S1E68 · Samuel Kane: Coaching 101

Hey guys, welcome to another week of the Virtus Performance Podcast, cheers to all you guys for hanging on for the last 60 something something weeks, it's been an absolute pleasure to be able to continue to provide some sort of value, I hope, that's the intention anyway, is to add some value and contribute to your day, whether it be some learning or whether it be a chance to zone out and switch off, today's episode is with Sam Cain, so Sam is a CrossFit coach, he's a strength and conditioning coach and he's someone who I had the

pleasure of meeting about 10 minutes before this podcast started, so this was a cool conversation to dive into what he does, why he does it, and to actually talk a little bit of coaching shop, I guess, coaching is my first love and, except for KP, coaching is my second love, except for football, coaching is my third love, yeah, so this podcast is obviously heavily based around individual stories and lessons and learnings and growth around life in general and not just the coaching sphere, so today's podcast, although we touched on a few of those subjects, it

was really cool to actually dive into some coaching theories and to touch on all the stuff I actually spent 4 years at uni learning, so yeah, let's get stuck in. My personal and business goal is to be just a little bit better every day, I believe everyone, especially normal people, have a story to tell, the Virtus podcast exists to help us all find small ways of consistent improvement by discussing the journey and experiences of each of our guests. Anyone that's stupid intelligent like Elon is, you can just see their cogs turning whenever they answer a question or it's not like, they don't blurt out an answer, they just throw it out.

If you didn't know who he was, it'd be hard to… Well that's the thing, there's heaps of context, like the uproar around him smoking a little bit of weed at the end, it was so fucking interesting. Didn't his shares drop 5% or something? Yeah, it was like two and a half hours of just like gold, him going here's how we're going to fix all the world's main problems and then he's just like a little bit of weed and then that's the meme. And Joe Rogan didn't even know how to get the answers he wanted out of him because he would like skip, I remember he was talking about the traffic thing, did you watch that?

Yeah. He just wanted him to answer specifically how he got it done, but he's just, he couldn't like portray it to him, like he just assumed everybody knew, it was so interesting, he's so smart. Yeah. He's a very interesting human, I love the bit where he's talking about the flamethrowers, he's just like, it's a stupid idea, I told people not to buy him and we made 10 million bucks off him. It was good, I invested in his car batteries. Did you? Yeah, so PLS the company that Tesla signed to do the batteries with I jumped on a while ago, made some money on it.

That's why I loved him so much. Yeah, he's a very interesting dude. First question for you, what gets you out of bed in the morning? My athletes? Yeah, so I coach probably 110 athletes a day. That's a lot of humans. Yeah. So 110 athletes a day and I do all the programming in charge of classes, so I feel like it is mine. Yeah. So even like this morning, two hours ago, I was watching them complete the class and like it, I don't know, just, I enjoy it. I love, like programming's like. That's your thing? That's your jam?

I love it. I love it. CrossFit is so competitive, there's CrossFit gyms popping up every corner and that one thing that everybody's saying, that walking to our gym is like the program is so well thought and there's hard days, there's easy days, there's, that's where I feel everyone goes wrong. So in CrossFit, there's a bad, there's a bad name for us pretty much, but that's just because it's a new sport, like any new sport. People are still learning. But in the early days, everyone thought it was train as hard as you can every single day and don't even worry about your body.

But just the simple rules, like if you press a thousand kilos a week, make sure you're pulling a thousand kilos a week and we emphasise just all the good stuff. Pretty much, it's just a structured program. Yeah. How did you get into coaching? Because we'll come back to that bad rap and the programming and stuff. Coaching? How did you get into coaching? Well, let's go back. When I was 18 years old, I was a pretty good athlete, like soccer, basketball, things like that. I always liked that I was kind of muscular, right? Yeah. That sounds funny.

One of my mates went to the gym, he got bigger than me and I was like, man, I gotta go to the gym. Yeah. So I went to the gym with him and we did nothing crazy. It was just try to do as heavy as you can for six reps and try turning into eight. When we turned into eight, we went up a weight. We just did that. Yeah. I was super strong, by super strong, like I was 69 kilos, back squatting 180 and stuff. I didn't even know that I was pretty good. And then I just loved it so much, heard a radio ad, called up, signed up.

I've always just done things drastically. And then all I did was I met JP. You know JP? Yeah. I met JP. He's like, Sam, do a power lifting comp. You're stupid not to. Yeah. And then he did a power lifting comp, competed against JP, came second, out benched him. That's all right. We'll take that. Even I can out bench him sometimes. Not a lifter by any means. I did. Shout out to the guy, man. That's me bell. Shout out bell. Oh, cool. Oh, that's what it comes from. Yeah. So I met JP, competed against him, was in this power lifting world, and then just drastically jumped into my PT course.

And then it just all fell together. But also, when I finished uni, when I finished high school, I didn't even know what I wanted to do. I did sport and exercise science without even knowing what it was. So this all happened. You're not the only one. This all happened over that summer, before going into, before uni started. So I signed up for the PT course. I didn't even realize that after one year, I'm qualified anyway, pretty much. I spent three grand on nothing. But yes, I just drastically threw myself in there, competed, loved it, and then I didn't even know how the whole rent issue and stuff worked.

Anyways, I found a job at a gym, like a local gym, like a normal coach paying rent, things like that. The difference about this gym was they're young blokes, and their XFC, there's like five of them. And so I started working there, and I was one of 20 trainers. What happened was I ended up being the top trainer, so doing the most sessions, blah, blah, blah. I was the newest trainer. All that stuff, and then there was a CrossFit site across the road. I didn't know what CrossFit was. I was like everybody else, CrossFit's stupid, blah, blah, blah, you know the deal.

And then the coach left, and then my bosses came to me and said, "Hey, you're pretty strong." And they thought, "Strong is CrossFit." They still don't know what CrossFit is. Like, "Do you want this coaching job over there?" I'm like, "I've never done CrossFit in my life, I don't know." And then they're like, "Oh, we'll pay you. You have set sessions. You can book around." So honestly, I took the coaching job for money. And then how it started was I became best friends with the other coach now. And the programming, we had to tweak because I didn't do CrossFit.

So on my days, we were doing the power lift, squats, dez, and we were benching in a CrossFit program. But that's only because that's what I knew what to do, exactly right. And then on the Tuesday, Thursday, Russell, the other coach, would do the Olympic lifts and the gymnastics work. And then I'm like, "I don't want to be the one letting this down here." So I went out and pursued everything, Olympic lifting, gymnastics, this. Now I-- So I started adding tools to the toolbar. That's it. And now weightlifting is like my favorite thing in the world, like I love weightlifting.

Love gymnastics. I'm trying to get better at coaching, but I feel like you actually just need a gymnast. It's just so-- it's so specialized. Like we've got a 14-year-old girl at my gym and she knows more about gymnastics than me because she competes in it. She's been doing it for 10 years. And that's it. I'm not going to try and fake it. I'm like, "Hey, you're better than me. Go for it." And I ask her things. She's only young too. I'm like, "When you're old enough, you can coach." It's just-- Yeah. Yeah, that's cool. But that's how I got into it.

I was just really bad and I didn't want to be the one that-- letting everybody down. So I jumped into learning how to overlift and now I write the programs, do everything. I think that headaches on sports science kind of fit into that in terms of one, your growth as a coach and as a person, but also balancing that with all of your coaching stuff. So one thing, I was really sciency at the start. It influenced me really early on. So I had to justify everything, things like that, to the point where hard work was secondary.

I was like, "The program has to be structured," things like that. Over the last, I would say, year, I've realized that-- I'm not saying sports science is not good. I'm saying that people overemphasize some of the rules and they take them so literally and things like that. Number one thing, you just got to work hard. And I think back to when I first started, I wasn't doing anything fancy. I was doing sixes and eights. But I gave it 100%. And you had consistency as well. That's it. I gave the week 100% training and I got so strong.

But the one thing I did learn from sports science was-- it is the personal growth thing, honestly. Having to wake up, having to study, learning off better people, mentors. That's one thing I got out of the degree. Yeah. You're good. I think it's an interesting degree because it's so generalized in terms of you get a bit of everything. And it doesn't really give you-- OK, now you're doing an accounting degree, now you're an accountant. But sports science is like, all right, cool. Now you are. I know a bit more about how the body works and-- Yeah, it's one of those things.

And a bit of coaching stuff and a bit of psych stuff and good luck. That's exactly right. It's like PT. Once you finish your-- it's the only course that you're expected to run your own business the next day. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's probably an issue with the way people look at it from the start. They go, OK, when I've done this, I'll be able to do-- like, I'll be able to run my own business. And people go to uni to do a business degree to learn how to help someone run a business. And like,

PTs-- it is a really interesting industry because whether you expect it or whether we expect it of ourselves, that we're able to-- we're going to be able to run a business. I do want to dive into coaching PTs, though. Yeah. Good. Because-- well, for example, we have two coaches now that I've hired. Yeah. One of them was just a PT. Oh, they're both just PTs now that I think about it. Both just PTs. One of them is really good-- That's just PTs with an asterisk, right? Yeah. But they haven't gone to uni. Just PTs. And they came in to do PT, and they just loved it.

And if I saw that, I'm like, I'll help you. Yeah. 100%. I'll help you so much. Yeah. Loved it so much. I should probably get Jack Clark, get him on your podcast, honestly. They just loved it so much. And I just gave them everything. And now, same thing. But I would love to get onto a structure because it's not rocket science. Yeah. If you've got OK business skills, you're a good people person. Yeah. And you make people work hard. And don't injure them. You're too well. Well, that's it. You keep them able to keep going to the gym.

And you're like, cool. We're doing it. We're doing it. And it's like selling BS. I'm very honest with my clients. It's like the whole diet thing. I don't touch diets. I hate it. Yeah. That's not your role, right? Yeah. 100%. Yeah. I think back to the sports science plus working out, I think it's like I was talking to one of our interns the other day because we were on a three-month mentorship program. Yeah. That's right. And I was chatting to him, and I was like, you kind of go through the stages of going, just have a crack and try everything because you don't know any better, right?

And then you start learning the contraindications to certain exercises or certain learning parameters or certain recovery stuff, and you're like, okay, fuck, we can't do this. And then you're overcorrected and you're course-corrected and you go way too far, and then you're so kind of suffocated in all the things you can't do, you forget that, oh, fuck, we've just got to work hard and we've got to be consistent. And the whole there's no perfect program thing is spot on, but the perfect program is just something you can do consistently. You can see progression and you don't hurt yourself, and you fucking enjoy doing it.

The perfect program is different for everyone. Prime example, we train, so the coaches, we train on a certain program, Star Strength, shout out to Star Strength, they do our programming. We have a female crossfiller who is better than all of us, but she hates it and she has gone backwards about 20%, she's probably going to kill me for saying this, but she has, she's gone backwards about 20%. We have all increased by 50%. And we're all doing the same program, it's just not for her. And I said this to her, I said, hey, look, your skills are really good, your fitness is worth it, okay?

She knows how to be fit, what she needs to do to be fit, she's strong, you need to sit down and write your own program, and it doesn't even have to be weak points, she doesn't really have weak points. Write what you like to do, she likes to do eye lifting, whatever, she likes to do perfect. But that's one thing I have realized lately, is enjoyment of the program and hard work will send you so far. - It'll trump most things. - 100%. - When you get to the, I guess, the elite levels when people

are getting closer and closer to that ceiling and then it's kind of like, okay, we've got to be really anal about what we're doing now, but for, and genuinely, 99% of, not just general pop, but athletes as well, they just need to be doing consistent, solid GVP. - 100%. - And they'll get to where they want to get to. - Oh, yeah. I was listening to a podcast two weeks ago and they're talking about an athlete, he's now a strength coach, I forgot his name, I'll remember some halfway through a lecture. But all he did for, he's one of the most powerful, strongest dudes, he was a shot putter.

And his leg session was 10 by 10 on five exercises, three days a week. So for example, Monday, he did 10 by 10 squats, 10 by 10 lunge, 10 by 10 leg press, 10 by 10 leg extension, 10 by 10 calf raise. - Yeah, that's gonna get you strong. - He did that, yeah, he did that three times a week for four years and he can, well, he's a freak. He's a freak. And all he said is like, I did not do anything special. I did hard work. I would not recommend that hard work for anybody 'cause everybody, like, I'd done GVT or GV before and I, like 10 by 10 squats killed me.

But that worked for him and he's a freak. - Yeah, and I think as it, like, from a coaching point of view, as a coach, you should experience what GVT feels like. - The funny thing is, he actually said that, yeah. - Yeah, he should, like, he should experience what that feels like, he should experience what five by five feels like. - Yeah, small. - Yeah, like, you should, like, as a coach, we're here to improve our athletes. Like, you know, too many coaches are there to, like, you know, we wanna improve ourselves but that comes, I don't know, for me, that comes second because the athletes are there.

They're putting, you know, time and effort and energy and resources into you to help them get what they wanna get to. So they come first. So if you understand what the majority of it feels like, you've got that experience to be able to put them in the right position. - Talk to me about your, like, programming progressions from when you first jumped into CrossFit to how you, and, you know, I've been someone that's not enjoyed the way CrossFit's been programmed but it's, like any sport, it revolves, right? So now there's so many good CrossFitters and gym owners writing programs the right way.

- Yeah. - With, you know, touching on the sports science principles we know that are important. How has yours kind of adapted and grown? - So I would say, just over this year, one thing I have introduced is a deload week every four weeks. So what we do, we, obviously, have four-week blocks, so week one, we'll work in an eight. This is for the strength, for example. This is very basic. Week one, we'll work in eight RPE. Week two, we'll work in a nine RPE. Week three, we'll work in a 10 RPE. - Yeah. - Deload.

- Yeah. - Go again. - Yeah. - Then we have different phases through that. So at the moment, on a Monday, we are doing a snatch comp, like a snatching, snatching. Then we do a really barbell heavy workout. Then on a Tuesday, what we're doing is we're front squatting, then an unloaded workout, so no barbells. Then on a Wednesday is like a deload day. So we're doing just wrong, like yesterday we rode for 40 minutes. - Yeah. - Yeah. So it's teams of three, eight kilometer rope. - Yeah. - Right? And then we come in, we lift the heavy barbell again, that.

So what I was doing early days was, clean and joke, front squat, deadlift. All the major lifts, right? Through everything and then our accessory work might have been, oh, quickly before you leave the gym, do three by 10 band pull-aparts. And then, you know, it's like people have lives, jobs, classes are running late, they've got to sprint out, things like that. So I've put more of the band pull-aparts stuff at the very start of class and I've actually dedicated time to them and just educated my athletes, right? So every time we are doing band pull-aparts

or dislocates or, I don't know, scat pull-ups, something like that, and say, hey, we did this two days ago, it was really hard, things like that. And I'm like, oh, the boys did it. We have to do it too. 'Cause one thing they always see on Instagram is us doing, I don't know, snatching or clean and joking or just the highlights, they don't see the reverse wipers we're doing, all that stuff, but pretty much I like unloaded workouts are key. And honestly, so is hypertrophy. A lot of athletes, the general pop coming in, we call them athletes, aren't muscular enough at the end of the day.

So their body's not as resilient as it needs to be. 100%. So we, and I also base everything off our athletes. So the program that we are doing at this current moment might not work for Schwartz who is the biggest CrossFit gym 'cause they probably have more elite athletes. What we have is more of intermediate beginner. So I'm making our intermediate beginner into advanced athletes. And then when we are advanced, the program will change again. - Well, the program will evolve as your athletes evolve, but as you evolve as a coach as well. - That's exactly right.

- Like if you look back into what you were programming two years ago, you're like, okay, there's bits and pieces that were right, but fuck, I was an idiot for doing that, that, and that. And I did the same thing. It's just like... - Back when I was a power lifter, I used to do strength cons and stuff. It used to be like, 'cause I just didn't want to do met cons every day. Just 'cause I was the typical power lifter hanging CrossFit. I mean, we'll do like strip pull-up, rest 30 seconds, and we'll do a reverse lunge, then some step-ups, things like that.

- I think it's a JV quote. He'd probably start off with someone else, but just boring matters. - Yeah, well, I use it all the time. Like it's one that comes up day in, day out. You gotta do the boring shit, because that's what, you know, it's like studying at uni, you don't just get the degree. You gotta do the boring stuff of rocking out to class and sitting in a lecture. I think that in itself is a lesson to teach resilience and consistency and just to show up. Well, if you could kind of explain your training philosophy or your coaching philosophy in 60 seconds, how would you do it?

- 60 seconds? - Yeah. Training hard will now be first, right? So it used to be just train smart, that's what I was talking about before. Train hard. Oh, you've got me here. What do you think? Honestly, at the moment, it would honestly be train hard and have fun. - Yeah, good. - That's it. One thing I'm also doing is making the Metcons fun. So people that know what a Metcon is, that's the crossfit bit that everybody sees is they're running around screaming. - They're just going ham all the time. - Yeah, yeah. Making those fun.

And they love it. The members love it. They walk in, they're like, all right, I'm gonna beat you in this or they're gonna, things like that. - It brings out that level of competitiveness. - It's 100%. - Between others, but also yourself, because you obviously know what you might've hit last week or the week before or a month ago. People might not know this, but there's like an app called Whatify. So when you do a class, you can put your scores in, things like that. So the scores are there and you can see at the end of the day who came first, second, third.

It's not competitive. It is competitive, but it's not. Everyone has fun. Everyone wants to do better. But you can see scores and things like see what people got. And we put our scores in too, so the members strive and things like that. But the fun Metcons is one thing that's growing our gym, honestly. Just making it fun. At the end of the day, the grindy, I could say run a mile, do 800 pushups, do this, do that. They'll hate it. Make it fun, achievable for them, and everybody gets better, like I said. As long as they're working as hard as they can, they will improve.

- Yeah, I like that. What's it like managing 110 athletes a day? So when I first started, there was 28 members. As we're getting bigger, now it's more of a team effort. So what used to happen was it was just sort of me and Russell, but now we also have two other coaches and a third coach that also does our computer stuff and all sort of the online stuff. But us being on the same page is all you need. We have to have a sit down once a week and we say, "This happened. This is where we want to go."

And we've only introduced that recently and it's improved so much. The only reason why I did introduce that was because I think a couple of months ago, one of our athletes said, "Hey Sam, just letting you know, I've heard there's three different ways I should be doing this exercise." So it was a split joke. And she said, "You teach me this, Jack teaches me this, Josh teaches me that." And I'm going, "Oh crap, we cannot have this." Meeting, bang. We sorted it out. And then from there, haven't heard it since. But everyone being on the same page, you being organized, you have to be an organized person.

- Well as a coach, yeah. - You being organized, but same page is the key, especially with all the coaches. Because I can write what I want on the program if they don't know how to execute it, it's completely different. - Yeah. - So I like to tell them, "Hey, this is the phase we're in, this is what we're trying to achieve." And let's do it. - Well then you get an intention around every session. And then the message that you're spreading to your clients is the same as what the others are. - Yeah. - Yeah, that's cool.

What do you think the most difficult, the most frustrating part about being a coach is? - Frustrating? I would say, the only thing that really frustrates me is, this is gonna sound funny, the people that don't listen. - Yeah. - But they're increasing. So you don't get better at lifting at maximum effort loads. Olympic lifting, you get better at 60%, 50%. Most members, 30%. The people that I help turn around and help somebody else, they've increased their load by 20%. - What are you doing? - That's the only thing that frustrates me. But sometimes one of the other coaches said to me, "Hey Sam, they wanna go a little bit heavier.

This is, oh, your opinion on this would be great." They're always like, "They wanna go a little bit heavier," and they're thinking about leaving. If we don't, if you keep telling them to go lighter, they'll just go do that somewhere else. - Yeah. - And then I'm like, I was close to saying, "Oh, well I don't care." But we wanna have our, yeah, this is how I wanna run the gym, but then again I want to improve everyone. - Yeah. - So we found a fine line, I don't know, what would you do in that situation?

- It's actually a really, that's a really good point, 'cause it's something that comes up every now and again. It's like people will say, "Oh, I wanna do more heavy strength work," or, "I wanna do more conditioning work," and I think people will very rarely go to the doctors and tell the doctor what they need. And we understand to a point what people need, but there's also what they want. And very rarely do they always match up. So I think my kind of philosophy around that is give them what they need and then kind of sprinkle on a little bit of what they want.

So for example, the conditioning stuff, the way we program, it's kind of similar, but we have kind of three pillars to ours, or a pyramid, right? The bottom of the pyramid is just make sure everyone, like the movement side of things, everyone can move well, everyone can hit their range that they need to hit, control their range that they need to hit, and then from there it's the strength and capacity stuff, and then from there it's the conditioning stuff, right, like nothing fancy. But we have, we program on a monthly basis where one of those three things will be the focus or the intention for the month.

It's not like 90/10, it might be 40/30/30 or whatever, so this month's a heavy conditioning month. We had a member leave last month, like we don't do enough conditioning stuff, like well, you're in twice a week, you're in Tuesdays, Thursdays. For this month, Tuesdays, Thursdays are two heavier strength days, Wednesday's an unloaded day, Friday's an unloaded day, and Saturday's a loaded conditioning day, like you miss the three conditioning days, so it's like, it's a communication thing from us to say, these are the days where we hit those things this month, or it might be, if you want to practice this, come and do a one-on-one.

And for the strength stuff, I think it's important for people to, for that heavier side of things, it's important for people to experience what it's like to get stuck under the bar at the bottom of a box squat. Like, if we're doing box squats, occasionally, 'cause I, especially 'cause you've got members that have been around for a couple of years, you've got members that have been around for a couple of weeks sometimes, in the same session, so I'll stop everyone, say we're doing 15 minutes working up to a heavy five, I'll stop everyone for three

minutes in the middle and kinda go, alright, we're all gonna go one at a time, and we're gonna sit, we're gonna take away the tension, stay safe, make sure that we've got spotters, but you're gonna feel what it's like to not be able to get up off the box. And that ability for us to allow them to experience that just fills their cup in terms of what they know they can do and what they think they can do. So I think it's important to teach lessons, if someone wants to go heavier, let 'em go heavier

but within your bandwidth, so you might go, alright, we're gonna spot this person now, I know they're not gonna be able to lift this, or I know they're not gonna be able to lift that well. And if you know they're not gonna get hurt, if you know that you're gonna be there to be able to coach them to a point where they can fail safely, then we do that. I hate people failing in a box squat or a deadlift or something like that, but sometimes it's important for them to check their ego and it is an ego hit as well, and I think it's important.

We've got 10 rules, we've got 10 rules on the wall, rule number five is leave your ego on the hook. And it's become a bit of a, 'cause we used to have that same issue, we wouldn't let people lift heavier, or like we're doing a back squat and you see depth start to suffer as soon as someone starts going heavier and it's just like, go lighter. And then you show them what they're doing or say, leave your ego on the hook and they go, oh fuck, okay, I get it, or if you show them someone that is listening and use those examples, I'm sure you'd have those people in the gym, you're just like, do what he's doing.

Or at least pay, and I'm very big on getting all our members to help teach and coach each other because the best way to learn is by coaching or by teaching yourself. So that I can say, look at Reece, how he's squatting, he's pulling himself to depth, he's driving out of it, it's not too heavy, he's got control, but at the same time he's working at 80% of his fiber, and then they go, oh yeah, cool, and then you show them a video of them doing it, and you're like, does that look like that? Yeah, nah, it doesn't.

Alright, cool, here's our bandwidth we're working in, let's squeeze that up and get it closer and closer. And it's an education point, but it's an empowerment point as well. I want our athletes to be able to understand what it's like to fuck up as long as it's like fuck up safely. One thing I think is important too is you have to pick your person, so for example, I have, like last night, someone was, what were we doing, we were doing O-lifts, and I was like, to one of the girls, but she's one of my friends, and she's a hard-ass cop, things like that, and that was shit, like, what are you doing?

She threw that meter out in front, bars going forward, things like that. And she's like, oh okay, like that worked for her, but imagine I go, cry, leave the gym, bad review, like that's one thing as well, you gotta learn how to, finding videos is really helpful. They see, right? Like, we've intentionally got no mirrors in our gym, so it's not like, okay look at a mirror, see how you're moving, like it's, I want you to feel it, but okay, here's some feedback afterwards to go, see how you stack your chin up super high there and put you into an extension pattern, okay, we need to tuck out your chin in this.

Or it's, and it's working at the right cues, like so that coaching ability comes into it, but I think the biggest thing is probably just knowing your athletes. - Yeah, and that's so true. - And like being a coach is just really understanding, like, we'd be going, we do an induction process for all new clients, like three sessions, most of it's spent standing around talking about why they're there and filling out some goal setting stuff and working out, okay, what are your roadblocks that stop when you're getting there, and you know, so if someone doesn't

rock off three days, I can kind of give them a kick up the ass and say, okay, you said you wanted this, this is why, you know, rather than just, hey, where have you been, 'cause you're not here, and the same in the gym, it's just like, you know, you've told me that you want to be able to back squat this or whatever, or we're working towards performance goal, you know, what's going on, and I think, like, I love being able to, like, use certain people who I know can take it as an example. - Yeah, that's true.

- Yeah, so like, I'll yell at someone and like literally just say, stop being shit. - Yeah. - Or, you know, like, we had a bunch of little phrases we use all the time, one of them that I really like is if you keep doing the stuff you suck at, or if you don't do the stuff you suck at, you'll always suck, or, you know, leave your ego, rule five's a big one, or just stop being shit, and like, you say it to one person, knowing that you're saying it to another person, and you use that as an example, knowing they can take it, knowing there's gonna be banter, and it fixes their ass, and they do it.

- That's so true, I did it yesterday in one of my classes, like a wall ball, I was talking about how it's a skill, and a strength thing, but more skill, and I was like, for example, Mally, who can, one of my clients can squat 180, but he can't do 40 wall balls in a row, 'cause he's shit at the skill, and everyone's like, oh yeah, that's true, you can squat more than me, but he's not good at wall balls, and I gotta practice, I gotta make sure I'm hitting the right spots, doing proper squats, and everyone's wall balls, where else?

And you create an environment where that feedback, or that, one of the guys I follow, he calls it disconfirming information, right, where people don't mind hearing the stuff that they're not good at, like, the last thing we want in the gym is just to be patting everyone on the back the whole time, because otherwise we're just gonna be the same group, at the same squat, doing the same shit in 12 months, and that's, for me, that's the scariest thing in the world. - Yeah, what are the things you guys do to kind of create community and team and stuff like that?

- Team? Oh, competing. - Yeah. - It is, at the moment, it's a big phase and group thing on team competitions, and everyone loves it. I love it, I go there, like, I'm not gonna, yeah, that's exactly right, that's the, that's how I got in, that's why I fell in love with CrossFit anyway, 'cause I was, I was a pretty good sport, I loved it, I loved playing sport, I missed the team, got into the heavy stuff, which is a bit boring for me, a bit repetitive, a bit too, the best program is the most boring one, essentially.

- Pretty much. - For powerlifting. - Yeah. - Where they're CrossFit, and I'm like, oh, I'm competing again, this is cool, and then team competitions, there's like, there's competitions where teams are six, like, I ended up, I competed in Perth, I competed in Brisbane, and you don't have to be a star athlete, too. Anyone could go, like, do these competitions and go into state and be like, oh, this is cool, I was like, weekend away, I feel like a professional athlete, that's one thing that's real, the community in CrossFit is huge, it is huge, that's

why we get cold to cold, essentially, it's 'cause they, everyone, everyone loves it, and will do everything, like, I'm talking, if I'm competing in a local competition in Brisbane, I will have members spending their money to come watch, I'm like, yeah, what are you doing, like, that's how much they, they love it, it's the same with apparel, like, the clothing, they will wear it to any women, they'll wear it to a job interview, legit. - Yeah, yeah, and I think that's one of the, like, 'cause I've, like, you know, I've been very anti a lot

of things, but as I've matured and gotten older, and you start to understand, okay, there's, you know, like, use a big example, like religion, right, something, oh, fucking thing, it's the stupidest fucking thing in the world, I hope you're not super religious. - I'm not, but it's okay. - But, it's just like, I just kinda go, like, what the hell, but then, you know, as I get older, you start to go, okay, well, there's parts of this that are fucking ace, right, like, the spirituality, the understanding of yourself, and the, you know, all these little

things, but with anything, with any absolute thing comes, comes, I guess, those blocks, and that inability to learn and grow and some of that, and I think that's the area I dislike, and I think CrossFit's an area that I was just like, nah, stupid, like, it's back in there, right, and probably similar. - Oh, it's the exact same, yeah. - And it's just like, okay, well, it is, in certain areas, if programmed certain ways, but if programmed differently, if we hit a day-load week, and if we don't get, you know, Jane is a mom of three who's trained for two weeks, trying to overhead snatch, and, like, things like that.

- So, that's the main, so this is, well, that's the main frustration as a coach, a CrossFit coach, I would say, is someone who is overweight, no power, can't even jump up on a curve, something like that, no mobility, they come into the gym and say, hey, Sam, I wanna snatch, and I'm like, okay, that's like, you're skipping eight steps, you gotta learn how to prime squat, back squat. - You gotta earn the rights to that, right? - That's one thing I've actually been saying a lot, I'm like, you have to earn, you have to

earn this, so I actually end up writing a list on levels, on things people should complete, tick off, to sort of earn, to earn things, but that's the hardest thing as a coach, and it happens all the time. At the end of the day, it is a business, too, like, we need to, we can't afford to say no to people. - Well, you wanna be able to keep the doors open. - That's 100%. - I've started to realise that saying no to people, or saying no to certain people, or creating that, 'cause we've got a barrier to entry now for our groups, people need to be clean and an FMS screen before they jump into our groups, right?

And like, I've said, not necessarily said no, but I've kind of set the standard for some clients of, you know, you've still got pain in this, or you're unable to do this, we need to keep doing one-on-ones, and I can't afford that, okay, we'll send you private groups, I can't afford that, okay, well, here are your correctives, go home, do 'em for a week, come back, we'll do another session in a week or two, and if we're there, then we can move into groups, or go see our, you know, if there's pain, go see our

physio, and then you can, rather than it being an issue that you, we use a broken down car analogy, like, if you take a broken down car out into the racetrack, and yeah, you'll probably get it around for a couple of laps, but if the handbrake's on and the tyre's wobbly and whatever, it's gonna eventually break down, and you put a couple of people in a big group, and they're gonna break down, and then it's your fault, right, which is probably the reason, one of the reasons why CrossFit has such a bad name is because

they didn't have those barriers to entry initially, and saying no to some people, it, I think it empowers the members you do have that are doing the right thing, and you attract the right people, and you know, you would've been through it where you're, like, going through a first couple sessions with some people, and you decide this person's not the right person for us, and when you're, I guess, don't look at it as a maturity thing, when your business is mature enough to go, you're not the right fit for us right now, or we're not

the right fit for you, then you start to create that environment where people don't feel the need to fake who they are or where they're at. - My only, the thing that makes it hard for me to say no to people would be this three CrossFit gyms within a one mile radius, and they're just gonna go there and, I don't even like the coaching there, anyway, so that they're gonna hurt themselves, so I think, hey, I can get through to you eventually, that's sort of how we do it, and it happened, like, people get injured,

it's just like anything, like netball, running, sport, people get injured, and they do learn from it, but I like, I like being in control of that, 'cause I would feel more comfortable with, so, with a person like that, who would not fit our gym, well, doesn't even fit fitness, we just suck it up and make it work, like, I'm talking some classes, I'm running three classes at once, so I'm coaching the advanced athletes, I've got some intermediate ones over here, and I've got, over here, they're doing overhead squats, these guys are doing goblet squats, we're

doing sit to stands or glute projects, like, I've had times where-- - And your ability to scale that and have those progressions and regressions in a program is like, is a massive asset as a coach, 'cause like, you know, like I said, you have groups of people back squatting and you got someone doing like, you know, sit to stands or single step ups or like stair walks to practice range, or, you know, like, we're getting better at the culture in our gym if people ever saw, or like, when they might have not come in, coming in and just moby.

- That's, I'd say the exact same thing, people like, they're having knee injury or something, like, come in, we're all super educated, we will help you, like, all the coaches, no one's gonna make you do a back squat or a lunge or something, if it hurts, I guarantee you, you'll be doing whatever that may be, depending on the person, but-- - It comes back to knowing your athletes and your athletes having the understanding and education to be able to go, you know what, I'm probably not gonna get better today if I squat, if I go

for a run, if I do this, if I do that, and like, we use the terms blast and caress, sometimes you need to blast and work hard and, you know, knock the section out of the park and sometimes you need to caress and, you know, stop and do TLC and some clients come in and I've had a fair few business owners be new clients over the last couple of months and it's like, I know exactly where you're at, like, I get it, and we'll spend the last 15 minutes of the session meditating upstairs because they're

gonna get more out of 15 minutes getting out of their head than they will squatting or jumping on a prowler or smashing a park life or something like that. - Yeah. - Where is your kind of growth coming from or going to come from as a coach, as a person over the next 12 months? - I would like to, can't give too much away, yeah. No, so, I want to go into more online, online stuff, so at the moment I feel like the only stuff you see online for CrossFit is CrossFit HQ and I don't advocate 50% of it.

- Yeah. - So, for example, catching a split jerk in external rotation on your shoulders, that's what they teach, that is wrong, it is internal. - Yeah. - Sitting back in the back squat is, we don't teach that, we, knees forward squatting. - Yeah. - Unless, you know, other reasons, but generally, knee forward squatting. Like, I would like to get into those areas, so I'm going to try and, I'm not going to try, I am. - I will. - I'm going to, yeah. I'm going to go more online and I want to honestly spread the word about CrossFit and the right way to do things that I've found.

- Yeah. - Honestly, it's all been trial and error from us, from us coaches going, "Okay, yeah, looking up in a toaster bar works, it doesn't hurt my shoulder," but when I look down in my arch position, my shoulder hurts. - Yeah. - Teaching things like that where that's never even a dressed head position, but it has decreased my shoulder injuries and toes to bar by a crazy amount. - Yeah. - And I feel like CrossFit's so big now and it's such a new sport, it is a sport, that's one thing people have to realize,

that no one's doing it yet and there's going to be a huge market for it and it is going to, CrossFit's just getting bigger and bigger and bigger. That's why I feel like it got such a bad name because there was coaches trying to market off other sports. - Yeah. - So what I mean by that is I have, all the time, footy players come in, "Hey, my coach said CrossFit's better for me than pre-season," I'm like, "It's just shivers." What are you talking about? I'm like, "That is untrue. If you want to do CrossFit, come see me.

If you want to--" - Sure. I can teach you principles around-- - Yeah, yeah. I'm sure. Yeah. But this isn't strength and conditioning for your AFL, this is CrossFit. You want to do CrossFit? That's cool. And I've had boys-- - And then there's CrossOver, right? There's no new CrossFit. - Yeah. I've had boys that go, "Okay. That's cool. I'll come. I'll just do CrossFit anyway because I like it." - Yeah. - And they quit footy. - Yeah. - But that's, I feel like there was so many people going, "Come do, instead of doing training gym or whatever, you're training conditioning stuff or running or things like that, come do CrossFit because we need money."

- They're trying to dress it up or something. - No. - Yeah. - They were just trying to market the sport and say, "That will help," and it's not. - Yeah. - It's a sport in itself. - Yeah. And it's an important difference to understand that if people come in, "Oh, you guys help athletes." Yeah, of course we do. That's performance. Whether it's someone that needs to be functional, functional is a buzz word, but functional to be able to deal with all the shit life throws at them because they've got three kids in their sit-in-office job, or if it's someone that's trying to reach their elite sport, yeah, that's what we do.

But in saying that, if you're a golfer, you're gonna get that 15% better from golf, from practicing golf. And then, yeah, that SNC, the ability to rotate, the ability to produce force, the ability to absorb force, et cetera, will help, but just fucking go play golf. - Yeah, that's it. - It's true. It's specificity number one. - Yeah. - What are you doing in the gym seven times a week? - Yeah. - Spend five days a week in golf course and three or four days a week. - That's one thing, too. The CrossFit's slow Olympic lifts, essentially, because they're intensely so low, that's not gonna make you faster.

(laughing) - Yeah. - If you're doing-- - That's a big gripe for me, 'cause I only lift two percent of my clients, 'cause no one's at that level of where they're gonna get benefits, like, if, okay, you wanna get faster, awesome, you don't have the mobility to access anything that you need to access, or you're not strong enough to be able to express any, you don't have any strength to express quickly. Plus, you don't know how to jump and land and throw, so why the fuck do you wanna ollie lift? And like, yeah, it's such

a, such a frustrating thing for me, like, I'll get, like maybe athletics coaches or other PTs send people to us to ollie lifts, and I'm like, well, you're not ticking these three boxes first, so we're not, like, yeah, you don't just, like I said before, you don't just jump to step eight because you want to. No, it's taken me three years, and I kind of feel like I know how to snatch. It's like, right, even like a fucking kettlebell swing, right, you never do the perfect kettlebell swing. Yeah. There's always something that you're like, fuck, that could've been better, that could've been better.

But that's why I fell in love with the CrossFit and not the strength conditioning, 'cause originally that was the goal, like, yes, I wanna work with the footy team, you know, the normal, the normal uni stuff, and then I'm like, I don't really, I just love the barbell, man. I love the deadlift cleans, things like that. And that's why I got into this general pop training, and then I fell into the CrossFit world because they're general pop people that want to be strong, and it just, it just came together. Yeah, I like that. And it's good that you, like, had that, okay, here's what I want to do, and went, oh, actually, maybe not, that's not me.

And then you just, you know, went from step one, step two, step three, and eventually now you're in something that you fucking love doing. It's like me, I'm enrolling my masters, I'm not doing it, though. Like my EP, oh, I deferred it, but I'm not doing it, like, I've decided, it's not for me. I did a year of it part-time, it would've been two years part-time, I did a year of it, got to the end of the year, and I was sitting there one night, I was like, this is not, this is not me, what am I doing?

And then I just kind of spoke knowledge to the next day, I'm just like, I'm out, I'm not doing it. That's exactly it. One of the best decisions I've made. I just deferred it because I'm like, oh, I'll just leave it for two years, I'll just decide when I'm there, and bang, I've decided, I've got another year to decide, but it's done. I'm not re-enrolling, but I have found what I love to do, and the market's huge, that's perfect. Like, it's growing, and I want to spread the good coaches, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying CrossFit, there's still a lot of shit coaches out there, like, terrible, terrible coaches.

Yeah, and like, I definitely agree, and yeah, but they're shit dentists, right? And it's telling shit figures of it. Well that's it, and it's your ability as a consumer, for the people listening, it's your ability as a consumer to discern between the shit ones and the good ones, and for me, context comes a long way for that, like if someone I look up to or respect suggests someone, then there's a good chance I'm gonna go see them, or if, you know, you're not gonna jump on to, like we used a dentist example, you're not gonna jump on to find a dentist and find the person with the shittest reviews, and go see them, right?

Like, everyone's fucking gonna have a couple of shit reviews because of people with dicks, but if someone's got a majority of good reviews and someone else you know has sent you to them, you've got some context, cool, go see them, and I think that's, if you're looking to join a gym or see a physio or see a healthcare professional or whatever, like do some research, I hate that term, I did my research, but I can talk to people about it, like people that are already in or know or are aware of it, like, you know,

someone goes on holiday and you're gonna go to the same place, you're gonna fucking ask them where they went and what was good and what wasn't, and I think that's an important understanding to have is that, yeah, there's gonna be good crossfit coaches, there's gonna be shit crossfit coaches, there's gonna be good SNC gyms, there's gonna be shit SNC gyms, and I think, like, the thing I look for is someone that's not married to only one training philosophy or life philosophy or anything, because there's always that. - Everything, everything has a place, even, I don't know, leg extensions.

- Yeah. - Everything does have a place. - It looks like you already have this, really. - Yeah. What about quad gains? - Yeah, yeah, of course, of course. - But, um. - Yeah, calf raises, waste of time. Except maybe if you want, yeah, but even then there's other stuff you can do. Yeah, and it's, like, you can get into the semantics, but it's just like, just find someone with the growth mindset. And you see. - That's exactly right. And that's, like, that's the issue with o-lifting at the moment. Everyone wants to be the Chinese, everyone wants to be the Russian.

- These guys have been doing it for, like, 15 years. - Everybody wants to be, everybody wants to be, it's a Chinese method, just crazy, though. - Crazy athletes. - They've got, like, their own laws and shit, like, how do you create laws? Like, they've got to grab, but that doesn't work for everyone. - Yeah. - Like, the Chinese, they do, like, exceptions, how weird is that? The bands. - Yeah. - But, um, their philosophy is, oh, you've got weak claws, let's make them stronger. - Yeah. - That's pretty much the Chinese method. - Yeah. - It's just, it's an open mind, and everything has its place.

I used to be one of those coaches that used to be like, oh, look at them, they're doing that, that's stupid. - Yeah. - I honestly, me two years ago. - Yeah. - And then I've grown so much now, and I'm like, no, that makes so much sense. - Yeah. 'Cause, like, you talk to young coaches, and they've got that mindset, which is like, that sucks, that sucks, that sucks. - Yeah. - Well, yeah, well, fuck, probably. - Yeah. - Like, there's a good chance that what they're doing is mostly shit, but there's, there's, if

they're able to justify it, if it's making people better, if people are who might say be on the couch are out moving, then it's a good thing, right? - Yeah. - Like, you know, I'm not. - That is true. Like, bad exercise is probably better than no exercise. - Maybe. - Depending on the bad, it's honestly not. - Depends how long they're gonna stay. - Yeah. - Depends on exercise if they don't. - Yeah. - If they're, but. - What do you think about 45? - It's a safer version of what we're doing. It's a good business.

- It's a fucking very good business. - It's a good business. My opinion on it is, I don't honestly have anything bad to say about it. - Yeah. - It's just. - Yeah, I think it's better than nothing. - 100%. - I can't look at it as like, it's like the, the 2018 Instagramming version of CrossFit. - Yeah. - But it's like. - Yeah. - They've, they've, they've rained in their. - I'm sure I've got a good point in saying that. - Their ollie lifts, and they're like, they don't do any of that stuff. - Yeah, no.

- They're in areas where people could get injured. - Yeah. - And they've just, there's just such a repetitive. - Yeah. - Lack of body control. - Yeah. - You know. Your coaches are in TVs. - Yeah. - And you've just got cheerleaders coaching, right? - So this, this. - This is a great. - This is a great story. - This is a great story. So what. Well, come back to the story. - Fucking better be good than anything we talked about. - No, one of my friends was applying for a job at F45. - Yeah.

- And he went there, did the whole thing, they gave him it, and they pretty much said, hey, you're too smart to work here, they're like, what do you mean? They're like, we want people that aren't, like are just going to follow, like followers, like the cheerleading coach. - Yeah. - And he's like, what? - Yeah. - And he came back to me. - Can I fix it? No, we don't need to fix it. We just want it to be what it is. - Yeah. And he came back to me. He's like, I'm like, dude, that's fun.

That's all. - It's such an interesting mindset. - Yeah. Is that not weird? Like they could have had the best coach. - Yeah. - They're like, I'm assuming he would have been the best coach there, I don't know what the rest of them are like. - Yeah. - But they said no. I was like, what? These are great. Doesn't make any sense. But it was, that was like, that hit me in the head a bit, but I've never actually done a class. I don't know exactly the exercises at how it worked. I don't actually, I just see that on Instagram, like you said, that DJ, I think they love DJ.

- Something. - Yeah. Like that's all I've seen. I've never personally done a class. I've had members do classes and go, that was boring. But that's all. - And it's just different, right? It's another way to get people moving, like some people are gonna run and never touch a barbell. - Yeah. - And is it the best way? Maybe not. Are they enjoying it? Then play on. - But yeah, it's awesome. It's a great business. They took, they realised CrossFit was going, what's the most common complaint about CrossFit injuries? Let's get rid of those. - Yeah.

- Let's start a business. - Yeah, well, it's just that people get injured slower. - Yeah. That's true. It's not been around long enough. - Yeah. - Give it a year. - Yeah. I think it's, if you see yourself doing something, if you're doing something like that, and you're not getting injured, if you're having fun, if you've got a group of people that you love being around, and you're still improving and progressing, then fucking keep doing it. - I'd actually like to do, I might do a class. I just have, have you done one? - I've done one, yeah.

- Yeah. - It was-- - Was it all right? - Oh, it was okay. - Were you tired? - Yeah, I was tired. - Yeah, it was just straight. - My mechanic would make me tired, right? - Yeah, yeah. - I don't know. I think, 'cause I taught at Chisholm. - Yeah. - A fair bit. So I did a class with those guys. And I don't know. - Wait. Do you teach at Chisholm? - No. I kind of guess lecture them every now and again at the moment. I've done a chunk of teaching for the cert three and fours.

- Yeah. - How'd you get into that? - Do you have a school course? You gotta do something, don't you? - Yeah. You gotta have training and assessment. - Yeah. - Certificate three or something? - Yes. Yeah. So I've done a bunch of, we used to run 12 week exercise courses and all this kind of stuff. - Oh, and to do the marking and stuff. Is that what it's for? - Yeah. And then, I can't remember what we were doing. I think Chisholm were looking to kick start a cricket academy, an AFL academy, and they needed SNC coaches.

So I went down for a meeting and kind of chatted to him about it. And we talked about the preliminary, what it could look like and stuff like that. And I'm like, "Oh fuck, we just need a couple of people with cert three TAEs to teach." And we're like, "Well, we've got to play what?" - Oh, and then that's how-- - And that's how we jumped in and did a bunch of teaching. And now I'm just, I'd love to keep doing it, but I'm just too busy with work. So we have the cert three and fours come down to us every couple of months and vice versa.

- And you coach them? - Yeah. - So we've got the opposite. They just come in and just still get coached by their teacher. - Yeah. - And avoid someone. - Yeah. So they'll come in and I think I took them through, the last thing we took them through was basics of SNC. And I was just kind of like, "All right, well, here's all shit you need to know. You need no difference between volume and intensity. You need to know how you set some reps in to relate. Here's a basic of how you should program for notices."

It's hard, right? 'Cause we've spent the last of the industry for eight years, eight, nine years, and it's just like-- - How do you teach that? - How do I teach all that? - Yeah. - How do I teach eight years in two hours? - In two hours. Yeah. It's just like, and why don't we do a lot of high school stuff as well? - Yeah. - Either being like sport and rank classes or year 12, 11, 12 PE, and it's just like, I could teach you a heap in an hour, but you're gonna remember 10% of it.

So it's like, you know, here's a couple of things you can learn and take away from. The really good schools that have committed to it do like a six week block. - Yeah. - And, you know, the kids leave six weeks after going, "Okay, I understand it a little bit, but you need to experience it." Did those, did they come to you or did you go to the schools? - We go to the schools. Yeah. - That's cool. - So we have a really good relationship with Franks and I. - Yeah. - I went there and Mitchie, one of our other coaches went there and, yeah, it's usually people we know just like, "I wanna bring my kids in.

I wanna bring my class in." - Ah, yeah. - It's a really good way to teach what you do. - Yeah. - It's something different. Some of the conversations I like to have with the kids are more about what they're planning to do next rather than just the SNC stuff, some other things, 'cause so many of them, like we tend to get the SNC, the sport and rec classes or the PE classes, so most of the kids are in sport. "What do you wanna do?" "Oh, I wanna do exercise for science." "Okay, why?" And I'm like, "I like sport."

"Holy shit, it's me 10 years ago." - Yeah, that's exactly what I do. - And you kind of, you know, you use your experiences to be able to give them a little bit more guidance and understanding around it, like, "I wanna be a CrossFit coach." "Why?" "Because I like it." "Cool, if you fucking love doing it, then here's the pathway that I recommend." Would you tell your younger coaches that haven't been to uni or aren't thinking about it, would you suggest that they go to uni? - I would suggest further study, yeah. It doesn't specifically have to be uni, it doesn't even have to be by someone, it's just more mentors.

- Yeah. - I feel like, prime example, uni gave me a work ethic. That's one thing I've noticed between younger coaches and stuff like that. I am where I am on time, half an hour early, organized, things like that, but that came from being a PT, doing 40 sessions a week, going to uni three times a week, and training full time. That's what I've really got from uni, and just people you meet. - Networking, right? - Yeah, that's 100%. That's it. I don't even remember much from what they taught me, obviously, I know it, but I don't remember specifically the lessons and stuff.

- Teach you to think critically a little bit more. - But one of my main mentors, he hasn't done a bachelor degree, he just served three, four, and went to a few clock-off seminars and showroom seminars and internet stuff, reading everything, but I would suggest further study. - Always consistent. - Yes. Cool, I've done my course now, I'm done. No, you're not. I've actually been asked that, one of the coaches, should I go to uni? I say, hey, look, if you wanna go, you wanna hang something on the wall, go for it. I'm not where I am because of uni, but it will help.

- Yeah, that's it, and it's just a stepping stone, like anything, like jumping into a three-day course, or whatever, it's a stepping stone. And I think uni helps with thinking critically, and I'm saying, like, fuck, there's a scientific method that we should be following. If you're able to do that, then it makes all of the other courses you do more efficient and easier, and you're gonna get more out of it, because you're not just gonna take it all as gospel, or you're not gonna take it all as bullshit, you're gonna take the bits and pieces that work.

And then if you're keen to go to uni, and you're already progressing through coaching, then every day, if you learn something little in a lecture that you can take out, you can apply it to your athletes that night, or that next morning. And I was lucky enough, I say lucky because I didn't do it intentionally, but I did my Cert III and IV and Diploma after Year 12, spent the whole year doing that, whilst working and playing footy. And then started coaching as I started uni. So I was already coaching all those things, and I

see that application of the theory, the coaches we have come through, because we're lucky enough with the mentorship program to have some master's students, some have been coaching for five years, some are physios and stuff like that, and it's like, well, the ones that are already able to coach have that people skill to be able to talk to people and get a response, but the ones that have just, you know, some master's students that have just been studying for the last six years and never coached a back squat in their life, they can tell you the joint angles and how to measure the torque and all that stuff in a back squat, but it's just like, well, teach someone.

I don't know how to. That's so true. By the youngest coach that I hired, he was 17 at the time, and he walked into the gym. Because I've known him because he's a freak athlete, he can snatch 120, clean and jerk 150, he could probably run a four-minute mile, he's an absolute machine, and he's such a people person, things like that, and he was saying he wasn't even qualified at the time. He walks in, and like, man, you need to, this is your call, you should do this. Legit, I was close to paying for his CrossFit thingo to go do that, because that covers insurance, not even the cert 3 and 4, that's where a few issues lie there, too.

And he was young, but he just had it all. And I asked him, how did he get so like this, and he's like, because he's been doing CrossFit since he was 13 years old, but he was really good, so he was helping people, just like you were saying, you like to get your athletes to help each other, and that's how he got so good. He was just helping everybody at his gym, and then I met him, and I'm like, man, you need to work, you need to work in this industry, and four years later he's older now and qualified.

But he's been practicing what he's preaching, which is huge. And that's what I was saying, I was happy about doing my cert 3, like just signing up so rapidly, because I did it online, I smashed it down in like three weeks. And so I was working, I started working as I was doing my year 1 at uni, so like you were saying, I was applying, and it makes such a difference. That's so true, and it made me so confident too, like in high school. Fuck, I actually know what I'm doing. Yeah, that's it. In high

school, I was such a shy kid, and then, so that's why I love coaching now, because I can give you a chance to talk to people, I always wanted to be confident, I always wanted to be team captain when I was a soccer player, I was good enough to be a team captain, I just didn't have the leadership skills. And then through coaching, through that, now I'm, yeah, but that's one thing I love about the fitness industry is just the happiness it brings everyone, it's like my clients are coming, like you said, the business owners

that are just cactus, and then they leave like with, I've got another pebble in my step, yeah, and then they message you two hours later, like man, like I'm so happy I trained, I feel so much better now, yeah, that's one thing I love too, like the mental, the mental health part of it is awesome, yeah, just get out and move, especially with the sunshine out now, that's fucking awesome. Yeah, that's true. I have a couple of little questions for you to finish off. If you give a 15 year old you one piece of advice, what would it be?

15 year old me would be confidence, be confident in yourself earlier, yeah, that's the point, I was not confident until I was 19 years old, I spent those first three years super shy, like back of the class, things like that, through the PT and becoming when they officially announced hey you're doing the most sessions, you know this one here, that was my like crap I'm good at what I do, I need to, let's see, I can pursue this, yeah, that was, try be confident earlier, I used to hate it, I like it. What's your favourite fun fact?

My favourite fun fact, oh man, I'm going to sound boring here, I think Jim's too much of my life, that's all I got, I can't get away from it, alright, tell me yours, oh fuck, a group of ducks when they're flying is called a flock, when they're on the ground it's called a paddling, that's it, that's cool, I only learnt that two days ago, but yeah I don't have one, I should get into more of that. What are you grateful for? My parents. My parents do absolutely everything for me, like people say I'm like lazy,

far from lazy, the amount of hours and stuff I work, but my parents gave me the opportunity to be where I am, like we weren't well off by all means but my parents worked to send me to a private school, to send me to uni to feed me, like I still don't even pay rent, I don't pay rent, keep that going as long as you can, that's exactly right, they'll never expect that from me but they've given me the opportunity, like I've said hey I'll give you, I'll make just more than them a week and

I'm like hey let me give you money, no you'll save it, you'll need it, things I put up with my parents, what I'm grateful for. That's awesome, what's success to you? Happiness, what's happiness mean? Wanting to wake up at 6am every morning, so that's one thing that you were saying that you're so busy now that you can't train, happiness, I find so much happiness in training, so my life, my ideal life would be to coach as many people as I can, to still be able to train as hard as I possibly can that day, that

doesn't need to be what I'm training at now, just as hard as I possibly can and be able to buy lunch every day if I wanted to, that's the goals for me, I don't want to be a billionaire, I want to have enough money to go to lunch every day if I want to survive and just coach as many people as I can, I love that, a very similar one, I don't think you need that, it's easy to say when you don't have it, you need that fancy car and fancy house and stuff like that,

you get to rock up to a place where you love to be with people you love doing it with, but it is true, my parents worked so hard and they're always like, my parents worked so hard, money is everything to them but I'm slowly teaching them like hey mum, 24 years old, I can work kinda hard, still live and be so happy, and they're just coming around for that but obviously I want to, it's like almost like, I look at a training example for that, if you go that extra 15% in terms of training, you're

cactus all the time so you can't enjoy it and you might improve short term but if you don't improve long term it's going to burn you out, same thing with work and life and stuff, I really like that, wanting to get up at 6am every day, I couldn't think of any, I was sleeping on Thursdays, it's a weird, that's me, yes I got to sleep on Wednesdays, so we've got our days and I feel so weird on those days because I'm not up at 5.30am, I'm not at the gym ready to go, I get to

work at 10 or 9am, I'm like fuck, I've wasted 4 hours, I've wasted 3 hours, you feel sluggish, yeah, because you get a little pattern right, if you can invite 3 people to dinner, who would they be and why, who would they be look up to, Max Eder, he's a weightlifting coach if you don't know who that is, LeBron James, good, who's the last one, I'm going to say Tupac, yeah good, what question would you ask Tupac at dinner, honestly I don't know, I don't know, yeah, no I just want to meet, I would just

like to see if he is how he's portrayed, he's portrayed to be that visionary, but then there's all the shady things that don't add up and I'm just so curious, very curious watching documentaries, it's like people look up to him so much and then you're like these accusations and the timing makes so much sense and then, LeBron James, he's the best athlete of all time, well obviously there's some back in the day that there's some debatable testing involved and things like that, and yeah, that's fine, I don't care, but LeBron James in my opinion is

the best athlete, his runs are on the board, last question, if this was the last time I ever saw you, what would be the one piece of tangible advice you'd give me to live the rest of my life, with, I was from, because this is the first time I've officially met, yeah, one thing I can see for you going further is working too hard, I can see that, like for example I asked you about the training, like nah I don't train that much anymore, which is fine, you don't have to, but I can see that,

yeah, but I could probably see you forgetting about yourself, don't forget about yourself, that's it, but I see that, I see you, I feel like I'm two years behind her, that's what I feel, and it's cool to be able to see those people that are doing what you love to do, a couple of years ahead because you're like okay there's the mistakes they're making, I'm not going to make the same mistakes, my day has been made that I walk into your gym and you're like hey let's go to my office, I'm like oh this is

sick, like that was seriously so cool that it's four locks down, yeah, it's nice that it's far enough away to be a different location but close enough that I'll be back up there in two minutes, yeah, that's honestly so cool, I'm going to make sure that happens somehow for me. Good, mate, thank you for coming on, fucking love the chat, how can people follow you, find you, all that kind of stuff? Instagram, oh Sam Strength, good, I forget that, but my business name is coach Samuel Cain, but I'm head coach of XSE Powerhouse, anything XSE you'll see me on, but Instagram is pretty much my go to.

Mate, love your work. You too. [Music]