Transcript 0:00 Welcome back to another episode here on the Iron Sights podcast. 0:03 I'm in the studio with the Red Dot Fitness crew once again, and today we're following up on a previous episode where we talked about building capacity, specifically through heart rate zone training. 0:13 If you missed that one, just go back an episode. We just did it, and it'll give you some insights to some of the things that we talk about here specific to energy systems. 0:22 But today's topic is on building capacity with medleys. We're gonna talk about what medleys are. We're talking about how to put them together, some of the science behind there, some of the nuance. 0:32 Basically, we'll just be talking about how to train smarter for the everyday athlete. Why are we covering this topic? Here's why. Medleys are one of the most underutilized and misunderstood tools in fitness. 0:42 This conversation digs into the science, the structure, and application of medleys for athletes who wanna look, feel, and perform better. Simple as that. 0:51 So whether you're currently implementing medleys into your training or you've never tried them before, by the time we're done, hopefully you have some new insights, some new perspective to approach things maybe a little bit differently or start putting them into your workout starting today. 1:01 We'll even include some examples of things that you might try with, with basic equipment, stuff that you probably have laying around or have access to, and even some different stuff with maybe some more unconventional tools. 1:12 Sit back and enjoy this episode on medley training with the Red Dot Fitness crew. If you're new to the show, then what you should know is all of these episodes are sponsored by my company, Red Dot Fitness. 1:25 We're located here in San Jose, California. Wanna tell you about a new program that I personally wrote. 1:30 If you wanna build more muscle, get stronger, increase your power, improve capacity, and manage your recovery all at the same time, then I need to tell you about Fit for Action, brand-new program here from Red Dot Fitness. 1:40 It's science-backed, but based in application. It's a concurrent training program, which means you're gonna hit all the things I just told you about. 1:47 It's designed to make you stronger, faster, and more capable in the gym and in life. With four training sessions per week, you can expect to build muscle, increase your strength and power, and improve your capacity. 1:57 The best part is we're managing the recovery, so you're gonna do all that without burning out. 2:02 It's perfect for busy professionals, combative athletes, runners, cyclists, and pretty much anyone who wants to be ready for anything life throws at them. 2:09 If you like to live hard and play hard, this is a good one for you. It's more of a intermediate to advanced program, and it's delivered inside our Red Dot Fitness app. 2:17 Fit for Action's gonna give you the workouts, progress tracking, coaching support by me and my staff, and everything you need to stay consistent and see results. 2:25 The best part about this program, actually, is that you can get it for free. If you go to rdftrainonline.com/fitforaction or just visit the website. 2:34 So you're gonna know what you're doing ahead of time and you're gonna get plenty of communication from me, and you can communicate back. 2:40 So if you run into some, any challenges, you need some substitutions or whatever your questions might be, that's what we're there for. 2:45 So again, go to rdftrainonline.com/fitforaction and get Fit for Action right now for free. [upbeat rock music] Welcome to Iron Sights. 2:59 This podcast candidly seeks to create opportunities and deliver impact by sharing the experiences and wisdom of successful entrepreneurs and thought leaders who unapologetically aim to win in health, fitness, business, and life. 3:13 I'm your host, Scott Howell. Welcome to old school meets new school, tradition meets innovation, and imperfection meets excellence. Thanks for listening, and enjoy the show. 3:25 All right, so we've been having this conversation about, um, a lot of conversation about building capacity. 3:30 Uh, it kind of comes off the FFA program, the Fit for Action program, and that we've, we've added a good deal of this in, and it's created a little bit of conversation and some questions. So we've talked about cardio. 3:41 Again, I use that in air quotes. Uh, there's a time and a place for cardiovascular work, cardiorespiratory work. Talked about heart rate training zones. Um, we've talked about fuel systems, energy management. 3:52 And I think, like, today, as we get into this, we're, we're talking about it a little bit of a different way. We're talking about building capacity, and we're talking about it d- using what we'll refer to as medleys. 4:02 Um, some people will recognize that, and other people will be like, "Oh, I've heard of this, but it, I've never called it a medley before." 4:08 We call it a medley because it's basically a combination of things to help work that capacity, and we wanna break down a little bit what we mean when we say medleys and the most effective way to use them. 4:18 They showed up heavily, or th- this concept showed up heavily in, like, CrossFit, right? CrossFit kind of brought in, like, hey, these WODs. 4:27 Like, we have this, this number of movements we need to do, and we're gonna do this under a specific amount of time, right? That we have to cover, or in some cases, distance. 4:35 Like, and that's generally how it's managed, and we'll cover that here. But, uh, medley training is an awesome way to build working capacity. 4:43 So working capacity, again, I think an eas- an easy definition of it is, is how long can I do work for? Right? How long can I continue this for? 4:52 And if we use the CrossFit reference, what I've heard used lots of times, and my, my friend out in, um, in Kansas, Jacob Hepner, who was really heavy into CrossFit for a long time, you know, always talked about, "Hey, the goal for me was always to be able to work at my 80%." 5:08 Right? Whatever that is, that's kind of a relative number. 5:10 Not to be confused with what we talked about in terms of lactate threshold heart rate, but my 80%, how much could I give and how long could I do that for workout to workout, WOD to WOD, um, event to event, day after day, and still be able to maintain the level of skill and strength and power and speed across all the domains, um, over a competition or a lead-up to a competition. 5:35 More importantly, how m- how could I recover from that 80% output? So in, in short, what we're talking about is, is how much work can we do? How long can we do it for? 5:48 Yeah, and, uh, something that's interesting with this that was popping in my brain, especially you brought up CrossFit, was I think, um, this has kind of gotten a bad name, uh, initially for a l- for some people, because I think there has kind of come up of like, "Oh, this is where you get hurt. 6:00 This is where you get injured." Yeah, for sure. 6:02 And so I, I do think there are things you need to be cautious about and be very intentional about how you implement these things, but I think because there is some hesitation from a lot of people, it has taken away, there is a lot of benefits to these, um, this, this format of training. 6:17 Um, and I really like that it's an expression of strength, it's a s- an expression of skill, and to do that over time, which really if you think about it, like, we're always caught up in what's the optimal way to train one of these- Right... 6:26 these, um, things. Optimal, optimal. Like, what's the optimal way to produce the, the most, um, biggest strength output? But I like if you kind of compare this to, like, an athletic e- event, right? 6:35 If you compare this to a sport, like, if you're a football player, even if it's at the end of the game, and even if you're moving in different directions, you need to be able to express some strength, some power- Mm-hmm... 6:43 some agility, all these different formats in something like football. 6:47 So I'm not saying that every athlete needs to only be training this format, but it can be a good tool to, uh, work on your ability to maintain good mechanics while under some distress, while under some fatigue, while being able to still maintain good quality movement patterns, good quality intention, good high outputs. 7:03 Yes, it may not be your biggest way to move the power needle forward. It shouldn't be your only way that you- Right... try to increase those things. 7:10 But still trying to be able to express power and strength and these other, um, these other attributes under some distress and fatigue, I think there is a lot of benefits there when, um, you know, like we always say, applied appropriately and c- and with good intention, so. 7:22 I was gonna say, that's the, that's the thing right there, applied appropriately, with good intention. So going into one of these medleys, what's the purpose of doing it, and then having the structure. 7:32 And within the structure, you know, making sure that the exercise selection or the movements that you're choosing make sense, and then also putting in your rest per- w- work periods and rest periods. 7:42 Yeah, having a plan, not just- Exactly... being, like, random exercises or random, "These all seem hard, let's throw these together." 7:47 Like, having some purpose and some, um, progressions, um, pl- you know, planned into the cycle, basically. So. 7:53 Yeah, I think, I think where the problem sometimes lies, and you mentioned, we, we brought up football and we brought up CrossFit, and I think for CrossFit it was very specific, right? Yeah. 8:01 These, these workouts actually showed up in the competition. Mm-hmm. Right? So it made sense. 8:05 Like, I have to do these three movements, you know, this many reps at this, on th- on this type of a time interval, and I have to get it done in this amount of time, right? Whatever that happens to be. 8:14 Because it showed up, it was actually part of the sport. Mm-hmm. I think where the challenge comes in for people is, like, if I'm playing football, how does this tr- what's the transference look like? 8:23 H- how does what I'm doing in the gym transfer over? And we're not m- we're not mimicking things that we're doing on- Yeah... the field of sport- Yeah... right, in this case. 8:31 So what we need to be going back to, uh, intention and exercise selection, is what are we doing to help transfer this capacity building that we're taking or that we're, we're hopefully, hoping to build, and take it over? 8:43 Where does it, and how does it show up for us? And I think that's where it gets a little weird. 8:46 Like, people start to invent, uh, medleys that mimic what they would be doing out on the course or, or, or on the court or the, or the field or the mat or something like that, and that's where things get a little weird. 8:59 I completely agree. Yeah. [laughs] Yeah. 9:01 You know, I was just sitting here thinking, you know, I don't wanna oversimplify, but I can see where, uh, looking back in my experience, where I've utilized medleys when it's come to long, uh, slow distance, like- For sure... 9:13 as in running. So, you know, taking out the pounding from the pavement and using it as a cro- cross-training day. So still working capacity, working different heart rate zones and, uh, with different movement patterns. 9:25 So it was kind of one way to give my body a rest from impact, but yet I was still able to work on being explosive and work on my strength, especially, you know, and, and where it would transfer would then be, like, having to go up a hill. 9:37 Yeah. You know? Or down a hill. Or down a hill. 9:39 Well, yeah, and I love, I, I think there's kind of the mindsets, you know, we talked about, like, sport-specific training, and I think again, people have really butchered that. 9:46 You know, have you dri- dribble a basketball while you carry a dumbbell in the other hand and do your walking lunge. It's, like, stupid, right? 9:52 There's a point, but sport-specific training, one, can be I want you to work on some positions or things that are in- important for your sport. So saying, like, "I need you, we wanna improve your sprint time. 10:03 Th- I'm gonna give you an exercise that really challenges your hip flexion and extension at the same time." Like, something that is very, like, an explosive step-up or something like that. 10:10 You're not mimicking the, the movement, your, your routes, right? Save that for the football field. But this is specific to improve attributes that you need to, either of those specific movement patterns. 10:20 But I like what you brought up as far as the running thing, is it's also a great time to work on things that you're not getting in your sport- Correct... 10:26 or getting in your, the thing that you're really getting a high stimulus, high volume for, like running. 10:30 If you're keeping up a lot of mileage, like, yeah, maybe you're moving laterally or you're work- or this is a great time to kinda almost make some cr- I don't wanna say necessarily just, you know, corrective, 'cause I think corrective rehab feels really easy or light for a lot of people. 10:43 B- so it can have more intensity, but it can be kind of a time to work on different movement patterns, be a little corrective, get things that you're not getting stimulated in your sport or skill or thing that you're doing in all your other training, so. 10:53 Yeah, I think one of the, the, the other problems here is we talked about transference. It should transfer over, capacity building should transfer over to whatever you're doing, right? For sure. For everything, really. 11:01 So. For everything. Yeah. Right? It, yes. So, uh, you know, my ability to, to do quality work over time- Mm-hmm... or when the pace picks up. Yep. You know, whatever, whatever it happens to look like for you. 11:11 And I think, you know, the other thing that, the other word that probably needs to be brought in here is interference, and that is our capacity work shouldn't interfere with our strength building- Yeah... 11:20 or our power building blocks or routine. 11:23 So again, going back to exercise selection, uh, intention, where it's placed inside the workout and/or the, the, the week in your block, and how you're organizing I think is important so that we're not getting interference. 11:33 We're not taking away from- Mm-hmm... the other work that we're putting in. So this does take some organization. 11:38 Yeah, so you're talking about n- not taking away from the work that you're putting in, but also it's not taking away from your recovery as well. Uh, it should- For sure... it should help you with this at some level. 11:46 Again, more capacity you have- Theoretically, you should be able to recover more efficiently. For sure. So- Yep... again, the goal here is, is, is we're training capacity under control, and we're, we're not doing it, 12:00 th- th- there shouldn't be any chaos involved in this. It shouldn't be random. It shouldn't be as fast as you can go, right? And just worry about getting your heart rate up. 12:08 Um, and we're not necessarily working to exhaustion, right? This should be focused, and how do you know that? 12:12 Well, you, you need to measure, you need to manage it, and again, if you're not doing this randomly or in a chaotic fashion, you should be able to measure this. 12:19 Like, how, what are my, my s- my, uh, my m- my mi- um- Your metrics... yeah, my metrics, but what's the word I'm looking for? Like, um, my, my, my marker points. 12:29 Is there a workout that I do that helps me measure where my capacity is? So- Oh, like a, almost like a testing... yeah, like a testing or some type of an assessment to- Yeah... to tell. 12:37 So, and a lot of times what you see is you just see stuff kind of thrown in there randomly, and people, like, you know, when that happens, I think they think of it as, like, "Oh, I just gotta work really hard. 12:45 I should be breathing heavy," and yeah, there's gonna be an elevated heart and respiratory rate there, that's for sure, when you're working your capacity. 12:50 Where if you're not d- if you're not getting that, right, we're likely not challenging your capacity at, you know, at a, at a really high level. 12:57 The point being is, is it shouldn't be about thrashing yourself at the end of your workout with your medleys. Yeah. This is pur- it should be purposeful. 13:05 Well, and so w- we'll talk about some more of the, the different formattings for this later, um, but I think even tying back to kind of s- our last episode on heart rate zones, um, I think some of this too, like, one, there's gonna be different metrics of how you, um, progress or how you measure your progress, whether it's doing the work in a shorter amount of time, doing more work in a specific amount of time- Right. 13:25 Yeah... doing more, uh, um, you know, more rounds of the work, doing more of total volume. 13:29 But also, one of the things, the goal might be I wanna maintain, like, the same output, let's say, like, you have the specific loads and/or the specific reps, or you're using something like an assault bike where you actually can see your, you know, your wattage or your output, and maybe actually the goal is to try to do that at a lower heart rate. 13:45 Mm-hmm. Like, maintain a high output with a lower heart rate. That might also be your, your test for your progression. 13:50 So there's lots of ways to kind of see improvements on this, but I think that's again what's changes of just making you tired and it being random or versus being intentional and progressive, so. 13:58 Well, that's the other thing is too, you know, making it intentional and purposeful, but then also it's not, you're not changing that medley every single time. Yep, for sure. 14:07 So you can manage it, and you can measure those metrics. Mm-hmm. So when we're looking at, like, a- again, let's, let's kind of break this down real quickly and kind of get into how to, how to implement this. 14:15 But when we're looking at energy systems, we've talked about this a lot. Again, if you go back to, um, heart r- heart rate zone training episode, we, we talk about these things in a little bit more detail. 14:25 But, you know, when we're working strength and power, we're working more in our, like, alactic system. So this is a, an energy system that doesn't depend a lot on oxygen for fuel, right? It's not aerobic, right? 14:36 And most people know that, right? But however, you'll feel your heart rate and your respiratory go, go up when the effort level or the intensity levels go up. The, the key here is, is you need oxygen to recover, right? 14:47 R- that oxygen is super, is, is vital for your recovery, not just in between bouts or, or in between sets, but also bouts of exercise. 14:56 So the more capa- again, if I can increase my capacity and my ability, my body's ability to not only uptake but utilize that oxygen, then I can recover faster or recover better. 15:06 Let's just say it that way, depending on what it is that you're doing. And so that should be the goal. Like, what am I doing to help not only improve my capacity but improve my recovery? 15:15 I think everybody's looking at, like, how much did I gain here, and the gains come in after you've done the work, right? Th- p- people hear that all the time. 15:23 The work doesn't get done in the one hour you spend in the, or the gains don't come in the one hour you spend in the gym. 15:27 It happens in the other 23 hours of the day as your body's recovering and able to recover back at above baseline, right? 15:35 'Cause if that's not happening and all you're doing is you're going in and just trying to survive the workout every time with your medleys or your metcons, if you wanna call it that, those kinds of things, then what you end up doing is is like, yeah, you're beating yourself up. 15:47 But if you're never recovering back, back to or above baseline, you're never gonna get the gains for the work that you're actually trying to- Yeah, you're gonna be putting yourself in a debt You're putting yourself in recovery debt, yes. 15:58 For sure, and I, I, um, you know, what we talked about too is I think a lot of people, and I thought this way for a long time too, is what is the point of this for me? 16:05 For, like, if I'm a, the powerlifter or I'm even the bodybuilder, why would I do this kind of training? And definitely at the end of the day, like, your training should not be rooted in these things. 16:13 Like we said, it's not optimal to increase your m- um, max- maximum strength, things like that. 16:18 But I do think there is merit to having even cycles where you do this kind of training because I think for me, like for example, for the powerlifter, to really get a good stimulus to move your strength forward, you might be doing, like, a 10 by 3, right? 16:32 Mm-hmm. And maybe you're doing a 10 by 3 of multiple movements, right? 16:36 So I think for me, the times when I've included this kind of training or conditioning in, even when I was trying to really push my strength and when I didn't, is yes, you don't wanna over fatigue on these days, but if it allows you to get through more of your training volume that is required to push your strength forward, that there is some benefit there. 16:52 For example, again, for, like, bodybuilders, a lot of their volume, you know, a lot of them train super high volume. 16:56 Like, yes, we've talked about there's some people doing lower volume, but at the end of the day, there's a lot of work you need to get done in the week. 17:01 There's a lot of muscle groups you need to work either, um, in a compound format or in a targeted format, and to not just do that work acutely in that workout, but then recover from that. Recover from that Right? 17:12 So this, this kind of training really can push your recovery forward instead of just train, weight, recover, you know, things like that. This can improve those systems that are responsible for recovery. 17:21 R- improving your cardiorespiratory system, improving these, all these things we talked about in o- the zone training, where improving, you know, capillary density, all this stuff, nutrient transferring- Mitochondrial density... 17:30 all, all that stuff is super, super important for recovery that I think a lot of people, like, "This is not the training I need to improve on. Why should I do that?" 17:37 Well, it might help you come back to your training sooner and your other things with more effort and intention and be able to handle more total work, so. 17:43 Yeah, I think kind of simplifying that, it, it improves your tolerance to the volumes that you're using. For sure. The other thing it does is it's gonna improve your oxygen delivery system- Yep... right? 17:53 Which is important, and it's gonna help with getting the bad stuff out and the good stuff in, right? Mm-hmm. 17:58 With, when we talk about nutrients, oxygen- All that, all those supplements you're taking, all the food that you're putting in your system, right? It ultimately has to be delivered, delivered at the cellular level. 18:07 So the, the more tolerance we have to the work that we do, the better that we can utilize those systems and all the hard work that we're putting in. So, um, that's, that's kind of where it fits in. A- a- again, it... 18:18 This, you should not view, I want to make this clear, you should not view your medley training as cardio. Yeah. Right? That's, that's different. 18:25 Go back and listen to the, the heart rate zone training episode when we talk about cardiovascular fitness, and this may make more sense to you. I don't want to review all of that. But you shouldn't look at it as cardio. 18:36 Yes, your heart rate's going to be up, right? But it shouldn't be up so high that you cannot do the thing that you're supposed to be doing at the effort level that you need to do it at in order to get the return. 18:46 Again, going back to exercise selection, the intensity that you're using. This shouldn't feel like, again, you're just getting smashed into the ground. If you're doing that, then I hope you have purpose for doing that. 18:58 There needs to be what, what is the purpose for doing this? 19:00 Again, if I'm in a sport like CrossFit and I know this is the workout and I'm gonna get smashed into the ground because that's what this workout is gonna do, that's a different story. 19:08 But I think for, like, your everyday athlete, just having more capacity improves everything that you're doing. Yeah. 19:14 And I, I really, like you said, it's, the, the primary goal isn't, you know, just focusing on the heart rate and the increase and all the benefits that we talked about that. 19:21 Um, it really is something that just makes you more durable. 19:23 Like, I think something that is really missing in society these days with so many jobs that are more and more sedentary is your ability to do work, your ability to do things and not feel super fatigued and tired out. 19:33 You know, maybe 100 years ago when people were working more blue-collar and hardworking jobs, like, the, they're already doing a lot of [laughs] work throughout the day. They should spend their time doing other things. 19:41 But this is something that, again, you just, hey, can you actually do things? Can you actually go through a day and put a hard day's work in? 19:48 This is honestly, you can kind of laugh at, it's kind of mimicking work in [laughs] a lot of ways. It's mimicking, uh, you know, what a hard day's work feels like. The physical labor? Yeah. 19:54 [laughs] Yeah, I, I would, I would agree 100%. Yeah. [laughs] So we're, we're looking at, like, where do these fit in. Like, what, what's a, what, what is a, what is a medley? 20:01 So it's basically what we're taking is a sequence of exercises, very carefully selected exercises or movements. Mm. However you wanted to find that. Exercise or movement, they're all movements. 20:10 We choose the exercises that give us the movements that we're looking for. And you're putting them in, you're putting them in an order that's back to back, right? And you're doing this for time and/or distance, right? 20:20 It's, it's really simple. Um, this should not make up, for most people, the majority of their workout. It's something that should be added into their workouts, maybe a couple of days a week. We can talk about that. 20:29 It doesn't have to be done all the time. But you do need, need to do it frequently enough so that you can, again, recover and then challenge the system again. 20:37 One of the things about the capacity-based system, we're looking at energy systems, is, and we've, we've said this before, like, your endurance is one of the first things that's gonna go away, right? 20:46 Your body's gonna reco- gonna want to adapt back to what you're making it do. And if you're not making it do this type of work, it's gonna get really good at not doing that type of work. 20:55 Versus, like, strength and/or power, which sticks around for a little bit longer, right? Yep. Those strength adaptations or power adaptations will stick around for a little bit longer. 21:03 Days, weeks, even months in some cases depending on your training age and where you're coming into this. And certainly, ul- some of this has to do with capacity, right? 21:10 But at the same time, you know, when you, when you're, when you're dialing it back or, sorry, when we peel the, the, the layers back here, um, [clears throat] this isn't, this, this isn't circuit training, right? 21:22 So when... And, and I think there, we probably should talk about that a little bit, like, the difference between medley or metcon training, right, and circuit training. 21:31 Uh, circuit training was super huge when, when I came into the business a long time ago, right? And it was very well known. And it was, it was effectively, like, full body training every time you went into the gym. 21:41 So much so that our gyms were set up with these, with all the machines- Oh, yeah. For sure... in a circle. Remember that? Mm-hmm. Oh, I do. I remember, um, gyms that were, uh, marketed just towards women. Right. 21:51 I can't even remember the name of it now, but it was like- Oh, there were tons. Yeah. Where they would have the machines all set up and you would go from machine to machine, machine, machine. President's First Lady. 21:59 Uh, there was, man, there was a couple of them. I mean, when I, when I worked at Bally, like, we had bought up a bunch of those. 22:03 So what we wa- had walked into or what I was walking into in some of these really old clubs, they were set up exactly like that. Mm. 22:09 And then they threw some free weights into the floor, used up an aerobics room or something like that and put, put more of your traditional free weight equipment in there. 22:16 But that's, e- you started on this end of the room and you worked to the other end of the room doing all these different exercises. And there were even signage on the machi- machine that says, "Do this for one minute. 22:26 Do this for, for one minute. Do th- " And you would just hop through there. And there's some benefit in that, right? Especially, particularly if you're coming into it for the first time. 22:33 It was easy, more im- it was easy to do. More importantly, it was really easy to sell, right? It just, like, if you'd never been on that equipment before, you'd never been into a gym- Yeah. Mm-hmm... 22:41 like, you just made this super simple. All I gotta do is follow the little instruction card, right? That's right. Uh-huh. Right? The little, the little pictures, right? 22:48 I get on here, I do my things and I move to the next thing and I feel satisfied and I pay my membership every month. That's kind of how circuit training was set up. 22:54 But it isn't circuit training in the sense that what we're doing is we're just moving from one piece of equipment to the next to get a full body workout, right? That's not what this is. Again, intentional, right? 23:05 With regard to the exercise selection. How does this help me and again, not, at the same time not interfere with the other things that I'm doing. 23:13 Versus circuit training was basically, when it was put together, it's like, "This is what you do. This is what I circuit train." People used to come in and say, "This is what I do." "What type of train do you..." 23:22 "Oh, I circuit train." What does that even mean? It means oftentimes it meant w- how I just explained it or I just described. The whole workout was that. The whole workout was that. 23:29 So in a sense it is kind of a circuit, right? Yeah. Because you're, you're kind of cycling back through things, but you're not doing it through 10 or 12 pieces of equipment. 23:37 You may be doing two, three, maybe up to five different movements. Um, and I would say five could be fairly high number. 23:45 It depending on, again, the intensity of those other movements and what you're actually trying to get out of it. Yeah, for sure. 23:50 And I, I think again, like, the goal with this is there is still some intention of, again, it's not optimal to improve things like strength power, but there is still some more intention of this movement is training more strength. 24:01 This movement is more a multiplanar exercise. This movement is more a conditioning focus. Where those are kind of just all bled, whether it's like an isolated strengthening movement- Mm... you know, on a machine. 24:10 So there, there's variance there. They're oftentimes strength biased, right? Yeah. Like, uh, sled pushes, farmer carries, uh, yoke carries, things like that. 24:18 Sandbag carries or sandbag movements, uh, which are, which again are, are- There has to be some level of strength in order to be able to do those things. For sure, yeah. But we're not sprinting with the sled. Mm-hmm. 24:29 Right? We're not, um, uh, we're not running with the yoke, right? We are loading up the body and we are moving with control, right? 24:36 Over a distance or a time that is going to challenge the different systems, the different energy systems of the body. 24:43 But you're also being challenged from a strength perspective, so you're building resiliency, you're building capacity to be able to, again, do that type of work for a longer period of time. For sure. 24:52 And, and I think some with those, like, when you say strength, people may not think of all those exercises, but I think those are very, like, integrative working movements. 25:00 Um, you know, you can kind of think of those as almost like an, a strongman style movement- Yes... where there's a lot of strength demanded. 25:05 It is, it's not a bar up and down squat necessarily, which that's a great exercise, we love that, but this is something that, it's more of like the expression of strength. 25:13 So it does develop strength, but it's really your expression of strength through these different, um, you know, combinations of exercises, through your ability to do work and express the, the thing you have built in other exercises as well. 25:25 Yeah. I think one of the... So it's interesting you brought up the barbell, like the back squat as an example. Yeah. Barbell squat. 25:29 So I think when people look at this or they, they think about it now, and I think one, one of the really cool things that's happened in the industry probably the last 10 or 15 years is the use of, like, unconven- con- unconventional mo- uh, equipment, right? 25:41 Mm. Or unconventional movement. Again, we mentioned a few, like what you'd see in strongman. Like, not everybody's got stones- Mm... right, to lift in their gyms, but they do have sandbags as an example. 25:51 You'll see things like Bulgarian bags. You'll see things like, um, sometimes you'll- Mace. What's that? Mace. Yeah, the mace. You'll see, uh, like the, uh, medicine ball's made a comeback, right? 26:01 You've see all different, different types of stuff. Stuff that, that you may, may think of it, another way to look at it is, like, odd objects. Lifting and moving and carrying odd things in a, in a, in a way. 26:12 Like, it, it may not seem so odd, particularly now, to do a farmer carry with kettlebells, but I gotta tell you, 15, 20 years ago- Mm... nobody was doing that. Yeah. 26:20 [laughs] The, where that came from, I mean, if we probably, and I don't know this to be fact, but I'm gonna make a guess, where this came from was from the strongman competitions where they have to carry... 26:29 At the time, they were taking, like, these, these, um, um, torpedoes and they were welding handles on them. Mm. Right? And these guys would have to carry them for, for distance. 26:38 They would have to pick them up and carry them wh- whatever it was, 15, 20 yards. Yeah. And you could just see them struggling to do that, right? That was a... 26:46 And, and so the, the, essentially that's a farmer carry, right? And then it just kind of translated, "Oh, maybe we could get something out of this." 26:52 And turns out the power lifting and the strength guy, the, the strongman guys knew quite a bit about building capacity and strength, and they, and they had to do this stuff in their training. 27:01 So the equipment has evolved so that you'll find it in the gym and/or you can put attachments on things or use things in a way to get this type of work done, if you think about that. 27:11 If you haven't ever seen one of those old school strongman competitions, look up, uh, Kazmaier. 27:16 Uh, just look up Bill Kazmaier on, um, on YouTube, and look at some of the old stuff that they did, and then you can, you can totally relate it to what you see people doing now. 27:25 But I think at the same time, with the, with sort of the inclusion of this new equipment, people have had a, some people have had a really easy time adopting it, and other people look at it like, "I don't know what to do with that." 27:36 Right? But they see something cool on YouTube or, you know, on the interwebs or whatever else, and then they try to mimic that. And so they're, they're getting... Similar to what CrossFit did with the barbells, right? 27:46 Mm-hmm. And getting people over and under the barbells again, 'cause people had forgotten how to lift those things for so long. 27:52 They got re- they've been reintroduced and, uh, uh, this is probably a good time to kind of talk about how you'd organize, organize yourself there. 27:58 But think about it as like, it's, it's kind of unconventional in a sense, but in reality, when you look at it, it's been described, like, again, go back to the farmer carry. 28:06 It's like carrying, like, 10 bags of plastic bags worth of groceries up your stairs at your apartment building or whatever. I don't know if that's not functional fitness [laughs] or what. Yeah. Right. 28:13 [laughs] So that's why, that's how I hear, hear it, it being described or compared to, but- Oh, I had an, uh, a client the other day. 28:18 He just got back from an international trip and he said, "Those farmer carries came in handy when I had to pick up my wife's suitcases." [laughs] Yeah. Perfect. Yeah. Love it. 28:26 I mean, the other, the other thing that comes up for me, especially for, like, the, the, the, the homeowners, right, is, like, when the springtime comes and they're planting their yard and they go down to the, they go down to the, to the Home Depot or whatever and they pick up these big bags of peat moss or, or whatever else. 28:41 And, and they're, they're redoing their yard, bark, tan bark, whatever it is. And they've gotta unload these things into and out of their car, onto and off the cart to get them to the car and whatever. 28:49 And, and almost every time, they're moving those big pots, you know, around on their back patio as they're replanting, and things like this. They actually get hurt doing this stuff. 28:58 I can't tell you how many bicep tears- Mm... I've had from people that have, like, the springtime comes- Uh... and they go out to move big pots or these big bags of mulch or whatever it is around. Mm-hmm. 29:08 And they end up tearing a bicep because they're reaching over, they're bending, or they hurt their back because they're reaching over in an awkward position. It's not controlled. It's odd, right? 29:16 It's all the way on the ground. It's not nine inches off the ground like a barbell would be with plates on it or something like that, and they just never train there. And they're doing it all day, right? 29:24 They're, it's a, it's a long day, you know, doing the thing. So think about, like, again, like in, in farming or ranching. You know, they're moving heavy equipment around. They're moving hay bales around, that kind of... 29:35 That's really, those guys have, like, the best capacity in the world when you think about it, right? For sure. I, I just think back. I think it was, like, a year and a half ago. And they're strong as piss too, right? 29:43 Yes. [laughs] I, my, my in-laws were redoing their backyard, and they have all these railroad ties. Oh, yeah. Like, those big wooden- Mm-hmm... some of them, I, gotta be, like, 100, 150 pounds. 29:52 You know, like, 'cause they're 10, 12 feet. And they were just all in shock 'cause I moved of about, like, 50 of them from up down to their canyon, down their stairs. 29:59 And I was just having a ball and I felt confident in it. [laughs] And I was doing it. But per- a perfect expression of that kind of thing, that ability to do work. 30:06 And again, it's not perfect being able to move in different positions that aren't a super, like, stacked position for a deadlift, right? 30:12 I think there's ability, the capacity of your body also to handle these weird positions is also something a lot of people, um, are hesitant to do. 30:20 Um, and I think a lot of, for a long time, we were kind of afraid of getting out into the, you know, not being in a perfect position. 30:26 But when you're moving a hay bale, you're not gonna be perfectly aligned and perfectly neutral spine and perfectly, you know, the, the weight distributed evenly. 30:33 You're gonna be in these awkward positions, and I think there is merit in building your capacity to do those things as well. Oh, certainly, certainly in building confidence that you can do things is one thing. 30:41 I think one of the things when you look at the type of movements that you'll likely be doing, you're doing those on your feet, right? Mm-hmm. You're not doing those laying down. You're not doing those on a bench, right? 30:51 You're doing those where the human spends the majority of their time, which is in space on their feet. 30:56 So you're gonna be lifting heavy objects in different, in different planes of motion, different ranges of motion that you would typically do with your other, with your other, uh, let's, let's call it more, um, common exercise prescription. 31:08 Mm-hmm. So again, there's some, there's a, there's a huge amount of carry over here. 31:12 I get r- I get- You know, people, like, f- mechanics, form, super important, especially when you're livi- lifting maximal loads and things like that. 31:19 In this case, we're not li- lifting maximal loads, so this is a great time to get outside of your comfort zone, to get outside of those typical movement patterns and lift those heavy things or lift those odd objects in weird ways. 31:31 Not so it can transfer over in life into some other way, but it's good to train the body there, especially when we get, you know, caught up in doing. 31:38 We say this all the time, the most important thing is consistency and doing the same things over and over in order to see the result that you're, you're looking for in terms of gains. 31:46 At the same time, there's a, there's a time and a place for this. And again, it just reinforces, um, like economy, emotion. Uh, it, it, it, it builds up that capacity, your, your ability to do work. 31:57 Um, it takes you out of the regular planes and ranges of motion. It's gonna force you to hit those weak spots, you know, in areas. It challenges your grip in different ways. 32:05 It can challenge your, your, your, your, your trunk in different ways, your legs. Your mental fortitude. [laughs] And yeah, your mental fortitude, your grit, right? Yeah. Um, 'cause this stuff should be hard, right? 32:14 It, it needs to be hard in order to get some benefit from it. So how hard should it be? Well, that's... It's often controlled by y- it's kind of, um, self-limiting- Mm-hmm... is the way to look at this. 32:26 So, like, you know, my, my time that I take between the one movement in the medley to the next one can be self-regulated, right? 32:33 And it's like, uh, in, in knowing that, like, where you are, again, without looking at a watch with where your heart rate is or whatever else, can build a little confidence and set you up for success in the future. 32:43 And again, in building that grit, it's like, "No, I can do this," or, "No, I, I recognize I need to rest another 10, 20, 30, 60 seconds, whatever it is, before I go do this," so that I can put in the quote, unquote, "intention," right, to the rest of this medley so I'm getting it out of it. 32:57 As long as I am working, kind of hesitate the word, to use the word threshold, but I want to be working at this level where I'm feeling fatigued, but I am not totally trashed. 33:08 Where you can maintain, you know, those good mechanics, good intentions, like we've talked about a lot in this. Um, I think that's really, really important, too. 33:14 But I think, y- you know, when we start to talk about there's definitely different formattings for this- Yeah... 33:18 that can be, you know, a really good way to track progressions that aren't, again, always just, like, how trashed can you be? So, um, you know, one format can be, um, you know, doing timed medley, medley. Mm-hmm. 33:28 So where you have a specific, um, you know, timeframe that you're, you're, you're, uh, planning from the start, and it doesn't need to be long. It can be somewhere, like, you know, the 8, 15-minute range. 33:38 Um, but then, and you have a set amount of exercises, and generally, those exercises would have a sound amo- set amount of reps or distance if you're doing things like carries or sleds. Mm-hmm. 33:46 And then you're trying to get those done within tho- that amount of time and as many rounds through those movements. 33:50 So your progression in that formatting would be how many rounds can I get done within that timeframe, um, that I had from the week prior, and you're trying to progress that through the block, so. 33:59 Yeah, and then you can easily track that. Did I get more or less done this as, as time goes on? So time's a great way to do it, and it's an easy one, right? 34:06 Like, you, you set the clock, you look at the clock, whatever it is. How much of this work can I get done in that, in that amount of time? How many rounds? Mm-hmm. Right? Um, so time's a good one. 34:14 Another one is, like, the, the, the EMOM format. Like, every minute on the minute, right? Mm-hmm. 34:20 I have to perform a certain amount of reps of each movement, and every minute, I am making sure that I am starting that over again. So how many reps, how many sets could I get done in that EMOM? 34:31 That's a super popular one. Again, I think CrossFit really, you know, made that one super popular, and the reason it's popular is because it's very effective. Yeah. Right? 34:39 So you, you decide what, what movements you're gonna do. Maybe there's three movements, right? You have to get through X amount of reps of each movement, right? Whatever that is. Maybe it's a carry. Maybe it's a lift. 34:49 Maybe it's a, some type of a rotational movement that you're putting in there. 34:52 And whatever time you have left over by the time you're done with all of that, that's your recovery time, and then you start it again the following minute. 35:00 And I love this one because it is very, uh, self-limiting and self-motivating, right? Because I think when there's nuance of, "Oh, I'm just maybe not getting as many rounds. 35:07 Maybe I'll sandbag a little bit," sandbag, uh, sandbag a little bit at the start of, like, the timed medley, um, and so I can just get the work done and I'm just moving. 35:15 But this is, hey, if I take longer, if I don't put a lot of effort into this exercise, I'm also kind of screwing myself. I'm making it where I don't get as much recovery. 35:23 So there's motivation to keep a high output, a high intention, and a high, um, movement, um, efficiency, which w- can help with getting more, those reps done so that you get a longer break. So there's a lot. 35:33 And then it also is good to kind of give you a reference of, of what's a good stopping point. 35:38 So sometimes a metric for that could be like, hey, if you're supposed to get 15 kettlebell swings, and for some reason when that minute starts and you can't get your 15 kettlebell swings 'cause you're still gassed by the time that next minute is starting and that is starting to happen to you, then it's probably time to throw in the towel for the day with that specific medley. 35:53 If you're not able to keep the metrics that you set in place, either you need to look at the programming or the metrics, or it shows that you're over-fatigued at this point. 36:00 You're not being able to maintain the output and the quality, then you're done. You're not gonna go the 10 minutes. You're gonna only go the eight minutes or whatever, so. 36:06 Yeah, so the, the, the other one that I like is, like, a, um, a descending or an ascending medley. Yeah. So, like, uh, a good one would be, like, um, like, one on the rower as an example. You could use a piece- Mm... 36:19 of equipment for this where you're going, like, um, 10 calories, then nine calories, then eight calories, then, and then you work your way back up, right? Um, for, for a period of time. So you get... 36:31 E- Each time, and maybe you're doing that with, let's say, so you're doing your r- your wall ball. I like this one. This is a good one. It's actually in the Fit for Action program where 36:38 you take a, a specifically sp- prescribed, um, medicine ball, whatever the weight is for you for the day, and then you have your rower, right? 36:47 And then on the first round, you, you go and you do 10 calories on the, on the rower or, or whatever, and then you immediately go to wall ball, right? And you have to do 10 wall balls, right? 36:58 And then you go back to the rower and you do nine calories, then go back and do nine wall balls, and then eight and eight and- All the way down to one. 37:05 So your, your recovery time is, is decreasing as you're, you're, y- you started high with a high amount of repetitions or a high amount of calories, and you're starting to decrease as you go. 37:15 So you're going into oxygen debt as you're going through here. Your energy systems are all being challenged. It's easily measured, right? And you're j- you're moving at the pace that you can move at, right? 37:25 So what you're, you would be measuring is, like, how, how long did that take you to do? So you got all your calories done, all your wall ball reps done, but how long did that take you to do? 37:33 That's something that you could... That's not the workout- Measureable... 37:36 you have to do every time, but it is measurable, and if your capacity is improving across the board, you know, if you're testing this once a month, you could see, you know, how much time did this take me when I started versus how much time did it take me now as a, as a, as an example of that ascending versus descending. 37:51 Yeah. I love doing also with those, like, something like a complex, like a kettlebell complex, where- Mm-hmm... maybe it's, like, two swings, two cleans, two push press, and then you're two... 38:00 You know, three swings, three cleans- Yep... three push press, and then you're ascending. And then I like, I like the ascending and then descending, right? 38:06 'Cause obviously there's gonna be that fatigue p- tipping point where the descending, you're gonna wanna start [laughs] backing back down. But I love... That's a good way to, to, to put that in, in- into format as well. 38:16 I think the last one is the density medley, and this is, like, completing a set and, and an amount of work in as little time as possible. And then you're, you're tracking the efficiency over time, so same, same thing. 38:27 So you're... Whatever that work i- whatever that set is, whatever that work is, you're doing, you're doing it as fast as you can, as little time as possible. So this is where things get a little bit weird for people. 38:39 Because, again, going back to, to intention, it's gonna be about, like, am I able to maintain the mechanics I need, right? 38:46 And the, the, let's just call it form if you want, like, the movement efficiency in order to continue to do this before it turns into something that looks more chaotic like we were talking at the, at the top. Yeah. 38:56 So, um, uh, I, I don't like the Olympic lifts on, on this particular one. 39:02 Sometimes I think they may be okay to put into some of the other ones, depending on your level of skill and your training age, but this is not one that I love for that. Yeah. 39:09 But, you know, it's, it's hard to say, like, "Hey, I want you to work at a g- at a good quality and not over-push, but also I want you to really push and try to improve your time." 39:18 It's kinda hard for a sweet spot, especially if you're doing this on your own and you don't have a coach to kinda keep, keep you in check. It, it is hard- It's-... so for those kind of exercises... 39:25 yeah, high skill with those- Yeah... particular lifts, so. So high skill and also let me see you improve your time. Like, that's, that's a hard place to find. Easy to get sloppy fast. For sure. Yep. 39:33 So I think when we're, when we're looking at and just kind of putting one, putting a medley together, like, what would you choose? We just gave you a couple, like, small examples here. But again, start with purpose. 39:42 Like, what am I trying to do today, right? Is this gonna be l- m- more of a strength focused or a power focused type of thing? Or how does this fit in with what I'm, what I did today and what I'm gonna be doing tomorrow? 39:53 What is the rest of my re- what does the rest of my week look like? You gotta go? Yeah, I gotta go. All right. See ya. Bye. Um, st- so you're gonna start with purpose. 40:02 So again, we're trying to maintain output under fatigue. Yep. So you're gonna feel fatigued. That's the first thing. F- the second thing is recovery. 40:10 So you're gonna be working at a moderate intensity, and moderate intensity is going to be [laughs] different for each person, right? 40:17 So, uh, again, if you're very fit or you have a high training age, that moderate could mean... You know, your moderate could be my high intensity if you're in, if you're in really good g- good shape, so. Yeah. 40:28 The- these things are scalable, right? We, we hear that term being used. But the w- the intensity level is really gonna be based on the person that's actually doing it. Yeah. 40:36 And, and then lastly, we're gonna be combining, like, some heavier work, some load-bearing work, with more of some, you know, like, metabolic effort. 40:45 So again, like, I gave you the, the, the rower to the wall ball, right? So there's a little bit of strength, a little bit of power in the wall ball. 40:52 Yes, there's a little bit of strength and power on the rower, but it's very limited- Yeah... right, in what you're doing there. But we've got some metabolic output followed by some strength. 40:58 So maybe it's a rower to farmer carry. Yeah. You know, where we've got metabolic to a yoke carry or something like, or a sandbag movement or something like that. 41:05 So again, it's, it's more th- you got a strength focus, and there has, there's something in there that's gonna challenge me, you know, again, like c- from a cardiorespiratory perspective a little bit more. 41:14 Again, low-skill movement, low-skill stuff that's gonna get my heart rate up. Yeah. And I think that's what you said, where it's scalable. I think it's... And we'll kinda give some examples later, but it's very scalable. 41:25 Movements that you feel confident on, right? So if you're not confident in your clean, you definitely shouldn't be doing cleans. Right. 41:30 But if you are confident in your front squat, that might be the, the application for the strength exercise- For sure... in that. 41:35 But again, if you're not confident in your front squat, maybe right now you're doing a goblet squat for your squat that's pushing your strength so. Scalable. 41:40 So scalable based on the, um, the intentions, the outputs, the intensity that you're talking about, but also very scalable based on the exercise that you're selecting. And for the person that's doing them, right? 41:48 For sure. So for, for putting, putting a medley together, I think a good format is, like, choose three to five exercises. I think five is on the very top end. Yep. Right? 41:59 Otherwise, you're probably getting, you're gonna start getting to a place where you've maybe bit off a little bit more than you can chew. Mm-hmm. 42:05 Or you need to start choosing some things that are even lower skill in your workout. So depending on where you are and what you're trying to do, somewhere between three and, three and five. 42:14 The, sorry, three and five movements. 42:16 And if we're trying to use these energy systems and give some of our body a little bit of recovery, right, while the other part of the body is working, we'll call it, like, active recovery, which is kind of what we're doing in this entire process, I might choose something like a lower body movement, then put it together with, like, a more of an upper body specific movement, and then give something what we could refer to as, like, a locomotion movement, where we're, we're actually moving through space. 42:40 So lower body movement, to your point, could be your squat. Like, call it your goblet squat as, as an example. Maybe it's a sled push, right? 42:48 Again, these, these are things that don't require a high level of skill, um, but you can put a lot of intention to them. You can start to work with some tempos. 42:55 Again, you can work them under time, things like that as an example. 42:59 Yeah Yeah, and I, I, you know, to go, we'll go through some more of the exercises, but I think this is where these are butchered really, really often when I see poor programming of a medley is they'll do something like a squat, a front squat, and then they'll have, "Oh, I wanna do another hard exercise," and they'll be- have them do, like, walking lunges, which it- those are basically both quad-dominant movements. 43:18 There is some different variance. But putting those back to back, that's where we kinda talk about there's some interference. 43:23 So doing something like a front squat, and then maybe you're doing, like, pull-ups in your second sequence, which is still very taxing and fatiguing, still pushes the strength envelope, but again, it's not gonna interfere a lot with the front squats you can do. 43:35 Locally, yeah, you're getting some recovery down low, right? Ex- exactly, right. And then, uh, it's kinda like, so you have that strength where you're doing s- like a, a, a squat, then you're doing a pull-up. 43:42 Then if you're doing something that's locomotive like a sled, uh, push or a carry or a bear crawl or something like that, that's kind of the integration, like, there's full body movement, but it's not too much taxing on the strength component. 43:54 So there's not... Those body parts are involved, but maybe, but the attribute that you're training isn't as involved in that. Yeah, it's not as heavily taxing on the central nervous system. Yep. 44:03 Yes, there's some skill involved, but it's at a lower level. Mm-hmm. You can manage the pace or the tempo, and you're not loaded- Yeah... 44:08 right outside of, like, body weight in something that is going to end up fatiguing you or taxing you going into the next thing so you can actually complete the medley. So- For sure... 44:17 again, you kinda take three components. There's an upper, lower, with some type of, like, locomotion-type stuff. And again, car- carries, I think, get overemphasized as much as they get underemphasized. Yeah. 44:28 I love carries for a lot of reasons. I think they're great. I think they're, they're best used in medleys most of the time. Mm. That's... So w- you'll see them sh- show up. 44:37 And one of the things you said there about, like, like, poor programming, you mentioned a v- a, a good example, like a squat followed by, like, a walking lunge or a monster walk type of thing. 44:47 There, there may be a case for that for some people, so but at the same time, like, it's not necessarily, like, the, the programming itself. It's more the execution that I see being- For sure... 44:57 b- like, it, it's kinda where we, we mess stuff up. Like, people think they have to be moving uber fast, all right? Even on an EMOM. Yeah, there, there's a time component here. 45:05 I have to get it done, but if what I'm doing inside that minute looks like crap, right, and I'm compromising in order to get it done, like, how much sense does this make? 45:14 What am I taking away, or what am I, more specifically, what am I leaving on the table- Mm... in terms of what I'm trying to get from this? 45:20 So again, uh, lower body, upper body, and some type of, like, l- uh, a- again, like, locomotion-type stuff. You mentioned, like, the, the, the, the, the bear crawl as an example. 45:33 That locomotion one, I, uh, this is where equipment, I think, fits in really well. Mm. Like a SkiErg, a BikeErg, a- Yeah... a, a rower, a, even a treadmill, right? 45:42 Depending on what your level of skill is on the treadmill. 45:44 Um, even a stair, like, a stair climber could be one of those things where, again, we are starting to get that heart rate up, but I, I'm just moving my body weight through space. Yeah. Right? 45:54 Um, but again, you could add, you could add load to that. Maybe it's a weight vest or maybe it's a- [laughs]... maybe it's a set of kettle bells for a carry or, or, you know, a, a trap bar or something like that. 46:03 For sure. And I think the last thing you can really play with is if you're someone like me, I really don't enjoy training my core. 46:08 Like, if I'm just doing a core session or end of my workout, that's really hard for me to really mentally wrap my head around, but this can be also a great time to kinda sneak in some core work, whether it's, like, a rotational med ball or it's, like, a hanging knee to chest or something like that too. 46:20 That could also be a great addition to, to this medley as well. 46:23 Yeah, so when you're choosing movements, again, making sure we're focused to choosing the right ones, and if we're using more of the conventional type of lifts, again, you mentioned, like, the squat as an example. 46:34 Um, and, and again, this is more focused more of the strength capacity perspective. We're gonna be lo- using loads that are much lower than our, our max load. 46:42 So we're probably working somewhere in the neighborhood of, like, 50 to 70% of whatever that weight is. So that, that should be something that you can complete several repetitions on- Mm-hmm... 46:52 and still manage the quality of the movement that, that you're doing. 46:56 And while tempo is important here, especially, specifically if we're working in a time component or a time constraint, the bottom line here is you need to do something that challenges you in that tempo. 47:06 Or under the, or s- you need to be choosing a load that challenges you using that tempo and the time, time component. This is, this could take some figuring out. Yeah. 47:16 Like, it, it may be less than that for you if your capacity is a little lower. Mm. Clearly, if you don't understand what your maximum is, like, you're never gonna know what 50 to 70% is. 47:27 So again, choosing more conventional lifts for this type of stuff is not necessarily a bad idea, particularly if you're super familiar with it. 47:34 But when you start to move into more of the unconventional type of things that you may not have done before, again, we talk about, like, sandbag-type stuff, like, where you're going over the shoulder with the sandbag or over a yoke, which is pretty popular right now. 47:45 Um, you might not know what that is. Yeah. So it, it's better to err on the side of caution there and go a little lighter and kinda work your way into it so that you can get through your medley, right? 47:55 The idea is we gotta get through this thing. You don't wanna be gassed out, taxed, and not be able to complete it. 48:00 While there's probably some value in the workout that you got, like, now you don't have a f- now you don't have a baseline to work from. 48:07 So, you know, I think there's some, there's a figuring out process for people, and it's also figuring out where your capacity is or where it isn't- For sure... 'cause it's gonna suck a little bit. Yeah. 48:15 I, I, I say that to people anytime I start programming this kind of thing, and that's where it is important to do a kind of block with this, so where there's repeatability in the movements or the intentions is my primary goal in this kind of formatting, like you just said, is to get through the works that I'm prescribing for you. 48:28 We can figure out the intensities or if we need to adjust some of the loads or the timing or something like that as the weeks go on. But again, that's another argument that there needs to be repeatability. 48:37 If you're just throwing random, these, uh, medleys together each week and it's different movements, you can't really fine-tune these things to get the most out of them, so. 48:43 Yeah, so, uh, just going back to the Fit For Action program, this is something, like, the, uh, folks that are in that program right now are in the first block. And what I gave them was several... 48:53 A- all the different versions that we mentioned in terms of the, the, the types of medleys that you could program. We've got one of each Um, on each workout- Yeah... for each day. Mm-hmm. Right? 49:03 So, and, and I, I kept them fairly simple. These are low-skill type things, right, that people can do. Yes, you have to have a- available of equipment to be able to do them. 49:12 But know- not knowing where everybody's coming in, again, trying to deliver something that everybody can get something out of, kind of find that 80% thing, 80% solution for, for folks. 49:20 What I wanted them to do was just get into a routine of doing this work and doing things that, that were semi-familiar. Some of the stuff would be- Mm-hmm... new to them. 49:28 But would give them this baseline while also building capacity. And there's repeatability in it. So they're doing these workouts, say, in that first, in that first block eight times, right? Yeah. 49:38 Each workout eight times. By the time they're done with that eight times, they're going to have seen some capacity building, and one of those is being used as the assessment for capacity, right? 49:48 So we are building into understanding where our baseline is so that we can make those adjustments. And if you have never done an EMOM before- Mm-hmm... 49:55 like the first time you do an EMOM, you're, you're probably gonna be surprised. If you haven't done like an ascending or descending type of, of medley, like there, again, there's some figuring out there. 50:04 So I think when you s- when you start with this, going back to intensities and exercise selections, um, it's important that you're doing stuff that you know you can do or reasonably do. Yeah. Right? 50:13 So that y- again, you can have this baseline to work from to actually know that you're getting something from the work that you're, you're doing outside of it maybe just showing up for you and the thing that you do outside of the gym. 50:23 Yep. All right. So for talk- we've talked intensities, we've talked exercise selection, or we talked exercise selections, we talked intensities in that order. The next thing would be like the, the work-to-rest balance. 50:35 Uh, again, this is, this is something you're gonna have to figure out, but it should be programmed into your medley. This is an important component. Yeah. 50:43 If you just have three exercises and you're just like, "I just gotta get through these three exercises," you're not measuring time or distance. Like, what are you working on here? 50:51 Like, what, what have we, what do we have to work from from a baseline perspective? So you have to understand, like rest times are important and they should be programmed in. 51:00 So again, in the EMOM, it's indirectly programmed in there. Every minute I'm going. 51:05 So your rest time is dependent on how long it took you to get through the stuff in that first minute before you move on to the second minute. So it's indirectly programmed. 51:13 But if it's not programmed, then you're, you're, you're, it's a little bit more random and it can get chaotic. For sure. And this is one of those big things that is, is scalable, right? 51:22 And this should really, you know, you should be honest with yourself or your coach should have a good understanding of this can start out where it's more of like when you're first starting getting used to this, the work might be half as long as the rest, right? 51:34 The, of how long it takes you, you know, say you're doing 30 seconds of work, it may be more where you work, you rest for 60 seconds 'cause that's the recovery that you need to ma- ensure you're, um, having high-quality movement. 51:45 So some of the progress can see can you still maintain high-quality movement with a shorter rest period. So you can kind of start to build through that as you progress. 51:52 And that could even be, um, like how you progress a specific block. You come back around to that, but maybe the work-to-rest ratio has changed. 51:59 And that's really, that's all that's changed even, um, you know, with the same exercises, so. Yeah. So as you're building the tolerance, then those work-to-rest ratios can change. 52:07 So like for a beginner, think about it more like on a one-to-two work to rest. Mm-hmm. So if I work for 30 seconds, I would rest for 60 seconds. Yep. Again, what we're trying to build is this energy system, right? 52:18 And your body's ability to process what it needs to process in order to continue to do the thing, which might, to your point, mean you gotta take a little longer rest period, and that's fine. Yeah. Right? 52:27 As you start to progress, maybe it turns more into a one-to-one. So now I work 30 seconds, rest 30 seconds. Yeah. Or maybe it's 45 to 45. Something like that, right? 52:36 Um, my rest time, my work time has now increased, right, a little bit and my rest time has decreased a, a little bit. So I'm, I'm closing the gap here. 52:44 And as you start to build more towards a, more an advanced level, as you start to build your capacity, it can flip-flop from that beginner level and go two to one. 52:53 Like a two, like a, a full, uh, you know, one minute of work to, uh, 30 seconds of rest. Yeah. Right? And so again, we're now decreasing the rest time. 53:03 That will be a good indication, again, and if you have typical medleys that you put in there, right, and you are measuring, you are tracking your metrics, you should be able to see these changes and when it makes sense to dial it up or dial it back. 53:16 What can I be doing here? Can I be changing my rest, work to we- rest w- ratios? Can I be changing the intensity and stay within the same ratio? 53:25 So I'm using more loads, you know, in my, more of my strength-focused stuff. Mm-hmm. 53:29 Um, am I, am I covering more calories, right, in my, in my more metabolic type work, again, on a rower or a, a bike or something like that? Um, and, and again, tho- those things should be building as you go. 53:42 If you're doing this work and it's not building, that's an indication that you're not recovering maybe from the workouts that you're doing. So that's something to be w- that's something to be paying attention to. 53:51 Well, for sure. 53:52 What you were just saying too of if it's not, um, progressing, and meaning like you're not able to progress, you're still feeling the same level of gast or fatigue on these movements, then you're probably not recovering. 54:03 I think a lot of people, you can, "Oh, I'm not progressing it," just 'cause they're lazy and they're not wanting to push the envelope with it. Hun- 100%. That is not this. 54:10 We're saying if like, hey, your heart rate is still getting to 160 every time you s- do this and you're not improving your times, maybe you're just doing too much total work in your current program. 54:19 That's a big thing to look at. Or one of the other recovery things we always talk about, sleep, nutrition, all those different things. 54:24 But if you're also just like coasting, which is super common, that is not the same thing. Yeah. You can't just go through the motions here. For sure. 54:30 It's not just picking up, you know, it's, it's not just doing the thing. Mm-hmm. It's how you're doing the thing that makes the medley, uh, uh, you know, effective. 54:38 So yeah, that just, that just speaks to the progression component in terms of adding rounds or, you know, a- adding rounds of the movements that you're doing, so you're prolonging how much total work you're doing, uh, the duration at which you're doing them. 54:49 Again, we w- we talked about the work-rest ratios and changing those from like a one-to-two to a one-to-one to a two-to-one. As an example. So, um, and then, you know, the other thing you can do is, is add complexity. 55:01 Yep. So as you become more skilled or you, so you build your capacity, maybe those more skilled movements become more attainable for you to do in these, in these type of, type of medleys that you're doing. 55:11 Yeah, for sure. Like we mentioned earlier, like, you can, maybe you can only do the goblet squat right now, but now you're able to, you feel comfortable with your front squat. 55:18 Now you're applying the front squat to this, so. Yeah. So I think having said that, like, I think there's, you know, like, who is this for? This is for everybody. Mm-hmm. Everybody should be doing this. 55:25 And a lot of the clients that we work with on the floor, we only see them a couple of days a week. 55:30 So what we end up doing is there is some type of a medley, right, in their, in their programming when they're working out with us. We have our strength focus or whatever we're focused on for the day- Yeah... 55:39 but we leave time to get some type of a medley done based on the client that's standing in front of us, what we're trying to achieve for the day. It, there's, there's almost always something like that in there. 55:48 And I think this really, really starts to build, even for someone who's a little bit newer, and again, you know, v- picking the appropriate exercise is very important for that individual, but I think it really starts to build, like, movement confidence. 55:58 Oh, 100%. Right? So I think we get really controlled, and I have certain clients that are like, "This is the only way I do this. This is the only way I move." 56:03 And they get really, they're, they can move really well in certain exercises, but they're almost, like, afraid to move outside of that or afraid to move in their, in, in real life. 56:10 So I think it builds movement confidence to be challenged under fatigue with different movement patterns, things like that, um, regardless of who you are, so. I, I, I completely agree with that. 56:19 And I think, like, if you're that person that is very fit, you would also probably agree with that statement. Yep. Like, you know, like, when you have gas in the tank, right? 56:28 And you can also see when other people don't, which I think also gives people confidence. Yeah. 56:33 So, you know, there's a lot of, uh, there's a l- there's a lot of competitive people that listen to the show or, or, you know, are out there just in the world, right? 56:40 And they know when they're, when they're hurting or when they can see somebody else hurting. Yeah. And that, that is very psychological, right? It, it, it, it hits home real fast. 56:49 I can tell you, actually, I went to, um, this, this is where it showed up for me. So in the gym, I'm very confident with my, you know, with where my capacity is, where my strength levels are. 57:00 Like, I've just, uh, been doing it so long, like, I kind of understand what I can and can't do. Yeah. 57:05 Um, and very fr- very infrequently am I challenged back-to-back days over a, over a period of time with less recovery time in between. 57:14 Like, I know what my next workout's gonna be, so I know the recovery I need, and I, I can foresee it coming. It's when you don't see stuff coming. Mm-hmm. Like, when you don't know what's up. 57:22 So, uh, last April, I had gone... Or I think it was March, actually. I'd gone to this basic SWAT school. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 57:28 And, you know, one of the things that was important for me as I go out and I passed the, the initial PT stuff, which I didn't think was gonna prob- be a problem, and it wasn't. 57:35 So on day one, you go out, you, you do your, your basic PT test, and there's a series of things you have to do. Not, not an issue for me. Not a problem, right? Then we PT'd after that, right? 57:46 And now I'm going, "Okay, I'm feeling a little bit more fatigue." So now I'm two hours basically into a PT session. Body's getting run down a little bit. 57:54 I'm recognizing, like, my capacity is not where it used to be, right? Mm-hmm. That was fine. 57:59 Okay, we break, then we go into the classroom, and there's a bunch of lecture series or whatever that we've gotta get through, and then we came back out and PT'd again. And now I'm going, "Oh, man, this is not so great." 58:09 And I'm looking around, I'm like, "Who's hurting as much as I am?" [laughs] Right? And there were plenty of people hurting as much as I was, but there were just as many people that were not. 58:17 And I was like, "Oh, this isn't gonna be good," 'cause I got five more days of this. [laughs] Like, every day started that way, and every day finished that way. 58:25 And then there were some days where we were being very active in between doing the stuff that we were doing. My point being is, is I wasn't shocked by that. 58:31 What really challenged me was my body's inability to cover in between, and that's what showed up for me. And it wasn't, like, of course, I was sore. Everybody was sore, right? 58:40 But man, like, from a, from a, um, like a cardiorespiratory perspective, like, I had decent... If you, if I just looked at the metrics, right? 58:50 And, like, um, if I was just looking at my watch, right, or whatever, with regard to, like, where my heart rate zones were and whatever, that wasn't so bad. 58:56 It was my ability to do it day after day, uh, you know, for a series of days and multiple day, multiple times during the day. Uh, and obviously, that's a very specific, you know, isolated thing for me. 59:09 Um, but 20 years ago, based on the way I was training and whatever else, I don't think it would've been that way. 59:14 But it showed up for me there, and it took away a little bit from what I was able to take away mentally from the things, o- other things I was trying to learn. But I'm gonna go back to the psychological part. 59:23 It killed me. Like, I was just like, "I suck. I don't ever wanna feel like this." 59:29 It reminded me of other points, maybe as an athlete and doing things, showing up out of shape, not being able to do things or not being able to, to compete at the level I wanted to compete or contribute in the way I wanted to contribute. 59:40 My point of this, going back to, like, where does this show up for the everyday athlete, like, if you, if you're paying to go on a trip or vacation, a hunt, right? 59:48 People pay lots of money to go on hunts, and they spend plenty of time in the gym getting stronger, maybe working on their power a little bit, and they're doing a little cardio. 59:56 But if you're not working your capacity across all of those things, right? When you show up to go, like, on a hunt or on a backpacking trip or, you know, on those hikes on vacation- Or skiing or snowboarding... 1:00:07 skiing or snowboarding or something like that, nothing sucks more than getting to the end of your day just recognizing, like, "Man, I coulda got so much more out of this if I was in better shape." 1:00:15 And you don't want it to show up for you then, I guess is my point. Yeah. 1:00:18 The psychology component, psychological component, one of seeing others, you know, [laughs] like, it can also, it can be very motivating, but also very depressing seeing people that are not suffering or suffering. 1:00:27 But I love what you mentioned earlier, way earlier in the podcast about this is the system that really kinda goes the quickest. It can come back fairly quick. 1:00:36 Um, but, you know, for someone like you who's worked out basically a- all your life, right? You're a strong guy. You can pretty quickly and, and perform in that moment, um, and kinda match- Yep... 1:00:46 honestly, in a lot of ways, probably things you haven't done in a while. Exactly. But your body use, ability to do that. 1:00:50 I say this all the time to people when they, like, come back from a vacation of, they're like, "Oh, I've actually felt kinda strong today." 1:00:56 I was like, "Yeah Yes, but they o- usually gaff- gas halfway through the workout, and then their recovery. 1:01:01 And we've talked about these systems being really tied to where your ability to do work, your capacity, um, impacts your ability to do work, but it also, uh, um, impacts a lot your recovery between those sessions. 1:01:11 So what you're just talking about of your, um, you know, your recovery between those things, those are the things that go quickly. 1:01:17 Um, and so the motivating, uh, the motivation to, like, continue to hit those things and even just keep that baseline up, 'cause like you said, like, when you're on that mountain or you come back from that vacation and then the next day you're sore and you're like, "Hey, I haven't been sore like this," or you just are gassed, you can't even get through the entire workout, like, that is a, a depressing thing to feel. 1:01:35 So just getting these little touches of keeping this going is, is really important. Yeah. 1:01:38 I think about the guys, too, like the BJJ guys that are, like, they're, they're moving up the ranks, they're moving up the belt system, and ultimately they're competing, right? So it's one thing. 1:01:46 So you may be very motivated and you're going to, you're, you're going to morning roll and an afternoon or evening roll, right? That is not the same as going match to match to match, right? Oh, yeah. For sure. 1:01:55 And, you know, you, you, you have to show up and actually compete, and there's something on the line there, right? You have to have this capacity to continue to go. 1:02:03 And if it's a two-day tournament again, and you're going back to back, I think anybody listening that's ever done that before will get it, and the guys with the higher capacity are generally [chuckles] gonna do way better. 1:02:12 Mm-hmm. Even, they, they may even do a better j- they m- may even get further into the thing than the guy that has better level of skill but a low level of capacity. 1:02:19 Because as your capacity decreases, your skill set will start to be diminished. And so when you think about that, again, going back to, like, okay, I don't, I don't do, you know, I don't compete in BJJ. 1:02:31 Um, but I was just, we were just having a conversation with a guy who's, um, 1:02:36 a compet- very, a world competitor in the, in shooting matches, and he was talking about how he was feeling after doing a, a particular program, uh, differently than what he was doing before, and how he was able to go match to match. 1:02:49 And it was the in-between time where he recognized it show, showed up for him. Like, I just feel better going into, uh, these different stages throughout this couple-of-day event and being able to recover in between. 1:02:59 So again, without beating it up too much, it's just like, where is this stuff gonna show up for you? And, and the next part of it is, is like, okay, so if I want this capacity, and I, I wanna feel good. 1:03:10 Like, I don't wanna feel the way you guys just described, right? So how often do I need to do this in order to get some benefit out of it? So by virtue of this stuff going away quick if you're not training it, right? 1:03:21 It does need to be put in with some regularity. Mm-hmm. As a beginner, maybe not as frequently obv- as, as the person that's more advanced. 1:03:29 But we're talking at least a couple of days a week, maybe as many as three days a week. Does it have to be done every day? 1:03:35 I think that depends on what, where you are and, like, if you're training for a specific hunt or, you know, we mentioned, like, you're, you're going to high elevations where you're gonna be packing in a very long way, potentially packing out a very long way or whatever. 1:03:47 Maybe you start to increase the frequency and the duration as you get a little closer, and some of the strength and power work starts to come off of your program, and you're, you're a little bit more biased towards capacity. 1:03:56 But if you're putting this in two to three days a week into your program, you can notice some very, very stark benefits and changes in a very short period of time. 1:04:05 It, it is so interesting for me y- with all my training that I'm managing. 1:04:09 Even if I just, hey, one week, uh, that's the workout I miss, and I come back the next week, I can already feel a di- a difference and a decrease. 1:04:16 So even if you are doing it just once a week, it is very vital that you make sure you get your once a week. 1:04:21 So wherever you're at in your programming or your intentions or your capabilities, that you are making sure that you try to hit those. 1:04:27 And again, like you said, it's very easy to wanna skip these kind of medleys or capacity days. "Oh, I'll just get my main strength stuff in." 1:04:33 But you'll, one, see a very big increase quickly when you do include it regularly. But if you are going like, "Hey, I've hit this in 10 days," you're gonna feel a difference. 1:04:41 It's, it's, it's a little bit frustrating, but it's also can be very motivating. Yeah. So if you were kind of looking at your week, the way most people organize their workout programs is there's generally, 1:04:51 you know, a few we- workouts a week. 1:04:53 One of those workouts can be a little bit lower-body focused, one of them's gonna be upper-body focused, and then maybe you're kind of doing a push-pull type of thing on, on those other couple of days. 1:05:02 And so where would you put this stuff in? So, like, if I'm... 1:05:06 And, and generally speaking, like, if you looked at the way we, we program, if you're coming, if you're working out four, three to five days a week, like, we're gonna load the higher skilled, higher demand stuff at the beginning of the week when you're coming in off of a couple of days' rest, typically. 1:05:19 Mm-hmm. Right? That's how most people organize their programs. So if I've got, like, a, a high skill where I'm working power, right? 1:05:26 And strength, like, on, let's say Monday as the example, that's my first day of the week. That's a high demand, right? 1:05:32 And so I'm not gonna put in my, my most strenuous medley with, that's gonna be more strength-focused on that day. I just did those things. 1:05:40 So this is, this is where I might put in more of a, um, more of a metabolic conditioning day. It's gonna be a little shorter, right? It's definitely less skill demand, right? I'm not working the heavier loads. 1:05:51 Maybe this is my wall ball and, and, uh, rower workout that I, that I mentioned before- Yep... where we're really working the metabolic demand, not so much the strength demand. For sure. 1:05:59 And so I, I think that's, when you're programming these things, it's, it's impacting it based on what you're doing on that day, like you just said. 1:06:05 So maybe, like, your, your heavy strength day, um, or your high skill day, maybe that's its, its own workout. Maybe that's the workout for the day. The medley is the Wednesday workout. Yep. 1:06:15 And, and again, this is if you're training multiple days a week and you have the, the luxury to do this, but that's where you would put in, like, the high strength, high focus. 1:06:22 'Cause if, yes, you wanna be able to do these things under fatigue, but if you're so fatigued, if you just did squats and deadlifts and lunges and all this different stuff, and then you're trying to go in and do these high-skill things, you're not gonna, one, get the max out of it. 1:06:33 And this is where, you know, you don't wanna necessarily assume injury, but you're not gonna have as good intentions, right? So doing it on its own. 1:06:39 And then, you know, anybody who's trained a hard lower body day versus a hard upper body day, you can kind of know that a, a lower body day is just more general fatiguing, right? It's more taxing. 1:06:48 So upper body day might be where you kind of work into this, like, middle ground, where it's like maybe not quite as long as the standalone day. It's a little bit longer than the, than the leg day. 1:06:57 A little bit more complexity, maybe a little bit more full body, but you are still able to manage it- Right... um, when you're applying it, so. Yeah. So I, I love what you said there about just making it its own day. 1:07:06 Mm-hmm. Like, this could be my workout for my mid-week if I'm working out four days a week or five days a week, and in the middle of the week I place my medley. Yep. 1:07:13 But going back to, like, the lower body stuff and where I, how I might program that if I was doing more of an upper body dominant day, then maybe my medley for that day is a little bit more Lower dominant. Yep Right? 1:07:24 And that's where I get in my, my monster walks or my, my, my, uh, walking lunges or things like that. My heavier carries. Things like my sled pushes where I'm working more down- downstairs than upstairs. 1:07:36 So again, going back to organizing your week, um, y- you need to be selective in how you're doing this, particularly if you're putting it in multiple days a week. This has to be thought about. 1:07:44 It just can't be random- Yeah... you know, if you're throwing it in there. Yeah, for sure. Um, 1:07:49 couple of examples maybe just of, like, y- you know, for a basic, uh, you know, if somebody's looking to ent- you know, enter into this medley stuff and, and where they might put it in. Here's, here's a little format. 1:07:59 Maybe you do, maybe you do this. Maybe it's eight minutes, as many rounds as possible, right? So, you have eight minutes. 1:08:05 You're gonna try to get all this stuff done as many times as you can, so it's gonna be stacked vertically. That means we start at the top, work to the bottom, and then work our way back up. Start with five goblet squats. 1:08:16 Again, we already mentioned the intensity there, somewhere like 50 to 70% of what your max is, right? You may not know what that is. 1:08:22 Just pick something you know is gonna challenge you a little bit and you can still do with good mechanics, good form, and you can... Again, it doesn't look completely out of control. Then, so you're starting downstairs. 1:08:32 Then you work upstairs. Then maybe do eight pushups. Then you're gonna immediately get off the floor. Then you do your 10 walking lunges. 1:08:39 Maybe at this point with where you're at, maybe that's just your body weight or maybe you're grabbing some light dumbbells or a sandbag or something like that to, to give you a little bit of weight. 1:08:48 Then you're gonna wait 30 seconds, right? And then you're gonna go right back to the top, and you're gonna do as many rounds of that as you can in eight minutes, right? So it's not gonna be a ton of time, right? 1:08:59 But it's gonna be challenging. Keep this in mind, too. When you start, you may, you may get through your first round and go, "That wasn't so bad." 1:09:05 Well, by the time you make it halfway through to round number four, round number five, that eight pushups might feel like 800 pushups. 1:09:12 Those walking lunges might feel like, you know, um, y- y- you know, you've got a, a 300-pound yoke on your back kinda thing. So, this has to be managed. 1:09:21 The idea is, is to understand where your baseline is as a, as a newbie kinda going in there. 1:09:26 So that's a, that's a simple upstairs, downstairs, you know, type of combination of things that you could do, um, with that, uh, like more of a... 1:09:35 That is probably gonna be more like a two-to-one ra- or a one-to-two r- rest r- uh, work to rest ratio. Shouldn't take you very long to get through that stuff. For sure. 1:09:42 And that, again, that's super, that's gonna be more of a beginner thing, but that's a great way to kinda introduce things and, and again, always start off a little bit easier and focus on finishing the work and then you can build from there. 1:09:52 Um, a, a next circuit you could really focus on, this would be more of kinda like an intermediate, uh, circuit where you're getting maybe a little bit more strength in- in tension. 1:10:00 This one you could do like a 12-minute EMOM where, right, we, we talked about that, where every minute at the start of the minute you have a certain amount of reps that you're trying to get done. 1:10:07 Your rest is whatever's remaining in that minute until you get up to the next minute. So, if you're doing something like, um, a dumbbell deadlift, it's at about like we've talked in that 50 to 70% range. 1:10:17 Maybe it's a little bit higher on that range. Um, and you're doing that just for three reps at that higher load. Um, and then you're resting from there. 1:10:24 And then into the next sequence, um, and then on the next minute, minute two, you're gonna do eight, uh, um, eight kettlebell swings, um, focused on that, and then you get your full recovery. 1:10:32 And then minute three, you're doing 10 box step-ups. And then for this, you're trying to get this for as many rounds as you can, which within this format would be 12 rounds. 1:10:40 Um, uh, doing these every minute on the minute. And that one definitely does feel it's a lot more lower body focused, so it'd be definitely on that day that you can put good intention. 1:10:49 Maybe not after your heavy back squats, things like that, so. Yeah, so again, it's the intention piece. This is not, you're not racing through this. Yep. Right? Everything needs to be focused, right? So each rep counts. 1:10:59 Each step-up counts. You're not falling off the box. You're trying to control your breathing, so y- Safety... there's a safety thing here. Yeah. Um, we've seen all kinds of stuff. 1:11:07 If you s- get on the interwebs enough, you'll see some of these EMOMs happening and people trying to do box jumps and things and missing the box and tearing the, the skin off their shins and things like that. 1:11:16 So, this is something that can be very, very well controlled, uh, or should be very well controlled. Um, maybe more on the power capacity side. 1:11:25 So, this is something would be a little bit more advanced when we're looking, when we're looking at this because of the loads and the exercise selection we're gonna use. So, um, power capacity. 1:11:34 So, it's, it's two front squats, and you're gonna be using like 85% of your one rep max. That's pretty heavy, right? Yeah. So, that's gonna challenge you. 1:11:43 You're gonna have to unrack that bar, do your two squats, come out of there, re-rack it, then you're gonna go straight into five pull-ups. Five body weight pull-ups, right? 1:11:52 I encourage body weight pull-ups, not the butterfly, uh, floppy pull-ups- Yeah [laughs]... that, that we see, right? 1:11:59 So like, again, this is, this is gonna be more power and capacity, so let's work those pull-ups as in a strict pull-up. Then you go 10, like, squat thrusters, right? Or, or thrusters. So you got dumbbells in hand. 1:12:11 Maybe it's kettlebells in hand. You're gonna sit all the way down into your squat, drive it over your head. This is gonna be fairly light, keeping in mind you just did two very heavy front squats, right? 1:12:21 So it's not about how much weight you can squat. It's about how much weight you can do 10 thrusters with, right? And you're moving with tempo. A thruster should be moving as fast as you can under control. 1:12:32 This is a power movement. Yep. Right? So it's not a slow squat to the shoulder press. 1:12:37 You're using the power that you're generating, you know, right through your hips, knees, and ankles to get that bo- to get those, those dumbbells or those kettlebells moving up, and then you're right back down into it. 1:12:46 It's, it's very quickly done. Then you jump on the rower, and you're gonna go, uh, 200 meters on the rower, right? And that 200 meters is gonna go, "How fast can I go?" Very low skill movement. 1:12:57 You gotta put your effort into it. You're not recovering here. This is the metabolic conditioning piece, right? 1:13:02 And then when you're done with that, you go back to the top, and you're gonna do as many rounds as you possibly can, right? And, um, and, and when you're done, you're done, right? 1:13:12 And so basically what you're doing is you're stacking these exercises and how much can I get done before I wind up Completely gassed and unable to perform those movements, uh, particularly the front squat. 1:13:23 That's with the same weight. You're not taking weight off the bar, and you'll know when you fail, you're done. So s- again, this is a little bit more advanced. For sure. 1:13:30 And then again, when we say advanced, too, a lot of awareness of your body, awareness of knowing, like, "Hey, can I get through this front squat with good quality even though I just did a 200-meter row?" 1:13:38 So really intentional with that, so. Yeah. Obviously, this isn't happening on your lower body day, right? So again, maybe this is your standalone day or something. 1:13:47 I would, yeah, I would think of this as your standalone medley day, 'cause this one's a little bit more intense and a lot more just full body and a lot of effort required for that, so. 1:13:54 Um, and then the last one, this one is gonna be, um, more of kinda like almost that f- uh, strongman style that we were talking about, um, with things based on those, those carries, different things, um, from earlier. 1:14:03 This one, um, you're gonna work, uh, you know... This can be kind of s- this is very scalable, so these movements can be very intense, but it can be very, um, low skill, right? 1:14:13 So if we're gonna be doing carries or sleds, just how much weight are you putting on there? So this is one that's really good for anyone and can be beneficial at any skill level. I agree. Yeah. 1:14:20 Y- you're gonna do it somewhere like 10 to 12 minutes. Again, you're just picking a, a work, um, amount of time. These are not as intense, so I would go maybe a little bit more on the higher end for the time. 1:14:29 Um, but you're gonna start with a farmer carry, and I would get a very set, um, walking, uh, distance, um, for all the three of these movements, 'cause these are all kinda locomotive-based. 1:14:39 Um, a farmer carry, it could be with kettlebells, it could be with a trap bar. Something that is challenging, but that you can get that work done for, like, 40 to 60 yards. 1:14:46 Then you can go into a sled drag, so you kinda work more of a full body carry. Now you're working a little bit more lower body, but you're still moving through that. 1:14:53 And then the last move, you're gonna go either an overhead hold or a walk for that same distance or maybe a little bit of a shorter distance. 1:15:00 You're gonna rest for a set amount of time, 60 seconds, and then you're gonna repeat, and this is just kind of working, again, your ability. 1:15:06 This is the, I like to think of this as, um, really the expression of your ability to do work, even outside of just the capacity. 1:15:12 But these are all kind of full body, um, take a lot of full body awareness, awareness of your posture, awareness of your positioning, awareness that you're not moving super sloppy, but not quite as high skill as something like a front squat. 1:15:23 So that's why I think this is, um, can be done for the beginner with the right loads- Mm-hmm... but it can also still be something that's super beneficial for the more advanced person. 1:15:31 Yeah, I think going back to what you said, this takes a, a, a, a certain amount of intestinal and mental fortitude- Mm-hmm... to get through this stuff. It is very challenging. It's very taxing. 1:15:41 Um, you know, it might feel like the wind sprints that you had to do, you know, when you were in junior high or high school, the gassers that you had to run on the field- Yeah... 1:15:48 where you're like, "I can't believe I have to do another one of these things." And you know, there you have a whole group that's working, you're working with. You don't wanna be the last person. 1:15:55 You know that whistle's gonna blow, and you gotta go. 1:15:58 When you're doing these things, like, this is the thing for the, for the person that's the lone ranger in the gym, like, you have to have a certain amount of grit- For sure... 1:16:05 in order to get through these things, and so you need to be in the right mental state going in. Otherwise, what are we doing, right? 1:16:12 And, and I think that's why they are not done as frequently and is why they, why they end up getting butchered as frequently as they, as they do. 1:16:19 Number one, because they are in a group, and they're trying to keep up with everybody, and they're not at that level. Yeah. That's, that's one reason. Mm-hmm. 1:16:25 The other reason is 'cause they just don't, they straight up just don't have the guts to get it done. 1:16:29 And so, like, if you're working with a coach, they may be there to kinda push you through it and get you through it or even scale it some more while you're doing that. Like, "Okay, we're gonna lower the weights on this. 1:16:38 We're gonna up the, the, the distance on that," you know, whatever it happens to be. 1:16:42 But you have to be ready to go, and you have to, once that clock starts, you know, or the distance is the distance, you are covering that. 1:16:50 Um, again, it, this is not for everybody, uh, but everybody can benefit by this when it's applied properly, and I think that's the, that's the, the point we're trying to make here. So 1:17:01 again, I just think in, in terms of using medleys for workouts, it's, it's probably, it's either overutilized or underutilized for... 1:17:09 And the, the overutilization piece, I think, generally comes down to we are trying to do things just to crush ourselves. 1:17:16 And yes, this should feel some- this is, should feel difficult and could feel somewhat crushing, but not so much that you look sloppy, right, that you can't complete it, or... 1:17:26 And at the end, like, you should feel like you've worked, but the goal shouldn't be to be in a puddle of sweat laying on your back on the floor. 1:17:33 I understand there are some sports out there where this might make sense for, and they have popularized this to, to that should be the end result of your medley training. No, that shouldn't be it. 1:17:44 You should feel gassed, but you shouldn't feel completely just crushed, right? 1:17:49 Because remember, if we cannot recover from this before we get into the other workouts that we have to do through, do through the work to increase our strength, to comp- uh, in- increase our power, to increase our mobility, and all the things that we're trying to do, like, you're, you're overreaching now, right? 1:18:05 And that overreaching puts you into this recovery debt that will interfere with the other things that you're trying to get out of this. Yeah. 1:18:11 And just what you mentioned earlier, um, when you were talking about circuits, how this, I think a really big takeaway with this is that this shouldn't be all of your training. 1:18:19 Maybe it is for, like, a small period if you're, you know, training for one of these sports or something specific. 1:18:24 And yes, we love medleys because it can help increase some strength, help increase some power, help increase some, um, work capacity, and, you know, all these different movement qualities. 1:18:32 But at the end of the day, um, you aren't gonna be pushing the envelope on those things specifically, right? So there is still merit. You do need to be doing strength work outside of the medley. 100%. 1:18:41 You don't wanna be pushing all of your strengths are in this. 1:18:43 I think they are very time-efficient, and they can be a great way, especially, like, if you're on vacation or if you're in a way that you wanna get some work done that you, uh, are kinda limited on time. 1:18:52 It can be a good way to g- um, even if it's not planned and purposeful, um, in your whole block, but a way to, "Hey, I just need to get out some of my work done and get these movements in and do these things that I need to touch on," that's great, but it should not be every single workout. 1:19:04 There is still merit. You need to break things up. You need to have focus on strengths. You need to have focus on these other things. So how do you kinda, uh, apply this to you? 1:19:11 And, and that's what really helps it also, again, in your total programming that you're managing, that it's scalable to the individual. 1:19:17 Um, you know, we talked a lot about the exercise selection is really important for it being scalable for you, um, all the formatting as far as the time duration, all the intensity. 1:19:26 But again, you, you may need to dip into the feeling really pushing sometimes, but also, how do you also manage your fatigue? 1:19:33 How do you manage that you are working at that 80% that you can really feel refreshed from this and feel like it's improving your ability to do more things, not gassing to where now I have no energy for the rest of the day or the rest of my training for the week, so. 1:19:45 Yeah. 1:19:45 So I think, like, depending on where you're coming into this, if you've never done this before, as, you know, and you've never done a medley, no matter where you are in your training age, but you've never really implemented this type of thing- Try it one time per week. 1:19:57 Mm-hmm. Right? But you gotta be consistent with it. And again, what I would pick is the same thing. Whatever the medley is that you choose, my recommendation is you pick the same medley. Yeah. 1:20:05 It's not just about being random. 1:20:07 Random, some randomness and novelty is important, but keep the novelty and the fact that you've now implementing medley training into your, into your workout routine, and pick a thing, right, that's accessible to you, that's available to you, that you feel somewhat confident with, and that you know you can repeat over several weeks to months in order to see the benefit from. 1:20:25 So that's, that's what I would say for, like, the new person. For the person that's more advanced, maybe take a look at how your medleys are structured. Like, and where are those in my week? 1:20:35 Am I really getting out of those what I want or need to be getting out of those? Uh, maybe revisit exercise selection. Maybe revisit the order in which I'm doing that. In some cases, maybe you don't need to do as much. 1:20:47 Maybe you take a little bit of that out, manage the recovery component a little bit more, and see if you can increase, see if your capacity increases, your recovery, your strength, your power, all of that stuff increases over time without doing as much i- in there. 1:21:01 And, and I'm not saying work out less. I'm saying work out smarter- Mm-hmm... is what I'm saying. 1:21:05 From, yes, and I think that's the big miss where I see the people who do this a lot, is are you actually tracking your progressions? 1:21:10 Are you actually tracking, are these variables that we've talked about, whether the distance, the time, the improvement, and all that. 1:21:15 I think a lot of people just do a lot of these workouts and do a lot of these exercises, and they feel like they're tired and doing these things, but they're not actually progressing or not even tracking their progress. 1:21:24 Um, so that means, one, it could just be your effort and intention, or are you doing too much, for sure. So. Yeah, so a g- a good place to do this, if you're in our Fit for Action program, you're already doing this. 1:21:33 If you wanna get in the Fit for Action program, it's easy. Just go to rdftrainonline.com. You can get a, uh, you can get a, a free trial there. You can get into, you can kinda see how we've structured these. 1:21:44 You're gonna see several weeks worth of training sitting in front of you, and how we've structured the medleys in with the other components of the workout that are there. 1:21:51 And there's four, there's four workouts in there a week that people can do. So they can just choose one, or they can try it, or try a couple of them, see how those, those feel. 1:21:59 That's a, that's a good place to kinda get, maybe get introduced to it. If you're in our RF Strong program, which is our, our muscle building and strength building program, medleys are included in there. 1:22:08 We do those, we do at least one a week. They're generally towards the end of the week or end of the, the, yeah, the training, uh, one-week block. 1:22:15 You'll, you'll see some medleys in there and how we put those things together. 1:22:18 Those, they, they also show up on our floor again in our regular sessions, but in our group sessions here, we have a, like a, like a combo day at the end of the day, where there's a little bit more metcon in there than there might be in some of our other workouts. 1:22:30 We put it towards the end of the week, making sure people are g- are getting it. That's where I would encourage you to maybe put it in if you're, if you're new at this. Mm-hmm. Put it in towards the end. 1:22:38 Get your other work done, man. Like, don't, don't take away or don't do anything that may be taking away from your program. 1:22:43 Or maybe if you're that person that's just doing it, you know, whether it's hitting the gym three days a week, maybe add another day, right? And do a medley, like, on that fourth day. 1:22:52 And again, these things aren't very long, so it's not time-consuming. It's not time-intensive. Look, we're measuring time, but you're doing what, like, 8 to 15 minutes maybe? This is, these aren't long bouts of exercise. 1:23:03 It's the quality of work that we're doing inside it that matters. 1:23:06 And, uh, again, I think if you start to add these things in or maybe we're a little bit more structured for a lot of people, 'cause these are the conversations that we end up having on a pretty regular basis, you could get a lot more out of it. 1:23:17 A little Googling will give you all kinds of examples, right? Uh, it's not about the equipment that you use. It's about the structure of what you're doing. 1:23:25 These can be done with body weight, with additional, you know, outside equipment, traditional equipment. Totally doable, right? 1:23:31 Dumbbells, barbells, plates, um, kettlebells, stuff that's, you're typically gonna find in most home gyms. Uh, you'll find that there. But o- obviously, I'll, I'll go back. Like, I love the odd object stuff- Mm-hmm... 1:23:43 like the sandbags and, um, and even using some outside equipment, again, like rowers and SkiErgs and bikes and things like that. Because you don't have to think much there, right? You don't have to go anywhere to do it. 1:23:54 It's generally already in the gym or in the garage. You can get a lot of benefit out of that if you're using it appropriately to build this capacity. Especially when you use those u- uni- unique modalities. 1:24:04 This can be something for a lot of people. 1:24:05 If you've been training for a long time and your training's feeling kind of stale, this can kind of be a way to, to freshen things up, to get some new movements, to get some new intentions. 1:24:13 And heck, you may be even still, like, hitting the squat that you were hitting, but now in this formatting, it kind of feels new. 1:24:19 So it can be a great way to, to mix things up and kind of find some more motivation for your training if you've been lacking in that. 100% agree. I've never met anybody that wished they didn't feel more fit than they do. 1:24:28 [upbeat rock music] Thank you for tuning into this episode of Iron Sights. 1:24:33 If you enjoyed our conversation, you can support our mission by hitting the subscribe button, leaving a review, and sharing the podcast with a friend. I'll see you on the next episode.
