Joshua Gibson & Max Aita: Evolving the Coaching Landscape in Weightlifting

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:00:02]:
Welcome, everybody, back to the weird and strong podcast. I'm your host, Jeremy Grunsteiner. Today I've got Josh Gibson and Max Ada on the podcast, so we've got a twofer. Not usually our format. We usually talk one on one, and I love being able to have multiple voices in the room at the same time. So I'm excited about this. Josh, how you doing, man?

Joshua Gibson [00:00:22]:
I'm doing very well. It's. It's quite different to be on the other side of the mic. Um, literally, it's the same side, but, you know, this time being interviewed instead of doing the interviewing. So, um, I'm looking forward to the conversation.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:00:35]:
Yeah. Very cool and welcoming back. Max, how are you doing today?

Max Aita [00:00:38]:
Hey, I'm well. I'm doing really well. Um, you know, just, uh, just living the dream. One day closer to death, 1ft in the coffin. You know, that always reminds me kind of stuff.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:00:51]:
It always reminds me of, uh, uh, my favorite birthday song of. Are you guys, if you guys are familiar with Aurelio Voltaire, he's kind of a gothy, rocky alternative guy. He's got a birthday song or his happy birthday, my old friend. It seems this horror show will never end. Something about something. You're closer to your last breath. And here's to one day closer to death.

Max Aita [00:01:16]:
Wow.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:01:17]:
Sounds dark.

Max Aita [00:01:19]:
It really just resonates with me. I feel that. I feel that on a regular basis.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:01:24]:
We have to make sure to send that one to max on his birthday whenever that comes up.

Max Aita [00:01:28]:
Yeah.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:01:29]:
As we start, every guest or two guests on this podcast, I've got a weird question for you guys. Are you ready?

Joshua Gibson [00:01:35]:
I'm ready.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:01:36]:
Awesome. Josh, I'm going to start with you. Imagine yourself in a universe where pro wrestling and weightlifting have been combined and merged. You're set to compete, and you have to set yourself a walkout song. What walkout song are you picking for your weightlifting competition?

Joshua Gibson [00:01:59]:
That's a fantastic question. I love that we're developing alternate, you know, universes in which we operate. This one happens to clash or bring together weightlifting and wrestling. And for my walkout song, you know what? I'm going to make it as predictable as possible, and I'm going to say enter the sandman by Metallica.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:24]:
Entrez, Sandman. Funny enough. So I just recently retired from my gigging life as a musician, and that was the last song. Last song we played.

Joshua Gibson [00:02:36]:
Wow.

Max Aita [00:02:37]:
Yeah.

Joshua Gibson [00:02:38]:
What a coincidence.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:39]:
Yeah. Max, how about you? What is your. I know it's been a while since you've even. Since you've been on the competition platform, what song is going to bring you back out?

Max Aita [00:02:50]:
You know, what even is music? Let's break that down. Let's get down to the actual, the sound waves hitting our eardrums and really think about this. I have no idea. People ask me, well, someone asked me last night, what's your favorite song? And I just don't, I don't have, like, a favorite song. I mean, there's a lot of songs I'll listen to that I like, but I never thought of, like, oh, this is my favorite, or I know what a walkout song would be. Probably it either be, it always be something humorous to me. So, you know, it would probably be, probably be some kind of, I don't know, you know, some super, super bad poppy song from the eighties or like, maybe like a Cindy Lauper, like, you know, true colors or something. Just to be, just to be weird and confusing.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:03:45]:
Give people, like, a questioning of who's actually about to come out right.

Max Aita [00:03:50]:
Well, versus, like, the predictable, you know, Metallica song. It's like everyone's, everyone's going to hear that and they're just going to be tuned out by the time, by the time the chorus comes around. You want someone engaged, you want them really fired up. You want people to hate you. You know, I can't control whether people are going to love me when I walk out, but I can definitely get them to hate me.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:04:10]:
Well, it was like I just saw, it was in retrospective of somebody like the macho man who came out to pomp and circumstance where you're like, this is supposed to be like, this is a guy who's wearing a neon cowboy hat and shades and he comes out to this regal tune. It really makes people go, what is actually happening?

Max Aita [00:04:30]:
Right? And you almost wonder how much of those pro wrestlers, as anything progresses and gets more refined, you get more and more of like the, you know, I'm sure the current batch of pro wrestlers have, like, you know, come up and groom themselves through it and like, they are 100% through and through within the culture. But the old days, it was like, you know, the pro wrestler wasn't a profession. You became something like that. It's like, if you ever listen to, like, a Hulk Hogan's story, it's like he was like a guy who was, you know, doing all his weird shit and, you know, somehow ended up in it. So, like, how much of those guys were just like, it was just a inside joke for them to be everything the way they were, you know?

Joshua Gibson [00:05:16]:
Well, yeah, yeah. And juxtaposing this to the UFC, you have like, UFC one and it's like a sumo wrestler versus, like, a Brazilian jiu jitsu grappler. And it's like the most nonsensical that, like, what is happening? That's kind of what wrestling was like back in the day with, like, Mick Foley and.

Max Aita [00:05:32]:
Right.

Joshua Gibson [00:05:32]:
All these guys where it's just like, pieced together, you know, ragtag rugged. You're, you're throwing people off of like, you know, the top of a cage, onto tacks, on the, on the rink, on the ring, and now it's like, yeah, super groomed, super, like, cosmetic and aesthetic and theatrical. Yeah. Changes a lot.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:05:53]:
Yeah, yeah. Whereas you look back, it's like, how much of that were they just making up on the fly? Oh, yeah, most of it, yeah. Or they're like, we're going to figure something out and we're going to make it happen.

Max Aita [00:06:02]:
Yeah. You know, just like you, you and your buddy just, you know, stripped down to your skivvies, oiled up, grabbing each other's thick, hard, veiny muscles and, you know, just getting next to each other. A couple of bros rubbing nips. You know, maybe the lips touch, maybe it's, you know, maybe it's only 1020 seconds at most, but they did touch.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:06:23]:
And you gotta make sure some people, you gotta make sure a whole crowd of other guys is, oh, yeah, lots.

Max Aita [00:06:29]:
Of men watching us struggle with each other's bodies.

Joshua Gibson [00:06:35]:
I'm glad this is titled the Weird and Strong podcast because I think Max definitely provides the weird. I'm not sure if he any longer provides the strong, but definitely not one of those criteria.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:06:45]:
Yeah, yeah, I think it's. And I appreciate that because it, I mean, it's making me laugh. So, I mean, that's, you know, in my, in my book, that's one of the things that I, I value a lot and value the most. Uh, thinking about into weightlifting, because, you know, ultimately, if you describe weightlifting a bit wrong, you know, we strap on a bunch of spandex, wear some high heels and lift some heavy weights over, over our head with our bros, uh, thinking to, um, the lifters in the world, um, since you both have gone through and had careers as weightlifters and competed, what are some of the things that. Or if you were to start over today or start over from scratch, let's say you're learning as a beginner again, knowing some of the things that you do know, what are the areas that you would focus on now as a beginner versus perhaps where you started from?

Joshua Gibson [00:07:41]:
Yeah. I mean, my mind instantly jumps to, I would find someone who can help me develop a process for figuring out what works and what doesn't. And I think there are a 1001 ways to make someone better. I mean, we see that through the wide variety of weightlifting coaches and the wide variety of methodologies they use. It's all weightlifting, but the iterations can be pretty stark. And people are still getting better, right? People are still setting. You know, we had Hampton Morris at a world record, and I don't think anyone else trains like him. Like, no one trains equivalent to him.

Joshua Gibson [00:08:15]:
I would say very few people train equivalent to Olivia Reeves. You go to a local meet and you're going to see a larger diversity of how people train, too. But the thing that really matters to me is, do you have a process by which you can track changes and performance and technique and really how people are taking to the training, and then you can make modifications that make sense. So when I started, I did 1001 different programs and I look back and I think, wow, that one really worked. What worked about it? And it's like, well, did it work because of the program or the time point or, like my stage and my lifting? And that's hard to single in on if you don't have a process that's a bit more strategic, a bit more well thought out, and a bit more, well, um, kind of like understood and documented. So you need good, good record keeping and I think kind of from start to finish, I wish I would have had that laid out so I could look back at trends and pick up on them. And with athletes I coach, that's kind of the big thing is, you know, what, what works, what doesn't, what can we change and then how do we know if the change is happening? Fact. Um, so I would say for people starting out for beginners, intermediates, like, find a process that you can adhere to over a longer period of time, and that's just going to give you good information for future training and then also for understanding what good coaching is.

Joshua Gibson [00:09:37]:
Also like, totally.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:09:39]:
And so, in looking at that, when you're talking about a process, is that primarily in as far as, like the, like, programming, like methodology, or are you looking more at like a, like a. A lower level or more basic approach to this? Of have some way to, like, use a document through like a training journal or something like that so that you have some sort of, some sort of data to work from.

Joshua Gibson [00:10:06]:
I'd say it can be top down or it can be bottom up. And I think kind of the idea of, like, something is better than nothing. If you just document your training in a journal, you can look back on it. It might be a little tedious.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:10:18]:
Mm hmm.

Joshua Gibson [00:10:19]:
But if you get coaching or you write a program in some sort of data management, like, place where you can manage the data or look at the data, I think it just makes it simple. It makes it simple. You can visualize it, and then you can reflect back on it and, like, click between sheets, click between weeks. Click. Click between, like, training blocks and say, like, wow, we got great results. What did training kind of look like? And then we can pick up on patterns and trends and try and map out what could that look like in the future? And I think so many people get into it, and they don't either don't track their training, don't understand their training, or don't have a process by which training evolves over time. And they're just kind of always looking at different things. Comparing apples to russet potatoes, it's not even apples to oranges.

Joshua Gibson [00:11:07]:
Right. It's like fruits to vegetables to, you know, to legumes to other things. So I think just having something that's comparable and trackable over time is, like, is tremendous. And that's when my coaching took off. So, as an athlete, your results would be even better. I mean, I just had someone who jerked, uh, he jerked 160 for the first time, and that was, like, a massive lift. And we just kind of had a process for getting there, and we're going to use that same process the next time we jerk 170 or when we do jerk 170. Um, so I think that is incredibly helpful.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:11:38]:
Cool. Uh, Max, for you, um, looking back, you know, similar question. What were the things that you, when you got started lifting that you perhaps looking back, say, and maybe that wasn't super helpful, or you got distracted by certain, certain paths. What were those like for you as you started to develop your lifting?

Max Aita [00:12:02]:
This is a tough question to answer, because, like, when I think back on everything I did, if I did it differently, I might have ended up in a different place today. You know, I may not have become a coach. I may not have done these other things. So, you know, the obvious answer, kind of, to echo what Josh said, is, I would, you know, I didn't. I think I put myself into two camps, or I think people do this, or they have two different types of mentalities. One is which you take a call it a thoughtful approach, a methodical tracking, you know, writing programs, tracking what you're doing, recording, you know, adhering to a principled approach. And then the other is living in the cloud of hopefulness, which is like, I kind of wing it. I go heavy or I go light, and it's easy.

Max Aita [00:13:02]:
You guys just think it's easy or you think it's too hard or you're, you know. And I think the problem is that there's a belief that those two things can't coexist, that you can't have a training. A training approach that is both intuitive, in which you strike while the iron's hot and you max out a little bit more often, or when you feel good, you go up or you go, quote unquote, off program and having a methodical training process and program where there's sets and reps listed and you have a plan and you execute and, you know, like, those two things can very much coexist. It's just a matter of one, like Josh said, like, being able to actually record and track what you're doing. You know, keeping. Keeping good records of anything you're doing at this complex level is just key. So I would have. I would have done that more and tried to be.

Max Aita [00:13:57]:
You try to reconcile those two sort of beliefs that those two things are extreme ends of the spectrum, that you can't, you know, you can't do the bulgarian system and, you know, record your training and look at it and see if there's a trend, because God forbid you'd find out that it's stupid, you know, so it's like, I would have. I would have tried to be more in a place that, like, have a plan, but it's okay to. It's definitely okay to, like, push and to push yourself and to drive outside the envelope and, like, try to. Try to move the needle when you can. I think that's just sort of this. Like, it exists in this sphere now of that's how things have to be. It's like you're either one or the other. You're either a nerd or you're, you know, you're just like, it's not hard, dude.

Max Aita [00:14:50]:
Just do it.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:14:51]:
Just camp.

Max Aita [00:14:52]:
Yeah.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:14:53]:
Yeah. We talked a bit about that on the last episode. In looking at that, of, like, having some sort of a process, especially for people who are getting started as lifters or who are very new in their. In learning lifts or in learning how to compete, what are the types of things that you've encountered in working with athletes that have prevented them from finding that process in the past?

Max Aita [00:15:22]:
I mean, the. For me, the biggest thing is that they just are not. They're not organized in normal stuff. Like, you know, it's funny when you think about dieting. I think dieting is the best example, the best analogy here. It's so easy to not be, to not lose weight. It's so easy. You just, you just eat a little bit too much and you won't lose any weight.

Max Aita [00:15:48]:
In fact, it's one of the miracles of modern society in that we can largely stave off starvation pretty well. So when you think about dieting, it's like you have to do two things. You have to know exactly how much you've eaten because it's just a purely, like, you know, it's a purely energy in versus energy out kind of thing. Do you know how much you ate then? You know how much, you know approximately what you're going to burn every day. And you can look at a scale and there you go. You can see if it goes up or down, make an adjustment. Some people can't do that. Some people just can't even do that basic thing of like write down everything I eat during the day and count the calories, count the macros, look at it, and then make an adjustment and then repeat the same thing the next day in process.

Max Aita [00:16:39]:
That is so simple. That's like such a very basic thing. That is the minimum amount of, of, of effort. And it's really hard for a lot of people. Now, granted, there's a lot of psychological stuff around it and there's, you know, whole slew of things there for sure. But the point being, like, just to develop a methodical process, most people struggle with the actual implementation of really simple things. Like, do you write down all of your training? You know, do you film all your lips? I don't know if you guys remember a guy named Martin Rooney who used to work, I don't know if he still does or used to work for Parisi. Bill Parisi, the speed school.

Max Aita [00:17:19]:
This is like early two thousands. Early two thousands. He came out to Montana and did a little seminar at the university when I was there. And you have to imagine this is probably like 2002 maybe. And, you know, at the time, like, he was like a, I mean, that was like the cutting edge of, of, you know, sports performance stuff. And I remember asking him, like, what would you do? I was a weightlifter. He didn't really know anything about it. I was like, well, how, you know, do you have any suggestions for me? Like, what would you do? And he's like, yeah, you should film every lift you do and you should look at them.

Max Aita [00:17:53]:
You should track everything. And, like, it was, like, a basic thing, but it was kind of funny because, like, that was 22 years ago, and now we have the technology for these things, yet it's like, even it hasn't changed. Like, people don't write down their training. They don't log anything. They don't, like, look at the other. It's just, like, weird. So I say it's hard to start a process. The biggest thing is just people's literal ability to sit down and do it is the biggest hurdle.

Max Aita [00:18:23]:
You know, Jeff.

Joshua Gibson [00:18:25]:
Yeah. And I think, too, the idea of, like, a good coach, basically, is being able to meet someone where they're at and understand what people need. And I think it's kind of a straw man to say, like, well, you would either be only kind of theory heavy and scientific and analytical, or you would be intuitive. That's untrue. It's like, I coach all the time, and I coach in both realms, and you get someone who I start working with, someone who's an endurance athlete, and it's like, you go and it's like, what are we doing today? It's like, oh, we'll do a progression for the lift. We'll do some strength work, we'll do some hypertrophy work, and it's like, I'll kind of come up with it on the spot. But then you have someone who's, like, a really high level strength athlete, and it's much more detailed. But even then, you're in the session with them, and it's like we're doing doubles instead of triples.

Joshua Gibson [00:19:18]:
Let's push a little bit. Let's modify this. And a lot of it's because a plan that was laid out a day ago, a week ago, a month ago is a day old. A week old, a month old. And you've updated your understanding of the process since then. And it could be small and be very minute changes, but you've updated your prior probabilities of what's going to work since. So you make adjustments as a session unfolds, because basically you're constantly getting new information. So, to Max's point, I kind of reiterate that coaching is a process.

Joshua Gibson [00:19:50]:
It's a process of, like, capturing data, but it's a process of using new data to inform decision making. And then, um, kind of to your point, I remember Glenn, Glenn Pinley would always say, like, you should log your training, track your training, be methodical about changes. And I think, you know, his perspective was slightly different, but it was that same idea. It's like, if we do, if we change things slowly and, uh, on a smaller scale, we can better understand exactly what's having an effective. That kind of ignores the complexity of existence. But I think it makes sense, and it made sense to him as a coach having his own process. So I think, to Max's point, people struggle largely because it's just something new in general. It's like work you have to do.

Joshua Gibson [00:20:38]:
It's a behavior you have to decide to do and to make. And that's tough. And it's also tough because it's not just like, train, and then you'll get the results you want. It's like, there's a lot more to it than that. There's training in being thoughtful about your training, making good decisions. It's a much more complete and complex process than just showing up and lifting some weights overhead. And if it were that simple, I mean, it was that simple at one time, but there was just a gross amount of drugs being used. I'm thinking back to the fifties and sixties in the USA now.

Joshua Gibson [00:21:15]:
It's like, okay, how can we train effectively, train hard, manage fatigue, and do that to reach as close to the top of your abilities as we can, and it's got to be more strategic, more thoughtful on both ends, where it's an involved process. And I think that takes growth and learning from the athlete to be responsible for that and then to be able to execute on it.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:21:41]:
Absolutely. And like, when you talked about that, you know, this, this sense of, if I just train and I do the, do the weights that's listed on my program, I should get this result. We, we tend to think very linearly, especially as in the beginner realm, that that's, that's how this works. If I do work, I get result. And especially with the, you know, the extra amounts or, like, the bigger amounts of online programs out there that are really static programs that you buy online, find online for free, whatever that looks like to be able to follow. To your point, Josh, where you talked about, I think I tried a thousand different programs my first year or whatever. It can get very easy to be stuck into that mindset and quit very early, especially if you don't have, if you haven't gone and found yourself a coach to help help you find that ability to make those adjustments or help you discover what that's like.

Joshua Gibson [00:22:41]:
Um, yeah, could I jump in real quick?

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:22:43]:
Yeah, absolutely.

Joshua Gibson [00:22:44]:
No, that's a great, that's a great point. And I think. I think what's the easiest trap to fall into is you have a proximal, like a proximal effect. And then you use that as, like, an identifying feature. Right. It's like, I didn't get results, therefore I'm not going to get results anymore, or therefore I'm not going to improve, or therefore I'm weak, therefore I'm bad at this. It's like this proximal effect of the program didn't work. Yeah, I've written a lot of programs that fucking suck.

Joshua Gibson [00:23:15]:
Like, what do you want me to say? It's very true. Like, what do you want me to say? But I've also written programs that have gotten, like, massive prs and, you know, a slew of lifts, and it's taken a lot of time and a lot of work on both ends, but not at one point did I say, you've reached your limit. That's your potential. Like, you're not going to make a PR, but people will tell you that they'll run a program. I didn't make a result. I haven't pr ed in a year. I'm just not going to be able to squat more weight. That's my life now.

Joshua Gibson [00:23:43]:
Like, I'm confined to this destiny of being a weak sack of, you know, flesh that just roams the earth. It's like, that's not true. That's not true. And then they hit a PR four weeks later, and it's like, you, just, as a coach, you think, this is how I think there's a perfect program. How do I get to that as an athlete? I did the perfect program. I didn't get results. Those are two different, you know, perspectives, and I think a good coach just keeps people on the line or on the hook, so to speak, long enough so they, they can get the results they're working for. And it's realizing that, like, training isn't linear, but it's also additive.

Joshua Gibson [00:24:23]:
And that, like, if you can do training, that'll build muscle, that'll pay off eventually. I don't know when, but, you know, it's not like we didn't get results, therefore, we're not good or we're not going to be good, and that's it. That's the end of the road. We're done.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:24:36]:
Yeah. You create this identity around your last result.

Joshua Gibson [00:24:39]:
Yeah, that's right.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:24:41]:
Yeah. I talk about this with some of my lifters, uh, very often. Is that, well, it's your decision if you want to quit right now or not and make that failure your defining feature. Or you could show up again and give it another whack. Like, um, good friend of mine, we talk about very often that the. The point of the sport is failure, because that's how you know, that's how you know where your capacity is, or that's where you know where your abilities are. And so finding that failure point isn't necessarily a defining feature for us, but it is a. A way for us to figure out how to move forward.

Joshua Gibson [00:25:12]:
It's data. Right. You're. I mean, as coaches, you're agnostic to it. You're saying that didn't work? That did work. I really don't care why. I mean, I. I have no emotional attachment to the outcome.

Joshua Gibson [00:25:23]:
I want to know why so I can change the outcome. But, like, you miss a snatch. Like, there's a. There's a great quote from Glenn I actually pulled recently, but it's like, what's the worst thing that can happen if you miss a lift? You drop the barbell in, like, a nuanced caveat. Whatever. But, like, you drop the bar, you pick it up, you try again. That's. I mean, that's the worst outcome.

Joshua Gibson [00:25:44]:
That's the typical outcome. Um, and it's just good information of, like, oh, but you tend to lift like this when it's too heavy, when it's heavier. You tend to do this when you're really, really fatigued. This is how it expresses itself. So we can use those, like, edges of ability to then help the coaching process.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:26:03]:
Absolutely. Max, any thoughts on.

Max Aita [00:26:07]:
Yeah, I was going to say I disagree with everything Josh said, mostly because Josh said it. No, I would agree 100%. I think it's one of those things that, when you really think about it, it's like in any of these sports, we have certain outcomes, we have desired outcomes. We also have some inputs to that. So we don't necessarily need to watch, we don't need to care about, we don't need to be emotional about the mechanisms and what's happening between input and output. We need to have predictability in that. Hey, when I increase training volume, this lifter builds, you know, gets bigger, or when I increase intensity, this guy gets stronger. And then you have all these.

Max Aita [00:27:08]:
These kind of objectives you're trying to satisfy. Some of them are, you know, are duality in that they have. There's like, you know, one objective is lifting the most weight possible, and the other side of that coin is not getting hurt. And so you're always just making trade offs in decision making with training. The essence of it just comes down to, how am I best organizing my decision making? And the trade offs I choose to make to satisfy the goal, which is the same for every athlete of, of the person I'm working with, which is lifting more weight. And so you go through and you develop your whole system and methodology just around these trade offs. A great example of this, or the two examples would be like the Russians or the Bulgarians or the, let's say the Americans of the nineties versus the Bulgarians of the nineties. Everyone's presented with the same things in front of them.

Max Aita [00:28:12]:
Choices, right? Barbells, exercises, sets and reps and all these things. And everybody makes choices that are trade offs one side for the other to try to achieve the biggest result they can. Some of those systems go to extremes, giving eleven year old kids steroids. And some of those systems, don't they compete clean or something? But largely that's all training is as coaches. We're just trying to figure out what the trade offs are first and that's like the most fundamental level. What are the trade offs? Go heavy. More. Go heavy really often.

Max Aita [00:28:52]:
Okay, well, the risk of getting hurt goes up or fatigue is going to get higher and you might not perform as well. And yeah, it's like just understanding that is the first level. But then after that it's like your quote unquote coaching system and style is just emergent from the trade offs. You make. You just choose different things and like, oh, Josh's style of training and coaching is different than mine. We all have the same choices to make. He just makes, you know, he kind of weights certain things more aggressive or, you know, more aggressively for his own preference. So I, I think that's kind of this like this real fundamental layer of all this that, you know, coaches, new coaches, a lot of coaches just don't think in that they don't see it as, that they see it as like it's a wholly unique and different thing.

Max Aita [00:29:39]:
Because I think it's different. Right? I do, I do yo yo snatches and this guy does pump snatches. He's a fucking idiot. He has no idea. Those pump snatches, they're just going to, they're going to ruin his QL. And my yo yo snatches, what they do, my yo yo snatches, what they do is they teach the lifter how to be a better person. You know, it's like you're just saying things that you have convinced yourself of your mind that those are true. The reality is that we don't even.

Max Aita [00:30:09]:
Maybe there's no research on either one of these things. We have no idea what either one of them does, or is. We're just making assumptions. And so you see it as like, this equals that. It's the most common thing. Right. The most common thing in the world is if my squat goes up, my lifts go up. And that's not an untrue statement at face value, but it's like, it's just one of those.

Max Aita [00:30:33]:
Like, one plus one equals three. See, it's like, that's just. It's just that simple. Guys. Like. And I've just.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:30:38]:
See, I put the numbers.

Max Aita [00:30:39]:
Yeah, the recipe is there. It makes sense, right? It should work. So, yeah, it's a game of trade offs, and it's a game of understanding that you have. You're balancing a lot of decisions with the desired outcome. And there's other things that, you know, potentially, you just, in doing them, have negative impacts on that outcome. So you're always trying to. The idea of optimization is just trying to make a lot of really good decisions in those trade offs such that you end up with a better result than if you'd have made a lot of bad decisions. Yeah.

Joshua Gibson [00:31:16]:
And I think. Oh, I was just going to say, I recently recorded a podcast on my podcast, the philosophical weightlifting podcast, which is kind of digging a little more into the philosophy of science. And there are two things to Max's point. There's a fallacy called the post hoc ergo propter hoc, which is, since event y followed event x, Y must have been caused by x. Right? So it's a fallacy that's just illogical. And then a quote on that podcast I recorded was, we were talking a bit about free will, as one does, and he was saying that, like, free will is really determined by the affordances that you have. So, like, the decisions you make are made only in light of the decisions you can make. And as a coach, that's really what you're doing.

Joshua Gibson [00:32:02]:
It's like, what information do I have available? I mean, it's everything. It's athletes, it's equipment, it's location, it's everything. And you're saying, what decisions can I make that constructs my coaching system? I think the best coaches are generally going to have the access to most of the information, right? Most of the information, most of the affordances. That way you can start to decide and say, like, I think this makes sense in the context of a complex environment, which is this athlete in their career, and you have some waiting on each thing. As Max said, we have different program styles. They're converging a bit because, you know that just makes sense to me, but it's like you wait different things. So if you think putting on muscle is important, you're going to do higher volumes more often. If you think more bodybuilding work is important, you're going to put that in at the expense of something else, at the expense of training time.

Joshua Gibson [00:32:57]:
If you think technique is more important, you might put in more technical variations and, you know, and not do quite as many classic lifts. Um, so it's realizing, like, we all have our rationales, they're all developed on the back of all of the theory, all of the practice, and the integration of all that. So, and then the program's the expression and even that. I told Max, um, I don't remember when we were talking about this, but in reality, the best coaches can execute even if they have different amounts of information or access to different information. It's like your ability to execute on it. And, uh, Ryan Dorris, he was on the podcast, too. He's like a philosophical guy, and, um, he was talking about bodybuilding, and he's like, I know all this bodybuilding theory, and I, I still don't train like, I know I should train based on what I know. Why is that? And it's like, for some reason, there's just a disconnect between the theory, what you know, and your ability to apply it to practice.

Joshua Gibson [00:33:55]:
And I think as long as you're, you're moving toward better, I mean, you're doing the best you can. I, you never quite get to where it's like, this is a perfect, perfectly written, based on everything program, but it's like, oh, I'm tapering and peaking better, I'm managing volume better, I'm adhering to these basic principles better. Um, so it's, it's easy to be a bad coach, and it's really, really hard to be a good coach. Um, but I think, like, knowing more, trying harder, and just repeatedly, you know, doing that over and over and over, will get you closer there.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:34:32]:
Yeah, it's really cool. Uh, the, the one thing that both of you like this, uh, gave me the idea or reminded me of is this concept that I've been considering often lately is we, as humans, lifters, coaches, all of the above. Any other permutation in there is that we have this desire to go towards this optimization, especially now in modern lifestyles. And I look back at some early programs recently that I wrote and looking at, well, how can I optimize to get as many qualities at the same time? I was like, you make that mistake where you're trying to have everything, and the reality is exactly what you guys are talking about. There's these trade offs that you have to make to be able to get the specific qualities that you're looking for or get the intended result. It's like, well, we want to be able to have them look like a bodybuilder and snatch a world record and also have a six minute mile or a four minute mile. The reality is that we're trying to confuse too many things and we're trying to create this optimal human that doesn't exist or this optimal idea, this, this idealistic version of what we think we need versus what's actually reality.

Joshua Gibson [00:35:44]:
And James Hoffman calls that the blender effect, which is when you're trying to train for everything all at once. You take all the ingredients you have, you throw it into a blender, and then you taste it, and you're like, well, but I had caviar and I had, you know, I don't know what else people like Nutella, like those million.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:36:04]:
Million dollar burgers where they, like, wrap it in gold fully and you're like, does it taste like, does it tell it tastes great? Like, not really. It just kind of tastes like a burger, I guess, with a bunch of stuff added to it and. Yeah, whereas, you know, I look back at, you know, my time in software and whatnot and working with people in that regard where they want to have, you know, the priority is this and this and this and this and this. It was like that idea of, well, the priority is all these things. It's really, the priority is nothing because we're so scattered and we're so distracted from where things are.

Joshua Gibson [00:36:40]:
Yeah, well, I think that takes, that takes being able to have athletes for a long enough period of time to say, I don't have to, like, hit the panic button and do everything all at once. It's like, oh, you're just coming back from a layoff. Let's do some light training. Let's just do high volumes. Let's do like, you know, really technically focused variations. And, yeah, you're not going to be able to go heavy for a while. And, yeah, you're not going to be able to do x, y and z for a while. It's like, we don't need to do it right now.

Joshua Gibson [00:37:05]:
I don't want you to. I don't. I don't. And, like, I don't know how strongly backed all of the, like, training residual stuff is, where it's like, max strength holds on for this long. You know, muscle size holds on for this long, but, like, if you can at least conceptualize it like that, you can think, we don't need to be as powerful as possible year round. We need to be that at a certain time point. We need to be peaked with that quality at a certain time point. So we can spend some time on the back end doing technique work capacity, hypertrophy, strength, rate of force stuff, and you can see that logical sequence, and it actually makes sense.

Joshua Gibson [00:37:39]:
Instead of saying like, oh, I'm going to write the perfect program that does everything, as you mentioned. And it's like, by doing everything, you can't allocate enough space and time to any one thing to make a meaningful difference. So, yeah, you're right, you're kind of doing nothing. So it's like, by subtraction you get an improved effect or a better effect.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:37:57]:
Yeah, go ahead.

Max Aita [00:37:59]:
No, no, no. I was going to say to kind of go back to the original question of, like, what would you do differently, I think, and what Josh just said, which is like, you know, we'll have times of higher volume or lower volume, and maybe you're not going to be at the same place all the time. I think the two things I want to say is, one, I think that largely, people get to a place where they achieve some level of success, and then preservation of that success becomes their objective, which is to say, oh, I got to this numbers where I'm doing 110, 130, and if I back off on pushing, if I don't, if I don't snatch 105 every week, I'm not going to feel okay to do 112, right? And coaches get there, too, which is like, if I don't keep my athlete happy or if I don't do this. So you end up at this place where you're kind of largely just one. There's one note being played the entire training year, and you see this all the time. Athletes achieve a certain level, and then they just kind of stay there. And now at the highest level, that would be expected, right. If you're snatching 165 and Clintrick and 200 as a 73, like, I mean, you're the best in the world.

Max Aita [00:39:20]:
But, like, just maintaining that is enough to be a very, very good weightlifter with a long career, you know, winning. But, like, you know, on the way up, the disruption of ups and downs and modification of training and trying to push the boundary and moving up weight classes. Like, there has to be a. There not has to. It is obvious when I look for, you know, you look at the progression of a top level lifter. It is. Chaotic is the wrong word, but it is, it's. There's a lot of variations happen.

Max Aita [00:39:57]:
A lot of stuff going on. You know, athletes moving up a weight class, going up and down, getting way stronger, getting bigger, doing things that are moving them outside of that homeostasis to drive them forward. Right. And so that's kind of like, I think that's kind of a good, or an obvious thing. Like the barometer of like, how, how much is somebody just sort of trapped in this holding on to pattern of like, oh, man, I got to just keep them where they're at because if they go, if we do anything different, their numbers are going to go down. And if your numbers go down, that's the worst thing in the world. Now, granted, just doing a bunch of training that makes your numbers go down isn't the goal here. But, yeah, I think there's a lot to be said for people get to a certain point where they've achieved a certain level and they want it to be like, they want it to be a permanent thing.

Max Aita [00:40:52]:
And the reality is with performance and with sport, it's just not permanent. It's very transitive. It's transitory. It's like, it's very much, you have it for a minute and then it's gone. You know, you have some strength. You peak, you drive the results up and then they, they dissipate. Anytime you see something that doesn't follow the sort of natural laws of the universe, which is that, like, what goes up must come down. You know, I think that was Professor Bugs Bunny that said that.

Max Aita [00:41:21]:
But it's like, it's like, you know, you have to understand that. And when you become okay with that and you, when you become okay with that because you have confidence in your tools, you have no fear of that situation. You have no fear of like, oh, we're going to go up and down. We're going to get in shape, be out of shape. We're going to push for things because I know that if we follow these principles in training and do good training, we're going to come back up and we're going to be above those levels. When you don't have a good sense of your abilities as a coach or as an athlete and you don't feel you can go from a state of being in shape to out of shape to in shape or work on different qualities, you're going to be trapped in this place where you just try to hold on. And that's when everything gets stagnant. Because you're just, you're clutching those numbers, those lifetime intermediate numbers as hard as you can so that they don't go away because that perfect 111 snatch 121 clean and jerk.

Max Aita [00:42:22]:
Like, you can't let go of that. We'll never get to the big numbers, right?

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:42:27]:
Mm hmm. Yeah. And it, like, becomes that again, that belief about self when we have those. In looking at this from the development as a coach, in being able to bring some of this forward, you know, in looking at what we have for, like, official coaches education in the weightlifting world, because we don't have the same systems that, you know, other countries have as far as coaches education goes, what are the ways that people can start to learn how to figure out how to apply some of these principles to their athletes? How, like, what is that process, what is that process missing now that could be improved?

Joshua Gibson [00:43:10]:
Yeah. I mean, I think from the outset, it's realizing it's, it's having. This might be a jocko, you know, quote, but it's like a white belt mentality. I don't know who said that, but it's kind of that idea of, like, I think there were points where I thought, I know as much coaching theory as, like, I need to know. And then he realized, like, well, what's the theory founded on? And then you're like, well, I need to understand science. And then you're like, well, what's the science founded on? It's like, I need to understand the philosophy of science. And then you realize, like, oh, there's a lot of layer. There's, there are a lot of layers to this, and it's not necessary to know all of it or know all of them or understand it at any, like, extreme level to be a good coach.

Joshua Gibson [00:43:49]:
But it's like that sense of having a good grasp on the complexity of it and then being able to make good decisions off of it. It's like, oh, well, this science says. It's like that. Science doesn't say anything. The research, the results suggest, the available data suggests based on a limited sample, so you can just weight that a little more, effectively alter practices you see sufficient. So I think it takes one, like, this immense curiosity from the people who are trying to know as much as possible and then, um, good communication skills on how to hand that down. You know, Max and I obviously have been in the weightlifting powerlifting, strength sport communication education space for what feels like a long time now. And I think for me, it's always, it's always been not dumbing down anything because I feel like to really sell social, whatever, social media.

Joshua Gibson [00:44:45]:
It should be simple and it should be like things people want to watch. I'm not saying you don't do that, but I'm saying catering explicitly to that is kind of problematic. And then also feeling like the people who are getting into the space, we don't want to overwhelm them with complex information. We don't want to make them have to work. So those two things paired, I think it just waters down the quality of the information and education that comes out. So for me, it's always been, what am I learning? That's what I'm telling whoever I'm talking to. And it's not simple, it's not straightforward, it's not elementary, it's not a 101 class. It can be mechanistic, it can be complex, it can be thought provoking.

Joshua Gibson [00:45:27]:
But the idea is that if you hear it enough, you're exposed to it enough, it elevates you, and then you're able to elevate more people off the back of that. Um, so I would say we're attempting to do that through, you know, the, the company coachlogic. Um, we, we specifically have a mentorship group where we have on experts in the field of strength, power and performance science. And then we talk about tapering. As you know, Hayden Pritchard has done almost all of the work on tapering and strength sports, specifically weightlifting and powerlifting and maximal strength. He literally talked about all of it. So it's like, what other access are you going to get to the people who are conducting the work? Chris Tabor talked about a situated, eccentric loading. It's like, oh, power and grace uses weight releasers.

Joshua Gibson [00:46:13]:
Let me ask one of their staff. It's like, you should probably ask the people who are studying it and understand at that level and then start to implement into practice and say, okay, let's use a process based approach to figure out if it works or not. Um, so I think it's, it's, it's one not watering anything down, providing great information, and then saying, how do we connect you with the people who are developing the information and creating it and then give you the skills to understand it? So that's, that's the approach I think should be taken and that we're, we are taking that currently doesn't exist as well outside of the scope of, like, here are the positions of the lift. Do it like this. Here's a basic, like, you know, you start with a medium amount of volume. You start with, you go to a high amount of volume. You deload. And then you test, you know, beyond that stuff.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:47:03]:
Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's the. The certification processes of. Here's how to teach a lift. Now go do it and fly a little fishy. Good luck. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's been the most.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:47:19]:
What's been the most as you guys have launched this mentorship process and bringing in the scientific advisors, people teaching what they've learned, what's been the most surprising thing that has come through in including all these people into this mentorship group?

Joshua Gibson [00:47:37]:
What do you think, Max?

Max Aita [00:47:41]:
That's a good question, I would say. I mean, for me, what's been, I'll say most surprising, but sort of like, the thing that would stand out most is just that there's one I hadn't spent nearly as much time connected to weightlifting research as I am now, especially Josh has kind of been basically my connection to that. But I had a meeting a couple of weeks back with Chris Tabor and Christoph Kipp, and I was asking questions that were like, hey, so, like, what kind of information do we have on, like, the, you know, the muscular actions that occur at each phase of the lift and what's going on? He's like, we don't have any of that. He's like, he's like, there's like, there's, like, five studies. There's, like, five studies maybe that would have something like that. But what you're asking, like, kind of doesn't really exist in any form that we have. And it kind of made me realize one with a mentorship group, like, we have lots of little pieces of information, little. Like, it's like we have a little tiny flashlight.

Max Aita [00:48:57]:
We can shine the dark and see a thing, and then we're trying to figure out what the thing we're looking at is, and it's become very much more apparent spending this much time around with, you know, more. Much more academic, you know, grounded people, that there's just a lot of. A lot of, like, the it depends answers, but also, like, just a lot of, like, we don't know. We're not sure. We have some evidence that supports this or there's a lot of evidence that supports this being the case. So we're clear on some things. We're clear enough that we can really develop training and coaching around it and other things we may not be wrong about, but we haven't really corroborated it yet. We haven't really found evidence to say that why it's happening or why it works.

Max Aita [00:49:52]:
So the mentorship group has given me just from that perspective, like a whole much better handle on, like, yeah, there's, there's really a lot of not definitive answers out there. It doesn't mean we're not right. I mean, we've produced everybody. You know, there's people that win competitions, so something is right, you know, like, we can't deny that. But it's like, definitely like, oh, well, what's, you know, what's, what does the research say about this? Well, there's just not a lot, you know, or there's nothing there. So it's like you have to sort of formulate your own thing and kind of go from there. And I think that's kind of the, for me, the most surprising thing. Or not surprising, but the most, like, you know, interesting part of it.

Joshua Gibson [00:50:35]:
Yeah, I would say that it's kind of to your point about the flashlight analogy or. Yeah, I would say that there's a book by Carl Sagan called the Demon haunted World, and it's science is a candle in the dark or something along those lines. And that's kind of the point. In all scientific disciplines, it's really a small light in a very, very dark room. And because it's a small light, you don't know how, you don't know the dimensions of the room. So you're kind of just like stumbling around and you find things, but you can't put them into context because you're missing, you're missing more information than you could ever understand. Because we're limited by our senses. Our senses only pick up certain sensory information.

Joshua Gibson [00:51:23]:
There's a whole conversation that extends off of this about like, the expansiveness of what exists. Um, science gives us a slight insight, and I think this is where our pragmatism comes in. Max and I, we're really performance driven. It's like, are you getting better or you're not? What's the outcome we're looking for? We know certain adaptations can contribute to performance. So changes in muscle size, changes in muscle diameter. Right. Um, that's likely going to increase force production. So its probably a good idea to build some muscle if you want to increase your performance potential.

Joshua Gibson [00:51:56]:
And its like, okay, well, what are the adaptations for maximal strength? You should probably drive those up. What do they look like in practice? Well, its an increase in a, you know, a high intensity or high load set. Okay, so we got a pr in that were probably stronger, and then its like, okay, whats the technical change, the coordination, adaptation? We use, you know, certain constraints to drive that, and then we sequence that into the full lifts. Oh, we snatched a pr. That program worked more than it didn't, you know, because we made. We made progress, and then it's using that again, that iterative process of getting closer to best. But all these studies, all this information, when you kind of unpack what science is, you realize there are tons of limitations. I mean, I read a.

Joshua Gibson [00:52:42]:
I read a paper, I think it was a review paper by the lead author was Roberts, Mike Roberts. But it was on sarcoplasmic hypertrophy. And it's like, here are studies that show that it could happen, and this is what it is. Here are studies that show that it didn't happen. Why is that the case? Why don't they all show the same thing? And it's like, oh, because of the methods, the measurements, the subjects. Like, there's so many limitations and so many constraints and so many concessions that it's like, let's get closer to better or best. And to Max's point, people are still making progress and still winning championships and competition. So we're not completely wrong.

Joshua Gibson [00:53:24]:
So we have to define, you know, coaching expertise differently than if we were just basically on purely, you know, an understanding. And Cote and Gilbert have, they did a paper on coaching effectiveness and expertise, and they have, athlete outcomes is one of those criteria. It's like, how are your athletes performing so you can have all the knowledge in the world and then the application of that, what does it do? And I think what we're trying to do is basically merge those two to where people can get results. People can know how to get results, but can we merge them and get better results? And we're just, hey, we're saying, let's triangulate all the information we have and bring that in. I mean, I'm not against, if you give me a paper, you know, some pain science thing that's on rehab, and it talks about, like, load management and load tolerance and training tolerance. And it's like, we should probably have an intro week or a ramping period into higher volumes. We probably shouldn't just be thrown into it. That makes sense to me.

Joshua Gibson [00:54:24]:
And then if you can take information from, like, skill acquisition and apply it and from whatever biomechanical space and apply it, and you start to piece together what looks like, you know, performance science, and that's basically what's been done, and that's what we're trying to proliferate and educate people on.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:54:41]:
I really like that in preparing for this and thinking about the questions I wanted to ask and some of the avenues I wanted to go down. That was very much one of the things that was coming forward for me is exactly what you said of being able to take that pragmatic approach and still be able to look at what is it that we currently understand, knowing that that may change over time, our results are still being driven forward, and our ideas or our understanding of why that worked may change. And that's what's really cool about the scientific process. And looking at that from Max, you've got your years of experience and applied sides of this. And, Josh, your side of the academic side of being able to put those two things together in a way that is still coaching athletes and still driving them forward is really neat and really, really cool.

Joshua Gibson [00:55:30]:
Well, I think we. I think. I think Max and I got. I don't know. We have, like, different backgrounds, but we've kind of converged to where it's, like, highly, you know, analytic. I don't want to say data driven, but it's like. It's. It's informed.

Joshua Gibson [00:55:45]:
It's very informed. It's as informed as possible. It's like that curiosity piece is almost as important as anything else. It's like, how do we. How do we get people better results? How do we get people stronger, performing better? Like. Like, the entire process, like, enjoying training, doing well, looking good, all of it. And then it's, you know, and then it's coming from the experiential side of having done it and having worked with coaches, and it's not resting on the laurels of. Yeah, but if you do, it's kind of a common, you know, joke now, but it's like, if you do a Texas method, you'll get results.

Joshua Gibson [00:56:20]:
It's like, maybe you will. Maybe fucking hate training after you do it because it's awful. And, like, I've done, you know, that whole thing and missed a fifth rep and a pr set of five more times than I can count, and I hated it. That's not fun. Um, at the same weight every time. Uh, so I think what we do is you like experience, theory, curiosity, all these things. You put it into a cauldron, you bubble it up, and then you get coach logic, you get kind of the products that come out of it, and you get our coaching.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:56:52]:
That's really cool.

Max Aita [00:56:53]:
Yeah. I think that, just to reiterate, one point Josh made is curiosity is, like, probably one of the most fundamental cornerstones of being good at anything you do. Because inherently, unless it's something like, something that comes so naturally to you or something that requires no skill, right. You're going to have to try to get better. So as a coach, I can't imagine being a coach and not having a sense of curiosity, how can I get better? How can I do this? How can I do that? And it doesn't necessarily mean that your curiosity is always reading research papers, but if you just believe you figured it out in anything, whatever it is, software development. Right, like you've got to keep pushing yourself outside the box, outside your comfort zone, trying to learn, trying to figure things out more. Like that's just so fundamental to being any kind of successful coach.

Joshua Gibson [00:57:58]:
Well, if you think about this in the context in which it occurs, which is a pool of coaches, and as that number increases, what you're going to see is that more people are committed to the process and learning more and understanding more, which is what we're seeing. Like, we have people in the mentors, I have a lot of friends in coaching who are like sharp. They're sharp, they want to know more, they're curious, they have like this intense thirst for knowledge, information and applying it and they're, they're crushing it and it's, you realize that like there's a, there's a process of evolution by natural selection and it's like the people who are most fit are going to thrive and the people who aren't, I mean, they're just not going to do well. I mean, and they might, you know, work with a few people and have it as a side hustle, but it's like as the space increases in size, you just have to be better at what you do is you're more well rounded. I mean the people who are in, you know, more popular spaces or bigger spaces, like in medicine, it's like those people have the most freakish cv's and backgrounds and like time just like logging hours in a hospital or wherever and it's like, oh, you have to compete with that because that's the standard now. It's just in coaching, the standards always been floor level. It's like, yeah, do you have a pulse? Well, you're not going to get up off the ground, but maybe you can like, you know, uh, send me a voice note later of like my workout. Um, so I think it's just elevating from that point to, you know, kind of where other professional sports are.

Joshua Gibson [00:59:26]:
Where we've talked to Aaron Kunanen who works for the Reds, he's the director of applied sports science. They have force plates and pitching mounds. You know, they're looking at every single thing you can look at to say that was a great pitch, it was a home run, it wasn't the pitcher's fault therefore. And they're connecting, you know, they have more data, they're, they're trying to make more sense of it and they're, they're utilizing it differently and I think that's where weightlifting should go if it wants to like become a professional sport, a legitimate sport, but also that's like natural evolution of a sport is to not just kind of be satisfied with like good enough.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:00:01]:
Yeah, wanted to push that next level. A mentor of mine reminds me constantly of ill take curiosity and discipline over inspiration and I forget what the other thing he says. Inspiration and motivation any day.

Joshua Gibson [01:00:17]:
Yeah, thats great.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:00:18]:
And Im reminded also of something I heard on another podcast in this idea of curiosity and driving yourselves forward, especially as us coaches and being, being curious in that regard is, is to stop thinking like Newton and start thinking more like Darwin. Start thinking about how things became, the way that they became versus what they are, especially for like new coaches. I found myself in that of like, tell me what the answer is so I can learn the answer and I compare it back to my athletes or whatever it is. Tell me how I'm supposed to program instead of like diving into that. How am I supposed to program? How am I supposed to make those decisions? How am I supposed to cultivate what that looks like as a coach.

Joshua Gibson [01:01:00]:
Yeah, the thing about that is that's hard. That's really hard because the way I've learned and the way Max has learned, I someone's like, I was, you know, showing people how to count cards at a local meet recently and they're like, oh, thanks. Like, I never thought of that. And I'm like, yeah, you know, the first time I had to count, Glenn Pinley was like almost blind and post stroke and I was at the Arnold and he's like, hey, can you come in the back with me? It was like an a session and he just kind of sat in the corner and he was like, here's how you count. And then he just sat there and he was like dead quiet. And I was like, I guess this is like my life now. And I learned, like, I counted and I think I could have made a better decision, but the guy crushed it. And after that, it's like counting it.

Joshua Gibson [01:01:43]:
A fucking meat is the easiest thing in the world. Like, I don't know why people get super stressed about it. Like, yeah, if you have ten athletes on the same platform, that's hard. But like counting for one person? Are you kidding me? That's the bar. Like, that's real.

Max Aita [01:01:56]:
The story would have been so much better if they all bombed out.

Joshua Gibson [01:02:01]:
But that's the thing with this program, is sometimes you get frustrated because it's like there's no stock ready made way of doing anything. It's more so like, hey, here's some force plates, go collect some data. And it's like, what do you mean? It's like, yeah, go figure it out. And thats the process. And thats kind of where you get thrown in with all of this stuff. And I think that doesnt feel great. People want to pay $150 for the solution, but its like you pay $150 for the opportunity to find a solution, not for the solution. And that sucks.

Joshua Gibson [01:02:35]:
I dont like it either sometimes, but its far more valuable that way than it would be to pay $150 for a pre written program that gets you success. Because then what do you do? You just give that to your athletes and you done. You're done. You retire feet up, you're in Barbados with a, you know, a mai tai on the beach. Like, no, you know, it's a process. And you figure out the fucking process.

Max Aita [01:02:56]:
Well, you don't want that.

Joshua Gibson [01:02:57]:
Oh, I mean, that's later, Max.

Max Aita [01:03:01]:
I was excited. I was like, yeah, that sounds good. No, we don't want. Okay, sign me up.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:03:06]:
Oh, whoops. Yeah. And as you guys. So I'm curious, how did, how did this collaboration of creating this, how did that start? How did that happen?

Max Aita [01:03:19]:
Josh is. Josh is kind of just a parasite that was hanging on to my ride, my coattails.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:03:25]:
He just started hanging around someday.

Max Aita [01:03:27]:
Yeah. Josh and I had known each other for a while and we were both, I think, kind of in this space of like, so I see it, like, Josh, Josh's podcast and the number of guests he's had on and everything he's done there is, is second to none. Especially, I mean, in the way of thinking world, by, by orders of magnitude, he has the best podcast out there. From a coaching science perspective, the, the problem with a lot of this, it's not to say there aren't good coaches educating people, but what we saw was more like, there's just not a sort of pipeline of scientific evidence research and like high level academic research being filtered into the wasting world in the way that it is in like the powerlifting world. It's so common to see. I mean, how many powerlifting coaches can you think of that would put the words like evidence based or data driven into their bios? Because it's a prolific concept that is well respected in that community. And you don't see that in weightlifting. You don't see anyone that's not true.

Max Aita [01:04:44]:
You don't see a lot of people really sitting there talking about research they've seen or pulling data in and saying, we should do this and that. A lot of it is kind of like, it's probably 90% focused on, you know, they know the tips and tricks and cues and this and that and the technical aspects and, you know, they can also just, you know, whatever, stand in a stand in their driveway and tell you about, you know, why, why it's this way or that way, rather than, you know, not so being super nerdy, but being thoughtful and saying, hey, let's turn every stone over looking for solutions to make us more informed, to make us better so that we can do a better job. And I think it probably comes down to, it probably comes down to, I don't know what it is, why it's like that, but it comes down to there not being anything like that. And if it doesnt exist, then we should make it and we should do something that is to say, hey, lets pull these people youve talked to, youve had so many guests on. Lets create a mentorship program that is built around this idea and try to grow it into something where its a very big group that is very much in discussion about these ideas and doing it in a way thats not dogmatic. Were not saying do it our way. Were saying, lets all try and find some common knowledge and, and we can all rely on it and use it.

Joshua Gibson [01:06:22]:
Yeah. And I think, I think to that point, it just, they're two different perspectives. And I think with, um, the way we're trying to do things is it's forward looking. It's like, if we get more science, if we get more research into the space, we can do more research. If we do more research, we can answer better questions, we can answer better questions, we can create better training. You get more people into the space, you have more funds or resources. So, like, if I get into academia and then I can conduct research, I can answer these questions or better answer them or provide answers. So it's like, how can we create something by which the condition is met to build better coaching? Or you can be in the coaching space and think of like, what do I look back on and rely on? And it's like I read all these russian manuals and whatever and like, I'm up to speed.

Joshua Gibson [01:07:11]:
I don't need to look at research or science. The reality of it is we're able to talk now because of technology, which is built on the back of curiosity, intellectuals, science, rigorous thinking, testing. So we'll say that, hey, in medicine, I love science, I trust it, I believe in it and all these other pursuits, but in coaching and performance, we don't need that. And that's like a weird thing, right? And I think a lot of it is. It's the intellectual rigor of it. Um, you know, because, you know, science has been there. I think I pulled up something that I found interesting. The first, um, the first kind of like controlled trial, um, like scientific trial was actually in 1747.

Joshua Gibson [01:07:59]:
It was on a ship where they were trying to cure scurvy. Um, so it's like for hundreds of years we've been using the scientific method to, to say, like, if we do this thing, what's the effect? Is it better than not doing it or something else? Okay, now let's, like, look at that across time with different populations, and then we can get, I don't know, we can get, uh, we can get vaccines, right? That can help render a pandemic kind of like more manageable. And that happened fast because resources were pumped to it and research was done. So science has a place, the scientific method has a place, and it's like, how do we, how do we embed that in coaching, embed that in weightlifting and then take that forward to answering better questions and creating better solutions or finding better solutions for all of the, all the, all the coaching and performance concerns we have, which is how do we get everyone better and how do we get them to be the best they can be? So that's, that's kind of where I think the mindset shift is, has gone to, for us.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:09:00]:
I really like that, especially, you know, being a newer coach myself, of, like, it's oftentimes where you do feel lost in, like, where do I go? And so that you start looking for any solution that anybody's got in the, especially in the social media space of, well, this person's posting a lot of things that make sense on the surface, so I'm going to move this way. You know, many of us as coaches, we're, we're, you know, we're, we're, we're good at the relationship side or we're, we're good at the relating to our athletes because we've either been athletes or we're just, that's a strength of ours. And to your point, Josh, of looking at the, you know, the academic rigor side of it, is, is foreign to many of us who, who may not have studied in that or it's been a while since we have studied something like that. So I do, I do appreciate and I do enjoy like, that this is something that you guys are bringing into the world. So thank you for that.

Joshua Gibson [01:09:50]:
Thank you.

Max Aita [01:09:51]:
I think there's, like, to add one more point to the social media thing, too. Like, presenting the illusion of expertise, intelligence, experience. Like, knowledge is easy to do, right? If you speak with a lot of confidence, if you have an Instagram account that puts out lots of tidbits and factoids and, you know, these things, x and the check mark, and, like, this is wrong, and that's right.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:10:23]:
Standing in a grocery aisle and screaming at that, this is going to kill you if you look at it.

Max Aita [01:10:29]:
What's his name? What's that fucking guy? Doctor Saldino, who's just, like, full of shit. Like that guy. If you just tell people stuff with lots of confidence, it becomes very easy to present a facade. Present day. Hey, this guy must be an expert because he has a lot of followers. They have a lot of followers, and they're just giving all this info out. It's like a squat university thing, right? It's like all of those things are largely just sort of. It's designed to do something.

Max Aita [01:11:04]:
It is a sales pitch, right? Or it is a lead magnet. It's just trying to pull you in to sell you something later. Not to say that there are not, we don't run businesses that try to sell people something, but the difference is that it's, you know, somebody who is designing the business to sell to make a profit versus having something to offer and then monetizing that by selling it. And so, yeah, it's like a, it's a, like you said, like, young coaches get sucked in. It's like if you're imagining your entire weightlifting knowledge, your entire career knowledge base, the place that you retrieved information from was just a million collections of 32nd Instagram posts. Your whole understanding of this snatch and the clean jerk is, is these and check marks, you know, like, oh, first poll is actually a push. Like, that fucking cares what it is. Like, how do you do it? How do you get someone to do it better? Like, it's just like, a perfect example of, like, that's people's understanding of, like, a foundational.

Max Aita [01:12:15]:
How do you become a wizarding coach? Oh, you go on YouTube or Instagram and you watch little tidbits, and snatches are this way, jerks are that way. And if you ask someone who had a knowledge base built entirely from the ground up that way question that required them to think fundamentally they couldn't do it because it's just a collection of little pieces, not actually a good understanding of, like, well, what do the muscle, like, what makes, you know, joints move? How do they move? What makes muscles work? What? Yeah. How do you coordinate a bunch of muscles together to create a movement? Like, all these things start to become easy. If you have the fundamentals and the broad base, it's very easy to get to the other place. You can't go the other way, though.

Joshua Gibson [01:12:58]:
Yeah. It's almost, when I think, too, you have to avoid. This is very tough, and I think my disposition doesn't allow me to do this. You can't say I had success, therefore it was my method. We failed, therefore it was them. And no good coach. I mean, you can do that, and sometimes it makes sense, but, like, realistically, okay, but how could I have curtailed the situation that we would have had success? So I think a lot of that is, like, what's the other jocko thing? Something about responsibility. Unreasonable responsibility.

Max Aita [01:13:37]:
With great power comes great responsibility.

Joshua Gibson [01:13:39]:
Exactly. But it's like, it's saying, as a coach. Yeah, as a coach, like, I can do. I can have influence over everything. I can make decisions that impact everything. And when something doesn't work, it's. It's because I didn't make the best decisions. And, like, yeah, there's.

Joshua Gibson [01:13:57]:
There's a lot of, like, falsity in that, but there's a lot of empowerment and just accepting that lot. Um, and there's. There's another. There's another anecdote, and it was like, someone, when woman was at a cocktail party and she was, like, talking to a psychiatrist or someone and talking about, like, oh, well, you know, um, is this thing. Is this issue I have, like, is this something that I have to deal with, or is this something that I can, like, change? And it's like, well, why do you want to know? It's like, well, if I can change it, then I have some sense of responsibility and some sense of, like, autonomy over it. Um, if it's something I just kind of have to deal with, it removes personal control. And I think, um, people getting into the space, you get all these facts, and then you have success, and it's like, it's all me, and then you have failure and it's all them. And it's like, personal responsibility.

Joshua Gibson [01:14:46]:
Personal control, like the failures and the successes. And then I think. And that's why when Max and I talk like we had an entire conversation over coach education and kind of the space. We didn't want to say, like, do five sets of three and 70% week one, four sets of 375 percent week two. Test your best triple on week three. Because that just, it's unhelpful. That doesn't really do anything. And I think it creates this false illusion of what coach education is, which isn't prescriptions, you know, it's direction.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:15:20]:
Yeah, you create, if you go down the route of giving people prescriptions or even to the point of the, the series of YouTube and YouTube university clips or Instagram university clips, is that you create this idea of if then else. And so then you're no longer, you're no longer actually asking questions, questions you're looking for. You're grasping for solutions. It reminds me of some of the early ideas of AI that people were putting out, which were just decision trees. And I was like, this isn't an AI. This is a bunch of if then statements that are just looping themselves somewhere and we have no idea which ones are actually effective or not.

Max Aita [01:15:58]:
Yeah, well, it's like, that's, and that's a great point because it's also understanding the difference between those two things, which is like deterministic and non deterministic because we function in a non deterministic space. Here you give an input to an athlete and you're not sure exactly what the outputs. It's not always the same. And that kind of thinking is so difficult for people to wrap their minds around. To touch on the point Josh made earlier, you know the logic of saying, when it rains, the ground gets wet, and then you walk outside and the ground is wet, you would then be like, oh, it's raining. It must have rained. Well, no, those are not connected. This is not the same.

Max Aita [01:16:47]:
Like, that logic doesn't work. It's the ground gets wet when it rains. The ground could also just be wet. Like, that's not, you know, it's not always that way. And so it's this thinking, which is the YouTube university. The sort of Instagram stuff is like, how to fix this? And it's like, here's the cue, here's the exercise. And those are good starting points. Sure, it's fine to say, hey, how do I.

Max Aita [01:17:14]:
My snatch is weak. Overhead. Overhead squats. Like, sure, that's obvious connection. But it's the more broad sense, which is like, how do I get better? How do I become a good lifter? How do I get stronger? And it is not a, it has to be principle based, it has to be rooted in trade offs and a non deterministic system that you would have to understand that doing this is likely to produce that outcome. If it doesn't produce that outcome, maybe something else needs to be addressed.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:17:48]:
Absolutely. Well, gentlemen, we are coming up on the end of our discussion. Final thoughts. Josh, anything that you'd like to share with the audience as a final thought?

Joshua Gibson [01:17:59]:
Yeah, I would say that a lot of this was built on the back of and kind of to Max's point, it's like, I really found a deep interest in weightlifting specifically, but it was like philosophy and science and, like, having them, having those two worlds merge where it's like hard sciences, foundational information, ways of thinking, because a lot of that stuff actually think back on it. I'm like, oh, it makes more sense now in the context of training than it did then, even though I had access to the same information. And it's also that idea of just because it doesn't matter now doesn't mean it won't matter later. So all the. Put all the work in early on, later on, you can access it, utilize it, inform everything that you do and understand. Um, so I thought it was a great conversation. Jeremy, super appreciative that you had us both on. Um, thank you.

Joshua Gibson [01:18:50]:
A great time. It was a great time.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:18:52]:
Awesome. Yeah. Thank you very much. Um, in looking at how do, how can people get ahold of either of you? How can they learn more about the coach logic. Coach logic mentorship program?

Max Aita [01:19:03]:
Yeah, I mean, check it out. You can, you can find us both on Instagram, obviously. Uh, I think Josh will give his, but you can find me Max underscore Ada, Max Ada. You can email me, you can check out the coachlogic mentorship, shoot us a DM, either one of us, on Instagram. And then if you're interested, go ahead and check out anything else we offer as far as coaching and whatnot. And then we'll be relaunching the coach logic coaching platform in June. So beginning of June, right around nationals or at nationals. So, yeah, check that out.

Max Aita [01:19:44]:
That's going to be an entire coaching platform, basically built off of everything we discussed here as far as giving you the tools to accurately track training, deliver training, and do things that are going to elevate your coaching to the level it should be at.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:20:01]:
Awesome. Very cool. Thank you guys so much. We'll have the details on how you can learn more in the show notes down below. Very appreciative of you both being here, and for those of you listening. Thank you so much for listening and supporting the podcast, as always. Stay strong, folks. And most importantly, stay weird.

Joshua Gibson [01:20:19]:
Bye.