What is up, guys? Welcome to another episode of the Assemble Performance Podcast. I'm your host, Justin Jones. Whether I'm hitting the trails, training for an ultramarathon, or pushing my limits in the gym strength training, I've always been fascinated by what drives us to perform at our best. This podcast is for everyone from the serious endurance, strength, or hybrid athlete.

To the outdoor enthusiast who wants to live life to the fullest. I believe that peak performance is an assembly of physical training, mental fortitude, emotional health, and social support. Whether you're training for a sport or viewing life itself as the ultimate athletic event. Join me in redefining limits and living a life full of challenges and adventure.

Let's get into today's podcast.

What's up guys. We've got the first guest on the podcast. We've got Chris Soto and Joe Zubach. So Chris is a former D3 cross country and track and field athlete. And he went to NCAA cross country nationals. He is a certified tactical strength and conditioning coach, and his focus is on hybrid training.

For the last four years, he's run a free online training group for aspiring military law enforcement and fire candidates. He's also coached one on one clients for various military selection courses. Some of his notable clients have included a Navy EOD officer, Navy SEALs, an army ranger, and multiple candidates for other special operations uh, forces selection courses.

While his main focus has been for these tactical athletes, he also has experience designing strength conditioning programs for the general population and endurance athletes ranging from the mile to the half marathon. Chris and I have actually been talking since about 2015 on Reddit. I think it was. I, if I recall, the first conversation we had was about running shoes and a foot strike.

I remember having my phone on. Yeah. Yeah. We were, we were talking about like the new balance, the barefoot shoes and foot strike and all this nerdy stuff. Oh, wow. Okay. So going on eight years now. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's been a while. So good times. And then Joe is a multidisciplinary expert specializing in both strength and conditioning as well as performance nutrition with a master of science in strength and conditioning already under his belt and another master's degree in nutrition nearing completion.

He possesses a unique blend of academic rigor and practical experience. His ultimate aim is to leverage this comprehensive skill set to empower tactical professionals, helping them optimize their performance on and off the battlefield. Joe's education and certifications underscore his commitment to fusing the realms of physical fitness and nutritional science to yield evidence based impactful results.

And Joe is also a coach in the training group that Chris runs. I've known Chris for what? How's, what's going on? Like four or five years now? Since COVID, right? Probably. Crazy times. Good deal. I thought we'd start with just Seeing your guys's background. So I thought we'd start with Chris, explain kind of how you got into coaching from cross country and that whole journey.

I mean, so I think my high school coach was, was super into learning about training stuff. I mean, he's always on his computer, you know, English teacher kind of just letting the class read while he kind of looked at stuff on his Mac, like all day long for, you know, for like what our team's training was going to look like that season or whatever, you know.

He had a copy of Jack Daniels running formula, like on his desk that I just kind of picked up one day. I was like, I was a freshman in high school. I'm like, what's this? You know, and, and not really under, you know, giving it just a little glance, not really understanding what the hell I was reading and, and whatever.

But that kind of started like what I guess you would call the journey from then to now to what I know about conditioning mostly. I think that's probably like my, my area of expertise. For like a bunch of different sports. But so like after, you know, after graduating, I kind of just realized that kind of talking on these forums about running, it seemed like nobody knew what they were doing.

And, and especially for people preparing for selection, it seemed like you had a lot of former power sport athlete types trying to run a ridiculous amount of miles to, to get ready for running because they thought that that's what. They needed to do, if you Google what running training looks like, that's what comes up and that's not, that's not really the case.

And they, you know, they end up hurting themselves quite a bit trying to accumulate all this volume. So I guess from there, I just kind of morphed into learning more about what run training can look like, aerobic training can look like for... Non traditional, just like non distance athletes, like they don't have that background.

How do you convert somebody from being, you know, uh, a linebacker or something into a decent runner for these various distances that you have to test for? And, and... Build resilience for I'm on feet, you know, all the mileage that you can accumulate in selection or in your training. And then that led me into Alex Viata's space, which is hybrid athlete or hybrid athletics.

And that was kind of, that kind of brought brings me to now where I kind of kind of learned how to merge the two and be able to progress disparate qualities across, you know, across somebody's training. Yeah. That's a big problem. I saw a lot too. I think we used to talk about it all the time. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Running way too many miles. I, you were actually the first person that explained that to me because I was also a cross country runner and I was over here just running like 60 miles a week and I was trying to lift and you were like, Hey man, the miles are not the goal, like the adaptation is the goal.

Exactly. Yeah. So like, and you can accomplish that in a number of ways that you need the effect most of the time, not, not the, it doesn't, if you're, you're wanting to be like a good runner, but you need to, you need to progress in other qualities, it's not going to look like a traditional program. It's not gonna look like one of the templates in Jack Daniel's book.

It's gonna be very, very different. Right. Yeah. I got a, a handful of questions we can go back to, but first, Joe, do you wanna talk about your background? You've got your master's exercise science, and then you're doing your master's in, uh, nutrition. So I'd be interested to hear your journey to that and what led you to getting a double Master's?

Well, so it all started off with, during covid I wanted to, actually, it was before Covid wanted to get into the space, uh, or at least the performance space. I always wanted to do something within the military, and I figured I could get into some sort of training with that, since I liked performance training, since I was an undergrad, I really got into lifting.

Not as much running like Chris has, but, or yourself, but, and I got into more of the weightlifting side of things and the strength stuff. So I guess that's a traditional path for strength coaches because I played football and did all that sort of stuff. So I wanted to get more education within it. And so that's what led me to my first master's strength and conditioning, uh, through the University of Wisconsin, River Falls.

Studied under Zach Roark, Dr. Zach Roark. And so he really opened up my eyes to Non traditional strength training. So kind of not going directly off of what you see in Western side. It was, his program was more built on fascial training, fascial lines, kind of more of the Soviet approach to training, which has been a little bit more interesting than I guess, you know, you're going to do your three by eights or four by tens, or you're going to, you have to do your Olympic weightlifting and all that sort of stuff.

So we did multiple different things to get the adaptation that you're looking for. You know, everyone says strength is King, but you also need to be able to move, especially as a tactical athlete. So being able to move under load, having that ruck on you, having all the gear and how it's shifting. So having your body be resilient enough to withstand that.

And during that time, I started realizing that one, that side of the house is important, but the nutrition side is just as important. And a lot of people are missing that connection between the two, because I feel like they can eat whatever they want and. Maybe when they're 22 years old, 18 to 22, they can eat whatever they want and they can get whatever adaptations that they want.

But as soon as you start getting into your thirties, late twenties, early forties, 'cause I mean, some of these operators are going till 45, 50 and they're really realizing that they're broken because one, they had improper training and two, that their diet consisted of Chipotle and Chick-fil-A for 25 years.

And just pounding alcohol every weekend and they realize they wish they could go back in time when they're 19, 20 years old, making it out of selection and being like, Hey, I wish I knew the things that I know now when they're hurt and injured and working with me to get beyond that. So that's what led me to my second masters of, Hey, I want to get more of that nutrition side of the house and being able to merge it all together.

Really help those tactical professionals be successful, not only in selection courses, but throughout their careers. So they can leave the military. Hopefully not as broken because as you know, you see them and they're not doing too hot when they leave and they want to fix themselves. And I don't like seeing that.

So having more of that preventative approach is kind of my mindset now. So with that preventative approach for tactical athletes, they're always on the, always traveling, staying in hotels, all that stuff. I imagine it's pretty complicated to even reach some of these guys. Cause they're like, Hey, I'm fine.

You know, I look great. I'm fine. I work all the time. I travel. How am I supposed to eat well? Yeah. So it's, it's going to that, that having that planned and yes, when you're down range or when you're deployed or when you're on a certain mission set, you may not have access to all the proper nutrition that, you know, dieticians can tell you, like we want you to eat your, your fruits and vegetables and stuff.

You might not have access to that. And so it's during those timeframes of one, what can you do with the equipment that you have? So if you have MREs, that's what you have. You have MREs, you can't do anything about it. But what you can do prior to getting deployed and prior to going on these special mission sets is making sure that you are having sound nutrition, having the micronutrients that you need through the fruits and vegetables and a balanced diet, and not consistently eating out and having that inflammatory response with a lot of highly processed foods, and then also having the proper training so they're not just consistently beating themselves down in the gym, because yes, I know everyone loves Crusted and everyone loves that feeling of getting smoked.

But is that really getting you to being the best that you can be for when you go out because if you're slightly injured when before you go on target and you're doing the thing that you need to do, and then all of a sudden you tweak your back because your gears too much or you rotate in a certain way, I mean, that one puts you in danger and then puts your teammates in danger as well.

So having it all together is really important. Chris can definitely piggyback off of that as well. I mean, I guess the, the thought that popped into my mind is just like the, the, the types, if we're gonna talk about top technical athletes, the types that tend to be trying to be, you know, operators and stuff, like, just have this amazing and, and certainly important mindset of just wanting to work really, really hard in their training.

And that can actually be kind of a, um, a bad thing if, if you don't, if, if you as a coach don't pull the reins on them Right. For their training and, and they kind of wanna. They want to fall into the, there's a pitfall of like the memes of like energy drinks and, you know, nicotine and, and bad nutrition and all I need in the morning is a monster and a candy bar or whatever, you know, whatever you want to say, and they go and do this really amazing workout.

Joe said, can certainly be something that they can do when they're younger, but later on, it definitely catches up with you, so. You find that you have guys coming to you and they're not so open to you guys pulling the reins back, you know, and they're like, no, screw you. I've been doing this for years. I'm fine.

Yes. Until they end up in a recovery unit and they're broken and they're just like, damn, I wish I didn't do those things. So it, it's, it's harder with younger people because they feel like they know that, I mean, people do know their bodies better than their coaches. I'm not going to lie. They, they know what's going to work for them.

in the sense of, Hey, I'm not hurting today, but us as coaches can see an athlete dragging in the gym and they're like, no, I still want to push myself. It's like, no, I'm literally looking at you and you can, you can barely move in the gym right now. So I think that that goes to the importance of watching people warm up or even pre session.

Like if you're doing online training, like messaging them, like at the midpoint in the week, like, how are you feeling type of thing? Like, are you dragging or I don't know if you use train heroic or not, but on train heroic, how you can have. That those subjective scores, like how you feel in the day, are you trained, are you tired?

So just consistently looking at it as the coach and being like, Hey, I actually need to pull this athlete back. You can then change their plan in the app then and they're just like, Oh, what happened to it? I don't remember. Like it changing, but it changed and be like, Well, I gotcha. Sometimes though, sometimes the, the, like if they have a bad session and they're like, you know, they come to you at the end of the week and like during their check in and they're, and they're saying like, dude, I don't know what happened this week.

Like, like all my lips went down, like the run was super bad or whatever. And you ask them like, oh, well, like what's been happening? Like what's going on outside of training? Right. Cause it's, this is an hour to two hours of your day. It's not your entire day. Like what else is going on with you? Like, oh, well I party too.

two nights out of this week. Or, you know, I didn't eat, I was working too much, you know, like there's all these things that kind of will reinforce the fact that you know you're not just telling them things just to tell them things like, like a bad session or a bad training week will reinforce the the fact that they need to be on top of everything else in order for their training to be super fruitful.

So. So especially when it comes to working with. Online athletes, like in your training group or some of the one on one remote athletes you might work with. How do you keep in mind, like tag ball athletes have a lot of schedules that change last minute. So how do you work around all the different factors?

Not like you said, not just training, but you've got last minute work schedule changes, you've got like night ops where they don't sleep that much. Like all this stuff that goes into it. You're asking me or Joe? It's open to both of you. I, so having plans when you, when you're building out a good plan for training, right.

Especially working with tactical athletes, you're not going to focus on one muscle group at a time. Like you're not going to have, like, I'm doing a bench day to day because if you're only having one chest push, whatever you want to call it, type of day, and then they have a night mission or their work schedule, schedule changes, and they're doing, you know, duty shift for 12, you know, 12 hours, 24 hours, they miss that window.

And then what are they going to do? Not go again for another week. So it's building those training plans where you're hitting. Maybe full body or doing some sort of split where. It gives them at least one time a week, maybe two times a week of hitting a pattern that you want to hit. So that's kind of the way that I've built it out.

I, I, I think right now, as of 2023, Joe believes that full body training is a good thing for most tactical athletes, just in case that they are getting that. Now, if they aren't on a deployment schedule or they're not dealing with shift work or anything like that, then building more of a traditional split could work for that person.

So, but if they're, if they're moving a lot, if they're doing a lot of things, full body training I think is the way to go just in case they missed consistently throughout the week or whatever's going on in their lives. But yeah, I agree. I think there are also some other instances where maybe you, you can't train at all for maybe like, you know, for same span of time.

I just had an athlete go to go to Japan for two weeks and he told me he basically could get nothing yet because he was in the field the entire, almost the entire time. And it's just, that's, that's fine. You know, I, I think, I don't even think you need to deal with any sort of like real detraining. Just kind of get, pick it up, you know, back up again when, when, when they get back and when they're able to.

And a lot of these. Oops, sorry. Yeah, go ahead. Like I say, a lot of these people too, when they do go on an appointment like that, and they are two weeks in the field or something, they are moving around, they are being active, they're usually under with their gear, they're doing a lot of things that they need to act, they're doing their job.

And that's what the difference is between a person who likes bodybuilding or weightlifting and then someone who's training for performance. The goal is to get them to be able to do their job, not being able to perform in the gym. So when they're out there actually doing what they need to do, then it's fine.

And a lot of, and also if you're deployed for six months or wherever you're going, a lot of times they have something that an athlete can do, sandbags, body weights, you know, a lot of spots nowadays have treadmills and ellipticals at their fob, so it's. All the pens and all the pens. So with those, with all those variables though, there's also a recovery component that comes with some of it, right?

Because this population tends to feel like they're bulletproof and can do everything. So do you guys run into, you know, guys last minute, not up or something, and they're still trying to crush it in the gym and just running themselves into the ground? I have not run into that yet, actually. I, I have seen people that I've worked with that can just consistently try and do stuff like that.

And it's, it's just telling them like, Hey, you need to recover. But a lot of times that's their way of dealing with a lot of stress that they're under and they feel like that's the only way they're going to relieve it or they're going to, you know, explode where they're at. So it's that balance of like, Hey, maybe we 30 minute window.

Or 25 minute window, 20 minute window where you crush yourself in that time and you can't go beyond that just so they do get that, that release that they have because the last thing you want to do is they're under the stress of the job, they're under the stress of the mission, they're under the stress of being away from their families, and the only thing that they have is that, that exercise that they can control.

So it's giving them a certain period and a certain parameters and hopefully they listen to that. And so going back to something you guys, we've kind of touched out a few times on performance. When I was coming up through getting interested in training, there wasn't much, it was either like bodybuilding or CrossFit, you know, CrossFit was the only like performance real focus.

But even then that was a little, you know, not for some people. And so I was training for the, for the Navy. So that was very performance focused. But now like hybrid training has become very popular with like, People on YouTube putting out videos and stuff, and that's kind of more performance focused. So we all have that kind of background of focusing on performance, but I was interested, me and Chris come from an endurance background, Joe, you come from a more strength background, like what your takes are on hybrid training for.

You know, civilians competed in maybe like triathlons and powerlifting or any mix of that Versus what tactical athletes have to train for and deal with like what's the difference there? What are some of the some of the similarities there? I think some of the differences are that like if you're on the civilian side if you're trying to be like a hybrid athlete So ultra marathons and strength training like yourself You get to choose what you want to train for, whereas with anybody trying to prepare for a selection or an academy, you have to train what, you have to train your, your limiter, I think is probably a, at least that's where I go with, that, that's where my head goes to with, uh, my athletes is that we do a battery of assessments.

And whatever is lacking is kind of like what we need to focus on. That was the first thought that came to my head. I would, I would agree with Chris on that. And I would also say that the civilian side, they can a lot of times have more choice in their training schedule and how to build something out. As you know, being in the Navy, you may get tasked out and that task may take you, you think it's going to take you two hours, ends up taking five and you're kind of just SOL and then there goes your day.

Or you think you're going to have, uh, an eight hour shift and it turns out to be, you know, 15. So it's, it's those things that the military controls over civilians, having more of a say, like a lot of times in the civilian world, you got a nine to five job, you know, it's that nine to five military, you could get tasked out, you could have that PT in the morning and it's nothing that you want to do.

And you want to get your training session in, but you know, life happens and you can't. So. It's being able to work around schedules like that and not having as much autonomy as the civilian side. So I think those are the two biggest differences in the way and then also probably some like self perception of what the military should be.

I know I've dealt with a lot of people wanting to look and perform a certain way just because they wear the uniform. And sometimes that's just not realistic with either the timelines that they have or just who they are as a person. So there's that as well. Do you guys have anyone that you work with that's dealing with the military side of things and they're training for some sport on their own personally?

Or is everybody you guys work with really just training for the job? I haven't had anyone train for a certain sport within the military other than just doing like regional CrossFit stuff. I haven't had anyone like actually trying to do like ultra marathons or anything like that. A certain ranger friend of ours, you know, loves the, you know, former, I can't remember what position you play football, but like.

He's huge, right? Like he's, he's, he's jacked out of his mind, but like also like a really good runner and he loves running. I wrote, I wrote, I wrote two programs for him in the past few years because he was just trying to, I think once he actually had to test for something, his two mile time or whatever.

And then the other one was just kind of him just running and trying to get better. I don't think he's braced in anything lately, but that's probably, that's probably the only, the only one I know that's doing like a sport on top of their job. But when it comes to designing programs in your like online training group, you're designing really like a one to many program where you've got a lot of people doing the same program.

So how do you approach that versus your like one to one clients? I think, I think, I mean, for both of them, it was certainly like a progression that I have in mind. It's changed over the years. For the, for the training group, I think lately we've been doing like more, more like a traditional periodization where we do like an accumulation phase and intensification phase and realization phase.

And, and, and you just kind of hop on, right? Like you just follow along and there's not really any modifications for you as an individual. Um, whereas with my one to one athletes. So again, I do like a battery of assessments and then from there we, we look at what's lacking. And I kind of design the program around.

Those limiters. So I'll take one to two qualities and kind of sit down and say, Hey, we're going to maintain strength, for example, but your, you know, your two mile time is kind of, it was kind of slow. So we, we focused more on, on speed development, aerobic development, and everything else kind of supports that.

And if that were the case, aerobic fitness was lacking. And it's just, it's just the opposite for everything else we maintain at a certain volume. It's, we're not progressing it, you know, there's, there's no progression, I guess, for that quality. It's, it's, it's kind of how I do it. I'm actually sure, I don't think I've ever heard Joe talk about how he programs.

So. Like if we're going to talk like an H2F situation and you're working with multiple soldiers at a time, it's building that shell. So you, you know, you're going to have, you're going to have like a push, pull, hinge, lunge, rotation, you know, going in different planes of motion. You have ideas of what you want those exercises to be and you place them in.

Not every soldier can do that exercise or needs a regression because they're on profile or whatever's going on in their lives. So it's, you go to the individual and modify their one to one clients, like Chris was saying, you have the battery of tests and you kind of know what they're going for and you know, are they going to a selection course?

Are they preparing for SFAS, Ranger School, Best Warrior, something like that. Or if they're just preparing for an ACFT or, you know, List goes on of preparations is like you, you kind of aim your, your battery of tests to that. And you kind of mirror that and you go towards those things. And like Chris was saying before you go towards their biggest limiter, because that's what's going to end up screwing them over in the long run on the army side of the house, which I'm more familiar with in the Navy.

A lot of it has to do with aerobic endurance and then also being able to move under load, especially with the rock. So that's most people's biggest limiter. is they're not aerobically proficient. They're like, Hey, I can run. They haven't put a ruck on in, you know, six, seven months and it ends up breaking them.

So kind of working towards that. But like H2F situations, it's mainly working with general population soldiers, if you will. I mean, it's practically general population. So you just got to meet them where they're at and kind of go towards their online training groups with it. I know Chris handles most of that, but it's.

Being able to answer those questions like, Hey, I can't deadlift because I don't have access to this. So you just kind of make the modifications there or, you know, they don't feel comfortable deadlifting because of whatever reason. So you could try and modify or find a way that you get that same type of pattern because at the end of the day, it's not the exercise that you're aiming for.

It's the pattern and motion and movement pattern. And so it's kind of like building off of that.

So you guys both work with people training for selection courses and then maybe people that are already in their jobs So especially on that training for selection courses side, we can look at the physical demands, but there's also mental demands so I know from a civilian like ultra marathon training perspective a lot of coaches like to put their athletes in Like situations that that they have to work through Do you guys have any of that that you incorporate or is it?

Like solely focused on the physical side. I haven't done, truthfully, I haven't done a ton of, or I haven't incorporated a ton of like mental fitness training into the stuff that I do. I think that mostly has to do with the fact that maybe with, with populations trying to enter a selection tend to already be kind of mentally fit, right?

They're up for the challenge, they're emotionally, they, they deal with stuff pretty well. I think the only thing that I can think of that, that. That we've incorporated into the online training group is, is like the incline carry assessment that we, that we do. That's very uncomfortable. People kind of wake up a little bit when, you know, when, when they do that.

And again, it gives them a little bit of exposure to what they can expect. Not just from like moving under load, but also like what that, what that feels like from an emotional perspective, like, like the thoughts that enter your head when you're carrying that thing on a treadmill, like it's, it's, it's kind it can get really dark or, or, or very.

You know, I just, I don't know when I did it, I don't know that I was saying anything else in my head other than, Oh shit, Oh fuck. Like other than that, I don't think I've, I haven't done a ton of that. On my end, I guess what I've done is had them journal, like after a really tough sessions, like I'll put left and right limits on something like I'm going to have you do a really hard run, but your parameter is, is can only be nasal breathing.

Like, you can't do anything else. Is it necessarily the best for them? I don't know, but it's putting in, it's putting in some sort of inhibitor to them. So they have to work harder and see how they feel mentally after that situation. Also, time of day training. So, you know, at the heat of the day, like, of course, it's not going to be as long and it's not going to be as intense because I don't want a heat injury.

And. Having them realize that they will have to work in the heat once they're acclimized. I'm not going to throw anyone in a, in a situation where it's going to be extremely dangerous for them. But, and then have them journal after that. So, so the progression of like a 12 week cycle or whatever from day one to the last day of the cycle, have them look back through their journal and being like, Hey, I progressed here, or we're starting to see a trend.

Like when they're running and going long distances, they start having a lot of negative self talk by mile five or six or something like that. Or we're pushing a certain pace and they have that negative self talk. It's like that will only progress further. So having them see that now and they can address it now so they don't have to deal with it later, or if they are working on it through the selection, um, course that they know it's there and when it's going to hit them so they can talk themselves out of it.

Yeah. So it sounds like you both kind of implement some sort of what I was explaining about like ultra marathon coaches, you know, putting people in difficult situations, whether it's in. Uh, regular training or just in an assessment, either way, I think it's valuable because you really don't know how you're going to react until you're there.

Right. I, yeah. I, and I've seen, I've seen CHP, some CHP programs have like a, like a, I think it's like a long run day or something like that, where they specifically prescribe, Hey, no music today. You think about your why, like there's a prescription for like, Hey, you, you need to think about like why you're doing this ultra marathon or whatever.

Yeah. So again, I haven't done a ton of that, but I mean, the similarity, the similarities between. The ultra distances and, and training for selection to me are kind of, are kind of there in terms of emotional fitness, if you want to call it that. Totally. Yeah. So go ahead, Joe, are you going to say something?

Oh, no, no. So has Fergus like planned anything like that for you before? Programmed anything like that? I've suspected it at times. He hasn't said it outright, but I've suspected at times, like this is much more volume or intensity than I've been doing. And it's kind of stands out in the program. So yeah, I've suspected it.

I haven't, I haven't ever asked him before, but he's, I think he's mentioned that he does that at times. So I think it's fairly common when training for ultra endurance to like, make sure your people. experience those negative emotions in training, that way they get experience with it, you know? Totally. So you mentioned seeing progress from a, like, journaling perspective.

If like, Hey, I felt this way on this run at this time. And like, I was able to deal with that. So with tactical athletes, they're not training for a sport. Maybe their tests, like a PRT or an ACFT or something, you could consider that pretty easy. For people that are training for the job, how do you measure progress?

Do you just measure it like in the weight room and running and expect like these are going to carry over this way to their job? Or do you do anything else different? It's a good question. Yeah, I definitely look at how they're progressing in the training environment. Um, but then also if they're going to the box or if they're going out for two week or like field training session or something like that, just seeing how they, how they work, then seeing how they are.

Feeling under load if they're going to the range, you know, I've talked with some company commanders about getting them to wear full kit when they're doing stuff just to see. Like, Hey, can we actually do the, the mission set within the gear that we need to use? And then kind of have them report back through that to see how people are doing.

But really I haven't, we're not really at war right now. So you can't really be like, Hey, you know, I did, did what we do in the gym and then on the field and like training and stuff like that translate to a mission ready soldier to, you know, go do something. So I guess it's all theoretical right now. Like, we're just hoping like a training environment and a training mission can actually mirror what combat operations are going to be like, but you know, we, we don't know until we get to that situation.

So when it comes to moving with load, that's a big point of debate online. As far as rucking goes, people, you know, you shouldn't like run with a ruck. You shouldn't run with all this load. And then some people swear by it. What is your guys thoughts and approach on that? So once again, going down to context, and it all depends, I know to like Mops and Mows and all of them are like, you know, don't run with the Ruck, don't do that.

Maybe not in a training environment all the time, you shouldn't run with it. But if you're going through an RV school and you've got to make a 12 miler in three hours, you know, and you're running out of time and you want to make the school, you're going to run with that Ruck. So, don't do it all the time, but I think it should be put into a program and properly progress or else people are going to hurt themselves when they have to actually do it when it comes to, when it comes to time to do it.

Or in real life situations, you could have a load on you and you need to run because you're getting shot at or you know, you have creeping mortars or you have something, you have something coming at you. Like you gotta, you gotta run at points with load. So, have the body prepared for it and not be exposed to it at the oh shit point.

Yeah, I mean, I think, so I think everything has an application in the right context. Like, you know, like Joe said, but, but it's like the exposure is good. It's your, if you, if you're going to encounter that at some point, whether it's on the job or in, or in your academy or your selection, like you, you, you need to, you need to be exposed to it.

So like ruck running specifically, yeah, probably not all the time. I'd probably save that for like. Some sort of like, some sort of an assessment, some sort of just like a more intense session that's, that's maybe, maybe you might do once every, I don't even know, most of the rucking that I, that I prescribe is, is like zone two work.

And then every now and again, we'll do like a, a time trial for like, see how, how fast you can do it, a 12 mile or whatever. Every 12 to 16 weeks. I don't know, something to kind of, it's long enough. Yeah, like, like once per block, like, you know, you don't, and then, and then I think, I think maybe I would allow it more for somebody who's very, very aerobically fit.

And then, and then then, even then it's like, we're not, we're not putting, you know, like 50 pounds on you for the ruck run. I'd probably do like 10, but I don't know, it, it just, it really depends. It's hard, it's hard to prescribe that like in a group setting, which is why I do it so sparingly. Uh, I think one, one to one, you just know an athlete a lot better and you know what their capabilities are and what they can tolerate.

And you know, obviously like what their previous training looks like and, and how they've been feeling lately. And so like that can kind of dictate or guide you as to where you place that in a program. I don't know. I was, I was, I guess one of my mentors told me that professional sport, you know, tactical athlete, it's not good for the body.

None of this is good for the body. We're not. Yeah. We can't say that we're here to, you know, make them, I guess, where I'm going with this. None of this job is good for the body. So, you gotta, we gotta give them situations where they're training to be robust enough and also prevent injuries. So it's that reactionary, not being reactionary, like I was saying before.

So it's being proactive with our stuff. So... I don't agree with RUC running, it's in there. So therefore, at certain times, we want to see how they respond to it. And I'm not going to have some brand new private go ahead and run RUC who's never done it before. Not, not going to happen. But if I have a, you know, a sergeant who has been doing it for a while, he's physically fit.

He's not having any super bad injuries, you know, kind of see where he's at because. He's already gone through airborne and aerosol, and he wants to go to the Q course. So just like, they're going to put themselves through something, so are you going to be the one that's going to give them the right prescription?

Or are they going to do it on their own? Because eventually they're just going to do it. So it's like, you got to feed the itch a little bit, because I've seen that. And at the same time, some athletes will just go and do it a lot and be totally fine. Right. You're defying kind of like what, what everyone else is, is kind of saying about like, Hey, you should, you probably shouldn't do a ton of this.

They go and do it anyway, and then they get super fit. And I'm just, that's kind of, that's kind of funny to me. But it works when they're young and that's the thing. I mean this sports, yeah. And the tactical game is a, is a young man's sport. I mean, really that's why the average for military is 18 to 45.

You know, it, it's that, it's that ballpark because as soon as you hit that point, there is a breaking point where if you're 40 years old, you know, I'm not saying that everyone can do it, but you hit that point where like, I can't wear an eight pound rock and carry, you know, my full kit and go do a 12 mile rock without having a week's worth of recovery time because of that.

So there's a reason there's, you know, field grades and stuff like that. So. The young man's game and it's, it's us as coaches trying to make it. So when they do get to that point about when they're about to leave the military or even as a master's athlete, that they're able to function appropriately and have a generally healthy, productive life after their time in service and or sport.

Yeah. So with. But I don't know, Joe, how much you work with GenPOP other than what you would say, like the GenPOP army, Chris, I know you said you work with some GenPOP. So from that instance, what I think has been really good coming out of maybe a professional sport and higher level, like tactical athletes is that focus on how do we get these guys to be able to do their job for a long time when their job is hard?

Like how do we increase longevity? And I think that has good applications, some of the research that's been done and stuff for everyday GenPOP people, because You know, even to be a healthy 70, 80 year old is, you know, very hard. Do you think that there's any lessons from like the tactical population other than like longevity that can be taken in when you train GenPOP or is it more just like this job is just really hard and it's not optimal and you probably shouldn't train like this.

Joe, you go first. I'm going to stick on that one for a second. So I did used to work with GenPOP before I guess I fell into the tactical realm. And gen population coming from where I was is meeting them where they're at and not, I guess, making them something that they don't want to be because at the end of the day, they're paying you for your services and you're, you're giving them what they want.

So it's their goal. So like, if, if. You know, you don't, you have a client who wants to get generally healthy. I'm not going to prescribe them something that is going to make them an ultramarathoner if they don't want to be. So it's meeting them where they're at, trying to have them function at the best possibility where they are, and also working within their timeframe and time limits and what they have access to.

Military side of things, trying to build in like on top of that is I guess more structure in the sense of like, you know, you're going to be at. X, Y time, and then you're going to be doing X, Y, Z, and it's going to run it through a rotation of exercises. So I guess you could put that into like a exercise class or whatever to function that way.

But I guess the correlations are, are very similar between H2F and then GenPOP. It's just meeting where people are at because a lot of times, you know, they're coming to H2F or working at their unit, they don't want to be there. And I guess a lot of general population are doing it because they know they have to do it.

If that makes sense. So it's, it's, I don't know. It's, it's difficult because we want them to be the best they can be. And sometimes they don't want that. Unless you're working with a hybrid athlete who's coming to you because they want to run, you know, an ultramarathon and all that sort of stuff. Then they're really intrinsically motivated to...

Figure out that goal and so you have a lot better options to work with them or working through selection. So I think that's kind of why we gravitate towards those people is because they want to push themselves. But most of the times general population, general soldiers don't want to do that. They just want to go do everything else.

But it, but they have to do it.

I don't know if that helped. Yeah. Yeah. I find I have with ultra runners that I work with the same kind of conversations we talked about earlier. You know, I have people like, Hey, I want to run five, six days a week. I don't want to lift five days a week. And I want to walk like five miles a day and I want to, you know.

Basically just kill myself every day and it's like, you know, also I want to look, you know, shredded. So I've been eating 1300 calories a day and like, I'm tired. Do you know why? It's like, yeah, I do. Yeah. So I guess it, my take is just probably adaptability is like a really good lesson you can take away from, from tactical, tactical athletes too.

And applying that to like a general population, it's just. It's okay to, you know, if not every session is the best, it's okay if you have to miss one because family or work or, or, you know, other obligations that, that pop up. I mean, like, Gen Pops aren't professional athletes, right? They're not, you don't have to be there necessarily.

It's kind of you and your goals, like Joe said, it's, it's, their context is so different and, and a lot of people don't understand that context exists outside of theirs. And so you just, you just kind of have to understand who it is that you're working with. But I think adaptability is one that you can really take away from like the tactile athlete space.

And apply it to a gem pop and say like, Hey, like, if somebody's kind of neurotic about their training, like, Okay, I missed this training session, like, I feel really bad about it, you know, or like, they're, they're getting kind of worked up about something like that. You just kind of lend them a little bit of kindness and compassion and make them, help them understand that it's not a super huge deal.

You just push it back or you push, you shift everything to the right on the calendar. Resilience too. I would say that's a big thing from the military, going to gen pop, you get knocked down, can you get back up and, you know, figure it out and move forward? Yeah. I would say military does an excellent job at that.

I would say any real, I guess, first responder too, like being in that, in that tactical professional space, a lot of that is ingrained into us, so. I feel like too, a lot of the people that I know in various military branches and the military in general, like to be a coach, you have to, you know, at least have some education or like certified.

And a lot of people that I know are very aware of like, Hey, is this person that's giving me stuff? Like, do they know what they're talking about? Or is a lot of gen pop follow, you know, to no fault of their own, because they don't know, fall into like, Oh, this person like has a nice ass on Instagram and it sells a training program.

So I'm going to buy it. Or that they have a lot of Instagram followers and you know, I see that with a lot of young soldiers like, Hey, I want to look like so and so and it's just like, well, you're not on all the PEDs they're on. You don't have all day to train and dedicate, you know, your, your diet and recovery and everything like they do so.

And you don't have their genetics, but what you do have is, you know, us coaches and, you know, dietitians and stuff at your disposal to. To help you with your progress and help you with the job and also have you not end up on profile. So do you guys find you along those same lines, do you guys find you answer a lot of the same common questions around things people see online that are like, you know, just somebody trying to sell something and then they come to you and they're like, Hey, this thing looks great.

And you're just like, no. And that's, that's not cool. Yes. The, the mileage question gets brought up a lot. Do I need to be running a ton of miles to, to, you know, adequately prepare for any selection or academy or whatever. And, and, and then I think the, to some extent strength numbers come up a lot, maximal, like maximal lifts and both of those things are just kind of like, I think there's bigger fish to fry than just running miles and just being super strong.

Although I guess as they say, strength is never a weakness, but, but you don't get tested on it. Right. So those two are probably big ones for me. I would, I would agree on that. And then, you know, just piggybacking, you don't need a one rep max strength. Like no selection course does it. It's not, it's just showing that you're generally strong in that one spot.

It's like, I don't think anyone should be maxing out unless you're doing it for your sport. That's my two cents. I guess what I see the most with me. Is, can you make me a meal Plan the answer I can. I'm not going to. 'cause you're not gonna follow it. No matter what I do, I'll hand, it's gonna throw it out the window because Saturday rolls down and you wanna drink your 12 beers and go to Chick-fil-A.

Not it's like, alright, so meal plans not gonna happen. Supplements, no, you should not be taking. SARMs, no, you should not be going through that, you're gonna get popped on a drug test and it, it's just not worth it. Go speak with your medical doctor if you feel like you're, you're low on testosterone and they'll test you.

Supplements wise, like greens powder, all that sort of stuff, why not? Like, you know, try it, see if it makes you feel better. I'm not gonna tell you to go buy certain supplement, eating stuff like that, but do some research on your own to see if it's going to actually. Uh, improve your performance, um, because I know BCAAs, everyone demonizes them, but like, what if you're not eating enough protein?

Like you're just not doing it. Like why, why not take it to see if it does help you? Because if you're a soldier who eats, you know, like a bird and you tell them to eat more yet they're not going to, but they're willing to take the supplement. Sometimes you just, you take, you take the battles you can win.

So you just give them the education that they need. What other random questions do I get? Oh, here's a good one. Is it a good idea to like do extreme weight cut for height and weight answers? No. Cause you're going to get hit with a PT test same day. I know the army is trying to get rid of that. A lot of places have, but doing extreme cut to make height and weight doesn't make sense.

So just try and make a healthy lifestyle. If you know you're going to fail height and weight, probably fail it this time around and then work towards passing it the next time, because trying to push yourself and kill your metabolism and a lot of your, your body is not good for that one spot, you might, you know, feel the repercussions of it, but build on so you don't fail it next time.

Yeah. A lot of people I work with do the same thing. They'll cut like crazy and then feel horrible during the test. Granted the Navy's test and, you know, isn't super hard, but still. Chris, I'd like to ask you, we've, we've mentioned it a few times and we all understand it, like what you mean by it, but that you shouldn't just run more miles.

Like that might not make a lot of sense to people who are coming from, you know, like runners just run more miles. Like these professional runners run a hundred mile a week. So if I have to go run, you know, a hundred miles in this selection course over the span of a week or two, I should just run more. So like, can you explain why that's not optimal?

Yes, I was waiting for this. Okay. So it's like one of the main problems that, that I think some of these athletes have with mileage is that there's a number in their head that they think will kind of be like the magic. Like if I get to here and I can do, and I get to that volume comfortably and I can sustain that, then I'll be good.

And that's not, not exactly what that means. Uh, any number you throw out there, 30, 40, 50, 60 miles per week is. Very arbitrary. I don't, I don't think that there's any evidence to support like, I don't know how you would like track which candidates are doing what type of training as like, as they're going. I don't think, I don't think they really do that.

I think they take into account like some of your like sport history and stuff, but it's not. It, it's just, gosh, this bothers me so much. It's, it's not, it's not, it's not the best way to go about training. It's like there, there's so, there's so many other ways to, to improve aerobic fitness. First of all, the, the accumulation of mileage, like the, like the progression that people tend to use, the 10 percent rule, I think is very flawed.

Again, it's just, it's just arbitrary, right? So, so for me, if I'm looking at stressors, I, I consider mileage like its own stimulus. So if I wanted to progress someone from zero to, or let's say from 10 to 30 to 40, it's not going to be 10, 12, 16, 20, like all the way up to the number that they're trying to get to.

That might be okay if, if, if the rest of their training is maybe static and they're not trying to progress something else actively. In my opinion, but I'd rather see someone at 15 miles per week for a month. And then this is, this is kind of like a Jack Daniels suggestion, right? The physiologist, not the distiller, where he says you got to hold a certain, a certain volume for about a month, give or take, and then you add a mile per training run for like within your training week with a cap of 10 miles per week.

Which I think, which again is still kind of arbitrary, but I, but I, I think it's less so because you're allowing somebody to adapt to a stress, the, the mileage increase for a while before putting on another one. And in my opinion, if some, if somebody wanted to get to really high mileage, um, training with their running, that's how you would do it.

It's kind of like the stepwise sort of, um, progression instead of this linear arbitrary 10 percent rule that everybody likes to use. Um, I just don't think it has any bearing on, on, there's other things that you could be doing to be, to be fitter and to, and to increase your chances of passing or, or really try to reduce your risk of injury and, and the risk of injury actually goes up.

It's you're trying to linearly increase your volume all the time with no, no deload or with no, with no end in sight, like, you know, but I feel like the 10 percent rule kind of came out of this time where people were. This is just speculation on my part. Maybe, maybe it came out as something else, but people were hurting themselves because they're doing too much.

And so it was like a limit or like, Hey, you should slow down and not progress too quickly. Like when I learned about it, that was the context I learned about it from. Sure. And, and, but even then it's, it's, it's. It's just doing like a blanket prescription for, for everybody is, is again, context matters. So it's, I, I just don't, I don't like it as a, as a, as a progression model for mileage.

But I guess the other side of that also for like, as it pertains to selection is, is people think that they're going to be running at easy pace or at their zone two BT one pace. And that's not, that's, that's. Not what happens, right? It's, it's this like it, but it's this very slow shuffle that's in the 11 plus minute range, right?

Per mile. Like it's really slow and which is actually kind of harder and way more inefficient than actual running at your, at your zone two pace. And so in that instant, I think like rucking and strength training is going to be a weight. It's a bigger hitter for you. Like if you're trying to get into, into selection, you need, you need the aerobic fitness to sustain all of that or to like prop all that up.

But you're, man, it's, it just bothers me so much because I see so many people getting hurt trying to accumulate all these, all these miles. It's not, there's other areas of, of your fitness that needs attention, likely. You know, there's, there's got to be like a curve, right. Somewhere around there, like where, where you're not getting back what you're putting in at that point, at that point, you're just a runner.

Right. Yeah, exactly. That's the, uh, kind of the definition of, well, one of the definitions of hybrid, right, cutting out all the excess and just the essential, so, so being mindful of time, if anybody's like listening, they're like, Hey, I'd be interested in this training group, or like, you know, I realized this isn't.

You know, I'm not doing things correctly and I don't really know how to do things. Where can they get in touch with you guys, find more out about your training group or one on one coaching or anything like that? Are you taking athletes right now? Very sporadically I'm taking athletes just because work and school is a little much at the moment.

But I guess you could find me, AntchoZubik, on Instagram. That'd probably be the best way you could get in touch with me. And then also on the training group with, with Chris, I check in, you know, once in a blue moon to kind of see what's going on in there once per quarter, once per quarter. Yeah. Um, but yeah, no, Instagram would probably be the best way to get in touch with me.

I get, I got also Gmail at the same, same Gmail. So, but yeah, for me, I guess it'd be Christopher runs on Instagram. And sucks at CSS at Gmail, if you want to, if you want to talk about one to one training. Oh, that Gmail sucks at CSS, that's this all go in the show notes too. And Chris, you're pretty active.

Are you still pretty active on Reddit or not so much? Not so much. I guess I, I, I took over our hybrid athlete. Not, not affiliated with, you know, CHP or, or anything, but it's really quiet right now. But I do see a lot of interest on, on that subreddit about like people asking what is hybrid training? Hoping to be a little more active on there and just kind of explain stuff.

Do I, I did one case study, I'm like. If you wanted to combine a running program with like 5. 3. 1, how would you do that? And so that's on there. That, that was a little popular, but yeah, I hope to be more active on there. I kind of explained a little more what hybrid training is and how to program, uh, intelligently for it.

Same username, Christopher runs with Z. Good deal. So before we hop off, is there anything like last minute you guys were hoping to touch on? I think we should do it again. Yeah, yeah, that's fine. We should definitely do it again. Yeah. I think it'll be good to like feedback and see what people are really wanting to learn more about nutrition, strength, conditioning wise.

Yeah. Yeah. We can definitely get some questions together and do this again. I I'm super interested in ranting again. So. Okay. Yeah. We can rant about mileage. If I find another question that really gets me, really gets me hot and bothered and we can, we can do that. I'll just like get a ton of people to ask me, Hey, like.

Cool. But like, he doesn't know how to talk about mileage and then I'll show him to you and you can just get all upset. We'll talk about shin splints and running. There you go. And running shoes. That'd be a good one. Yeah. Cool. Awesome. Well, good to talk to you guys and I guess I'll see you guys next time we do this.

Thank you. See you guys. Yeah. See you guys.