Ep 27: Build Muscle and Perform Better Using Effective Training and Program Design with Eric D'Agati
Eric D’Agati joins me to talk about training.
Eric has spent over 20 years in the fitness industry as a coach, trainer, and instructor. Each year, he travels around the world teaching and speaking to trainers, coaches, and therapists as a lead instructor for Functional Movement Systems and guest speaker for prestigious organizations including Mt. Sinai Hospital, New York University Medical, the Navy SEALS, The Mayo Clinic, and multiple major universities. Eric also appeared in the NY Times bestseller “The 4-Hour Body” by Tim Ferriss.
His list of training clients includes an Olympic Gold Medalist, All-Americans, National Champions, World Series Champions, and Pro-Bowl athletes. He also works with many high-level sports teams from high school to professionals.
Eric’s latest projects include “Diamond Revolution Training,” an online training platform for baseball and softball athletes, and the “Principles of Program Design”, an educational workshop series and coaching service for trainers and clinicians on the art and science of designing training programs.
Topics discussed in this episode:
The top priorities someone should focus on to improve their health, fitness, and performance
The difference between a workout and a program
Competence, awareness, and application as success factors for improved health
Assessing your history, current state, and goals when working with a coach, trainer, or starting a new program
Injury, mobility, and recovery
Learning how to develop movement and increase physical capacity
Improving your body composition
Obstacles that stop someone from performing their best
Developing athletic skill, capability, and capacity
Managing volume and recovery
Exercise selection, unilateral movements, and Eric’s favorite lift/exercise
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Transcript
Philip Pape 00:08
Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast, where whitse discuss getting strong and healthy with strength training and sustainable nutrition. I'm your host, Philip pape, and in each episode, we examine strategies to help you achieve physical self mastery through a healthy skepticism of the fitness industry, and a commitment to consistent nutrition and training for sustainable results.
Philip Pape 00:31
Welcome to another episode of weights and weights. Today I have a very special guest Eric de Gatti, and we're going to talk about training. Eric has spent over 20 years in the fitness industry as a coach, trainer and instructor. Each year he travels around the world teaching and speaking to trainers, coaches and therapists, as a lead instructor for functional movement systems and guest speaker for prestigious organizations, including the Navy SEALs, the Mayo Clinic and multiple major universities. Eric also appeared in The New York Times bestseller The Four Hour Body by Tim Ferriss is this training clients includes an Olympic gold medal this all Americans, national champions, World Series champions and provable athletes. Eric's latest projects include diamond revolution training, and online training platform for baseball and softball athletes, and the principles of program design, an educational workshop series and coaching service for trainers and clinicians on the art and science of designing training programs. He also has a really cool podcast that I've been listening to lately. And Eric, it's great to have you on the show. Thanks for joining me to talk training.
Eric D'Agati 01:34
Thanks for having me. And thanks for being a listener. And we can't wait to get you on there at some point.
Philip Pape 01:39
Yeah, likewise, I love talking this can talk about it all day. And I want to start by digging into your background as a Coach and Trainer, specifically around programming. But I do want to get into performance and injury prevention a little bit later. Tell us about your background, and I guess your unique approach to training and programming. Okay, so the background is that I was always fascinated,
Eric D'Agati 02:04
you know, but the impact of of training and what it can have. And so the kind of to go all the way back, I had a situation where I was always you know, it depending on how loosely use the term I was an athlete growing up. I always loved playing baseball and football were my two main sports. But you get to a point at five, six, where you realize those who can't do must teach. And so how can I get into sports and do something so I kind of always had that in the back of my mind. At the same time I was in my early 20s, late teens and I had some really bad back issues don't know why. And was sleeping on the floor for about four months or so in my mother, you know, because I was just stubborn and stupid. And my mother said look, you gotta go get this checked out. You're not gonna live your life like this. You're too young. So I went to my general practitioner, I didn't know any better wait in the office for two hours to go sit on, you know, the paper for another hour. And then finally have look at my back. I always joke he looked at my back like I would look if you open up the hood of my truck Are you like, I have no idea what I'm looking for. Unless like there's an extension cord on it, right? So he looked at my back like that and said could be anything. And I said really I just waited three hours for you to tell me could be anything. So I got frustrated. And I said, You know what, I'm just gonna go to the gym. I'm just gonna look at every machine or exercise that says back and I don't care what it does or how it does. I'm just gonna try them on I started doing it. And by sheer luck, my back started feeling better. So it got me into investing time in the gym. And I said, You know what, if I'm gonna invest this time, I want at least know I'm doing it right started learning more and more study out. Let me let me give this a shot. And so went and started off with getting every certification that there was and back in the, you know, mid to late 90s. If you sent me a brochure or pamphlet in the mail for Hey, we got a certification, you got a sucker because I would buy it. So I did every certification there was and then I lucked out and met some cool people along the way, I was able to do two levels of Paul checks and internship with him I did two levels of Charles Poliquin 's internship. And then I also got the unique ability to meet both Lieber and great cook when they're in the real early stages of FMS before it was even really a course and so you know, when they had their first one of their first live certification courses, I brought my whole staff there and then kind of got hooked in and kept you know, kept bugging them and they said you know what, you kind of know this stuff, why don't you come help us teach some courses? And that led to Hey, do you think you could teach a course and became one of their lead instructors back in around 2005 2006. And what drew me to the FMS was the same thing that drew me to a lot of those other courses that that I always was fascinated by the assessment piece that you know what, why would I guess you know, I when I went to the gym beginning I guess but if I would have known this information ahead of time and had somebody tell me no, you need to do these and these I could have saved a lot of wasted time. So anything that would teach me anything in terms of better information gathering and data gathering, so you know I did every course I could you know from a fitness side but then also at the same time, my brother was going to school for his doctorate in physical therapy. So I'd steal his books and sneak in his classes and start to learn about stuff like surely SARM and Vladimir yanda and, and concepts of movement and how people can gain better awareness and better performance through those types of avenues. And that led me down to all other trails learning about, you know, Alexander Technique and felt in Christ and all these different I said, you know, what, everybody out here is this one trick pony. And it's all kind of like, pick your guru type of industry, right? I remember early on, I had a check shirt on at a conference and a guy who I kind of knew he goes, I, I know who you are, because you're one of those check, guys, I can't talk to you. I'm like, what does that mean? I'm also as that's your ski guy. I'm also a Poliquin. Guy. I'm also like, I'm about 50 different guys. And why wouldn't you take all those things that you have at your disposal and put them all into one soup? And so ever since then, it's always been this accumulation of what else can I put into the recipe and, and make it better, so I can make this a more efficient and effective process. And that's kind of what the education has been and continues to be. And so trying to look at things holistically and not just go a mile deep, but also be a mile wide. There's a great term that Kelly Surrett uses called being a savage generalist. And that's what I strive to be daily,
Philip Pape 06:21
bother to make sure you're like a sponge. It sounds like you started early, kind of most people have the back injuries later in life, right? And then they go through the MRI process, and they go through that. And then maybe they get lucky enough for someone to tell them, maybe we should start getting stronger. And you came in from the other direction. Right? And then we're talking that the 90s.
Eric D'Agati 06:41
This is mid to late 90s. Yeah.
Philip Pape 06:43
So you actually had to read books, right? You had to seek real teachers for this. Yeah, there wasn't,
Eric D'Agati 06:49
there was nothing online, I mean, my original courses, and now I'm really dating myself, all my original like check information was on VHS, like I have a bunch of stuff courses on CDs. And like for your listeners, I'll have to explain what those are VHS, were big boxes of tape that we get stuck in this giant machine. CDs were these little round metal circles that you'd have to play. And if you didn't stand completely, still, they would skip. But that's how I got a lot of my education. There wasn't a nearly as much available to and so it was it was more of a quest than it was just let it fall in your email inbox.
Philip Pape 07:24
Yeah. And then it sounds like you through tons of trial and error and learning soaking it up and becoming an instructor over time you became a better Coach and Trainer, which I think is a journey a lot of us have gone on, as opposed to let's say the person who gets everything from social media and maybe immediately goes out and is a guru, as you said before. So I guess if we step back and look at the big picture, what would you say from all this knowledge you've gained? And all this synthesis and distillation of information, the big priorities, the big things that people should focus on? If they're just getting started? So they're overwhelmed? Right? They haven't gone through two, three, however many decades of learning that you did health fitness performance, where do they start?
Eric D'Agati 08:07
That's a great question. So the first thing is, be have a critical eye. You know, in even to this day, I always wake up with the assumption that everything I've learned to this point could be completely wrong, right? Because there's a lot of things that we that I did learn back then that are that have been dispelled whether it was at the time, that was the best information that we had. Whether it was remember, you had that magic window, you had to get your protein shake in. Yeah, right. And so that's kind of been disproven, we thought that there was these, these really strict cutoff points that once you got to six reps, that's where hypertrophy kicked in. And then once you got to 12, or 15, then it shut off, well, it's now you can, you can really get that from like three to 30 reps, right. So always waking up every morning and being humbled to say, You know what, everything I learned yesterday could be completely wrong. And I'm gonna wake up today and try to prove it. And if at the end of the day, it still holds, then I promise to keep that in my toolbox. And so, like, if you look at different things that have come along in our industry, if the two extremes like yoga, there's a reason it's been around for 1000s and 1000s of years, because it stands the test of time and there's so much gold and elegance and what is in that model, whatever version of it you've come to know and then like curves was coming on in a year. Right? And so even with those those things like that, and not to to bash anyone model, but there was still something in there that I'm gonna say, okay, it worked for a while. What was it about it that worked? And where did they fail? Well, what worked for a while is they tapped into a segment of the population that we're not getting, and we can get into the weeds on this one that we're failing massively really to get people engaged because the vast majority people don't exercise, right the people that are listening to this or we're preaching to the choir, right it's the vast majority that are that are on scooters and Walmart's that are just broken, that we need to get to. But, but the challenge is, is how do we get to them and what a place like curves that has said, Alright, we're gonna give you a safe place. If you're, if you're someone who's an insecure, maybe overweight and female, we're gonna give you a safe place to work out. And we were to just dumb meatheads to realize the gym business up until recently, was just that it was just a meathead place. It's intimidating people, it scared people away. And so they gave the safe space. So how can we capitalize on that, and just give a better delivery of product, but still capitalize on that, you know, CrossFit, everybody loves to, you know, Crusher, but CrossFit has, has done an incredible job of changing our vision of what fitness is. And for a lot of people out there, up until they came along, it was I go into a gym with shiny machines that I sit on a machine that does one thing I look at the little placard, it says he does this muscle when I do 10 reps. And then when I'm done, I can just go up on another machine, and I just, you know, do that for a half hour, the blinking lights. And that's what I thought fitness was and you know, that really bore the shit out of people and scare people away. So CrossFit made it one where hey, I can I can do some athletic things I can do things that are outside of that that model to is it's tapping into there's there's an any need in our DNA to be challenged, and they push that button you're in said, you're better than just doing a seated, you know, back and forth fix machine, you can do more things. And then the biggest thing is they created a culture where they're, they're extremely loyal within that brand. And so it created a culture where people felt comfortable, and people wanted to be part of that. And so that is those are some of the things we need to tap into in the fitness industry that we're not doing a really good job of, or getting better at it, because we're getting a better demographic involved with us. But that's something that that, as trainers and coaches, that is a blind spot for us.
Philip Pape 11:57
I agree with everything you said there's a lot to unpack, but I want to touch on a couple of things. So the CrossFit story is my story. Just you know, most of my life was pretty sedentary, I didn't have an athletic background like you and it was maybe what we were pregnant with our first kid that I said, I need to get in shape. And CrossFit called to me for whatever reason, and and I credited for learning about barbells learning, the Olympic lifts, right? Maybe it injured me along the way too. But you know, I learned a lot from it. And your your, your insight here about appealing to more people in the average person who who's just sitting out there and not working out? How do we take something that we know is effective, right? You mentioned, I hate to use the term evidence based But effectively, what you described earlier was the scientific method of taking things at work, jettison things that don't and continue to refine what we know. And not assuming that we know everything. How do we take that approach combined with whatever we think is the most effective form of training? Maybe it's maybe it's strength, maybe it's hypertrophy, or whatever for an individual and and get them to do that. So like if, if, if we think strength is the foundation? How do we get more, you know, soccer moms to be interested in that.
Eric D'Agati 13:08
So I think and this is going to be a little bit their different answer than then trying to sell people on strength training, trying to sell you on strength training, or I need to sell the person who has no clue. And if we try to sell them on all the research and the data and all that stuff, they know all that. And everybody knows that we shouldn't be eating cheese filled pretzels at the mall, but we still do it. Right. So I'm gonna say the first two things is in this is a skill set that at that I don't think we have enough as coaches and trainers is we need to we need to be able to, to create an avenue of honesty and awareness. Okay, and I think those those were, that's where we need to start number one awareness to realize that most people don't know what they don't know, there's kind of that famous four levels of competence. There's, the bottom layer is unconscious incompetence, or screwed up, you don't even know it, right? That's when someone walks into me and they do a movement screen or we do something, they're like, Wow, I can imbalance on one leg or I can rotate to the right. I didn't even know, you know, walking around. But now that I know, the next year is that conscious incompetence? Meaning I'm screwed up, what do I do about it? That's where most western medicine leaves, either you're gonna slap you with a label and you have it scientists or whatever they're gonna call it, and okay, I got that, but what do I do about it? Or am I just, that's my scarlet letter, I gotta live with that I have, you know, I have, you know, SI joint issues, or I have, you know, sciatica, or I have all these things that people label themselves with, and they don't know what it means. Then the next step is conscious competence, meaning you can do this, you can fix this, but you're gonna have to be very aware to do it, it means you're gonna have to change your habits, you're gonna have to change your awareness, you're gonna have to, to gain that and once you do that for long enough, then that's going to become natural, it's gonna become reflexive. That's the ultimate layer that we got to get you to is this unconscious incompetence where you don't, you don't think twice about, you know, going in going for a walk as part of your day because that's now part of who you are. And part of that that awareness piece is also getting the awareness of where you coming into this You know, and at what point are you coming into this and I always say, when I write a program, I need to know three things I need to know about your past, what was your medical history, injury, history, training, history, all those things coming into it, because that's all going to factor in that I need to know where your present is. And that's where we really need to be honest. And that's where evaluation will kind of sift some of that out. And it's not to say, Oh, you're dysfunctional, or imbalanced, or all the terms that we like to use, but it's to say, Okay, well, here's where we need to start, right, we can get to a lot of places, this isn't where you're going to end. But this is where we're going to start. And at that point, is an interesting
Eric D'Agati 15:37
awareness piece of where you're coming to it from. So you have two different segments of the population I talked about yet, you have people that are fragile, and yet people that are broken, right, the fragile people are the ones that since COVID, have done, the most movement they've done is to go get up and get the Door Dash, right? That they're very sedentary. And so because of that, their bodies are starting to wilt away and break down. And so that person comes into and they say, Oh, my shoulder, my hip, My knee hurts, right? That's a very different person than the broken person, the broken person is the one who might still be sitting on the couch, doing zooms for the last three years, but they've gone out and they've done obstacle course races or joined CrossFit or did whatever, and now they're shoulder hip, or they're near backwards, they're two very different people, if you just get out your recipe sheet for here's what I do for knee, knee pain, you're gonna fail miserably, neither of those people are gonna get better, because they're there for different reasons. And they also may be going back to different environments. So you need to know, what's the future? Where do I need to get you to? Do you want to just be able to get up and down the stairs without paying you? Or do you want to go play competitive tennis? And part of that is challenging people to say is that all that you expect of yourself, right? So at some point, you look yourself in the mirror and said, like, I don't want to feel like this, like, I'm better than this. And like barbells don't scare me, this is actually kind of fun. And I expect more of myself at my age to then to be doing what I'm doing and, and kind of be able to push that button and have that real adult conversation to say, what is sufficient for you? And are you at that point? And you know, what are you willing to trade off to get to that point, because that may mean you got to go to bed a little bit earlier, it may mean you got to maybe change your your diet a little bit. And it may mean that you're going to have to do some training that may be a little bit uncomfortable at points, but but that's going to get you to where you're going to be satisfied with your level of physical sufficiency. And so that's really a different approach is really coming at it from an awareness and honestly place to say, you know, if you got the if you got the person who's fragile, they're scared to death to move, my brother, you know, does research and he's, you know, looked at outcomes, and he studies outcomes for a living. And he looked at what is one of the main reasons people fail in physical therapy. That is, number one is fear and avoidance of movement. They're scared shit to move, right? So you tell that person, hey, you need to go train and work out there. They're scared to death. So how do I get them in a non intimidating way to get them to embrace movement? And then for the broken person? Right? A lot of times they're broken, because they're the you know, and I'm gonna date myself again, remember Al Bundy, right, sure, for American children, about how he scored four touchdowns in the state championship game? Well, there's an entire demographic that I that's one of the group demographics that I seem to be getting a lot of is that 35 to 65 year old that scored four touchdowns in the state championship game and thinks they're still that person. Meanwhile, they haven't moved in 1020 years. And they want to be that person. And they're frustrated that they're not that person. But they can't. But if they go and start an exercise routine, and they just go load up the bench, and they wrecked their shoulder, like, oh, well, I guess I'm ready for the rocking chair. Now, I guess I'm broken, I can't do that anymore. And it's like, no, you're better now, you may not be able to go back to exactly what you were at 18. But you're gonna be a lot better than you are now. And looking at the, you know, the front, you know, windshield as opposed to the rear view. You know, you got your, your later years coming at you really fast. And what do you want those to look like? You know, Peter tear does a very elegant job of talking about your marginal decade and say that's the last 10 years your life, what do you want that to look like? And if you want to still be able to carry the groceries and go upstairs and not be a burden to your family? Well, we know that just the science shows you're going to lose a certain amount of growth hormone or certain amount of mobility and so forth every decade. So we got to get ahead of that. And if you're 50 Now, that means you should be here if you want to be there. It's 75. So we need to do everything we need to get you there right now. And framing it that way is coming from an honest place that people can really appreciate that you're you're they want to be challenged.
Philip Pape 19:40
Yeah, you're just throwing tons of wisdom at me, Eric, I try to keep up with everything here. But so here's so here's the here's what comes to mind. If someone is listening and they say this is this is amazing. So I need to I need to increase my awareness understand where I've been where I want to go. So it's going to be very goal specific, right? We have to have individualized approach that deals with my injury history and things like that. And I know a lot of people want to figure things out for themselves. Like you said, they're just some people just jump right into exercising. And we talked about the difference in exercise and training, or I think you you talk about a workout versus a program. Yeah. And I mean, short of having an amazing coach like you. And hopefully there's there's coaches out there that are accessible to people. But can can someone do a self assessment and kind of figure this out on their own? Should they be working with a coach? What's What's the thought process? What's the general process to avoid injury and start on the right foot?
Eric D'Agati 20:34
Okay, so yeah, you need to kind of figure out where you're at now, because you need is just as the assessment is, is basically writing your program. So when I'm doing an assessment on somebody, you know, day one, first thing I tell you is, Philip, I have no idea what I'm gonna do with you, right? And you're like, What are you talking about? You're doing this 25 years, you have not, what is your timeline, I have no idea what to do with you. Now, an hour later, I'm gonna have a real good idea what to do with you, and what not to do with you. Because as we go through an assessment that writes the program for me, so it's going to tell me, there's certain things so it's, you know, it's kind of like a menu. And if you have certain food intolerances or food allergies, you know, going in looking at a menu, there's certain foods you just need to avoid. Right? And and same thing with exercise that if you can't touch your toes, and you know, probably deadlifting kettlebell swings, not the best thing for you. Could you get away with it a couple times, sure. But you can also get away with smoking Marlboro reds and drinking whiskey every day for a while. Right, sometimes longer than others. But I wouldn't use that as my my plan for living a long, healthy life. So kind of knowing what that menu is. And then the better you move, the more that that that menu expands, the better more fit you are, the more that menu expands. So figuring out what's my menu to start with, what can I and can I not to doubt the low hanging fruit is like just going for a walk. That's everybody can do that. And some people don't even there was we were talking before we went on and talking about Twitter debates. And like there was a, there was an Twitter debate about if walking counts as exercise. And it made me want to quit the industry on the spot. And it's like, you this is, this is really what we're arguing about why like, of course, it's exercise, it makes an huge impact. Even if you're fit, it's going to make an impact in terms you can use that for recovery. You can use that for a lot of things. So like, how would you This is why people don't want to exercise because we're idiots arguing about trap bar deadlifts, and if walking counts, right? So that's where that's where you kind of start. So a coach is gonna be really helpful to decipher that, because you're gonna save a lot of time. And what is the you know, time is your most valuable asset? It's the one thing that that'll never come back, you know, this day, this time, we'll never be here again. So how much is your time worth? So with that, for me, I'd rather save the time and invest a little bit upfront and say, hey, where do I start? Now, if you get a good coach, the other thing they'll build do is they will not make you dependent on them. My goal is to get the training wheels off as soon as possible. So you don't need me anymore. I don't I'm not here for you count your reps, or count your sets or show you exercises I have means I can deliver that to you through through an app and through videos and those sorts of things. The last thing I want to do is watch you exercise. My thing is to get you the game plan, right, you can get exercise for free on YouTube, they'll pay me for that, right? The thing is, you don't know which ones to do, you don't know when to do and you don't know how many to do, you don't know, you know how to structure all that. So that's what I'm here for. Don't come to me for exercises, if you're just getting exercises, then like, like you said earlier, that's just a workout. And that's not to say a workout is a bad thing. Everyone said, wow, workout may be fun. You can go do something as a workout and it's fun, but it doesn't, it's may not get to your to your goal. That's what a program is. And there's a big difference between the two. Now workouts can be within a program provided they're specific for what your, your needs and goals are.
Philip Pape 23:52
Got it. And I think the parallel in the nutrition space, because that's what I do would be don't come to me for a macro plan, don't come to me for a meal plan, right, we're trying to learn a bunch of skills that'll that'll allow you to fire me in six months, and, and choose how to get to your goal whenever you want in the future. So I like that analogy from a training perspective. And actually a few years back, I my back squat was terrible. And I finally said I gotta get a coach because I had had coaches over the years. But you know, I got stubborn and said I can do this myself, finally got a coach. And in one hour, he fixed the things that had been plaguing me for two years. So just for the listeners out there, the time is money thing is really important because now you've avoided years of potential injury and lack of progress. So yeah, I like that analogy workout and a program. And we talked about it has to be individualized based on your goals based on your movement capabilities. So if and you said people will get stronger generally if they start on a movement, they may be weakened, but let's talk about the what did you say broken I think person fragile, fragile and broken, fragile and broken. And I don't know if broken also includes let's say an older client who might have arthritis in their shoulder and they just can't do an overhead press for example, what? You know, how would you handle that situation?
Eric D'Agati 25:05
So my first question back is why can't they do the overhead press right? So the arthritis doesn't necessarily tell me anything because if you took an MRI and an x ray of everything in my body right now God knows what you'd find. Most doctors would tell me to be to lay in bed and don't move, right but I still do everything I need to do I guess today front squat it I did pull ups and you all those things and and so if we, if we look at a lot of these things, we can get scared. And unfortunately, there's there's some unscrupulous clinicians who prey on that to say, Oh, you have a bulging discs, you have this disc, you have this spinal abnormality, you know, what 90% of people over 35 have that if everybody if all those were all those calls direct back pain, everybody be in, you know, be writhing in pain right now. But they're not most of them are asymptomatic. So why did why is this an issue for you? Is it a mobility problem? Right? And if it's a mobility problem, is that something I can even do something about? Isn't mobility problem, because there's a joint issue while that you may need to get some clinicians hands on? Or it may not be able to be fixed up other than surgical? Or is it? Is it a motor control problem? Is it a strength issue is it isn't any one of these issues? That's what we have to filter out first? So now I'm not guessing. Because just just to make the assumption, oh, I have arthritis in my shoulder, I can overhead press on. And that's, I don't buy that, I have to find out why. And find out why do you have the restriction, and then there may very well be a restriction. And then here's the reality, you could also live a really long happy life without doing an overhead press. And so I still need you to give you the capability to get your arms overhead. So you get something out of the cabinet. That's or get your shirt on. But it doesn't mean I need to overhead press a dumbbell. There's a lot of different ways I can go about that. And there's a lot of different, you know, artful ways I can make regressions and lateralization is to steal Charlie Weinger off term of those things that will create a similar effect without causing more damage.
Philip Pape 26:58
Okay, yeah, so that's a fair point, right? People get stuck in thinking they have to do certain movements to get stronger, they have to get certain movements to build muscle. And you're saying that there are plenty of options there. And you have to work with the person and figure out what it is. Now,
Eric D'Agati 27:12
here's the other thing I'll is a counter argument to those people who get caught in this dogmatic thing of you have to do your push pull strengthening, right? All that whole laundry list that we all know, is are you trying to determine like the phrase I like to use? Are you training to get good at exercise? Or you're training to get good, right? So there's a lot of people move really, really well. Like, go watch a martial artists go watch, like Ido portal or somebody like that move? And ask them when the last time you did a dumbbell overhead press? Like, we're so dogmatic and we're thinking that it has to be confined to the set of exercises? And and what if I get better at that? Did I really get stronger? Or did I just get good at an exercise? Right? real strength is where I can walk into any setting. And I can actually apply that, right? If I'm only good at your, your exercises that you pick based on a set of confirmation biases that you have. I'm just good at your workout. I'm not really strong, right? When I can actually go and do things like the joke I like to use is if you work out all the time, but you still can't help me move a couch, your workout sucks, right? You should be able to apply that, you know, in multiple ways. Now there is some levels of specificity. You know, you're not going to go from being a champion cyclist to a champion marathon runner, we saw that with Lance Armstrong is the greatest cyclists in history, but was a middle of the pack marathoner. There is some specificity in there. But there's a general physical preparedness that you know, you don't need to do. You could never touch a barbell or a dumbbell and still be very, very capable at those things. Agree.
Philip Pape 28:47
Hey, this is Philip pape, letting you know that applications are now open for one on one coaching. If you're a busy working professional, who has tried dieting and exercising for years, with little in the way of results, anyone to lose fat, get lean or feel confident in your body without excessive dieting, cardio or restrictions. Just go to witsandweights.com/coaching to apply. I imagine the average person at least these person ideal with you know, who's just looking to improve their body composition generally, right? That's the majority of people who aren't don't have a performance specific performance goal or maybe a longevity goal. Where would they start? Let's say they're a female in their 40s, who runs a lot. There's a very common archetype I see. Right? They do a lot of Pilates, running, yoga, hiking, all this kind of stuff, and just wants to improve their strength and body composition. I mean, I kind of know where I would take her but I want to hear your take on that. Where would you start?
Eric D'Agati 29:43
Okay, so, again, I get just create some basic awareness. Okay, so what's gonna create change in your body composition? Realize that that number one in nature and the nature of ourselves is that we're fighting to just live another day, every cell in your body has one job, and it's to live to the next day. And so it's going to adapt to whatever you do to it. So whether it's hot in the room and you sweat, or it's cold and you shiver, it's going to adapt. And so with that, you're going to create change, you have to create some sort of stimulus to create that change. And if you've been doing the same program for a year or two years, whatever time it is, and you're and you're not continually changing, well, then because there's not enough stimulus to create an adaptation. So that's number one. So we have to create a stimulus that's going to create that change, and what is the specific adaptation that we're looking for? Right, if we want to look better in the mirror, well, that's just basically, you know, three layers, you know, the most simplistic level layer, level you have, you have your muscle, you have your skin, and then you got stuff that's in between there, the stuff is what you don't like the stuff is what you make your shirt uncomfortable, doesn't make you not want to be in a picture, all that kind of stuff, that's got to go away, right, so you can see the muscle and then when you get there, hopefully, there's some muscle to see, or you're just a skinny fat person, right. And so we need to account for that muscle being there to actually be worth looking at. And then the stuff in between, well, that's really just your your energy balance. And so with that energy balance, it's a matter of calories in calories out at the most fundamental level. And then with that, what's going to be the habits and processes that are going to make you most successful to stay in that energy balance? Could you eat Froot Loops and stay under your caloric deficit? Yes, you absolutely can't, it's just not a real good recipe. Forget the health aspects, who cares, I just want to look at in the mirror, it's gonna be hard to sustain that, right? Because you're gonna, you know, anybody, any kid who's ever woken up, we're gonna have to watch cartoons on a Saturday morning knows you're not going to eat just one bowl, you're going to keep going until the box is gone. And whereas, you know, nobody ever ate way too much spinach, right? You know, like, I'm sure you love the people that come in and say, Well, I heard Bananas are high in sugar, I shouldn't eat those and say, look, and 20 years, no one's ever come in and said, I got so fat eating these bananas. It's like, No, it doesn't work that way. So let's get that let's get the reality of what first? What are you actually eating? Are you even aware of that? And so let's first let's capture what you're actually eating and start to track that. That doesn't mean you're gonna weigh and measure everything for the rest of your life. But you need to be aware of that holy crap, I didn't realize there's, you know, 700 calories in that whipped cream fancy thing that I get at Starbucks every day. So save yourself $9 And just have black coffee, right? Or have a cup of tea or something like that. That's our first step. And what habits can we change from a from a caloric deficit standpoint, they're gonna allow you to be successful, usually having more protein is going to make them more successful, usually making sure you get enough fiber in greens and fruits and grains, and those things that'll help you be more successful, because you're just not all that hungry after you've eaten enough of that, at least less hungry than if eating a bowl of Froot Loops. So let's create the awareness on that path. Right. And then if you've, you've gotten that dial down, that we can always go deeper. But most people, that's where their biggest struggle is, right? Make sure we get enough water, make sure we get enough protein, make sure we get enough, you know, greens and grains and that kind of stuff and fiber. And then, you know, if it still needs to get more dialed in, then we can always go deeper. And then in terms of exercise, we need something that's going to that's going to add a little bit of muscle doesn't mean you're gonna be a bodybuilder, especially for that woman in her 40s. Unless you're taking steroids. I don't know about you're not going to get too big. I've spent the last 20 years trying to get too big there, which should happen that easy.
Philip Pape 33:30
That's the answer. You could try to get too big and you won't get there. Yeah,
Eric D'Agati 33:33
yes, never has that been a problem. Oh, my gosh, I have way too much muscle. So we need to add, we need to have some concern for muscle. And we need to do that with some level of strength training. It doesn't have to be bars on your back. It doesn't have to be some type of you know, fancy bodybuilding split, but you need to do something that's going to create some change the deeper you get, the more you're going to need to get a little bit more specific. But at the beginning, if you have no exposure to it, doing some simple bodyweight stuff can be more than enough. So let's start there. And then the other thing I want to do is to make this something that's that's doable, because what's the challenge most people have, you know, the most famous Four words and diet and exercise, especially body composition, is it all starts Monday, right, is that they they can't stay consistent, create the habit. So I said, Alright, let's make this livable. All right. Now, there are some exceptions to this because there are some people that have true food addictions. But let's talk about just the general person who's not in that subcategory. I tell him, we're gonna live by the 8020 rule. If you follow everything as you do from an exercise and diet standpoint, 80% of the time, the other 20% Screw off have whatever you want to have, you don't have to slice a piece or whatever ice cream, whatever your vices are, if you skip a workout, and you're supposed to do five days a week you do four, I'll still take it and you'll still get to where you want to be at a reasonable pace that you'll be happy with. Right? And so that way, that way we can honestly now look when you hand me a food log and I look at your journal of what you've eaten, and say okay, well, you're really like 5050 That's not at 24 If you want to have the freedom to go and get that that slice of pizza, you got to dial it up a notch, right? Because you're 5050 right now, and then starting to kind of challenge himself, okay, you got to push this in at 20. You can't go 100. Right? I shouldn't say you can, you can slash directive. But here's what's gonna happen, you're gonna be miserable. Like I went 100 I competed in bodybuilding, I brought a cooler bag, to family dinners, you know what that's like, being an Italian guy from Jersey when Shep was 60 people eating pot trays of food and you have a cooler bag? Totally. Right, totally. And you and your grandfather is yelling at you in Italian trying to figure out what what's your problem. So like, that's bizarre, that's not normal behavior, right. But I was doing it for a specific goal. And so with a specific goal is is it changed your percentages. So I tell people who are in one or two categories, your I'd like to change, I'm in no specific rush. But obviously, the sooner the better. Good, you're in at 20 person to start. Then the second person is I have a tryout I have a workout, I have the beginning of my season, or I have a wedding, I have a vacation that I have to be ready for, well, you may not get at 20, you may get 9010. Right. So that that you know three or four, you know, slip ups you get during the week turns into one or two, or maybe none, if we're getting closer and you're not there ready enough, because that dates not changing, you're not going to push back your vacation two weeks, so we have to dial it up a little bit more. But this is going into it knowing that this is specific for this time period, this is not going to be the rest of your life. And I think framing it in that is a little bit easier to handle. Because now it's anything I want. I don't feel like I'm trapped. I don't feel like the way actually do it with with nutrition as I give. And I do this a lot because I work a lot with with high school kids. But I do for everybody and say, Okay, we do the math, you're supposed to say three meals plus a snack, that's over seven days, 28 meals. So let's make it easy for math that's you know, 25 to 30 meals that gives you about four or five meals that you can have whatever you want. So I want you to wake up every Monday morning, you got five magic tickets, now, what you're gonna do is you're gonna cash that in for whatever crap you want to eat, right, you want to go have your fruity drink, you want to go have your, your pizza, your ice cream, whatever it is. And what you're gonna do is you're gonna keep in your back pocket, don't go out Monday morning for a stack of waffles and ice cream. Right? Because then you blow your tickets. Now you gotta suffer the rest of the week, what you're gonna do is get in situations and if you have a work dinner, or if your friends are going out for pizza, don't be the weirdo with a dried lettuce leaf in the corner, like and ostracize yourself and torture yourself, every slice of pizza, just hand them a ticket and say I'm okay with it. Right? If you get to the weekend, and you got a couple tickets left, you go out for a nice dinner and ice cream, whatever we want to have, because they all wash away, you can't carry them over from week to week. And then that way, it's like anything I want to really have, or I really have a hankering for I really want it's no more than four or five days away. So it makes it a whole lot easier to manage that. And this is something I can stick with for a long period of time as opposed to I'm going to do the six week, you know, better Abs program.
37:49
Yeah, I agree with everything you said. I mean, going back to the tracking to start, you know, I know there's controversy people have when it comes to tracking, does it does it cause issues? And I think the evidence supports that, you know, tracking is associated with better outcomes, assuming you didn't have some some issue beforehand with with tracking but your strategy of how do we, how do we deal with emotional and compulsive eating? We do it by thinking ahead and planning and there's different ways to do it. I like your strategy of the tickets actually hadn't heard that? Are these physical tickets? No, no, they're massive. Because that can work too. Yeah, and I've heard strategies, like, you know, banking, banking for the weekend, or, you know, you know, planning for a specific day ahead of time pre logging, you know, there's all these strategies, but the whole, the whole theme, I think, is your thinking ahead and in with a cool head, before you get into the moment, and you've planned for right, you're planning for your weekly calories, you know, you're trying to hit to hit a specific goal. And like you said, if someone is doesn't have a way in coming up, for example, on a very strict goal, they have a little bit of leeway. You're still trying to hit a specific calorie target for the week, right? We're not just willy nilly saying that we can eat, you know, two whole pizzas on Saturday, right? It still has to fit within there. So yeah, I agree with everything you said. And, okay, I guess that answers the question. So what about let's turn to I guess, performance, then if we did have somebody that had a slightly stricter goal for performance, it doesn't have to be diet related this week could be training again. It could be powerlifting could be sports, endurance, what are the biggest obstacles that prevent them from performing at their best? So I
Eric D'Agati 39:29
just break it down systematically and say, Okay, make sure we're not going to miss anything. That's everything I do is just basically a checklist, right? So I love the work that Atul Gawande did in his book Checklist Manifesto, where he just talks about the impact and power of checklists, and he used it in medicine, but I translate that in a training so Okay, on my big global checklist to say, especially for performance, there's three fundamental layers. So like Greg Cook was my mentor, my mentors Use it as movement, performance and skill. And to kind of take a step back so people can understand that the lay person when I explained to him I said, there's there's, there's competency, there's capacity and then skill. So competency is can you even get into the positions and shapes and postures you need to get in to perform that thing, whatever that thing is, you're gonna do so, you know, you want to go play tennis? Can you even rotate? Can you even lunge to decelerate? Can you get balance on a single leg? Can you can you do all those things that are gonna show up on a tennis court? Because if you can't even get to those positions in a slow controlled environment, now, you certainly aren't going to get into them, at least well, you know, once we get out there at full speed and the balls coming at you. So I want to check the competency box, do you believe that at least have that baseline of movement competency? Then from there, I'm going to look at your capacity. And to say, Okay, do you have Are you physically fit enough to play that sport, and then that means you need to generate a certain amount of you need to have a certain amount of strength, you need to generate a certain amount of power and speed, have a certain level of agility and so forth. And then from there, we can look at the specifics of, Hey, I can't get to my forehand, because of a lack of, you know, rotation of my T spine, or I'm struggling with my serve, because I can't get hip extension, whatever that may be, we can dial that down. But most people go right to that, right, they're going to come in and say, Oh, I went and my tennis coach said, I can't get hip extension, he gave me the stretches I should do. I say well, back back up. Okay, so did he know that you can't even touch your toes like that would probably be a bigger start, then trying to do some really specific stretch, because maybe if we clear up the big global stuff, that that really local specific stuff that may just go away. And we also may check a whole lot of other boxes in between. So we kind of start global, and then we'll go down to regional, and then we'll go down to to, to really local when it comes to movement, and then the same thing will happen when it comes to the levels of competency, and then translating that to skill. So that's really just the checklist that I go through. And the higher you go up the chain, the more specific you get. So that's really how I kind of go through that journey with an athlete and explain to him that we're still gonna have to go back and check those boxes every once in a while because we, if we get too deep into capacity, we may actually steal from some of our competency, right. And I've seen that too many times, I've worked in the NFL for nine years, where more than one athlete has told me, you know, I moved so much better before I got into the NFL. And obviously, there's the there's the, you know, the physicality of the game that beats them up. But they say, just athletically, I was just more athletic before I got here. And they kind of train that anatomy, unfortunately. And we have to make sure that we don't do that, that we don't screw people up.
42:41
Now, as far as capacity, which is there an aspect of capacity that is universal, I mean, between different sports and different types of athletes, where you see a recurring theme, that that's common, you know, what I'm getting at?
Eric D'Agati 42:54
Yeah, are there are some baseline, you know, markers, and that's, again, having having a system you have baseline markers to say, Okay, once we've hit this, unless you have a very specific goal for strength as an example, I think we're strong enough. And then now we can move on to other things, right, and I have those things. So a lot of times, I'll start off athletes with a lot of unilateral training in the beginning, say, Okay, I want to have you be able to do a single arm floor press. And when I have you be able to do a Bulgarian split squat, I don't want to do single leg RDL. And for every one of those, I have markers relative to body weight that I want you to be able to hit once you can hit those. If we need to go deeper down the road of strength, then that's where we can get, you know, more specific that way. But once you've kind of hit those, I just my job was just to maintain those. And every once in a while, I'll keep those in there just to make sure we're, we're still hitting those marks. But now there's a lot of other boxes to check. Like when I talk about my performance pyramid with an athlete. There's 59 boxes of things that we want to look at. So I'd say I can't spend all my time working on strength. It's one it's one I got 58 others I gotta get to. So you want to a minimum by having markers say at least you've hit the minimum now, do you need more than the minimum for your sport? That depends how strong Do you really need to be to hit a golf ball? How strong Do you really need to be to ride a ride a bike? Obviously more would be beneficial. But if it comes at the expense of other things, I'm not getting to that are even more beneficial. That's a prioritization problem.
Philip Pape 44:19
Okay. Does anybody like Bulgarian split squats?
Eric D'Agati 44:23
I mean, weirdos like me. But are I you know, doing an ISO version of that's even more, you know, sadistic but no one's ever said hey, can we do more split holds but
Philip Pape 44:35
what do you hold that position for the ISOs
Eric D'Agati 44:37
at the bottom, at the bottom, hit the bottom of that and hang out there for 30 seconds. ISOs are very powerful thing that they've kind of come back in vogue in the last year. So they're finding lots of correlations with helping with tendon strength and so forth. But it's always a great place for me to start with people. Because we're happy when you take away the moving parts literally. It's a lot easier to to figure stuff out to so Getting in the bottom of that, all right, I want you to feel where your pelvis is, I want you to feel how your foots contacting the floor, I want you to feel what your spine feels like now. And we can make these little adjustments to create awareness, because that's tough to do when they're moving up and down. So doing these different positions, and there's probably a subset, there's probably a subset about five or six that I really liked to use in the beginning stages of training to get people aware of these positions and shapes and postures to say, okay, get in that position, feel what it feels like to elevate your chest, okay? Now feel what it feels like to, you know, QL use spread out your collarbones and get open in your shoulders, get your head back into a into a position. That's a lot easier to learn for the end user when they're in a static position first.
Philip Pape 45:42
Yeah, I like that idea. I mean, there's there's versions of that, like, I guess you could say something like a pause squat, where again, you're in one position. But but the idea of using isometrics for that, I haven't quite heard that before. I think a study recently came out about calf training as well, that was that looked at isometrics and saw a great benefit for, but I think that was for hypertrophy. So speaking of athletics, what about a an older guy? I'm not old, but an older guy like me, who's never been athletic. You know, one of the reasons I joined CrossFit years ago was to get in that kind of environment. I mean, how would somebody like that, who doesn't, isn't looking to compete or perform athletically you know, as part of a team necessarily approach that, you know, what kind of goal would be a reasonable goal for them to pursue?
Eric D'Agati 46:31
Well, provided We've checked the box for movement competency, and they have no restrictions there, they have a full menu to order from right. That's where we look at some simple things. And if I had to have a checklist of like desert island, things that you could do, jump rope is going to be really high on that list. Okay, so it creates a jille not agility isn't one word, it creates rhythm, which is a huge, huge, hugely impactful thing on athleticism. I had Lee Taft on our on our podcast, who's brilliant, and talking about the impact of rhythm on athleticism, I always joke that you look at the most athletic people that have two things, they have rhythm, I'm gonna write a book and it's gonna be called rhythm and glutes, because you need to have some level of rhythm there's there's an elegance to when you watch a really good athlete, watch it Tyreke Hill run around watch a Steph Curry play basketball, there's, there's just such a fluidity and rhythm to that. And then you need to get the force power from somewhere and it's on that posterior chain most is where a lot of it starts. Not all of it, but it's where a lot of it starts. So I joke if you see somebody in a flat asset, a game, it's usually a referee or spectator. So you need to so one of the ways to start with a rhythm and to also get you more elastic. So you can get up on the ball your foot, and you can have that elasticity and actually have the stiffness, not lack of range of motion, stiffness, but stiffness and spring in your ankle. Jump rope is a great place to start number one. From there, once you've established that singles or doubles, or it doesn't matter, just just figure it out from the beginning, just figure it out. And then and then what you want to have is some simple things. Number one, is make sure the knee is straight. So you're getting that spring in the ankle, if you have what I call squishy knee, and you keep collapsing, then you're all working from the hip and the whole body's involved, you shouldn't look like that you should look pretty much straight line ear to ankle and just spring off spring off of that ball, your foot. Then there'll be should be a rhythm and cadence to it. Like I'll have people and I'll just clap my hands and have them keep to a certain rhythm. I'll even put like an EDM or you know, kind of kind of, you know, house music on the inside, keep the beat to that, right, create some rhythm and create some cadence with that. And can you do that. And then my last year is always make it look easy. Like smile, relax, breathe through your nose, you shouldn't be grinding, you shouldn't be gripping the handles, like get smooth and relaxed, that's gonna have such carryover to athleticism, whether you're playing pickup basketball, or tennis, or whatever it may be. So that's where I start. And then from there, the next thing is sprinting, right being able to sprint and like go all out because there's a big difference. And that's why you see go to, you know, go to any beer league softball game, and you'll see a bunch of people yanked hamstrings and torn Achilles because even though that person may go to the gym and jog, you know, five miles a day, there's a whole different representation and synchronization of how your muscles work. When you change over from a jog to a sprint, and then as soon as you have that high demand if I need to use this right now, on your Achilles on your hamstrings, that's when they pop in. They don't have that so you need to work up to be able to do some sprinting and it doesn't have to be long you're not doing gassers here you're not doing this for conditioning you're doing it to be able to access the muscles you do have access the strength you do have right away right and so can I just do and there's some really simple protocols you could follow. Zack they can't from where's he's at TCU has some great protocols. Derek Hansen has this very simple 10 yards 10 Sprint's protocol that he uses just Sprint 10 yards all out like hair's on fire, walk back and then do it 10 times and then do it multiple rounds of that, like really simple stuff like that. That's where I would start. And if I can only pick two, those would be the things I would do
Philip Pape 50:06
jump rope and sprinting. I like that I used to love the what is it death by death by 10 meter sprints, whatever they did in CrossFit. That's, that's excellent. So, so kind of related to,
Eric D'Agati 50:17
I'm sorry to cut you off. But going back to that, that sprinting for conditioning, right, okay, that's not what I'm talking about. So and that's really dependent on your goal, that's that, that's, if you're doing for conditioning great. But if you're doing it to improve your speed, and athleticism, there needs to be enough time for you to recharge and have quality. And so like there's a, there's a system that I use when I have athletes spring, where a little sprint either for distance or time, whether it's you're going to sprint, a 40 yard sprint, or going to sprint for five seconds, whatever it may be. And you're going to take an amp in an ample amount of rest. So you may take two, three minutes, and then your job is in your every rep is to meet or beat or at least come within 10% of that last one. So if I gave you five for easy math, I gave you five seconds to run 50 seconds, or 50 and you got 50 yards, your next rep has to be at least 45 yards in those five seconds. Once you can't meet that marker, your quality has gone down and now we're going to do is get really good at being slow. So that's that's going to be my quality control. And if you can do that 10 times great. If you get to and you lose your you lose that quality and you drop off more than 10% Go home, you're done.
Philip Pape 51:31
Interesting. So it all sounds like you can combine, maybe combine this I know some people like to do short hit sessions to bada or one to two, one to three ratio all out versus rest it, it almost sounds like it could fit in there. You know, from a time efficiency standpoint, with the addition that you control the quality, like you said, and try to try to hit that time, don't just go out and start
Eric D'Agati 51:54
pretty fit to do this on a Tabata protocol or that shorter rest period. So if you're doing conditioning, that's going to be a different animal. If you're if you're doing it for speed you need, you need a ton of rest, and you're not going to do a ton of reps either. Right? If you go all out, and do you know even six, all out sprints anywhere from from 20 to 40 yards, you're gonna know it, if you've done it truly the way you should do it. There was a football team that I used to wear high school football team that I used to work with a lot of their players, their coach had this thing and I guess because it sounded cool, where they'd run 4040s. And it was horrible, horrible for every aspect. It doesn't translate to football. It doesn't it all it did was give me a ton of business because the amount of Achilles, low back hip flexor strains hamstring pulls that I got from this one school because that was their protocol. It was it was great for business, but it was horrible what they put these kids through.
Philip Pape 52:49
Yeah, that's crazy. So I get your point, fair point about the conditioning versus the athletic development and recovery, I think is important from from an even larger perspective for a lot of people that I see working out four or five, six days a week, and I've gone through this myself where you just get beat up, right? And it kind of even when you try to take the loads, it seems to catch up with you and never quite go away. I mean, what, how do older folks manage that volume and manage that recovery, who really like to work out?
Eric D'Agati 53:22
Okay, so I use tons of analogy. So I always explain this to clients in the beginning that you're basically the farmer and you have seeds and you have soil you're training as the seeds and the soils what happens the other 23 hours in the day, now, if you go and plant your seeds on a rubber workout floor, nothing's gonna grow there. So what makes you have rich, fertile soil, it's your it's your habits and activities, those are the 23 hours a day, it's number one, your Sleep Number two, you know, or one day is your nutrition. So if you're up till two in the morning, you know watching Netflix or playing Call of Duty and you're you know, drinking soda or or, you know, bang drinks or or whatever it may be. And that's the only way you can keep yourself going. Eventually, you know, you're just kind of living on credit event and that bill is going to come. So what you do those those 23 hours gives you the fertile soil of where you can grow more. And so if you put an active focus on your recovery, it's gonna allow you to train harder. I mean, the ultimate is when guys just in people use steroids because it boosts your recovery. So they can train for for endless time and, you know, and not break down as much as soon as they come off, they fall apart. So it's really managing how much how much recoverability Have you built, how much resiliency Have you built and then that's tells me how much I can push and how hard I can push. And there are great markers you can use to kind of gauge that to know when it's time to peel back or when it's time to go and I have a readiness screen that I teach in our course and that I use do my clients every morning takes about three minutes and it looks at your movement competency for that day because maybe maybe You could rotate freely both ways. Last time I saw you, but since I saw, you might have slept on the couch or had a cross country flight or you played, you know, 72 holes of golf, and I'll send you can't rotate, right? And I was supposed to have you do some sort of, you know, medicine ball drill or something. And I want to know that before I get started, right. So I looked at your movement competency. And then I look at some other markers that just kind of look at your overall global readiness, whether it's looking at your grip strength, whether it's looking at a time to breath hold, or if you have technology that can tell me about your resting heart rate, tell me about your ear, heart rate variability, all those things put into the soup, kind of give me a picture of where you're at, as well as their own self assessment. And they're not going to offer that information coming in the door, they're going to come in and then just assume they're going to do the workout and then all of a sudden, I put them through stuff. And you know, you normally hold your breath for about 25 seconds today was 14 seconds. What's up, while you know, I slept like crap, you know, I'm stressed out works been really brutal. And now you're starting to reframe Okay, well, this isn't the same organism that I wrote this program for, I might need to change what I'm doing here, I can't plant the same seeds the same way that I thought, and so I need to adapt that program to that individual. So you know, looking at those factors, if you have ability to look a little bit deeper, and that's, you know, things like an aura ring that looks at your sleep, or something that looks at your HRV like a Morpheus strap, or one of those types of things, it's going to those the accuracy of some of those things comes into question sometimes, but it's not gonna, if we're not really, if we're using it just for general awareness is to say, Wow, I never realized that, you know, whenever a couple drinks at night, my HRV crashes, maybe let me maybe not try to have that drink and see if that affects my workout the next day, or if I go to bed a half hour earlier, my workout, I'm a different person. My focus the next day at work is completely different. And again, it goes back to that that honesty and awareness piece of wow, I didn't realize these things that we're doing were either building or detract from my health.
Philip Pape 56:57
Yeah, I love that the not only the 23 hours being the focus, but building that awareness. I mean, it's great when you have a coach who can help you do that assessment before the workout. But even collecting the data, like you said, looking at the trend, I actually have an aura ring myself. So what you mean, what do you just like? Well, what's happening? Are you wait too late? Or, you know, like you said, you had a few drinks, something like that. All right. Any anything else you want to share? Eric?
Eric D'Agati 57:22
Go all day.
Philip Pape 57:25
Day, I got one quick question, what's your favorite movement, if you had to choose just one lift,
Eric D'Agati 57:30
just one lift? That's tough. If I had to, it's gonna be kind of a three way tie of if I had to go either some variation of a deadlift, right, whether it's single leg is probably the one I program a lot more than just a bilateral deadlift. But if I'm going for the masses, I would say something like that left, and then push up would be close tie with that, because there's so much that can get involved if you do a really good quality push up. And then not far behind would be some level some type of carry would be in there as well. Because I'm looking for stuff. They're gonna check a lot of boxes at once. So if I'm on your own, give me one I got to pick pick one that's going to cover a lot of ground. So I would I would probably go one A, B and C with those three.
Philip Pape 58:23
Okay, no, and those are all unique. You know, I wouldn't have guessed right. I would have thought you know, maybe a traditional big lift or something like that. So, single leg deadlifts, you've inspired me to do more unilateral movements and isometrics now, and then you said push ups and carry so carries like farmer carries. We're saying
Eric D'Agati 58:38
right there you can do overhead parry farmers carry rack position carry unilateral bilateral, six position carry, there's, there's so many different variations, but carries are going to get a lot of good things going in terms of posture, body awareness, grip strength, just general you know, you're getting core in there, you're getting a ton of stuff going in there that you would never realize until you've actually done a carry and really in realize how smoked you can be afterwards.
Philip Pape 59:07
Like, all right, well, this has been a lot of fun. I do have one more question Where can the listeners find you learn more about your work?
Eric D'Agati 59:14
Okay, easiest place is the hub is just my website. It's just my name Eric D’Agati ericdagati.com. And on there, I have, you know, links to all those projects that I'm working on. As well as an “Ask Eric” button on there where you can just put in a question and it goes right to my emails. And so you know, platforms like this, we don't get a chance to interact with people. So someone may hear this and say, Hey, I heard you talking about, you know, carries, you know, where should I start with that? Or how do I pick my weight? Or how long do I carry, you know, those kinds of things, send those to me. And then as well as on my media page. I have all previous podcasts appearances, all my social media links. I try to do my best. It's tough to keep up but I try to do at least one or two posts a day with just some informational stuff to kind of pay it forward. We'll do clips from The podcasts that we put up. So those are great ways to keep in touch and
Philip Pape 1:00:04
follow me. And that's the principles of performance podcast. Right? So
Eric D'Agati 1:00:08
it was a performance podcast. Yes, sir. Okay,
Philip Pape 1:00:10
I think I missed that in the intro.
Eric D'Agati 1:00:12
That's that's the; we're on YouTube, and then all the different podcast platforms,
Philip Pape 1:00:16
make sure to download that. And I'm gonna include all those links in the show notes. And Eric, thanks again for coming on the show. It was a lot of fun talking to you.
Eric D'Agati 1:00:23
Awesome. Greatly appreciate it.
Philip Pape 1:00:27
Thanks for listening to the show. Before you go, I have a quick favor to ask. If you enjoy the podcast, let me know by leaving a five star review in Apple podcasts and telling others about the show. Thanks again for joining me Philip Pape in this episode of Wits & Weights. I'll see you next time and stay strong.
