Designing strength and conditioning programs can seem daunting at first. I firmly believe that to get the best outcomes, you need a sound system for how you write your training programs for both patients and athletes training with you.
In this episode, I’m joined by Mike Robertson, who shares his program design system that he uses at his gym IFAST.
Full show notes: https://mikereinold.com/program-design-with-mike-robertson
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Save $200 Off Our Online Knee Course
Learn how to evaluate and treat the knee with my online knee course with Lenny Macrina. Click here to learn more and save $200 off the course this week only.
_____
Want to learn more? Check out my blog, podcasts, and online courses
Follow me: Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Youtube
Designing strength and conditioning programs can seem daunting at first. I firmly believe that to get the best outcomes, you need a sound system for how you write your training programs for both patients and athletes training with you.
In this episode, I’m joined by Mike Robertson, who shares his program design system that he uses at his gym IFAST.
Full show notes: https://mikereinold.com/program-design-with-mike-robertson
_____
Save $200 Off Our Online Knee Course
Learn how to evaluate and treat the knee with my online knee course with Lenny Macrina. Click here to learn more and save $200 off the course this week only.
_____
Want to learn more? Check out my blog, podcasts, and online courses
Follow me: Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Youtube
On this episode of the sports physical therapy podcast, I'm joined by Mike Robertson. Mike's one of the strength coaches that have learned the most from over the years, he's the owner of Robertson training systems and the owner of a gym. I fast in Indianapolis. In this episode, we talk about program design in his system for training something I think would be great for both young coaches and the rehab professionals as well.
Robertson:Hey, Mike. How's it going? Welcome to the podcast,
Reinold:Hey man, I'm doing well, Mike. Good to, uh, be back or good to be here for the first time. If, forget, we've done so many podcasts together now I forget what we've been on and what we haven't.
Robertson:I mean, this is awesome. I finally get to reciprocate, right? Because I've, I've been on yours a couple of times, um, which is great. You have, you have a, a great podcast. Uh, what's the, what's the official name of the physical preparation podcast?
Reinold:you got it. Physical Prep podcast.
Robertson:It's, it's a great podcast. Mike, Mike and I, I mean, we've known each other for a long time online, but you know, he's got so much great content, website, podcast, um, even, you know, his educational products are top notch things that I love. Um, his coaching program, even if, if you aren't trained with him, his yearly program, everything Mike does is amazing. I, I, I, I, I haven't been shy about this, mike, to my audience, but like, You're the, you're the, like, you're the strength coach I'm like most smitten with, right. I think that's a good word for you. Right, right. But I I, I've always said that I a, as I wanted to grow as a physical therapist, as I wanted to grow as a strength coach, um, I, I, I learn from a ton of people and I always keep coming back to you and your content. I just, there's something about it. There's, I don't know if it's just your educational style or if it's just that jive with what you. What you, what you promote and what you think. But um, but I don't know. I just honestly thank you because I've learned so much from you over the.
Reinold:Oh, thanks man. I appreciate that. And uh, the feeling is definitely mutual, man. I love learning from you as well and I feel like we're all trying to just get better answers at the end of the day, right? You just gotta find the right people that jive with your personal learning style. But yeah, I appreciate it man. Thank you very much.
Robertson:That's awesome. Yeah. And, and I kind of modeled this podcast a little bit off Mike's a little bit, right? So, um, you know, if, if, if you enjoy these types of podcasts, Mike always has amazing guests, by the way. How do you get all those guests? You get, you've such a diverse group of speakers. Like, I, I'll get emails from you with the latest episode, and I've never heard of these people, but then I'm like, O O M G. This is a goldmine of a person that I need to now follow. Like, how do you find all these people?
Reinold:Man, I think the podcast is reflective of the, the a d D that I deal with in my life. if you're, if you're a business owner, an entrepreneur, like you kind of have to have your hands in everything. I mean, you can't let anything go, right? So like I'm into training. My business partner's a physical therapist, so I'm into the rehab side. You know, social media, business, personal development, like all these things are important if you want to be successful as an entrepreneur. So there's certain things that I really want to dive in on and, and you can tell like there's certain people I've had on five, six times already, but man, there's also just like, Hey, now this person's amazing at social media. I want to interview them. Or, oh, this person's amazing with force plates and you. In isometric mid die polls. I'm just gonna go deep on that. It's like, it's very reflective of kind of how I think, but I think it's just really trying to find this broad group of people in the fitness industry so that young coaches or young physical therapists can listen and say like, oh no, I'm really into this and find, you know, just pique their interests and find them things that they're interested in.
Robertson:That's awesome. And, and, and the way you do it is just, it, it just, it comes across so Well, I mean, again, it's a great podcast. It's a great thing you should definitely check out. Um, Mike owns a gym in Indianapolis called Iast. That's, wait, let me, I'm gonna do this. Indi uh, Indianapolis Fitness and Sports Training.
Reinold:You got it, man.
Robertson:I nailed
Reinold:try. First
Robertson:and the podcast all in one and, and, and, and I didn't, I didn't prep myself for this podcast, so I'm proud of myself here. That's pretty good. So, um, so you, you own Iass. Why don't you tell us a little bit before we get into some of the good questions here, tell us a little bit about Iass, how you got started as a coach. Cuz I, I just think like a lot of people probably are gonna look up to you if they don't already, but they, they look up to you and they wanna walk in your shoes a little bit. Tell us a little bit about your story of how you started. I.
Reinold:Oh man. It's like such this long and winding path and I always joke around, I say like, I've seen every nook and cranny of the fitness industry, right? I've been in division one settings. I've been in rehab, I've done one-on-one in-home personal training. That was all in like my first eight years, right? Oh, and I was a graduate assistant in the biomechanics lab at Ball State. So in eight years I've got all these different experiences, but I. Two things. I wanted to work with athletes and second, I knew like I'm basically unemployable, right? Like, like I think that's a lot of entrepreneurs we're constantly like, oh, I can do this better, or I've got a great idea and the person I'm working for is too slow to execute on it, or that's not part of their vision. So I did all these different things and I always felt like at some point I wanted to work for myself. About 2005, I moved to Indianapolis and Bill Hartman and I start hanging out. Now, bill and I are both grinders in our own sense. You know, I'm doing, I'm doing in-home personal training at the time, so I'm up at 4 45, first clients at six, and I'll work from anywhere between six, seven, maybe even eight o'clock at night. And when I don't have clients like midday, you don't have clients. I'm writing articles for Tea Nation and creating content and videos. So I'm doing that for basically three years at the same time. Bill's working four 10 hour shifts in his PT clinic, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday. And you'd think, oh, well the rest of the time he takes off. No, no, bill. Bill works six days a week. So Wednesdays and Saturdays he's training clients, like personal training clients out of his basement gym.
Robertson:Oh.
Reinold:So, It gets to be like 2007, early 2008. We're like, man, we'd like to think we're pretty good at this. You know, why are we working for other people and working these ridiculous hours? If we're gonna work ridiculous hours, let's do it for ourselves.
Robertson:I'm Right, right.
Reinold:So yeah, so we decide this basically in March, 2008, we start driving around June, 2008. We find our space move in. In August 4th, 2008, bill and I open I fast. So we've been open like 14 and a half years now. Direct access wasn't a thing initially, so he still kept the, the PT gig going for a little while, but I think three or four years later, direct access became a thing in Indiana. So then he started i a s physical therapy and the rest, as they say is history
Robertson:And, you know, you know what I w I wonder, you know, I've never really, like, I know you and Bill obviously have been partners for forever and he's a brilliant physical therapist that I think a lot of people look up to, obviously. Um, you know, I, I wonder how much you guys rub. Off on one another. Right now, I'm, I'm sure you do, right? But like, I, I am primarily a physical therapist. I've worked in the performance world my whole career, right? I own a gym, right? So like, I get strength and conditioning, but like, I am drawn to your style. Like, and, and y you know, I mean, it, I I How much of that do you think it's because you and Bill collaborate on, on the vision of I FFAs was that big, a big part of the.
Reinold:Yeah, I think it had to be right. Uh, I think the thing that makes Bill and I unique is neither one of us has ever been singular in our focus. So here's what I mean by that. when I came outta college and you know, I'd spent that time in the research lab and I'd been working in the athletic weight room. My first real like paying gig outta college was essentially doing rehab in the back of a chiropractic clinic
Robertson:Oh, no way. Really?
Reinold:Really? Yeah. So literally zero rehab experience. It's like, hey, here we go. Uh, Betty is 85 years old and has chronic back pain. What are you gonna do with her? Like legitimately, those are the people I'm working with. Uh, being the person that I am, I was like, well, I don't want Betty to have more pain because I'm treating her, so you know, I'm gonna do whatever I can. So, so I had a very rehab focused time in my life that helped me appreciate that into the spectrum. Right. And then in parallel, bill was a physical therapist, but. He wasn't even a closet bodybuilder like he was a true bodybuilder for extended periods of time. So while he was a PT by trade, he was very into the strength training and the performance side of what we do. So I think it was that appreciation for the ends of the spectrum that most people don't have that brought us together because, hey man, I could sit there and talk to him about, you know, this personal training client that I have that has chronic knee pain. He'd help me with that. You know, I remember when he was like, oh man, I wanna do a power lifting meat. I don't remember how old he was. I don't think he was 50 yet. But randomly, bill's like, yeah, I'm gonna do a power lifting meat. I'm like, awesome, let's go.
Robertson:Let's program
Reinold:Yeah. Yeah. So we had a bro fest and he went and lifted and we ate steaks afterwards. It was amazing. So, but I think that's why, that's why. He and I get along so well. It's probably why I get along with a lot of physical therapists pretty well because I have a deep respect for what you guys do. Like I recognize the level of education that you guys take, um, the amount of time and care that it takes to be a good physical therapist. Cause I've been in that space. I've had a few wins and I've had some losses too. So it's that relatability and that understanding of what you guys go through. I think that. Me get along well with a lot of different people in the industry just because I can share some of those experiences with them.
Robertson:That's great. Great. And, and, and I think we all, we kind of all grew up together online a little bit too, where we were all learning, we were all collaborating and, and you know, like yourself, Eric Cressey, Tony Genor, you know, even like. The Ben Brunos, the Dean Sommer said, I mean, there's, there's so many of us at the, over the years, like, you know, we collaborated on things. We tackled things, we did cool, like cool, like projects together. I, I think it was just us all growing together and, you know, you, you take a step back and you look and you, you realize how much influence we've all had on each other. It's been pretty neat to see C
Reinold:Yeah. Well, there's just, the internet was a different place 15, 20 years ago.
Robertson:right? It was nice, right?
Reinold:it, it, it really was like, unless you went to some of the dodgy forums where people were just angry and wanted to complain about everything.
Robertson:And those existed? Yes.
Reinold:Yes. The, the angry forums were a thing, uh, but by and large it was, it was a very collaborative time. Right. And I could read something of yours or something of Eric's and all of a sudden you and I could collaborate on something or we'd have an email exchange or, you know, crazy thing. We'd call each other on our phones, our telephones, we'd hit numbers and call each other. But, but again, it was fun and it was collaborative cuz we were all learning, we're all excited and we just wanted to push the industry forward. I think that's one of the things that people miss out on. Yeah, we're, we're entrepreneurs and we wanna make money and all that great stuff, but we were very thirsty for knowledge about learning, about getting better and working together was a surefire way to help us do that.
Robertson:right? I, I mean, think about it. There's, we, I say this a lot, right? But it's really hard to innovate nowadays. It's hard to be an innovator. but you know, the way you can still innovate is by learning from outside your realm and applying it to your realm. And that's, that's what we all did. And that's what we all did that together. And I think that's, that's why, you know, people like I, I think people, you know, see us all as, as similar people that have influenced. Uh, you know, people's educational style over the years. So, um, it was, it was always good to see. But, um, but one of the things I think that I've learned the most from you, and then I look up to the most from you is, um, your programming style and, and just the way you program, I think is very systems mindset, which is what I am. It's very bu uh, you know, holistic. Well, you, you, you wanna make sure you're getting. Specs of athleticism, stuff like that. And there's a lot of what you do is, is, um, very similar to what we built a champion. And a lot of it has to do with learning from people like yourself and the Mike Boyles and, you know, even Mark Forte and back in there. I mean, there's so many people that like, uh, when this all was coming together was really nice, but programming is really what I like. But ironically, when I talk to our students and I talk to our strength interns, I think that's the area that they, they're nervous about the most, is they all wanna know how they can improve their programming skills, and they're so insecure about it. Right. And it's just one of those things that just seems like, you're like, oh, it's, you know, I, I'm, I'm worried am I gonna be able to write a program? With them. And I always tell'em, look, you'll get better, you'll get more comfortable with time. Uh, what sort of advice do you give people at this point in their early career when they're anxious about programming and are, are what they gonna build for this person actually help them achieve their goals? Like how do you, how do you help somebody in that process?
Reinold:Yeah. Well, the first thing I try and do is empathize, right? Because I mean, I've been writing programs for 22 years now, and I still have these thoughts sometimes, right? It's like, oh man, no. Like you get in there and you're like, I got a great idea. And then it just doesn't hit right, or it doesn't, doesn't flow the way that you want it to. So just know that this is never like a done deal. You're never like, oh, check the box. I'm a world class program designer. Like, you never get to that point, or you never feel like that. right? Like, you just never feel like you're quite there. So you, I always tell people it gets easier with reps, right? Anytime you try something new with your programming, it's awkward, it's slower. Um, and I can think of numerous times where like I started learning all of Lee Taf speed stuff, right? So now it's like what would normally. 15 minutes to write a program update is taking 45. Right? Or I learned Joel Jameson's conditioning stuff and it's like, okay, this used to take 20 minutes, now it's taking an hour. Right? But anytime you add something new, it takes time to assimilate it and smooth it out and make it your own. So just know. nothing is your own right now. Right? When you're starting out, you're just this like mixture of your personal experiences, the training styles that have influenced you what you like doing. It's, there's nothing to kind of smooth that path out early on. It's just reps. Uh, so I always tell people, don't sweat it. It takes time. But there are two hard answers that I think could probably help you out. Number one, whenever you get stuck, ask your. If I could only achieve one thing with this program, what would it be? Because a lot of times what you see is when somebody gets stuck writing a program or they get overwhelmed, it's because they're thinking, oh, well this person wants to shed body fat and improve their mobility and get stronger and build muscle and get in better shape. It's like, look, there's way too many goals in that one program, so you gotta narrow your scope, narrow your focus. Right? So that would be my first piece of advice. The. The second piece of advice that I would give you is to really question why you're putting elements in your program. So one of the things we're notorious for at I a S with our interns is the program defense. And we hype it up, right? We want'em to be uncomfortable and come in a little sweaty. Uh, and so we make them uncomfortable going into it. But in all honesty, the one piece of advice I give them is, Hey, look, there has to be a rationale for everything in your program. So legitimately, I could go to the third exercise on the second day of the week, look at the set reps scheme, and you should be able to say why you chose three by eight. And I know that sounds incredibly mundane, but if you don't have a rationale for why you're doing stuff, why is it in the program? And I think right now a lot of people get caught up in programming fomo, right? Like, oh, if I don't put this in, like they're, no, no. Like the best program. Have willful omission written all over them, right? There's so many things you could do, but you're omitting them because it's not gonna move the needle significantly.
Robertson:right.
Reinold:So I think those are two things. You know, ask yourself why, and then always remember to keep the main thing, the main thing, like what is the one goal? And always come back to that and focus on that.
Robertson:I like that. And I've seen young people also on a similar note, chase, Right. They, they go to a new course this weekend, or you know, somebody recommends they read this book and they get into this, and then they just start adding and adding and adding and then, and it, it starts to get rattled up. And when you take a step back and you, and you say it from your lens that you just described there, well, why is that in there? There's, there's six things that they're working on now because they're trying to do everything and then when you try to do everything, you do everything poorly, right?
Reinold:Yeah. So I legitimately tell people to remember one program is just one program. And again, sounds simple, right? But there's only so much you can do in one program. Like if you squat two 50 and you write one program, you're not magically gonna be at 400 at the end of that unless you're on some pretty heavy supplements. You know? Like it takes time, right? So maybe that two. you know, is two 60 at the end of that month, and maybe it's 2 65 or two 70. So if you kind of take it with a grain of salt and you realize, Hey man, one program's just one program. There's only so much I can do in that program. It takes kind of the stress off of that, right? Because it shouldn't be stressful. It shouldn't be difficult. There's only so much you can accomplish in a month. And when you're okay with that and you start to think about the long term, right? Hey, one month is just one month. But if I string 12 good months together, what does that look like? Now you've got a totally different client or athlete standing in front of you.
Robertson:Yeah. And, and sometimes you have to tell'em that too, where you say like, look, you, you can't write programs month to month and just sit down every month with a blank piece of paper and be like, okay, what are we gonna do now? Right? Like, there, there has to be a plan in place, like you said. So this is just one program. Well, let's think of what the next 12 months are. Right? Your online training program, is it a one month program or a 12 month program?
Reinold:It's legitimately 12 months, but broken into four, three month segments. Right. That all have a unique theme and goal to'em.
Robertson:Right. Right. And that, and, and I, I think everyone, they're, they're worried about making that one program perfect where they don't think about, well, how's this gonna progress this next cycle? Right. You have to, you have, you have to think those things. I, I, I think everybody has it in'em, right? If you've gone through school, you've done an internship or something like that, you have it in you. It's just, like you said, it's the reps. You need the experience to just say that this program will produce results. Haven't I, I, I know it will, but by my book Smarts, but I haven't seen it yet in real life. Um, and that's where just, you know, getting with somebody like yourself, like doing an internship at, uh, at, at a really nice place like yourself. Um, that's where I think like people can really advance their skills faster too, is by making mistakes around people that have been through it so that way they can recover faster.
Reinold:Yeah, dude, I wish somebody would've told me when I was young that mistakes are okay. Because I think I lived probably the first 35 years of my life thinking that if I made a mistake, like it was a, a poor character reflection of myself, right? Like I was a bad person versus like, no, like everybody makes mistakes and great people make mistakes frequently. The goal is if you make a mistake to question why it. and make fewer mistakes the longer you do it right. Like again, I've written programs for like 22 years now. I still write programs that aren't great or I, you know, make a mistake when I'm writing something like that happens. The goal is to learn from it so that you make fewer and fewer the longer you do this.
Robertson:That's perfect and, and with experience, you get your judgment and that's, you know, you can't expect to have that on day one, but that doesn't make you a bad coach. right there. There's so many people with like imposter syndrome, just like feeling bad about themselves with this wear, like you, you have it, you just, you just gotta get out there and spread your wings a little bit,
Reinold:Well, and I just did a talk, I can't even remember where it was now, but like in the last year, I did a talk about imposter syndrome. And the really bad thing about imposter syndrome is it hits hardest on the people that are the most inquisitive, that are the most curious, right? It's not, it's not the person that's doing the same workout. Every day with the same, you know, 80 year old Grandma Betty and 12 year old little Johnny, they're all doing the same workout. That guy's not the guy dealing with imposter syndrome, right? It's those of us that are really out there trying to get better, trying to learn. We're the ones that are always like, oh man, I don't know if this is good enough.
Robertson:Yeah. Right. So from your perspective as the employer, you're looking for the people with imposter syndrome, that's what you want,
Reinold:yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and eventually they'll grow into their confidence, right? Like it's, it's in there. It takes
Robertson:Yeah, exactly.
Reinold:It's a sucky answer. It's a sucky answer. Like it takes time, it takes reps. Nobody wants to hear that, but it's the stone cold truth.
Robertson:but surround yourself with people like yourself. And if, if, if you can't, you can't do an internship or you're in a, you know, a remote area of the country, that's fine. There's tons of educational opportunities out there. There's mentoring groups you can join. Um, heck, I would sign up for Mike's online program and just train with them for a year. Right? What better way to have experienced programming than doing it yourself, right? So there's some way, so many ways to do it, but. I know the way we program at Champion is very similar to, to your style, and probably again, just because I've learned so much from you over the, there probably had some carryover, right? But, um, I wish this was here before we started Champion, but it wasn't. I think you've been, you've, you've kind of been chasing this out a little bit more lately, the last several years. But you, you've kind of expanded on this, this R seven system that you've come up with that I was really impressed with when I saw you present it one time and actually start to articul. Because again, it shows you, you know, you have that mindset, you have that system-based mindset, and you're trying to make sure that you, you, you have everything strategically planned. Um, can you tell us a little bit about R seven? Like R like the letter R I'm in Boston. I can't say R so that might sound weird, but it's r r seven, but, um, But, uh, tell us a little bit about R seven and the different components and, you know, we could probably, you know, do a podcast episode on each one of them, but tell us a little bit about your system and, you know, where it came from, how you built it, and, and like what, what the different components are. I'd love to learn more
Reinold:Yeah, so I'll never get tired of talking about this, but really, R seven. Started in my mind in 2008, but didn't come to fruition until about 2012. So if you came into I fFast in 2008, you were working with me or Bill like period. We had no employees. We had no staff. It was us. And the good side of that is you worked with Bill or I. The downside to that is if you're just a normal human being, bill and I may be hard to decipher from a technical perspective, So I think about our programs and legitimately the first thing on our program was soft tissue mobilization. right? So it's like your name program 1.0 date soft tissue mobilization. Now, if you're listening to this show, you might know that soft tissue mobilization means like self myofascial release, right? It's a lacrosse ball or a stick, or you know, foam roller, whatever you have access to. But no gem pop client that walks in our gym has any clue what soft tissue mobilization is.
Robertson:right.
Reinold:And so as we start to get into this, we realize like our clients, they. What we ask them because they get results, but they have no clue why they're doing anything in their program. So again, it's like 2012, myself, bill Hartman and then Eric Otter, uh, who was an intern, a staff member now is like the medical director for the Memphis Grizzlies, cuz he's wicked, wicked smart. Uh, the three of us are, are in Bill's office, right in his purple room and we're like, we have to figure this out. We have to make this more palatable. So we start throwing out these r. and it just starts coming together, right? R one is released reset readiness, reactive resistance, resiliency, recovery. So now first off, the terminology is way easier to understand, right?
Robertson:from the layperson
Reinold:For the layperson,
Robertson:employees and everything.
Reinold:it, it's so much easier to understand, but also there's almost this emotive response, right? So even if it's Grandma Betty, who's never worked out in her entire life, Release. Oh yeah, that's with the foam roller. I roll on the outside of my leg. It hurts like hell for about 10 or 15 seconds, but when I stand up, my knee doesn't hurt. And I've got more mobility. Right.
Robertson:I like nailed it.
Reinold:it, right, like they get it right. Reset. Oh, that's the breathing or whatever. The corrective exercises. Readiness, that's the warmup. So all these words just make a lot more sense to everybody that walks in and like you alluded to, go ahead.
Robertson:I was gonna interrupt for a second here cause I want to call BS on you a little bit. There's no way you guys started brainstorming and all these words begin with R Like it had to be like, half of them were R and then you're like, well, let's make'em all R like.
Reinold:well that might have been, that might have been, you know, like resiliency. Okay. First off, resiliency was originally regenerate and then,
Robertson:That's close. That's
Reinold:yeah, it was
Robertson:like resilience better.
Reinold:Yeah. Well, Don Al Busche, who I think was at the Citadel, I don't know if he's still there. He was the one that's like, I like resiliency better. And I'm like, I do too. So I need to give Donnell a shout out cuz he helped me with that one. Um, but yeah, I'm sure it wasn't perfect, but that was kind of the trend. And then we're like, oh, now we've got seven Rs,
Robertson:You made it sound like a fairytale. You're just like, all these R words just started part. I was like, no, you guys put a
Reinold:One hour later, one hour later, the heavens shined down and we had our answer, uh, But the great thing was what we created on the front end for our clients actually worked incredibly well for our coaches as well. So if you've ever worked in a facility where there's tons of different coaches and trainers, it looks very inc. When one person's over here doing like real proper training, somebody's just doing cardio for an hour, somebody's just doing burpees, you know, until their client vomits, like there's no congruency there, and that's definitely not what we wanted at Iast. Right.
Robertson:Mm-hmm.
Reinold:but we had all these people with different backgrounds, different lenses. Like at the time, Bill's a physical therapist. I don't even know what to describe myself as. I'm just kind of a very broad generalist. We had Ty Terrell who had came up under Lee Taf, so he's amazing with speed and agility. J Chung was training our fat loss clients. So if all these people are just left to their own devices to write programs, again, it's not gonna be very congruent. So now we just give them this model and this template, right? Like, Hey, do whatever you do, but make it. within these broad strokes. So now everybody's using the same language. Anybody can pick up somebody else's program and have an idea as to what they're trying to do with their workouts. And overall, it just made everything we did look more polished, a little bit smoother. Right? And so, again, something that we started really for our client's benefit, turned out to be a huge benefit for us as a staff and as a team as.
Robertson:Yeah, I, I can imagine being an intern there, but then like in future employees, I mean, everything is just so much easier. And if you're listening to this and you're a strength coach, or even if you're even like a physical therapist and you're starting to write like some, like late stage programming, I, you have to think this way. You have to think about all these different components that go into a program and come up with them in this, this fashion. Now. They don't all have, have to rhyme like Mikes do or whatever. They don't have to all start with R but like, you ha, you ha you have to, you have to, you have to think this way in in order to get consistent results. And then even if you're just coaching by yourself and you just opened up a gym by yourself, you start this way from day one. So that way your ability to scale. Just become so much easier as you grow. It's g it it, it'll become obvious to you when it's, you're ready to add employees and people helping you, and it'll be so easy to do if you do it in this fashion. So, you know, again, like kudos to you for doing that, Mike, because, um, I, I, I think it's a game changer for our whole industry as, as much as it's helped you guys at I fast.
Reinold:Well, I appreciate that. And here's one of the things that I think is really bene beneficial, like you talked about it for late stage rehab. You can use this system at any stage of training, right? And here's the great thing about it, like let's say R four, which is reactive, or you're power work. If you're with an early stage a c l or something, you're probably not doing power work, right? but the slot is still there. So if you leave it out, it's willful omission. Right? And so I think that's a big difference between, hey, I'm willfully omitting something, or I just forgot to put something in, right? Or I didn't think about it. So I think that's the beauty of it. It's just you can scale it. You can use whatever activities you use, you can, you know, plug and play with the things that you're most comfortable coaching, queuing, like there's really. guardrails on it other than, Hey, this is the general ebb and flow of the session and how it should look.
Robertson:That's, that's brilliant. And, and such a good way of outlining it. So, uh, so briefly, just so people get a taste of it, cause I wanna learn from your programming style too, and not just like the why, but the what, uh, which, what, what are the seven components? And like, gimme like the elevator pitch for each one so we can understand how you do it. And, and when you say one through seven, by the way, you do them in this order, right? That's the way they're laid out. Like this is the sequential progression of one of their sessions too.
Reinold:Yes. This is literally how we would write a program at Iast or if you worked with me online. So like R one is your release, so that's your foam rolling soft tissue work, anything like that that you would do in the gym. R two is your resets. Now resets. Sometimes it's a love-hate relationship. I don't care what you throw in here, right? Sometimes it's breathing based activities. Sometimes it's crawling. Sometimes it's your classic corrective exercises. Whatever you're gonna do to optimize biomechanical position before a session, that's your R two, that's your reset. You're just trying to get your client or athlete in a better position before they start warming up. R three is read. Again, I think that's a pretty, uh, pretty clear and concise one, but that's your warmup, right? And there's lots of ways you can look at that. Physiologically getting tissues warm, prepping the nervous system. Uh, there's the biomechanical side, there's the specific side. Like if you're gonna go and sprint that day, you don't just start sprinting, you know, max effort, forties, you do some buildups and tens and twenties, but you prepare yourself. So that's readiness. R three, R four is your, So that's any of your speed, power, explosiveness type training. And this is where too, where people start to say, oh, well I like, you know, whatever medicine balls. And I like plyometrics. Again, I don't care what tools you use, pick the tool that works best for you in your co, in your context or your environment, but
Robertson:Yeah. In your population, right. The person that needs in there. Right,
Reinold:absolutely. But this is something that, you know, we might talk about later, but like r. A lot of people would skip power work with their gin pop clients or their older populations. We put that stuff in, right, because we know that power development deteriorates as you get older, so we think it's something important to keep in. So we go R four, reactive. R five is your resistance, your general strength training. R six is your resiliency or your metabolic work. And then R seven is recovery. And so this is where I always try and convince my clients and athletes like, Hey, look, all the things that you just did are great for you physiologically, but your nervous system is is pretty revved up. You're very sympathetically driven at this point. So my job before you leave is to bring that back down, kind of kickstart that parasympathetic process and kickstart recovery so that you recover faster and the next time you want to come in the gym, you're fitter and fresher for doing. So that is kind of the R seven approach, and the way I try and describe it to give you a mental model is it's kinda like a bell curve, right? You don't walk in the gym, well, maybe if you're going into one of these big power lifting gyms, right? You just drink like three Red Bulls, pantera, the whole in as loud as possible. Sniff an ammonia cap and then you bang out 4 0 5, but, but for the normal humans in the crowd, right, it's a little bit more nuanced and a little bit more buildup. So you foam roll, you do your breathing and your resets, then you start to trend up, right? You do your readiness, your power, and your explosiveness. When you're fresh, you hit your heavy weights or your strength training. When you're fresh, as you fatigue, you hit your metabolic work, and then to kind of flatten that curve out and come back to baseline, that's when you do your breathing and your recovery work before you leave. So I work a little bit better with a picture. Uh, but hopefully that's a good enough mental model that people can envision kind of that bell curve that every training session should look like.
Robertson:Yeah, and I, I think it makes sure that yourself and then every coach that's working at your facility delivers a very similar product to people, even if it's, you know, maybe different, uh, ingredients. It's. The same recipe. Right. And I think that that's, that's, that's fun for the person involved. But I, I bet you that it's indirectly educating your people more than you probably even realized at the beginning, right? Where just this terminology and applying that the people understand these concepts of training probably better than just reading soft tissue mobilization, like you said. Like, what does that mean? Right? Like, so I, I feel like then this turns your clients into, uh, almost like smarter gym goers, right? Where they understand. More and then they can be better advocates for their own training in the future. It's a, it's a win-win for you both,
Reinold:it, it's huge. Right? And I think one of the big things that I found is buy-in is consistently higher now.
Robertson:I'm sure.
Reinold:Like they, they just intuitively understand like, oh, I get why I'm doing these things. So buy-in is better, which means they're training harder, which means they get better results.
Robertson:That's great. All right. So for I, I don't wanna lose people's attention right now, so, so people that wanna lo learn more about R seven themselves, what's, what's the best product that you have to teach them that?
Reinold:Yeah, the Complete Coach certification, uh, is probably the best way to learn that. And it, it's a pretty in-depth product cuz I got tired of people asking for like, the first 15 years of my career, like, Hey, if I could just buy one product of yours to learn your systems, what would it be? And I did I didn't have it right. I had a mobility product, upper body, lower body, knees, whatever. Uh, so I com. I com. I created the Complete Coach Cert to basically give people that can't come to I fFast or intern at iast, access to basically the way I assess clients, write programs, coaching queue, progress, regress activities. It's basically all of that in an online course.
Robertson:that's great. And a, and a great resource for coaches, but also like even PTs that wanna get into this. So it's, it's great. Um, tell us a little bit more about how you apply R seven to different people. Right? Like, how would that change between somebody brand new to the gym versus somebody that's been training with you for years or, you know, uh, and an older client versus a young athlete. Like how, how do you adapt that system to each person?
Reinold:This is such a great question, and I think intuitively it makes. To touch all these bases. If you're training an athlete, right, like if you're training a basketball player or a soccer player, you know, hey, they need to be able to run fast and jump high and you know, move heavy external loads and be conditioned to be successful in their sport. Like that makes sense. But I think where a lot of people, at least initially, like I caught a lot of flack for this Mike, like a lot of flack, when I used to say like 10 years ago, I'm like, no, legitimately, everybody's an athlete. and I
Robertson:Oh, really?
Reinold:oh no, I caught so much shit for this. I, sorry. I don't know if I can say that so much, because people are like, no, you can't say that. Like, I never played a sport. I'm like, that's not the point of this. The point is everybody has athleticism in them. Whether they ever played a sport or not is irrelevant, and you need to think like that, right? Because even if it's just longevity, if you're 70 years old and you've never been in a gym and we've had people like this, you need to start taking care of these physical qualities before they deteriorate, right? Well, they're probably already deteriorating, but hey, let's tie the into the rope and let's hang on as long as we can. So all that you have to do is scale the workout to the person in front of you so you know, top of mind right now is tall. Dave, Dave Shock, who works at at iass. Dave is amazing with our gin pop clients because he buys into this wholeheartedly. We have like 80 year olds that come in our gym and they're gonna go play golf, They're gonna go play golf two to three times a week. So if they're gonna do power outside of the gym, how can we train power in the gym? Now again, this is where people would come with the straw. Straw man up. Well, they're not, you can't have'em jump on a box. You're right. I'm not gonna have an 80 year old jump on a box, but what I will do is have'em throw a medicine.
Robertson:right. Why?
Reinold:right? Or maybe they could do a medicine ball slam something where they don't have to catch it, but they can try and demonstrate whatever power they have access to. We're gonna find a way to do that. Right? And you know, sometimes when we're talking about resiliency or we're talking about conditioning, it's very clear if you train a soccer player or a basketball player or a football player, the needs and the demands of their. For a lot of our gym pop clients, they need that general aerobic development, right? Or we're gonna create circuits for them. So instead of, hey, just go, you know, hit that bike for 30 minutes, we're gonna have them just do a big circuit where they drag a sled, uh, they carry, uh, a kettlebell in an offset fashion. Um, they're gonna maybe do some biking in there. You know, they're gonna do all of these like functional, active movements for an extended period of time. So we check a lot of box. We check the aerobic development box. We get them doing like functional activities that they would do when they're outside. Like one of our most amazing clients, nea, if she ever hears this, she's like our office manager. We call her the queen. Yes, love nea, but NEA loves to garden, so we have to prepare her to condition for long periods of time for garden. right? And so she loves the fact that, you know, I won't say her age on here, but of all the women in her age group that she hangs out with, she's the only one that can pick up 50 pound bags of rocks and carry them when she gardens. So it's stuff like that. Uh, and so I think that's the fun thing about this is you're not limited, right? Nobody says that just because you're over 40, you. be explosive or you can't train like an athlete. Like if you wanna leave it out cause the person isn't interested in that, that's fine. Um, but find ways to challenge all of the different domains of fitness with your clients and athletes. And you know, again it's easy with athletes cuz it just intuitively makes sense. But I think when you widen your scope with your gen pop clients, they really resonate with it. Because a lot of times they just think, oh, it's just going in the gym and how much can I squat or bench or deadlift? Cuz they've been trained by a power lift. There's nothing wrong with getting stronger, but I think health, wellness, fitness is a much broader domain than just get as strong as humanly possible.
Robertson:That's great. That's great. Uh, it, I love seeing the system mindset in yourself, right? And the way you developed this, there's, there's so many positives to that for both you, your clients, your employees, everybody. I love that. Um, Another area that we're starting to apply some systems at, at Champion is, is a little bit in the sports science realm. Um, and you know, I, I thought this would be a good question to ask for you because you've been doing this for a long time. Like you said, you've been doing this for over 20 years and things are changing. Right. And we're, we're starting to get more to, you know, data science and, you know, tracking training variables and stuff like that. How much has technology changed you, yourself and i a s what you guys do every day? You know, things like forest plates, velocity based training, anything else that you guys might be using, but how much are you incorporating technology into the gym now compared to what you did at the beginning?
Reinold:Oh, well first off, considering we had no technology when we started, like
Robertson:even have wifi
Reinold:like it was Spartan. People that came to Iast were like, this is it. Yeah, this is it. We had three racks, uh, gold, Schwinn, Airine that we bought off Craigslist for 200 bucks, a prowler and a 24 kilo kettlebell. That was it. Uh, so it's, it's evolved, but like, let me be really honest, it's evolved a lot in the last two to three years. Um, So my background was in sports science, right? Like I got a master's degree in in sports biomechanics. The downside was like nobody had 50 K laying around to go buy an in-ground force plate
Robertson:True.
Reinold:versus now, you know, whether it's vault or hawkin, whatever, you know, system or group you go with, you can get a really good set of force plates for like 6,000 bucks. And that may sound like a lot. in the grand scheme, if you're thinking the long term and being able to, to track things for an extended period of time, the amount of information you can pull from these things is amazing. I am very much in my infancy of getting back into this. Uh, you can't see it, but I've just got like articles, you know, I'm back to all the journal articles and like finding the references and, but I love it, right, because for. The more I can get away from just the sep subjective part of, oh, I feel like, or, oh, I think, no, I want more data whenever possible. Like, I'm not gonna take my coach's eye and experience out of it, but I wanna put it through a better, better filter of, no, this is what it's actually showing me. Right. So force plates very much in their infancy. We've used V V T, uh, using a gym aware for at least the last six or seven years. Um, I love that. I don't use it as much with certain athletes because they're just not as skilled with a barbell, right. Or with some of the traditional barbell lifts, but definitely with my guys that play football, rugby, that sort of thing. Uh, the great thing about using velocity based training is it takes all of the negotiation out of how heavy we should. So like I got one guy in particular, like the football mentality is, yo bro, I benched three 15 last week. I gotta do 3 25 this week.
Robertson:right.
Reinold:And so my retort now is, Hey man, if you can get 3 25 and you're in this zone, great, but if you're at 2 85 and you're in this zone, you're still getting the training adaptation that I want.
Robertson:Yeah.
Reinold:So it takes that negotiation out of it while also simultaneously making sure they're working hard every single.
Robertson:Yeah. The way they should be.
Reinold:Yeah, exactly. Um, even to the point now, partially based off of, uh, the podcast you did with me on B F R, but you know, some of these, like post rehab where they're, they're through the acute phase, but maybe there's still some lagging, uh, muscle size issues. We started using a lot more B bfr this last off season, saw some really good results with some of our basketball guys. You know, we had a, a basketball player we worked with who's had a knee issue for like six. And so he had one really juicy left quad and re like stick man's right, right quad.
Robertson:It's, it's hard to get your quads wrong when your knee hurts.
Reinold:yeah, exactly right. So as part of like a holistic program, you know, he was seeing Bill and he got, you know, good resets and we, we did some things that we thought helped improve it, but we threw some B F R in there. So I think. I think at this point in time, if you're leery or scared, it's okay. Right? Because again, my degree is in this, but 20 years ago, so I'm leery and I'm scared, right? But it's like, Hey man, we're, we're very much at the front of this wave, so get on board now
Robertson:Right. I
Reinold:stuff's only gonna get bigger and bigger the longer we go. uh, the, the real question will be how much of it is valuable? How much of it influences our decision making? Um, how much of it is practical, right? Because I'm not, you know, working for an N B A or an N F L or Major League baseball team. I don't have the same resources, but man, I think it's, as Drake would say, it's what a time to be alive. Man. There's so much cool stuff out there that we can be learning about to help us get better answers and dive deeper into what really underpins performance for our.
Robertson:Yeah. And I, I, I think it fits the R seven system, right? Because you have those different components of athleticism and how to use the body. I mean, to be able to look at somebody and say, you know what, you're, you're pretty strong, but you don't move that. Fast enough, or your rate of force development's not what we need it to be, or something like that. It's, it's, it's actually not a ton of extra work on our end to make some tweaks to a program that could be gigantic to their impact. And, and that's, that's exciting.
Reinold:you're, you're not guessing anymore. Right? It's very clear. And the great thing is if you take the time to do this, more time on the front end, yes. But in general, when you take more time on the front end, you're more successful on the back end. So now it gives me some great conversation points. So the guy that always just wants to bang heavy weights, you know, just he wants to train like a power lifter, but he plays football. I can say, Hey, look dude, here's what I see, like your dynamic strength. like your reactivity, you need more ballistics, you need more power development. The other guy that's like, oh, I don't ever lift heavy. Well his, you know, D S I is like 0.88. I'm like, look dude, you can do all the bouncy, explosive stuff you want. Like, you just need to get a little bit stronger. So it allows me to have these conversations, take my emotions out of it, and hopefully come at them with some like objective science and say, Hey look, here's why I wanna do. let's make some moves with your program that will hopefully help you see better results.
Robertson:And again, buy-in is so easy when they can see it, right? It, it's easy. I I They're starting to love it too, cuz once you get into a facility that does this now, like, you know, our traditional leader boards are all different nowadays, right? They're different and everybody knows their numbers. Right? They're heck, I was just doing some sprints in the timing gates because all the, the, our pro guys were egging me on to do it and see, see to see what number I can get and stuff. And it was funny. I get a governor switch that I'd never had before, but I think that, Parenting or something, but you, you know what I mean, like that it's, it's so encouraging and then the competitive nature of these athletes comes out, but then you put your normal adult fitness clients on it, you know, to a, a much smaller extent. Right. But we still try to use force plates with them and stuff and, um, their inner athlete comes out as well. Right. And, and they wanna see the progress over time. So, um, that's awesome. So, g, good to hear the, uh, you know, the, the way you guys have been building that at Iast and really appreciate you taking the time out to, to kind of break down some of these things. I think this is very educational. Um, I, I, I think you're one of the best educational resources out there, Mike. I, I, I know you, I, I tell you that all the time, but, um, if you haven't yet, be sure to check out Mike's stuff. Uh, his complete coaching certification is a great start to learn all these things. His podcast is amazing too. But Mike, before we let you go, I'd like to end with a little high five. Do you do this in yours?
Reinold:I just call it the lightning round. I like the high five though. The high five is
Robertson:don't, I get some sol. I see. I think you and I are a little dorky in the same extent sometimes, but like I get some solid like eye rolls to that sometimes, but, um, but yeah, FI five, que five. Yeah. Great. Five quick questions, five quick answers and really, you know, they're design, like I wanna learn more about you, growth mindset, stuff like that. But, um, what are you currently working on for your own professional development right now?
Reinold:Mm-hmm. Just, just the force plate stuff, dude.
Robertson:I was gonna say that you just kind of said it. You see you're a pile of research articles behind you,
Reinold:yeah. Literally. I mean, it's like every. I mean, this is the nerd in me right now. It's like one a night,
Robertson:That's pretty bad.
Reinold:find a couple, uh, references. So I'm always finding something new to, to read about. But
Robertson:I like how you're pr, you're printing'em out still. You're highlighted. I
Reinold:I'm old school dude. I can't do it. I can't do it. I can't read it on an iPad. Just doesn't work man.
Robertson:I don't know. These things are pretty cool. You
Reinold:They are
Robertson:the, you should check these out. I don't know. You add the apple pencil to your iPad and you'll never go back. You'll never
Reinold:All right. I don't have the apple pencil. Maybe I need to go there.
Robertson:oh man. Re annotating and stuff on that. It's just magical. But anyway, sorry. Um, what is one thing that you've recently changed your mind about?
Reinold:Hmm.
Robertson:I'm gonna have to edit out the silence
Reinold:Yeah, then. No, no, I, I think that's where, you know, for me, it's like just coming back to like, I don't want to say I was a verse. To some of the sports science stuff two to three years ago. It's just like, I didn't see how I could make it. I didn't see practically how it would work. Right. In the sense that I just economically, like if you, if you own a small business or you own a small gym,$6,000 might seem like a large amount of money until I started to think about, yeah, but how much better is this gonna make every program, how much. Uh, sellable. I don't know if that's the appropriate word, but like how much easier will be I, I be able to sell everything that we do in our gym when I can show people hardline data and objective, objective data that shows them, hey, this is where you're at. And give them a very clear path on this is what we need to do to get you to where you want to be.
Robertson:Yeah. I mean, that's priceless, right?
Reinold:Yeah, absolutely.
Robertson:you know, I like it. Um, what's your favorite piece of advice that you give to, uh, interns at your facility?
Reinold:Be patient. They hate it. You know, it's, it's like the coming back to the start, like it just takes reps. Nobody likes to hear that. Nobody likes to hear, Hey, come talk to me in 10 years and tell me how much different you are as a coach, as a clinician. Right. you just can't fathom it until you have 10 years of wins and losses in your belt, you know? And it's, it's not perfect. It's not the fairytale, you know, like the R seven fairytale. It's not that. You know, it takes 10 years of wins and losses, and then you're like, no, now I'm starting to get it. And then the next 10, you're like, okay. But I think that's what the people that stick around, like you're driven by the wins, maybe even more driven and motivated by the loss. because those are real learning opportunities, right? When you start to think of it in that lens of like, Hey man, everybody mistake, everybody makes mistakes, everybody takes losses, but man, those are, those are opportunities for massive growth and massive learning. So when you kind of start to think like that, it makes everything easier.
Robertson:I like it. You're starting to get wise, Mike. That's wisdom right there,
Reinold:I'm trying, man. I'm trying definitely not young anymore, so,
Robertson:Right. Well, what's coming up next for your old self, Mike? What's, what's, uh, what, what can we look forward to from you?
Reinold:Uh, so I think one of the big things that I'm focused on this year, there's a couple one in-person seminars. So I did three of what I just described as my Complete Coach seminars last year. I did one in Huntsville, I did one in Slovenia, and I did one in West Hartford, Connecticut. This year I've got one on tap for Seattle at Luca ha's gym, and I'm looking to add maybe one or two more to that. So I love in-person seminars. I'm glad we're finally back in a day and age where we can do those. So I love that. Uh, really trying to do, get back to my roots as far as content creation, I think it's easy to get away from it. But, you know, I love the podcast. I love videos. I'm getting back to writing more. Uh, and, and honestly, I don't care if anybody read. It helps me. It helps me process and streamline my thoughts. And I think it just, you talk about communication and presentation, part of it's because I sat in front of a keyboard, like just mulling over something for an hour or two and like, oh no. Now I get why I do that. Right. And I can explain it. So just getting back to content creation and. always like, again, I've said it like three times now, but the sports science stuff, dude, it's just like the next thing for me. Like I feel like I'm pretty confident in my ability to watch somebody move and coach and cue them effectively. So how can I get better diagnostically and be more precise with my programs, with the activities that I'm prescribing? So, man, lots on the plate, dude. I mean, I'm just, I don't know. I'm excited to be here, man.
Robertson:I love it. So how can people learn more about you? What's your best resources? Like your website, your socials? Where, where do you wanna send people?
Reinold:Yep. So I always give people two options. If you're new to me, new to the game, you just wanna see more of what I've done, go to Robertson training systems.com. I'm not joking when I say thousands of pieces of content, blogs, articles, podcasts, videos, like there's so much content there. You could go there every day for years. and find something new. So if you want free stuff, go to robertson training systems.com. If you're a trainer, coach, rehab professional that wants to really dive into my system and how I do things, go to complete coach certification.com cuz that's basically the mother load, right? It's how I look at anatomy and movement. Assessments, uh, program design, coaching and queuing progressions and regressions. Like, there's just so much content there, but I think it's packaged in a really uniform and seamless fashion to where you could take a long weekend, go through all of it, and hopefully come out on the back end and be a better coach or practitioner as a result. So those are the two best places, man.
Robertson:Yeah, and I, you know, I've been following you for, for forever, so I agree. All those great resources have been through your program, so I, I, I couldn't recommend'em enough. So, uh, thanks so much, Mike. Really appreciate you having us on our, uh, you being on the podcast. I told I'm still getting used to this interview thing, but thanks, thanks for, thanks for coming on the podcast today.
Reinold:Yeah. Thanks for having me, man. I appreciate it.