olympic weightlifting to try and transition over to landmine or vice versa with
Alex
it. So it’s a big part of it. And coming from sort of my background, one of the things that always had me scratching my head in college was that we would test out different lifts, there were lifts that we went heavy on we would do heavy squats, we would do heavy benchpress. And those two are, you know, they’re simple. They are what they are, we would also do a lot of heavy cleans. We did some of the Olympic weightlifting stuff heavy. And as I look around that, that world, that college weightlifting world, people are still using heavy cleans as a way to test your explosive strength or your power output. But what had me scratching my head in college was that I came from a background of just sort of teaching myself how to lift weights, I hadn’t done Olympic lifts in high school, I was taught them in college with everybody else. And as I looked around the room on heavy cleaned, I’d look at one side. And here’s a guy that clearly has done this for a while he’s got a great front rack, he’s dropping onto the bar, his rhythm is great. And then I look over at the other end of the room and this guy is doing a totally different exercise he can’t get to a front rack is leaning back and shooting his knees forward. And it just looks totally different. I realized, gosh, we’re loading this we’re using this as a measurement of our explosive strength. And yet, we’re doing totally different exercises, the learning curve for the Olympic lifts is astronomical. When we make it more functional when we allow one side to make room for the other side. The great thing I like about our system is the bar speed is the same, the angle changes are the same. But it’s a three fold thing. Not only is it safer, not only is it more functional, but it is absolutely easier to teach. And that is my favorite part is that with this system, if you focus on the right things, you can teach it to a roomful of people extremely fast. And you can have those people doing cleans jerks, moving the way that you wanted them to move with the Olympic lifts. But all of a sudden, they’re doing a uniform exercise. And everybody looks the same. I really had a problem with that in college. And then when I started trying to use the Olympic Lifts with my high school athletes, I ran into the same problem. Those positions of the traditional Olympic Lifts are just not accessible to a lot of regular people, even good athletes. If your wrist is tight, or if you’ve gone through one breast injury, your front rack is going to be garbage. And that’s just I’ve seen it too many times. The other thing I realized is that as people get older, that explosive weight training, that Olympic weight training is the first thing that they give up. And we get a little bit older and we lose the ability to be as explosive. We lose some of the benefits that has on our joint. And I don’t think that that needs to be I think we can still stay explosive as we get a little bit older. I think there’s a lot to be gained from explosive weight training. And this is a way to do it in positions that makes sense to your body and positions that everybody can hit.
CJ
Do you want? Yeah, one of the most explosive things I think that happens when you get older is catching yourself in the fall. Are you ever conscious like you stepping out? Oh shit, yeah, and you’re gonna go down and collapse or you’re gonna do tolerate, you’re gonna essentially get some tension through your head, your hamster, whatever position you’re in, right. And without training, that just that extra little bit of spice, that extra little burst
Alex
when you need to move, like, if it comes to a point where you need to move, or you’re gonna be injured, killed hurt, then you’re gonna move fast, right? Get the fuck out, becomes most important for us to move, we’re going to move explosively. So, yeah, if you’re going to fall and you’re going to catch yourself, that’s going to be an explosive movement, you’re going to adjust yourself, you’re going to figure out gravity as fast as you can. So to be able to say, Gosh, I’m going to move as fast as I can, is important. But a lot of us aren’t. As I should say, a lot of us a lot of your clients aren’t going to be ready to sprint. Right? What I love about this landmine stuff, if you guys remember, like those first, the first explosive thing that split switch screwdrivers we did. I think that that’s more accessible than a full speed sprint, it’s safer, but it really feels similar. And we’re really going to move our body as fast as we can. And we can start adding a little bit of load to it too, which is, which is a cherry on top. But absolutely, without question. This is a way to do explosive training the rest of your life. And I believe that I have clients as old as 89 years old, that are doing some of this stuff. And they might not be as exaggerated of a position. But they’re getting to move as fast as they can a couple times. And that’s really powerful for them.
CJ
Yeah, you mentioned KPIs, and I think one of the maybe this was on your list too. But there’s no back pain that came out of day one or day two, no back pain. We’re doing a Olympic lifts in a functional environment or functional intent. Yeah, I love Mitch I see you get fired up over there. Because this is something brilliant.
Mitch
I didn’t really want a mountain bike ride. Yesterday morning, you did 21 miles and 3000 feet of climbing. And so I came into it. And I was like, I was just like shit, I was like this. I was like, This is gonna be a rough two days. And then the first three hours that were working out, I was like, okay, like, not too bad. And then I was like, expecting this morning, I was like, this morning is gonna be terrible. And actually woke up feeling great, awesome. And then go into the workout. I was like, This is amazing. It’s like it didn’t feel you know, shoulders and feel nothing too much at all. I mean, my core is pretty, pretty darn tired. But awesome. But yeah, that was like, the most surprising part was like, I feel great.
Alex
And I’ll tell you, from my background with the traditional weight lifting, and I think some people maybe they’re listening will be able to connect with this, you get to a point where you start getting really strong in these traditional lifts. And you sort of start, like connecting that with your lower back being sore. And what’s crazy is that low back pain is one of the most common injuries on the planet in America, whether people are working out or not. So if you’re willing to exercise and you’re a big time power lifter, your lower back is gonna hurt. If you don’t move at all, your lower back is gonna hurt your suffering. Yeah, man, one of the biggest things not that it was originally on my mind, but that I’ve always checked in with when when we introduce a system or when we use it with people is I’ll say, How’s everybody’s lower back feeling? And on day two, and everybody rolled in here, they’re like, oh my god, I’m so sore. Ah, I’m hurt. And I’m so sore. And then I say how’s everybody’s lower backfield. And this? Uh huh. That feels great. Like, yeah, my lower back doesn’t feel anything that place that I want you saw as your glutes, your obliques big time. And those lats and that’s, that’s the big muscles that move, right, they actually are going to lengthen and shorten as we start doing this functional movement stuff. The biggest goal, when you start feeling sore is that you’re not sore in your lower back. Right, that thing is solid. That’s not what we’re going for. So that’s Yeah, that’s great feedback. And I do think that that’s one of the best parts about this is that we get a chance to lift weights and get stronger, and our lower back doesn’t hurt. So
Mitch
yeah, the cool thing with that, too, is I mean, you know, powerlifting has an obvious transition into explosiveness into sports. But the cool thing with that landmine is it’s the locomotive aspect with it as well, that you don’t get with just a cleaner brass or anything like that, right? So it only translates so far, right? Until you get on the line and you have to go push someone with forward intent. If you don’t do that, and you’re just pressing a bar overhead every time it’s like, well, where’s the translation in that and we’re
Alex
patterning things and if you’re gonna pattern driving your heels into the ground over and over, and then you’re gonna go play a sport, so you’re gonna play football, that’s what I love. If you’re gonna play football, and you go out there and you start dragging your heels into the ground, we’re in big trouble, right? So if we’re patterning things and if we’re building strength through positions, I think it just makes sense to build strength through positions that are going to move you forward. The other thing that people realize pretty quick with this system is your heels never touched the ground. We did every single exercise and your heels never touched the ground the entire time around the ball of our foot, and I had a chance to get up Guys know Joe Sullivan big time power lifter, awesome, dude Unbelieve world record squat holder, I got him to come to one of the certifications, which was a blast, he came back. And where he was like, maybe the most sore was like his outer calf. Right? I mean, he hadn’t moved that joint that way for a while. And we’re stressed that joint that way for a while, but it’s really cool to see people develop ankle mobility. And him he’s a power lifter, but he’s still using he’s using some of the coil assistance work with Himself with His people. And it’s helping him with his powerless, and I’m all about powerlifting if that’s what you do, He’s dedicated his life do it, right. I mean, he works harder than me. So I’m not gonna badmouth powerlifting. But this can be great for everybody.
CJ
I think I see along the lines, especially on on Mitch talked about some mountain biking because you you’re climbing a hill, your heels aren’t driving, you’re driving through the ball, your feet, you’re climbing through your calves, right? I mean, I don’t like at all. Yeah, mine’s motorized. So
Mitch
definitely a couple of different ways. Like I don’t use clipping. So it’s like, it’s all pushed for me. Yeah. So I mean, yeah, I mean, if you think about that, it’s just just builds more trust and more strength. But if you don’t put your heels on the puddle, do you know, right? No, exactly. But you also think about how much trust you start to build in people’s knees as well. Because how many people are afraid of you know, like that old? Saying of like, no, no knees over the toes and bla bla bla bla, and, you know, don’t do this or don’t do that. Because your knees or whatever. It’s like, well, you should train that way. That way.
Alex
Everybody that’s listening right now. Go ahead and walk five yards without your knees going over your toes. Right? See how that looks?
CJ
I’m imagining people doing this. And I hope you’re doing if you’re listening.
Alex
Chicks you will be will be wobbling,
CJ
you’ll be marching in a marching band. Yeah. Yeah, well, I do a lot of trail running. And I went through quick method a few years back, and I remember my lats being extremely sore obliques being quite a bit sore, but it was more of just intent. And I think it was neurological fatigue. It was just things that I had done, but not with that kind of intent. Not that kind of, and not that kind of volume to you. If you’re doing it for hours on. Squeeze that shit squeeze, like I’m gonna shit myself. If I keep going any further. I’m gonna cramp up. And it’s a real thing. But I felt you know, that night I had like, weird fucking dreams to you, man. I was like sleeping in oil. I had my arm under the pillow. I elbow in the hip. And I was like, woke up and I was like, Man, I dreamt that I was in this position. I woke up in this position. I switched that. And I was like, Oh, another set of dreams. It was pretty cool. Like we dive in into dreams. But with this, you sleep on the long side. Yeah, man, that’s great. It’s like your whole wall. But now you’re not dealing with gravity as much man gravity pulls you into that role. But trail running. I feel good, especially these past two days with adding load on it. I feel so much more confident in. Let’s go push this thing a little bit. But also just for speed sake, keep it light and go for speed and locking into those landmark positions. When I’m trail running, I’m thinking about, especially up a hill, your heels should not be touching the ground, you should be driving your forefoot into the ground and knees should be way in front of that foot. You should be falling forward not falling back in that heel. So yeah, it’s just kind of pushes that home even further that think about all the things that I do that has that forward intent extra push with
Alex
a hill similar to a landmine, you’re you’re kind of wedge like you are in a position where your angles are going to be more aggressive because of the hill. That’s what we do with the landmine we’re wedge we’re in a position where these angles are super aggressive, and they’re going to stay aggressive. We maintain Ford intent, right, that’s our first principle. So as we’re doing these movements, everyone is literally trying to drive through the landmine trying to move that landmine and you’re gonna hit some really similar positions to if you’re running up a hill
CJ
what’s up what’s up with that? The whole shakiness that happens when you start doing the landmine and you start locking into that landmark locking into the coil and holding that coil like how do you help people that’s a lot of times it’s a novel sensation going Am I gonna break Am I gonna like it’s your car rattling right you’re like oh shit, what is that
Alex
ROM and that’s one of the things I told my coaches when we do this system is that we’re gonna make progress. You’re gonna we’re gonna make fell back the chair. We’re gonna make proximal cues and we’re going to look for distal clues. Yeah,
CJ
I love your fucking right. I don’t know, man.
Alex
Yeah, so So this delay when I’m as a coach, I’m going to look at your heels. Right, I’m going to see what your heels are doing. Make sure they’re off the ground. And make sure that front side that short side heel is lifted because what we’re going to do with our obliques is lift that foot, lift that heel, and when we start locking into but I’m going to give proximal cues. Alright, so proximal cues, distal clues. I’m gonna watch your heel. If it’s not doing what I want it to do. I’m gonna tell you to drag your hip up more into the elbow. Now when that happens, and we are a Little the funnel all the tension into our core, right, our ribs and hips are really what we’re most concerned with. When all the tension goes with that oblique that lack spot, you’re gonna start seeing some involuntary spasm stuff happening with the heel, you’re gonna start seeing it shake. And also, depending on how prepped you are, if you’ve done it before, or how much content you’re putting in, because you come to a certification, and it’s a bunch of coaches that are like looking to show off a little bit, and to give a ton of effort out there, man. They killed it, but you’re gonna see that he’ll start shaking. Yeah. And the next thing you’re going to do is you’re going to look at the ribs and the hips. And oftentimes, when you’re getting a lot of movement down there and that heel, there’s nothing moving in their core, they’re totally locked in. And I really liked that, to me, that’s reflexive training. And you see some really good coaches. Nowadays, if you’re into it, some of like a dairy in Barstow for some good track coaches, and they’re doing heel drops, they’re trying to see how fast they can drop the hill. They’re doing that on purpose letter I love when it happens automatically. I think that is what reflexive training should be is when things happen based on your reflex. And what you’re going to start seeing man that foot wants to move. It’s gonna start shaking and I actually I’ve never cued people away from that I think people are getting a lot out of it. When that happens.
CJ
I feel like I get supercharged man like I’m I’m plugging love plugging my foot into the outlet of the Earth man summoning that we’re gonna get spiritual it but that fucking source energy just going straight to the core going, let’s burst out of there.
Alex
I hate that no more.
CJ
No, it reminds me of the limit force elastic stuff. The elastic coiling, that elastic band is really what your fascia your muscles are kind of communicating is this stored force that you I was talking to Sean, one of our other coaches too. He’s like, I don’t have any coffee this morning, man. I’m slacking and then he got two reps in, of just hanging out in that hang. And he was shaking. He’s like, Man, I feel like I just got a burst of caffeine into my bloodstream. I was like we had coffee. Oh, good, I’m gonna get some coffee. And now too, but use jazz when we did
Alex
the limit force stuff and like method you, you’re gonna pull the band as far as you can in these positions. And it’s intense. But what I realized done too, which was another light bulb for me was that, when I’m in that position, if I add rotation on that, the intensity is going to crank up like exponentially. So we’re moving the band, we’re doing this limit force elastic stuff, you guys are familiar with that. Basically pulling the band to your limit force, and then holding isometrics when you add rotational. To that, so we’re going to try to steer that band, we’re going to rotate that band, it gets so much more intense. And that’s why to me like isometric training, and I told everybody at the cert if you’re going to do any type of isometric training, try it with the landmine, right, split your feet, take that landmine in the goblet position and spin it keep it right where it is, but spin it towards your front foot, find full rotation, connect your elbow with your front side hip and keep trying to rotate it further. Keep trying to spin that bar even further. And that’s that’s gonna be the most intense isometric contraction that, that you’re gonna find that you’re gonna feel. And hopefully you can give feedback on this, but some of the ISOs with the landmine that can be just as intense as they are with an elastic. Because you get that rotational feedback, right? You get to rotate the bar,
CJ
it reminds me a lot of I had a I had a 64 stepside Chevy and no power steering. Awesome. Take the stick. So you said I gotta take a turn got to put in the first and the second and you’re just like alright, crank and this is years ago, but you’re you got a coil to make that shit happen. Or something like you don’t know power steering. Young Bucks, man. It’s like it’s rough.
Alex
Just wait till your power steering goes out.
CJ
Oh god. Oh my god, it that’s what the landmine really feels like is that it’s a steering wheel. It’s great to have an external tool. And it really is. It’s a heavy tool in your tool belt. You got all these different tools that are light, you got rings, you got ropes, you got some light dumbbells like mesas, whatever else but to have that heavy load that’s having a downward force, you could have pushed forward and you can rotate it and you’re you’re hitting the trifecta of force, you’re getting spherical, not spiritual but spherical with spherical tension that you’re, you’re teaching essentially an intent and an action. So like, if you’re intending to do something, is your body actually doing it? It’s so obvious with this system, if you’re not doing it, because you’re gonna see the elbow not landmark. It’s like boom, it’s all he needs. You’re gonna steer back in. Yeah, and I think it’s what we’re really missing these days is something to help us steer because we are the drivers of our body. But a lot of times we’re so outside of what’s going on within ourselves, that we kind of get lost and we need all these other gimmicks and band aids and shit to help us when really it’s just get back to the intent. What are you trying to do and if your goal is to move forward, how are we moving forward? It’s not by moving forward it’s by coil it is by rotating and laterally flex we call Type Two spine motion. You guys call it spinal engine? Really, because it’s that it’s lateral bending, it’s rotation. It is extension, you’re getting lower doses to multiplanar. Do you mind talking about the spinal injury a little bit, you said you went, Oh, sure, fun to back
Alex
into that book, surge bracket Veski. Just, I got wind of that book back in the day. And it was fascinating to me that I had never been exposed to any of these concepts before. Throughout a master’s degree in exercise, science, kinesiology, I had never been introduced to this whole theory of movement, right of how our body is supposed to move how animals move how this structure is meant to move. And real basic, is that our extremities are going to move based on what we do at the core level, you get this message from your brain, something happens with your ribs and your hips, and then you move your extremities right, the lizard side bends, and then moves his hand
CJ
and calling us lizards. Now, we’re a bunch of lizard people. I knew
Mitch
I’m honestly not offended, and the rest of
Alex
the podcast we’re gonna be talking about lizard people. I can’t wait. No, yeah, but that was powerful for me. Because with traditional weightlifting, you don’t even get a chance to do that right to make those changes. And really one of the things he talks about as it is very multiplanar movement, so I’m not just side bending to the right, I’m also rotating to the right, there’s a little bit of a twist, a little bit of a side vent, but the hip needs to come up, the basics of it is shoulder down and back hip up and forward, then you move your arms and legs, right? So landmine became really powerful for me, because like that screwdriver movement that we did, was in essence, the spinal engine, I could distill it, I could get forward and tat and I could go shoulder down and back hip up and forward and feel what that feels like. And then connect it into bigger movements, more dynamic movements, and heavier movement. But if you haven’t read that book, I encourage you to read it. I made a post about not too long ago, and people start coming it’s $900 Check on eBay for a lot of people have found it for like 100 bucks, a paperback, but it’s worth getting into. And even if you don’t, if you’re not a textbook person, just understanding the concepts and sort of starting to think about them. And you gotta
CJ
say this too. For this, people who don’t do go really deep spiritually side of it and not doing the actual full practice, like there’s the side of it is actually doing the thing, like you could mental focus on it. Imagine things draw cool pictures, see these diagrams, these spirals and toroids and tortoises and all these cool twists. This is that shit, just put simple, like we our body already does all this stuff, we could dive into the philosophy and ideologies of all these things. But really, when it comes down to it, if you can’t experience it physically, is it even real, you know, if you can just get yourself to drive top down and bottom up, that’s what we say in our MDMC program is to drive bottom up, which is from your feet upward or to drive top down, which is your upper body coming in.
Alex
That’s one of my biggest things is you’re going to is as I wanted to find a way to cue the spinal engine, also. So to get that function back for people and make sure that they’re moving functionally. And I started getting into these proximal cues cueing hips, shoulders, elbows. And what I realized is if I want to get the best movement out of somebody, if I’m going to look for functional athletic movement, belly button down, I’m only going to cue you to bring things up. And that’s regardless of the movement. So I’ll never cue you to drive anything below your belly button down, we’re only going to bring up everything above our belly button, I’m going to cue down. And that became sort of this focusing on the short side, they’re gonna want your shoulder to go down and back and want your hip to go up and forward. And what happens on the other side is sort of just going to happen, right, so to keep thinking about lifting your hips, and to keep thinking about dipping your shoulders to create that tension that’s going to make you lighter, it’s going to shrink the surface area of your foot. And that’s also where this came from was like when I was teaching kids to not teach kids to run, you don’t teach kids to run, but you’re giving them suggestions and seeing if, hey, if I say this, you’re going to maybe run a little bit faster most of the time, no, but if you’re going to cue something from the belly button down, cue it up, right, tell them to lift it, tell them to lift their feet off the ground, not drive them down, you’re gonna cue something from the top, cue it down, get your shoulder away from your ear, right? Just drop your shoulder, all under the basis of having a long neck right and looking at your aiming point. But yeah, that’s what that’s my thing is sort of bottom up top down, which is exactly what you said, those queues need to fit there. And then you got to start shrinking how many queues you’re using, right? Just use a couple.
CJ
It’s compression, it’s expansion that is the epitome of the yin and yang. Don’t go any deeper. Just fucking do it. That’s right.
Alex
That’s right. And practice, right. Find something simple that you can practice and practice
CJ
now. Yeah, Mitch, I’m curious. I know. We’ve been applying a lot of these principles before doing this course. Now. You’ve got so much more ammunition though. Going into this that we’re in helping a lot more people really stoked about it actually going into work tomorrow, I love that shit, you know, you learn something, and you just get so stoked that you can’t wait to share it. But you sit back going, like I can’t share everything with you, I’m just going to help drip these little pieces until you start getting stoked about it too. And you start doing it. How do you how do you apply some of these principles already, within your clients, when we go into a case study, or, you know, if you’re working with somebody older, somebody younger, somebody’s going for more performance, wherever you want to take it, Mitch, but I’ve seen you apply these principles of isometrics, and then working it into more dynamic flowy patterns, what’s kind of your mindset going in, when you’re teaching somebody who’s completely new to this system, that you may not want to go to the full system, but you want to start dripping those cues that are going to help to create a more functional, full dynamic movement system for this individual movement framework.
Mitch
I think one of the bigger things is like you’re just talking with a spinal engine and stuff like that. And, you know, you know, people running and their shoulders are up in their ears and stuff like that. And, you know, then you start to think like, Oh, you have shoulder issues, you have neck issues, you have ankle issues, you have knee issues and things like that. And it’s like especially then you start to look at it and you start to associate it with a lack of movement or utilization of the spine, origin and core. And it’s really interesting, once you start to see those, the connection happen, and you can start to see him coil or have rotational intent with movement, and all these other things, you start to see those areas dispersing start to see and move more fluidly. I personally have applied it in certain ways because like I’ve tried to get certain clients to coil, do this. And they’re like, I don’t feel it. I can’t find that contraction through the obliques or through the lats and super interesting. And that’s what this course is really cool. Like, I love these weekend courses, because it was going to revitalize me in a certain sense where I’m like, okay, cool, like, gives me another Spark, on my chair, whatever you want to say. And motivates me even more, because I automatically think of four or five clients right now. I’m like, I’m gonna use this tomorrow. Sure, for this week when I see him awesome. Because it’s what I loved about it was, like, you know, I think like, especially as a new coach or trainer, like you want to overload weight first, like, that’s like your number one way of making something harder. Not everybody needs to have more low that might inhibit him more, right, yeah. But like, you know, you take him to a split stance, you just haven’t gotten to that blade on the same side, and you just like, hold it, and like, I look at that, and I’m like I can, I know I can for sure get every single person to feel that right away. And that might, you know, take an hour or two hours away from having to try and find something that works for him. And this is just like, boom, like, you’re gonna apply that you’re gonna feel it and then you’re gonna go take it in, take them into something that might translate into more locomotive patterns, where they’re actually moving up and down the turf or into different planes of motion and stuff like that. And that’s one of the cooler things about it, where I’m like, I feel like I now have a cheat code. In a sense, it’s just like, you know, it’s like having fiber cable versus like dial up, it’s like, it’s gonna, it’s gonna speed it up so much faster. And that’s immediately sort of thinking like this, it’d be great.
Alex
That’s awesome. Yeah, I want cheat codes, I want this to be sort of a game genie of, of movement. But I do think that when you’re trying to find that coil, or right when we went on and on it like method doing and we do the royal coil, and we’d go through all these steps, and it’s all great. But the people that weren’t feeling it, I just started realizing that their elbow is just floating away from their hip. And as soon as I just grabbed their elbow and put it where I wanted it on their hip, they started feeling it. Then I realized, gosh, this is a lot of top down, we need to focus more on driving that hip up into the elbow. And the landmarks stuff becomes a really sort of simple way to teach it. But the landmine I’m glad you said that, because I really think that one of the things we do, we’ll get into that isometric position that we talked about before. And then our partner will try to rotate the bar. Yeah, boom. If nothing else, even if you can’t get to the landmark, your guys are going to feel that and now they’re going to understand rotational intent now, not by you talking for 15 minutes about steer in your hands and about whatever else just here, grab the bar, rotate it, I’m gonna try to rotate it the other way. Boom, that’s rotational intent. So that’s,
CJ
you put that one full thing you say rotational intent for the event. That’s when I first heard it was like, This guy knows some shit. There’s always an event happening here. We’re at that potential point, we got movement in stillness.
Alex
I like Ryan said the last part is the fastest part. positions before transitions. All right. All good. Hell yeah. But simple, simple stuff.
CJ
Yeah. I mean, that rotational intent to if you really think about it, in real life and in function, you’re going from one thing to the next. Let’s we’re like, you were doing a mattress squeeze. You were moving out of our house and we got our go around a corner we’re pivoting, but there’s still potential energy there. That mattress wants to go down. So when you squeeze that mattress, you’re not sitting there still. If you got one side this little stronger than the other. You might start to feel like once I got to adjust a little bit and what was so cool with the lamb Mine is that as soon as you rotate, that weight is going down in that direction, it’s taking a line straight down to the ground. But as soon as you twist that thing, and you’re leaning forward, you can tell if somebody’s got that forward intent because they do start to shake, or they do start to get that, like, oh, I kind of trust myself here. If I if this thing isn’t here, I’m gonna fall and it’s like using the tool as a balancing point, it’s using yourself as a, using that tool as an anchor point so that you can really drive into what are you intending, and there’s so many options beyond that. I mean, I’m an explorer of movement. So I’m going to complex the fucking shit out of this thing. Sorry, but I’m gonna go home and I’m gonna make this as complex as possible. But I’m also gonna come in and add some load and, and push those two reps a minute for a bit and that she was hard. I think 15 minutes is no big deal from doing two reps on each side from in, I got to another 45 seconds to rest at that point. Did you get round three? I’m only in round three of this.
Mitch
Well, how about when you you go? Alright, we’re gonna do three reps each side. Like once you added one extra rep each side. I was like, she was one extra rep. All right. And I was like, Oh, that Yeah. That one extra rep. Man, that was that was it. You go full force. I think
Alex
that’s to me. That’s football. Right? And that’s why I love every minute on the minute thing. And that’s why. And gosh, you hear people who play other sports say football. Football is easy. You guys go for three seconds, and then you chill for 40.
Mitch
Have you get hit by a bus in between?
Alex
I’m like, Yeah, man. You never played football. If someone says that, to me, I say let me rough you up for three seconds. And I’ll give you a 42nd break. And then I’ll do it again. And we’ll see how you’re doing in five minutes. Yeah, somebody
CJ
who finds your offside to shit, man, this guy’s smart. He knows why fatigue quick adjustment.
Alex
Yeah, right. It’s really great for that non dominant side stuff. But yeah, go fight somebody for 20 seconds, take 40 off and then do it again, you’ll be exhausted. Right? That’s it is a it’s a three second fight with the bar. It’s it’s full intent, full intensity, we can’t do it for a minute straight. It’s just not that kind of thing. And that’s not what we’re shooting for. We’re shooting for full effort, explosive strength so that you can move more explosively when you need to. That’s, that’s the ultimate goal in a way that’s conducive to forward movement, right through spinal engine through the spinal engine, but hard, right, I don’t want to like we gotta go. I like it to be full intent.
CJ
We got a little bit more time here. I kind of want to dive in more on just like the fun side of this. And sure. I mean, this can apply in so many different instances of life. I started talking about sleeping and dreaming. I mean, this is gonna improve your sex performance. No doubt about it. Absolutely. This is sideline position. Yeah, I mean, my core is feeling
Alex
good. Open up multiple positions. Think we’re possible.
Mitch
Try planar
Unknown Speaker
spherical baby. We’re gonna have some fun. We’re gonna
Alex
talk about screwdriver.
CJ
What’s What’s your practice look like? Man? Like, I know, especially as practitioners, people think that we’re drilling this thing like again and again and again until it’s until doesn’t exist anymore to a point where it’s obliterated. But it’s really not the case. I think when we’re somebody who you’re somebody who’s going to be exploring, integrating, you’re working with a lot of diverse clientele, especially for people who maybe are brand new to this kind of thing. And then for those who are just looking for that extra edge that that point one second off their 40 time kind of thing. What is your practice look like? Alex, I’m sure people are wondering what that what that entails.
Alex
So me personally training and I will admit that I spent a lot of time just doing this landmine stuff, right. And it became all I was doing. And I spent a lot of time doing it. And then I realized, gosh, I came out of that place. And this was sort of COVID to I mean, I was spending like an hour a day just filming for the exercise library, then I’d film a couple of lessons. So I was spending three hours a day with that landmine and just drilling drilling it drilling it but right now, for me personally, and I’ll be totally transparent and honest. I still love powerlifting I when I first got into training, I was straight up Westside barbell until you diamond that was it. That’s what I did with my kids. We won six straight State football championships just doing Westside barbell and football drills. Right and I loved it. The kids loved it. They had a ton of kids bench. 300 pounds. We had the 300 pound club poster that everyone tried to
CJ
get on live for that bro, that’s your high school life, man.
Alex
Absolutely. And if you’re gonna tell me there’s something wrong with that. We got problems like I love this is American we’re gonna be talking about 25 That’s what you got. Then I want to help you.
CJ
Somebody give me a barbell my testosterone is through the roof right now.
Alex
Yeah, right. So so for me personally, I’ll run a conjugate system. But then I’ll also and I don’t like to plan a lot. I think a lot of us like as we start training people we drift away from We’re planning our own workout, right? Especially if you’re going to be exploring or if you’re going to be trying to find new things that you can share with your people very little of what you do is going to be planned. Recently, I’ve been planning two main lifts every day, and one of them is going to be powerlifting. One of them’s going to be landmine lift. And I just love powerlifting. I like the way it feels. I like the way it makes me look. It is what it is. So right now, I’m gonna tell you a little bit about my own program on speed bench day, dynamic benchpress, I’m going to do max effort cleaning jerks with the landmine. And then after three weeks, I’ll change the band tension on the bench and I might pick a different move for the landmine. On my speed squat day, instead of doing dynamic deadlifts, after I squat under bands all and the goal is here, I’m gonna build absolute strength with my power lifts. And then I’m gonna transfer it into a little bit of forward locomotion. And then I’m gonna finish with straight up locomotive work. So I can get some of the, again those KPIs and I want to be absolutely strong, I do want to be able to pick up a lot of weight, I do want to be able to press a lot. And then I’ll use the landmine to kind of start connecting those dots to where all right, my bench is going up. Is it helping me move through somebody? Is it helping me punch harder. If I stay on my landmine stuff, I think that that’ll happen. But basically the way my program works, and I’m still working through it, for me personally, would be on a dynamic bench day, I’ll go heavy with my clean and jerk on a dynamic squat day I’ll go heavy with my landmine snatch. On my heavy bench day, I’ll do a dynamic method clean and jerk I can eat mom thing and I do like putting bands on the landmine too. And then on my heavy squat or deadlift day, I’ll do the snatches or some variation of the landmine snatch for speed, similar way dynamic method. Every minute on the minute is a good way to do it focus on bar speed, right maximal speed with submaximal weight. And I just then from there, it’s assistance work. I’ll do some non functional stuff to call me out do some curls. I’ll spend some time doing that. But right now what I’m doing is sort of like 15 minutes on the power less than 20 minutes on the landmine. And then whatever I feel like doing. That’s my personal training.
CJ
That’s beautiful man. And I think everybody’s got their own kind of system too. And what you’re going after, like, are you going for sustainability? Are you going for prs? What’s kind of your if you had a breakdown of like, what’s your, what’s your, your big gauges? You know, you said about Punch, punch power. And so if you want to start maintaining this, but I know you’re going for PRs, too, that’s what we all really live for. If you’re in that powerlifting sense, that strength sense. Yeah. Where’s your kind of split on that? I
Alex
used to be much bigger, right? Like so. Some of the powerlifting stuff are bigger bro. I was like 300 times. I was like 80 pounds heavier than I am now. Back when I was playing ball, my I just squatted 800 I did lifted 750 I benched 505, raw 620 with the shirt, I got way into that stuff. I was huge. I was doing all that stuff. So now, as I’m trying to be healthier, get back into the power lifts. It’s just frustrating. I’m never going to get back there. Right. So that’s not my ultimate goal. But I want to be as strong as possible in my healthier body. The really fun thing with the landmine is for me, here’s a brand new system. And I can actually PR, right I can actually be as strong as I’ve ever been in this movement. And, and I’m pretty sure that I get back in the day. It’s not like I could hit more on the landmine. I mean, I was wobbling around a little bit too, right. I mean, we’ve both been there I was there, my back was hurting, I was tired upstairs. The everyday things were terrible. But getting under the bar is really fun because it was beefy. So the ultimate goal for me is also really just to keep myself out of trouble. This is something like training with weights is something that has saved my life multiple times, if I’m not doing this, or if I go a day without doing it. I’m like a more grumpy, dangerous human being. Right. Like, above all else. I just wake up every morning, I go to the gym at four and I wear myself out because I’m not sure what I’ll do if I don’t really just a healthy way for me to. It’s an outlet. And I think for a lot of people, it’s that. And for a lot of kids, it’s that and a lot of people need that and don’t even realize that they need that they’re taking tension and aggression into their day into their relationships that shouldn’t be there. And for me like now ultimately at this point, I do it because I like it. I’m doing it for fun. If it doesn’t sound fun, I won’t train that day. But it’s fun for me. So a lot of times I’ll try multiple times in a day just doing something
CJ
it gets fun too and you start recognizing the field because you live for that feel you live for that. It’s a level of fatigue but not to the point you know, you see your rocket out to you can’t do anymore, but really you’re hitting a point of its sub max effort and then it’s max effort, this sub max effort, this max effort and you’re kind of shifting your your overall effort in this sense, and I mean, I’m imagining you finish a workout going like I feel satisfied. Right. And I also don’t think I can lift the heavyweight that I was lifting earlier. I think I’ve hit a point, right? Sure. Yeah, hitting an edge. And CMR. Yeah,
Alex
I just want to be doing this for as long as possible, right? That’s at a certain point, when you’re done competing, and when you’re done macho man in yourself up, you just want to be able to do it for as long as possible. If I can keep getting to the gym every day. It’s survival, right? I want to live as long as I can. I want to do the things I enjoy as long as I can. And ultimately, for me now that’s what it’s all about. Just is not over exerting myself, but making sure that I keep doing this for as long as as long as possible, because I’m not 100% sure who I am without weightless. Right? And I’m not in a hurry to find out. So that’s, that can
CJ
be interesting. Next podcast. How you doing, Alex? I stopped doing landmine shit. Yeah. You’ll keep scratching yourself. Yeah. Yeah. What happened?
Mitch
I’m really curious on how you applied your experience with your previous Olympic lifting like you were talking about how much each lift all the aches and pains that you have. And now, you know, I’m assuming that you feel better, joint wise, or better mentally, physically feel better? How do you talk to your younger athletes about this, the ones that go into it, and there’s this that traditional mindset of like, I have to lift heavy, I have to go heavier, I have to go faster, when you’ve gone through it. And you’ve seen both sides of it now. And you go okay, like, there’s that’s not the wrong way. But there’s definitely a different way. And how do you go about that communication? Because that’s a hard mental barrier, I think for a lot of kids to try and get past especially when they’re in that competitive atmosphere for high school football team, or even college football.
Alex
Sure. And it isn’t it something that I’ll fall back into sort of my history of training athletes, and with the high school kids, I realized really quickly that much more important than the program that we were running was the dry erase board. So I started putting up a top 10 dry erase board where you can get on the top 10. Or you can set records for your weight class. And it didn’t matter what we’re doing. As soon as I put the records up, they start getting broken. So if you’re training athletes, if you’re training kids, absolutely, they need a chance to compete when you start writing these numbers up, and at first, it was bench squat deadlift, and that became the priority of the program was to get those numbers up. And they felt like, yeah, they’re lifting weights to get better at football to win football. But at the moment, throughout the entire winter, they’re lifting weights to get on that board or to pass their buddy on that board. And I realized, gosh, that’s way more important than what program we’re doing. Some of my best kids would just come on max out there and win because they were like, you know, they skipped the rest of workouts, but they want to win and they’re our best athletes. And that that’s what it takes. What then you start realizing as a coach is that you need to give them opportunities to compete. And you need to it’s that that, gosh, I can’t think of the guy’s name is all under the RP stuff, rank record and publish the big deck, feed the cats guy. Shout out to forgetting your name. But he’s awesome. He writes about it. And I’m really into that concept. And then I saw I thought to myself, gosh, you know, what, what if we delete? What if we erase the squat? And we put a 30 yard dash up there instead? Right? What if we start measuring that instead? And guess what? People were getting out now we’re getting faster. Now my athletes are faster than they’ve ever been. I said, Gosh, what if we throw a couple of jumps up there, a broad jump a triple jump? or doesn’t, these kids really want to compete, and they want to be the best, they want to be the best at something. Not that there’s anything wrong with recording the power lifts and competing in that like, I think that’s fine. But again, it can lead to some sore backs and some people doing some things that are dangerous, right? So finding a way to put numbers to things to rank record and let them compete is important, this landmine thing is gonna give you sort of another tool there where you can say hey, we’re gonna do cleaning jerks heavy once in a while. Got to hit your landmarks. If I don’t like it, you’re done. But you can compete now and you can hit put numbers to your explosive strength to same way you would with a clean and a jerk. So I guess what I’m trying to say is like as they get into if you’re going to take that away from them, which I’d be careful with but if you’re gonna take away the opportunity to chase those big numbers make sure you replace that with another number for them to chase because number
CJ
well balanced competition man, it’s a healthy competition you find some places where you’re going to excel at and other places where you’re gonna need some work.
Alex
And what I started doing as a coach then with my athletes with the kids is looking really broad scope at Gosh, my kids are not right now they’re really good at deadlifts. Right but they’re not jumping so well. So, I’m gonna take the deadlift off the board and we’re white Do the records every three weeks, it’d be a brand new set of exercises and you get to re compete. Maybe I’m not great at a broad jump, but I’m good at a vertical jump. And finally, now this month is vertical jump, and I’m gonna get up on that board. But keep giving them chances to compete and, and there’s a balance there, we’re gonna jump hop people, sometimes that’s not what they want. A lot of people don’t want that they don’t want their numbers on the wall. I don’t want to compete with you with weight loss and weigh myself and write it on the board. Like that’s not the ultimate goal for some people. But if you’re going to start training with some athletes, or people that are diehard, into this powerlifting weightlifting world, which I think was the question, like, make sure that you find replacements because that, that thing if you took that away from me, man, like, at the wrong age, if you took away my chance to be the strongest guy, that’s what that’s all I had. That’s that was me, I was the guy that was strong. If you take that away, you gotta give me a chance to do something else. Right, and to feel that way. So this is another system where hopefully, it’s a little bit more functional, but it’s also another chance to have fun and compete and break some records too. For sure,
CJ
yeah, I highly recommend that every coach especially if you’re a strength coach, if you haven’t done landmine shit, you’re behind the times. I mean, this is this is cutting edge stuff, but it should be cutting edge stuff as of 20 years ago, like this shit, I’m so glad you’ve created it because we it’s about nap time somebody does it.
Alex
And I don’t think that I’ve created too much. I think that I’ve tried to make it simpler and more accessible, maybe like put a name to a couple of movements that people were doing already, right like and you can find videos of Black and White Russian wrestlers way back in the day with landmines. They’re doing stuff with landmines, coaches like landmines, there’s things you can do with landmine that you can’t do with anything else. The big thing, here’s just let’s try to use this and get as much as we can, like this might be a better tool than a barbell for certain things that we’re trying to train. I mean, it is a barbell, but I think that there’s things that you can do with it that you can’t do without it and let’s let’s develop it, turn it into a system and try to help people get the most out of it.
CJ
Yeah, really, we all get better by making each other better, I guess. You create this and that somebody’s gonna go run with it a little bit. And there might be some more complexity maybe more specific to a demographic like I hope some things come out of this and people started exploring the potential with their clientele, we certainly will hear Janaza and with our MDM series too, I think there’s a powerful piece that we’ve been missing just in terms of functional progressive overload we’ve stuck to our 3d stuff which I absolutely love and people need a lot of but people do need that competition side of it if they’re looking for it you know if you don’t have an outlet for it, you might hurt yourself doing the shit that you did way back when missing the missing the mark on the next to the next phase of what competition can look like for sure. Well, thank you so much, Alex, I have you find you. I know you mentioned earlier and then my university but
Alex
yeah, find me on Instagram is just laying on University. One word, the website is landmine university.com. And you can go there check it out and also sign up for certifications there and next one is going to be in Boca Raton, Florida, which hyped about it’s going to be end of August at fille de Roos, Jim darter strong. So I’m super excited to go there. And we’re going to be planning the fall schedule. But looking like we’re going to be traveling a little bit more, so more opportunities to figure it out. See,
CJ
man, happy to have you back here to first another.
Alex
Oh, absolutely. If you guys anyone out there gets a chance to come to San Luis Obispo. This is one of the best weekend’s I’ve had. It’s an incredible town. You guys Jim is unbelievable. Really, it’s the people right as the most important thing. We’re getting some awesome people so man, thanks again.
CJ
Yeah. Thanks, brother. Thank you, Mitch, man. Pleasure going through the course with your team and just the healthy competition. A low load oh man a little low.
Mitch
Like Sean we’re gonna Yeah, come on shot. We got this.
CJ
I guys, thank you so much. Till next time, y’all. Peace out.
Michael Hughes
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