What Is Military Strength Training? | El Paso, TX (2021)

Introduction

In today’s podcast Dr. Alex Jimenez, Health Coach Kenna Vaughn, Nutrition Coach Taylor Lile, and Strength Coach Jeremy McGowan discuss the difference between Athletic Training versus Military Training.

 

What Is The Difference Between Military and Athletic Strength Training?

 

[00:00:00] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: All right, guys, we’re here today, and we’re excited. It’s a real special day for me here in El Paso because, as you guys know, my job is to make advance the science of wellness and fitness and to bring people that we have in El Paso to the forefront and to kind of show the individuals that are out there and the options we have. A lot of people don’t know. I’ve been out here for 30 years, and I’ve seen El Paso develop over the last three decades. I’ve been nothing but proud to see the young kids and young men heading to the fitness programs all around the city, along with the insights they’re bringing from where they come from, people coming all over the world. We have Olympians, specialists, top trainers, power trainers, fitness trainers, and CrossFit trainers worldwide. These individuals bring a vast amount of talent, and they all do the same thing. They get old, and as we get older, they were once the best in the world; come back and share with us. If you’re an Olympian, you know what, for the youth, we bring specific individuals with sciences and technologies. Some people are in the middle of their flight, in the beginnings and new starts of their lives, where they bring in some great scientists. Today we have Jeremy McGowan and Taylor Lile. These were two individuals we brought in last time, and we’re going to hopefully have them come back and share their technologies with us. Jeremy brings a background. He works in the military and is a real smart guy. All these kids are real, smarter than I am. It’s the beginning of time where we can see that the military’s knowledge has brought out great talent worldwide. Jeremy is from Panama City. Correct? Yes, sir. And Taylor, where are you from? Fort Worth, Dallas. One of the great things that I love about this whole story is that they’re here in El Paso, and many people don’t know this, and their expertise and knowledge are not only for us to benefit from, but they’re benefiting. And they’re teaching the people here, the military, through their science and techniques and their specialties and licenses. So we do have a moment in time where we’re now the world is advancing in El Paso. So what I like to do is, I’d like to introduce you to Kenna Lee Vaughn. She’s over there in the side, so you can see she’s there. She’s anchoring on the side, ensuring that my cameras work out where we’re at and that I don’t stutter too much. Then we have Taylor Lile, and we have Jeremy McGowan. And what we want to talk about is a bit of fitness training and the ideas about specifically about strength training, nutrition and as it pertains to collegiate sports, and power training for the military. So these kinds of sciences are very important for people to correlate now. Do they cross lines? They cross lines for athletes in high school. So these sciences and these techniques are going to be good. But I’d like to know a bit about Jeremy today. Jeremy, welcome to the show. But the people out here watching and they’re interested in and understanding what you do. So tell us a bit of what you do and what you’ve done and where you came from and leave from there. Go ahead.

 

[00:03:43] Jeremy Mc Gowan: So, as you said, first, I’m close to Panama City, Florida. A small little town went to Troy University on a baseball scholarship. It’s a D1 University in Alabama, close to Montgomery. So Southeast Alabama played there for five years as soon as I got done playing and slid right into coaching. Coached there for a little bit over three years. I ran baseball and softball, mainly assisting with other sports, football, volleyball, soccer. Many others got offered a job out here to slot into the military side of things. The coach couldn’t turn it down. I really enjoy what I’m doing here, running the physical training programs or the PT programs for a battalion at Fort Bliss. So I’ve worked with two separate battalions. We ran the PT program, reconditioning program, and then we worked hand-in-hand that cannot help write their program so when we are not with them, they have a better idea of what to do when we’re not with them.

 

[00:04:37] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: I got a question for you, and you said that you were an athlete going back to that. What position did you play? I pitched. You pitched. You were the man, huh?

 

[00:04:45] Jeremy McGowan: You know, I was a closer started a little bit but mostly closed. Just tried to throw as hard as I could, but that’s about it.

 

[00:04:52] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Were you good?

 

[00:04:55] Jermey McGowan: I like to think so. But you know, some people might tell you differently.

 

[00:04:58] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Well, don’t be modest. You got to say that you’re good at what you do. You know where I came from, and I was a little boy. We got to see this here in Mexico, and we got this guy named Fernando Valenzuela. Remember that guy? Yeah, man, he was on the Dodgers. Oh man, I remember this big, chunky-looking dude that could rip the ball.

 

[00:05:17] Jeremy McGowan: Well, he definitely didn’t look like he was a pitcher.

 

[00:05:20] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: But here’s the thing that I know now that I didn’t know then that people who got strong cause can propel their force, right? And this dude had a thick core, and he just damaged some gloves, huh?

 

[00:05:30] Jeremy McGowan: He was very, very good.

 

[00:05:33] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: It’s like Evel Knievel for the kid that runs and jumps. Hey, so let me ask you, what did the military see in you that they wanted to provide for this local community?

 

[00:05:45] Jeremy McGowan: So the way it worked, this whole program started as a tiny pilot. Five strength conditioning coaches were the first people on the ground. So that was it. And then it expanded. Now there are 60 coaches across a few bases in the U.S., so basically, they needed qualified coaches. They had an experience, so they wanted guys that had been a strength coach, you know, three-plus years or whatever, to lead the way. The assistants could have a little bit less experience but had to be certified, had to have a little bit of experience in the field to get some, you know, guys in to run PT programs that we’re used to running large groups. So they wanted guys mainly from the collegiate sector because we’re a little more used to running large groups. The private sector as well, depending on where they were at. If they’re, you know, only working there for a minimal amount of time, it might not be as much. Still, they wanted to focus on, you know, the qualifications, so having that master’s degree and having that call and having that certification was the main thing.

 

[00:06:45] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: I’ll tell you what I saw. You’re smart that both of you guys have resumes that are just amazing. And I got to tell you that the military’s talent in this town is fantastic. So don’t feel shy. Go ahead and tell people you got the big old masters because that’s huge. After all, you’re only one step away from a Ph.D. Let me ask you this because that’s very curious. The military has different departments, different battalions. What is it? How many people are in the battalion?

 

[00:07:09] Jermey McGowan: The one we were in initially was around 410 450. This one’s larger. So there are five companies. Each company is comprised of about 100 people. So there’s upwards of 550 in the battalion right now that we work with.

 

[00:07:22] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: I’ll tell you what we’re used to running a little bit of a CrossFit center. We’re coming from the PUSH Fitness Center, and 20 30 kids at one time is a lot. How can you manage the largeness or the immensity of those groups together?

 

[00:07:35] Jeremy McGowan: We kind of set up circuit-style training for the most part, so we try to run stations with them. Luckily, I have another strength coach, not just me, which helps a lot. We split the group up into two usually. We will run a lifting type station and then a running type station, and one of us will run each. When we get to about the halfway point will switch. So he’ll come over if I’m running the training, the strength training station, beginning with, we’ll flip flop. So he’ll bring his group over to the strength training. I’ll take my group to the running, and we will do that for the last half. So we usually have around, I would say, tops approximately 80 people in a group. I would be the most that we would have, and we would have 40 and 40 apiece.

 

[00:08:10] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Jeremy, so you can pretty much see all these guys in different techniques, whether it’s a running area, this is a strength area. You can see them online site kind of in the distance.

 

[00:08:19] Jeremy McGowan: Yeah, that’s the goal. So with the strength training session, we set up a kind of semicircle station so that I could walk around the semi-circle and see everyone. And then, as far as the running goes, we usually do more anaerobic style training. So more sprint type work so that we can be right there telling them, you know, running the rest times, telling them, you know what time we’re trying to beat on the run, whatever it might be so that we can manage it a little more.

 

[00:08:44] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Wow, Taylor, we’re going to get to with you in a second there. So go ahead, drink some water. We’re going to get Taylor in a minute there. But I got to ask a question for you when you look at it, and as a strength coach, you have a deep-seated philosophy in the way things are done. And I assume, and I don’t know, it seems like your beginnings with baseball, correct? How do you apply that science and the mechanical sciences to the different levels and types of specialties in the military? Let’s say you got some, you know, I don’t know what kind of things they do. Let’s say the mechanics versus the heavy-duty artillery gunners. How do you change that up for them?

 

Jeremy McGowan

 

[00:09:21] Jeremy McGowan: So one thing that’s changed over for me with baseball to this is baseball and working with many overhead throwing athletes. So a lot of shoulder problems, a lot of shoulder stability, things like that that I was trying to work with, something that I’ve noticed in this military sector because of how they’ve trained for so long there. They have a lot of shoulder injuries. There’s a lot of shoulder problems, a lot of instability as far as their way overcompensating their shoulders or starting around from doing pushups for so many years and not getting the proper training along with that. So having that expertise on that side of things has helped me a lot as far as training, you know, different types of people. So I work in a BSB right now, so I haven’t worked a lot with people to absorb. So Brigade Support Battalion. We have a lot of mechanics, medics, and communications people are not many high-speed guys. So we’re not working with a lot of infantry-type people. We’re not working with many guys that are out there and active. So a lot of the time, the people that we work with, the main things that we’re working on are landing mechanics and proper lifting technique because we have guys that have to lift some heavier stuff with transport and stuff like that. And then landing mechanics, guys jump out of trucks all the time. They’re in big, tall trucks, whatever it might be. So those two things are something that we try to work on so that they don’t get hurt in their day-to-day jobs.

 

[00:10:46] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: You know, when you say landing mechanics, whether it’s volleyball or anything, that’s got to be almost second nature, huh? You see, I’ve noticed that in the last couple of actual previous decades or two. I see the philosophy changing in the military, specifically in their ideas and fitness goals. Recently, they’ve done some changes in their new programs where they actually, if you don’t pass these particular things, you don’t even get the vacation time or even have even time to migrate up in the ranks. But based on this performance, I’ve heard a lot about this ruck thing. What is this ruck thing? Yeah, I heard how much it weighs because they don’t care if you’re a 180-pound person or a ninety-five-pound lady; you’re still going to carry the same weight.

 

[00:11:27] Jeremy McGowan: So there are different size rucksacks. It can depend on what your unit wants for that day or what type of thing you’re doing. So I’m sure you might have heard of the Baton Death March that happened here once a year. Yes, I did. So there are two separate standards for that. There’s a military light, and a military heavy on the rucksacks is different. I don’t remember the exact way, but I want to say it’s 40 and 80 pounds, OK, if I recall, right? I could be wrong on that, but it’s somewhere around that. And so that’s the life standard in the heavy standard. They kind of set it up for themselves as far as what they do in an everyday setting for a rucksack. So basically, if a unit’s going on a rock, they might tell you, hey, loaded with as much as you want, here’s how long we’re going be able to do this in this fast. So they get to kind of pick their rucksack weight, depending on what they can handle.

 

[00:12:13] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Is it 40 through 80 or 40 and 80?

 

[00:12:16] Jeremy McGowan: So in the baton, it’s 40 and 80. OK, but if they set it up themselves, they could do 40 through 80, depending on what they want to run with.

 

[00:12:23] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Yeah. You know what? What do you look for in terms of an individual for them to say, Oh, this dude is going to just kind of wreck his back, or he’s going to mess his shoulders up? How do you tweak it so that you can kind of help them not get injured?

 

[00:12:36] Jeremy McGowan: So posture is a big part of it. Again, many guys have rounded shoulders, which translates into the ruck. They’ve got a heavy rucksack on their back. They start to hunch over round their back. Their shoulders are already rounded, so you’re putting a lot of stress on the back, which I know you’re kind of the guy for that.

 

[00:12:55] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Oh my God, I live with that every day. Oh, you mean how we treat people? Yeah. So I thought I was hunched over.

 

[00:13:03] Jeremy McGowan: Nothing with your treatment. So, I mean, you know what that can do to a back? And you know, there’s an issue that we try to fix. We do a lot of pulling, rows, and a lot of rear delt work to get those shoulders back right, stop the hunching and stop the roll shoulders. So that’s one thing that we try to do. And then again, as far as a lower-body goes, propagate is something that we try to work on. We work on that a little bit more than we do about proper running mechanics. Propagate can obviously help with many hip ankle knee issues that a lot of guys have when they’re out there because they’re on uneven terrain. Often running, they’re wearing their boots; you know, they’re not necessarily in the best running gear. So we try to do as much as we can to combat the problems that can cause.

 

[00:13:50] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: I find this to be so amazing that the both of you guys are here. Taylor, I know that you guys worked together, and I know we were introduced to you and the vast amount of expertise you have shared with us last time. But how do you guys interact? How do the diet and physical training worlds work together with Jeremy’s dynamics?

 

Military VS Athletes

 

[00:14:11] Taylor Lile: Yeah, so we work hand in hand. I mean, you really can’t have training without nutrition, so I’m out there a lot of times at the PT sessions, whether I’m trying to participate myself or help the soldiers, so, you know, just making sure that they eat something in the morning. That’s a big issue; we see that they don’t have enough energy and wonder why they can’t finish their workout sometimes. So, you know, that is something that we both preach and then make sure that they eat something afterward, whether it’s going straight to breakfast or they’re getting some type of post-workout recovery modality. So we work with that. And then, you know, I do quite a bit of one on one counseling. And so, a lot of times when I’m meeting with a variety of soldiers, you know, strength and conditioning come out of my conversation, and we do a referral system. So I’ll refer them to Jeremy and follow up with him. And then, you know, he’ll often meet with them individually and give them a training program. And so we constantly are in communication with the best practices. And, you know, how do we work towards the common goal?

 

[00:15:26] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: So Jeremy, in terms of when you look at someone, and you see them, they need help. They are, you know, this kid, he means well, but you could see him falling apart because you as you get that instinct like this kid’s going to blow out of something. He’s not there. He looks ashy. He’s not eating well. How do you bring in Taylor in this dynamics, in that situation?

 

[00:15:48] Jeremy McGowan: So, a lot of the time, I can see it closer to the end of a workout. As you said, their energy levels are just low. You know, they can’t eat during the break period. They’re sitting down, they’re laying down, they’re trying to drink something, and they can hardly drink because their stomachs are upset. You know, I can tell pretty quickly if somebody has not eaten or is struggling with the nutrition side of things. And if that’s the case, then I’ll let them know, Hey, you know, we’ve got a dietitian, we’ve got somebody that can help you. I can help a little bit in telling you that you need to eat something before you come out here, but she can help you in a better way than I can.

 

[00:16:23] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Do you guys coordinate a little bit, kind of like this is going to be a rough one? Okay, this is where they’re going to be a lot of them on the floor today.

 

[00:16:30] Jeremy McGowan: There are some times that, you know, we can tell. I can tell when I set up the circuit like, Okay, these guys are going to get broke off a little bit, and especially if the ones that I had that I’ll look at and know that she’s talked to, I’d make sure with them before those days, Hey, did you eat anything? And if not, then you know, I’ll try to help them out as much as I can. Like, take breaks, you know, make sure you eat something next time, though, because this is how the sessions will continue for right now.

 

[00:16:58] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Guys, can you feel what I see, guys? And I got to tell you when I started here in 1991; literally, the military treated me from my vantage point. Again, I’m a civilian, and I don’t have to follow the rules, but they are set up there. But I could sense that the world was like Full Metal Jacket. It was real, intense. It was a harsh environment. And as you can tell, these two individuals are at the forefront of the military to this day. So one of the things is I have to ask you both one question: Do you guys care about your guys? Oh, yeah. You know what? I got to tell you. I see this from the captains now. The world in the military is totally pro. There are people in a way that I have never seen go back two decades ago, three decades ago, in 1981. I could not even get my hands on a military patient. They just would not let anyone outside the military take care of the people today. Are both of you in the military?

 

[00:17:55] Taylor Lile: We are contractors.

 

[00:17:56] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: They’re bringing in the outside world. They’re also letting the inside go out. It’s incredible to see that because from my point of view, the caring that’s involved, I had to move from the top down and have you guys from around the world. There’s got to be some fantastic crew of people recruiting you guys. And I got to tell you; it makes me very proud because the senators made the Fort Bliss as big as it is now and as it’s moved up. You see many kinds of caring sergeant colonels commanders that care about their people. And I’ve got to tell you it makes me feel cool from an individual out there because I got a kid who is your age, right? So, you were guys taking care of him. So it’s a great thing. Let me ask you in terms of focusing on the dynamics of, let’s say, over the shoulder, you had mentioned that shoulder thing going into that particular area is now from my vantage point, I’m a real lover of the shoulder girdle and the way that word and how it works together. When you put something on the shoulder back in the day, that was one thing that destroyed everyone. Didn’t people realize this was this military? No, it was like a football jacket that had weights on it, and they’d load it up in the front, in the back, and you could put on some weights on it. These people had shoulder problems because of the chromium and the clavicle pressure. And this happened. How is it that you kind of prevent a shoulder injury in terms of what you’ve seen when they were things that are compressing them like a rucksack?

 

[00:19:33] Jeremy McGowan: So part of that is how they wear their rucksack. Our PTs do an outstanding job of demonstrating to them the proper technique of wearing a rucksack and how to tie it down the right way so that it’s not putting a lot of pressure on their shoulders. That’s not something that necessarily I do, but that’s one way of combating it as far as my role in it. I’m just trying to strengthen the whole shoulder girdle and that whole area of the upper back, upper traps, whatever it might be, to try to take some load off so that they have a little bit of a shelf or something to sit it on. So we do a lot of, as I said, where we do a lot of rotator cuff work and a lot of trap work as well so that they do get a little bit of that shelf.

 

[00:20:15] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: All right. Well, that gives me a good understanding of what’s going on. What is the difference between the NCAA division one athlete and the military athlete? How do you go about training, and in the little start, like what are the similarities? And we’re going to try to look at the differences to contrast specifically in that science? Go ahead and tell me a bit about what you do with your philosophies.

 

Military Athletes

 

[00:20:38] Jeremy McGowan: So, similarities-wise, I would say the main things are. There want to a lot of times the military guys, the ones that are a little more high speed, they want to get after it. So they want more challenging sessions, they want to sweat, they want to feel like they got something done. In the same way, you know, the NCAA guards don’t want to come in and do one exercise and be done. They want to lift heavy. They want to get big, and they want to get strong. And it’s the same way here. The only issue is here is; the training age is so much lower than an NCAA division one athlete. So when I would get a guy at college, you know, 18 year old. But he came straight out of a high school that was a 6A, 7A, 5A high school. You know, some more prominent schools played football for four years. He’s been working out since he was in eighth grade. These guys come here and, you know, I’ve got a lot of people that are 30 years old that didn’t play sports in high school, that have been in the military since they were 18, and they’ve been training wrong for 12 years since they got in the military. So their true training age is nothing, you know, they don’t have good movement patterns. They don’t have an idea of really how to lift. They don’t have an idea of the right way to warm up, the right way to cool down, anything like that. So it’s a lot more teaching here as compared to I could get up and running at Division One School like I was at in about three or four weeks. I was up and running, had guys going full speed almost, and here it’s a lot of teaching.

 

[00:22:08] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Jeremy, do you work with the reserves also?

 

[00:22:11] Jeremy McGowan: I do not. So we’re just with the active duty,

 

[00:22:13] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Okay. So you mentioned 30 years old. Okay, how does that work? And what’s your approach for a 30-year-old versus an 18-year-old that’s got to do the same procedure?

 

[00:22:23] Jeremy McGowan: The 18-year-old are a little bit easier teach their movement patterns are a little bit easier to pick up on because they haven’t been doing it wrong for so many years, right? So if an 18-year-old and this is true across any population, whether it’s military or whatever, these guys, it kind of sticks a little faster, right? So you teach them something two or three times, and they might have it, whereas this 30 35-year-old guy that’s been doing this movement, but he’s been doing it wrong for 12 years. You know, when you try to teach him the correct way to do it, it might take eight, 10, 12, 15 sessions for him to get it down finally. And the issue with that is how many people are in the battalion. We might only get one or two sessions with him a week, so it might take four months for him to get this movement pattern down finally. And that slows down a lot of people in the process.

 

[00:23:09] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Do you separate them to kind of keep them on a different sack of or direction?

 

[00:23:13] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: So we try to. The issue with that is there. And you know, if you’ve got one guy in Bravo Company and one guy in the Alpha Company in the same boat, they don’t do PT together. So it’s hard to separate within the same company, those people because you might get that company once or twice a week. So if I’m trying to separate the guys that are picking up on it and the guys that aren’t, the groups will be one of the really small, or they’re just going to stop coming because they’re not getting enough out of it.

 

[00:23:38] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Taylor in answering that same question. When do you see those young kids versus the older, or how do you approach the diet changes and just thought the approach of nutrition for them going through the same process in terms of the program?

 

[00:23:56] Taylor Lile: Yeah. So kind of like just what Jeremy said, you know, the 18-year-old scenario, they typically want to get better. They want to do whatever it takes to make it to the next level, which would be professional. And so I feel like their strive to want to get better. They’re a little bit more intuitive to that and receptive than the 30-year-old. It’s not that they aren’t receptive, but you know, many of them will have a family, whether that’s a spouse and children. And so that you have to take other factors that may be out of their control to have this success. So really, just in both scenarios, education component, there is so much room to grow. You know, unless someone maybe you went through like Ranger School a little bit more elite on the tactical side. They might be a little bit more tuned to the nutrition and already know what to do around training and recovery, so they might not need as much education and guidance. But definitely, there’s a lot of room to grow and both collegiate and military settings for nutrition.

 

Division One Athletes

 

[00:25:10] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: All right, we’re going to throw it to another gear here. Now we’re dealing with my thought process; as you take these young men to the next level, you’re going to deal with some elite guys. And that’s where a lot of my kids here, the Division One athletes, correlate, and I’ve got to tell you from what I’ve seen because I treat quite a few of the strange cats that go off to their journeys, and they go into their jungles. These are different kinds of characters. They have different mindsets, and they are at the highest level. Some of these guys are literally in their early, late 30s, and you can see in their eyes, they’re just ready to go, climb trees, get in the jungle. These individuals, these elite tactical guys, are the ones that have percolated up to the highest level. How do you work with those individuals, and what do you do in terms of trying to maintain them at their sharpest level?

 

[00:26:03] Jeremy McGowan: So those guys are a little bit more obvious, like you said, their high speed. So they are more like working with a Division One athlete. Honestly, there have been strength conditioning coaches in the special ops side of things for years and years. They are a lot more in tune with that side of things, knowing the proper technique, knowing how things are supposed to work, and knowing how they’re supposed to feel. So, you know, if they have a problem, they’re a lot more likely to either know if it’s a pain or an actual injury, they can handle the two of them. Whereas guys who are not used to working out to them, having pain, and being sore the day after a workout are hurt. You know, these guys are a little more in tune with their bodies, and they’re a lot more likely to be able to push themselves through your workout. So you can go a lot heavier with them. You can do more of a true tier-based or strength-based or whatever it might be that you want to do to get them better and better.

 

[00:27:05] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: You know, when I was going to college, there were these programs that came out of strength training programs where you can calculate how strong an individual is if they followed this tier. You know, go through these many deadlifts, do it this way, do it these reps, and over time, you were going to go, you know, in a linear progression upwards. It was amazing that you could do it that way. Do you feel that if you push these athletes, you watch them improve, especially the top-tier ones that you can push them to an extraordinary level of accomplishment with tough training?

 

[00:27:42] Jeremy McGowan: Yeah, I think so. With the way their schedule works. So there’s a lot of different ways to train. There’s a lot of different types of training as far as the way you want to lay the program out for them like you said, the linear progression that you’re speaking of, that’s kind of the way to go for those guys. So you might get them for eight weeks, and then they might redeploy right, or they might be on a mission. And the mission might only be two weeks long. But during that mission, they’re not focused on training conditioning. They’re concentrated on their mission. They’re getting it done. So, you know, when they come back, there’s kind of got to be a reset. So you can’t get into a true tier-based system. You can’t get into a true conjugate method system. You can’t do things like that because of how their schedule lays out because of their battle rhythm. So that linear progression with them is the way to go, in my opinion. You can ramp up the intensity and hopefully, you know, have enough time to ramp up the intensity and get them ready for their next mission.

 

Conjugate System

 

[00:28:37] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: You mentioned something about a conjugate system. What does that mean?

 

[00:28:40] Jeremy McGowan: So conjugate is Louis Simmons West Barbell. It’s a full-body deal with dynamic effort, max effort, and rep range effort. So basically, the max effort is absolute strength. So you’re going to get a high weight for a low amount of reps that the dynamic effort is more of your power-type stuff. So it would be more of your cleans, your snatches, it can be many different things, but those are just things that naturally come to mind with those. So it’s a lower weight, but also a lower rep. You’re trying to focus on high speed, so you move in that as fast as you can, and it can be done with your power lifts and can be done with bench deadlift, whatever, and then your rep range is more of your high rep. So that’s when you’re getting more of that bodybuilding reps. So you’re going to eight to 15 reps at that, a little bit lower weight. You’re working on that hypertrophy and focusing on the pump.

 

[00:29:30] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Really, there are many theories here, and I can see that you have that literally at your fingertips, depending on who you’re doing and who you’re working with. You know, I got to be honest with you, when I first started fitness training, there were very few theories. One was your pyramid, maintain strength system, do four reps and two negatives, and do these kinds of things. There are millions of ways to train someone in agility and many ways to do a repetition. Taylor, in terms of let’s go to the mind of those extreme athletes. You know, these are the guys out there. I mean, they know their body. OK, how do you supplement or help them with nutrition to be the best they can be? How do you tweak their amazing dynamics?

 

[00:30:17] Taylor Lile: Yes. It’s all depends on just their needs and overall goals. You know, the elite and tactical, sometimes they’re training, they’re purposely having a calorie deficit, which is causing extreme weight loss. So it’s part of their preparation for some missions. And so that can be difficult. But a lot of times, you know, you’re just trying to optimize performance and health, so they’re normally trained at larger volumes and longer duration. So with that, the energy needs will go up so that the court needs will be higher. As you know, some can be as high as four to 5000 calories in a day versus someone that might not train as much might be more along the lines between two and three thousand. So really, just making sure that they won or meeting their energy needs and then if someone’s trying to gain weight, just maybe say the same way. Lean up a little bit leaner, mass, you know, then we’ll look at things like, OK, how is your protein intake is adequate? Carbohydrates also play a big role in ensuring good fiber and whole grains. And then also, just making sure they have all their micronutrients and their fat intake plays a role. So, you know, you look at everything, look at all the macronutrients, look at the whole diet, and make sure that they have their timing, right? So timing is crucial as well.

 

BMI and The Military

 

[00:31:48] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: You guys can answer this. You know, you’re bringing science to this thing. Do you guys get the inside scoop regarding each individual’s BIAs BMI body composition? Or is it something that you look on the outside, say this dude, you know, he’s fit versus this guy’s BMI at 40 or something.

 

[00:32:06] Taylor Lile: So the military, and that’s with all the branches, their indicator for health is the BMI. So they have a heightened weight for each height and age, male, female. And so, if they make that table that standard, they’re considered healthy. If they do not, the army does taping with the battalion we’re with, so we tape them. You know, it’s the different measurements. Usually, the waist, the neck, and then hips for females. So that would be for both genders. And so then we would put that in an equation and spit out a body fat percentage from there. So we would go from there and see if they were healthy or unhealthy weight. And that is what the military does.

 

[00:32:56] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Jeremy, how do you look at that stuff, and are you privy to that information and apply it to the flight you’re doing?

 

[00:33:02] Jeremy McGowan: So I don’t get the actual numbers. Taylor is the one that gets those numbers, and she would share with me, Hey, you know, this guy might need a little extra help, you know, as far as losing some weight goes, this guy is in the standards. He wants to gain a little bit of weight, and he can, you know, that kind of thing, whatever it might be. So I don’t get the actual numbers, but I got some information from her to help the guys.

 

[00:33:23] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: You know, one of the things that we realize in health care is the unification of data and the integration of other sciences. You, two guys, obviously; I’d like to know a bit about how you guys introduced yourselves and how did you guys interact? Because Taylor, you kind of talked to me about Jeremy, and I got to tell you, Jeremy seems to be a fantastic guy that’s got a lot of knowledge, and I appreciate that. But how did you guys get to interact together? How did that process go in terms of the military’s purpose?

 

[00:33:58] Taylor Lile: Yes, Jeremy is an excellent strength coach. And it’s been a pleasure working with him. To be honest, we work for two different contract companies, so we just were put together by chance. And I mean, we just really clicked since day one; our personalities meshed well. So that’s really where it began. And Jeremy has been here for almost two years, and I’ve been here for nearly a year, so he’s been here a lot longer than me. But so we met when I started.

 

[00:34:28] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Gotcha. In terms of your overall goals for the military and the dynamics for the athletes, let’s go back into the world of a little bit of the Athletic Division One. And now let’s also consider that the sciences you have can also be applied to even the general public and even to kids at that level. And I know a lot of my patients have parents out there that want their kids to benefit from the best ideas and philosophies. And one of the things is that you realize that it’s not so much about knowledge; it’s about philosophy. It’s about your point of view. It’s the way you stand in what you think about how can we take what the military does in its sciences and its progression sciences to get these athletes and these individuals ready for battle to our kids? How can we apply that if you can reach into I don’t know if you’ve got kids, but if you do deal with kids, how would you apply those sciences to even the young high school population?

 

Can My Kid Go To A Tumble Class?

 

[00:35:33] Jeremy McGowan: So one of my papers or whatever for my masters was about strength training in kids because it was something that interested me because I heard kids shouldn’t lift weights all my life. Kids shouldn’t do this. It stunts their growth. It does, you know, it’s terrible for them, whatever. And honestly, everything that you read, research-wise, says otherwise. That’s just been a myth out there for so long that people started to believe it. So for me, as far as translating my side over to the general population and younger kids up to high school, it honestly starts with GPP, which is just general physical preparedness. So being able to handle their body weight and learn movement patterns. So obviously, push-ups, pull-ups, things like that for body weight. But then movement pattern on the squat, the landing mechanics, like we talked about things like that, and then just the general agility and movement stuff. So playing tag, doing things that are active outdoors.

 

[00:36:30] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: What age group are you talking about now?

 

[00:36:32] Jeremy McGowan: This is a younger age group. So when they were starting like eight, 10, 12 years old, the younger kids that are just getting into the sports age and then learning those movement patterns and things like that when they get to that age is critical.

 

[00:36:48] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: So hold on. So, in essence, my son is going to be a wrestler, and he’s five years old. Take me through what you would as a parent, kind of guide me through what you should put him in, under a squat rack or a tumbling class?

 

[00:37:01] Jeremy McGowan: So it doesn’t necessarily even have to be a tumbling class. I definitely wouldn’t put him in a squat rack yet.

 

[00:37:05] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: That’s what I’m talking about.

 

[00:37:08] Jeremy McGowan: You know, some things can be done to teach the movement patterns. So, you know, have him just practice squatting and making sure the knees are pointing out over the toes. He’s not getting bogeys, and he is not caving in, and when he’s walking, his gait patterns are good; when he’s running, his gait patterns are good when he’s landing his foot, stop and play and tag with his friends. He’s planning on sinking into that hip and dropping off. You know them. There are little tiny things that you can look at that can help with those movement patterns as they get older and hopefully combat the chances of injuries as they get older. And then once as they get older and their movement patterns are more ingrained, you can start adding some weight to stuff you can start doing. You know, even just the goblet squats is where I would start. So a kettlebell or dumbbell holding a single thing, you’re not loading the spine, things like that and floor press and med ball throws and different things like that where you’re adding weight. Once those get learned and ingrained, you can start getting into the more significant lift. You know, you get to the big three, the squat bench deadlift, the power, the Olympic lifting type stuff, whatever it is.

 

[00:38:11] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Taylor, he is good, huh? He is. Hey Kenna, what do you think about Little Lincoln and the future one?

 

[00:38:21] Kenna Vaughn: I mean, my poor child, he’s one almost two, and he falls all the time, and I was like, Oh, little kids fall well. His gait is off, and his poor little knees rub together, so he trips himself constantly. So we put him in gymnastics because we wanted to get him involved in sports and everything you were just saying. And so, I never thought of as a parent. I figured if you put them in sports, they’ll just naturally, you know, learn it. But I mean, it’s a great thing that you talk about gait because so many parents don’t know. I didn’t know. I just thought my kid was clumsy?

 

[00:38:58] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: He mentioned something on the passing; he talked about loading, specifically about landing on his legs. When you teach someone how to land correctly, you really prevent knee injuries, hip injuries, back injuries. We see it all the time. For example, in our world, we deal with setters. Setters are usually intelligent people. They migrated to the team’s quarterbacks, but they typically pivot and twist. From what I gather in the book called “The Gene of Sports Gene,” a setter can see the weakness in the other team in less than 500 a second and has to fire the ball back and land it with the individual that they need to strike the ball. But in that process, if they land wrong on the more forward landing, they put a tremendous amount of burden on their knees. And then we have a lot of people with patellar issues. And one of the things is that we try to teach them now they’re all brilliant. They’re 17-year-olds with an attitude, right? And you’ve got to teach them to settle down on their back end and load the balance. How do you take an athlete who’s already ingrained in their sciences and teach them to do something not natural to load their body correctly? How do you do that?

 

[00:40:13] Jeremy McGowan: So for me, I usually start with a simple squat, right? Because when you land or if you’re jumping and landing, you’re going to land in a squat. You’re landing a little bit of a quarter squat, not necessarily a full squat, but trying to make sure, hey, when you squat, here’s what it’s supposed to look like. This is also what it’s supposed to like when you’re landing. If they’re still having trouble with the landing thing, we’ll start with a minimal drop so that we might get a six-inch box, and it’s how you step off of this and land correctly. You’re not jumping; you’re stepping in; you’re falling. I want you to work on landing correctly. So if they can get that down, then we work too hard. All right now, we’re going to jump up onto the box, and you’re going to land correctly up on the box because if you’re jumping up onto a softbox, you’re taking a little bit of the burden off, right? So you’re not putting as much stress on their knees, even though they’re jumping now. Once that gets done is OK, let’s jump off of this taller box regrets that, and that’s how we’ve kind of progressed it until we get to the point where I feel comfortable enough that I can put them out and say, Hey, you can do whatever you want. You’re letting your landing techniques be correct.

 

[00:41:10] Kenna Vaughn: Do you ever have problems with people wanting to do that? Like, do they kind of fight you think it’s dumb, or do they not want to waste their time doing it because they don’t see the value? Or do you usually have people who understand where you’re coming from and are willing to work through that?

 

[00:41:29] Jeremy McGowan: So I was lucky enough at Troy, the university I was at. I played there and slid right into coaching, so the guys I coached knew that I kind of practice what I preach, right? So they would listen to me pretty quickly. Same way, with the softball team, I knew many of them when I played. So the same way here. It’s been the same way. They’re all knew what I’m doing. And, you know, I kind of throw some sciencey terms at them. They say, I know what I’m talking about, and they just trust it. So I’ve been lucky enough not to have much pushback in that area. I know it can happen. And, you know, if it does. My advice would just be to try to explain to them in layman’s terms, you know, just kind of slow it down for them and make them understand, Hey, I’m trying to make sure you don’t get hurt and try to go from there.

 

The Nutritional Component

 

[00:42:18] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: I mean, this is fantastic stuff in terms of its dynamics and specifically for recovery. How do you guys play into kids or young men injured in the nutrition component? How do you help them? How do you support the dynamics from their nutrition component? We talked about a little bit, but can you go back into it and talk about the things that you look at the micronutrient level, as well as the macronutrient level to get these guys to be able to sustain the loads that they’re going to be under and provide them their best option.

 

[00:42:54] Taylor Lile: Yeah. So it goes back to recovery, nutrition, the nutrient timing, and making sure, I mean, you’re breaking down your muscles when you’re working out and trying to build them back up, grow. And so you know, what’s going to do that is protein and carbohydrates. So making sure you have a three to one ratio of carbohydrates to protein, you know that’s going to help them replenish their stores, their energy stores, and build muscle. And then from an injury standpoint, it’s just again, you know, making sure that they depend on the injury will depend on the prescription for nutrition. But overall, you want to make sure that they have enough energy needs. First and foremost, they’re going to be less active typically. So, you might not need as high of calorie needs as they would when training. Same with carbohydrates. It is your primary energy source, but you’re not going to be training as hard. So typically, that is going to be lower. Now your protein needs will be almost twice as high as they usually. They would be to make sure that you’re getting the growth and nutrients you need for the protein and the muscles to just recover from the injury, and then fat also plays a huge role. So the micronutrients you’re going to look at are your B vitamins, zinc, vitamin C, vitamin A, you know, magnesium; those are all going to help in the wound healing injury recovery aspect and immune support, which is essential.

 

[00:44:37] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Jeremy, thank you. They’re leaving now the day. They’re all exhausted; they’re all looked on, right? What are the words of advice that you give them about what they’re going to eat tonight? And let’s say you got an individual that just looks bad? And what do you tell them? How do you ask them to recover? I guess, is a good word.

 

[00:44:56] Jeremy McGowan: So for me, I try to bridge high carb, high protein once after. So obviously, as she said, protein plays a big part in the recovery side of things. And they just deplete a lot of their carb sources during the workout. So that’s really what I try to bridge our sessions are in the morning. So many times, they are barely eating anything like we’ve mentioned doing before. And if they have it a lot of times, not enough. So I try to preach. I go to them and say, Hey, get food, you know, get oatmeal, get whatever you can, get some carbs sources, get some protein, get some eggs, get an omelet; they make you omelets in there. I know they do because I’ve been in there. Eat one, you know, get something that can help you recover from this workout.

 

[00:45:35] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: You mentioned they would sometimes show up without eating correctly. You know, that’s a problem with many athletes, especially the younger ones. They want to look good for some of the ones like in volleyball. But some wrestlers, they got to have the basics too. And for different types of athletes, other things for the population you’re dealing with to get them better. What is a good baseline level of carbohydrates, and what type of drinks or what kind of foods do you offer? Or do you recommend them at least get in that much so that they don’t end up running and being depleted by the end of that program?

 

[00:46:13] Taylor Lile: So they’ll need 30 to 60 grams of carbohydrate. Thirty minutes up to an hour right before working out. And like Jeremy said, a lot of times, the workouts are at 6:30 in the morning. So you’re not going to have the ideal scenario where people are eating three hours a meal before they, you know, train.

 

[00:46:31] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Wait, I’m sorry, it’s when you said that 30 to 60 grams. So 120 to 240 calories, just a start-up the engine, right? Is that a good fair?

 

[00:46:41] Taylor Lile: So that is fair. So what that looks like is 30 grams could be a banana, OK? Or it could be a couple of slices of toast. You typically want something that is going to digest very well. So that’s going to be low in protein, low in fat, and low in fiber. So that is going to be a carbohydrate source. You’re going to want to isolate that to carbohydrates to avoid any digestion issues. So, you know, I always recommend liquid for people who can’t handle solid foods as well. It’s already converted. So something as simple as a 20 ounce Gatorade, you know, if they can take something a little in between solid and liquid applesauce pouch, you know, there’s so many varieties at the grocery store now for kids or adults. And, you know, just taking one of those apple sauces will also help meet that need.

The Big Three

 

[00:47:33] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: You know, as you start your training program in the morning, what kind of things do you do? How do you ramp up the training program? Jeremy, I’ll let you know a bit of that. Like, take me through a day in your world.

 

[00:47:46] Jeremy McGowan: So with ramping it up goes as I said, we might get guys once or twice a week. So it’s a very slow process. It also depends upon their battle rhythm. So, you know, we might get guys to say, twice a week. So we do have to obtain a group twice a week, which is what we were at the old battalion. We bring every company twice a week. We might get them four or six weeks, and then they’re gone for three weeks doing a field training exercise, and they are completely detrained. They’re doing nothing but sitting there for a lot of the time. And, you know, they’re not getting any physical training in practice and military-type stuff. It’s not mandatory out there, it’s unnecessary, and nobody does it, and they can’t shower. So nobody wants to get sweaty and stuff, right? So those three weeks when they come back, we kind of have to reset. There’s not that much of a ramp-up. It’s a lot of general physical preparedness stuff. We do a lot of bodyweight stuff and then a lot of the big three, and we try to progress those as much as we can. So like right now because we just kind of restarted with this battalion with the whole COVID thing going on. We’re doing a lot of goblet squats. We’re doing trap bar deadlifts are extremely important, and it will be their new PT test.

 

[00:48:59] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: What was that again?

 

[00:49:00] Jeremy McGowan: Trapbar deadlift. Hex Bar. Different names for it. But we do that. And then right now, we’re doing floor press, and we’re planning to progress the goblet squat into a front squat right squat to back squat. So that’ll be the progression there. The floor press will progress into the bench press.

 

[00:49:17] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Are those are the three that you’re talking about, the three?

 

[00:49:19] Jeremy McGowan: Those are kind of the big three: your deadlift, squat, and bench. And so that’s your main three-strength lift. That’s what everybody wants to be good at. So that’s the three that we kind of focus on, but we’ll set up circuits around that. So if we’re doing, say, a floor press right, we’ll try to do some kind of a pull with that, whether it’s rear delt or an actual row. So it might be a kettlebell row, dumbbell row, something like that. And then we’ll do a lower body exercise with that. So we try to go full body every workout session. So we’re getting upper, lower, and core. We try to do the main lift is more strength. So if it’s floor press squats or deadlifts, it’s more of your strength-based off. So it’s more that max effort. So it might be said to four sets of five, something like that. With a heavier weight, we try to work up to a heavy load, and then everything else is more hypertrophy-based, so it’s more work capacity. We’re trying to do a little bit of a lighter weight, but it’s still going to be heavy enough to where it makes them work for those eight to 12 to 15 reps, whatever we might do.

 

[00:50:21] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Do you mix it? Like do you have some hypertrophy versus agility and body mechanics stuff? Or do you have specific days? Today’s body mechanic day today is power. Today is hypertrophy day.

 

[00:50:31] Jeremy McGowan: So right now, because we don’t know what group we’re going to get every day with stuff going on to their kind of work in shifts. They’re not there every day, so we might have one group, one day it might be the same people, you know, for an entire week, it might be they come every other day. So the plan right now is we go up there. We set up three lifts Monday, Wednesday, Friday are lifting days Tuesday, Thursday, which are more run days. So and like I said, the running is more anaerobic stuff. So sprint stuff. But on those sprint days, we lift more, but it’s more bodyweight work capacity stuff. So we’ll make many push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups, squats, lunges, but it’s all bodyweight type stuff, and that’ll be all in a circuit with some running involved. And then on the lift days, you know, as I said, that one lift is strength. Everything else is more hypertrophy capacity. So it’s all high reps, and it’s kind of tough to get a lot of hypertrophy-type stuff in because of the box that we’re working out of. So we have a gym that’s inside a box, you have to pull all the weight out. There’s not enough weight to load up a lot of stuff. If we want to do a lot of squats, we need weights for that, right? So we need weights. But on the barbell, well, there’s only eight 45s, eight, thirty fives, eight, twenty-five, and eight 10s. So if I have four stations of squats set up, I need almost all of that weight to handle that. So I can’t use that weight on anything else, whether it’s the sleds, the trap bars, whatever it might be. So I have to come up with bands and the kettlebell.

 

[00:52:01] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: I see an invention there. I think there’s an invention in there. And what I’m hearing is that your gym doesn’t go out to the outside that easily. So is that what I’m getting. You want to be able to have a piece of equipment that has all your stuff on it, so you drag it off that thing.

 

[00:52:14] Jeremy McGowan: So it has everything in it. It’s just it’s not enough stuff to run a lot of like really heavy lifts. It’s got plenty of equipment in it to be able to run whatever I need. As far as the types of lifts, I mean, I can do everything I need out of it. I even lift out of it when I get done with those running sessions. So it’s got everything you need in there is just if I have a large group, I don’t have enough true weight to be able for them to get a lot of absolute strength lifts. And so we have to kind of pair strength and hypertrophy together.

 

[00:52:45] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: I like it. How do you differentiate aerobics versus anaerobic? When do you make that switch, and where do you see OK? At this point, I’m going to throw this person out of anaerobic to aerobic now.

 

[00:52:56] Jeremy McGowan: So the aerobic stuff we don’t do a lot of honestly if, for ourselves, they do a lot of that on their own. So I like the group that we are training today. I heard them say as they were leaving that they were running tomorrow for PT. They’re running five miles, I think, right? So if they’re running five miles tomorrow, when they come back to me on Thursday, I’m not going to do more aerobic work with them. It’s going to be more anaerobic based. And if we only get everybody once a week, that means four days they’re on their own. Two of those four days, I can guarantee you they’re going to run. So I’m not going to do more aerobics stuff with them when they need more anaerobic type stuff, especially transitioning into the new PT test coming in.

 

The AFP Test

 

[00:53:37] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: When you say the new test, what is that that you kind of foresees? What is the foreshadowing of that one?

 

[00:53:42] Jeremy McGowan: So it’s going to change. The APFT is just run, sit-ups and push-ups. So the new PT test is a trap bar deadlift. It’s a sprint drag carry, a 25-meter lane involving five exercises. You still push-ups, but it’s a med ball power throw as well, so working a little more power in there and leg tucks, which will be a little more complicated than a setup. It’s a lot more hip flexors, lower abs, and a run still.

 

[00:54:12] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Let me ask you this because I see from what you mentioned, there’s the sled movement and that translation of force. The core will be a massive part of all those movements because I could see powerlifters notorious for being powerful, but athletes and bodybuilders are notorious for being powerful. But they don’t translate weight and power well because their core ends up being a weak component in that sled in that movement of translation of forces. What I’m getting is that the military now sees the huge importance of pushing and moving dynamics across the distance at the same time, like sled movement, right? Is that what I’m getting, or is it? And how is it that we can strengthen their core? And what is your philosophy on that?

 

[00:55:00] Yeah. So the military just wanted the test to be more athletic-based, strength-based, movement-based than it is right now. Because, as I said, right now, it’s push-ups, sit-ups, and run. That’s it. Three exercises, and you’re done. So they wanted it to be more strength-based with the trap bar deadlift, more powerful base with the mat ball throw, and then anaerobic capacity is measured with that sled drag movement. It’s five exercises, so it’s a sprint, then the sled drag, and then a carry, right? I’m sorry, then a shuffle, a carry, and another sprint. So the five exercises 25-meter line. So it’s a lot more anaerobic capacity. You have to transition from that into the aerobic run, which is still a two-mile run at the end.

 

[00:55:45] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: That’s good stuff. I’m excited, man. I see you. I mean, you got to look at the beginning of the time. You get in about the time you’re done. These people can push something, man.

 

[00:55:54] Jeremy McGowan: So there’s a lot more that goes into it. And the core training does play a big part. The leg torque is way more complicated than the sit-ups, right? So many people can’t even do one leg tuck, and it’s a lot more complicated. It involves a lot more muscle groups. You’ve got to get a little bit of a pull-up, along with the hip flexors flying up the lower abs engage, and it’s a lot more fully involved in the setup, so we try to do a lot of stuff to strengthen the core. We do a lot of med ball slams and do a lot of proper core training, but we work a lot more on core stability than getting them into many flexions. They’ve been doing sit-ups for years. Many of them have low back pain because of that because they’re so much into that low back flexion, which I’m not a big fan of. So we do a lot more core stability type stuff and a lot more like dynamic core. So your weighted abs are hanging stuff, whether it’s, you know, hanging from the bar, just doing knees, the chest, and med ball stuff.

 

[00:56:59] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: I believe that what he just said was a huge component now. He has spent his whole life understanding body dynamics, and he ended up understanding, and now the military gets it on a different level. The translation of force comes from the core. It is huge when you hear med ball slams. That is a body that’s going to its fullest out and slamming at a full range of motion. When you see hip flexes, you’re pulling that hip to the furthest, deepest dungeon of movement to the furthest extreme on the outside. So to be able to do that, to translate weight and slowed and sled movement, you’re going to need a powerful core. The dynamics of it is the ability to move it through time and space at a precise rate of speed. How long had you done it? You can do it a little bit with that strength, but power means you can translate it over 25 feet or so and hit back and forth. So we’re pushing the body to an amazing level. I have sat down with certain patients of mine, and they find that theory, and I found it very interesting that deep tuck, the knee tuck, and the deep flexion movements. Where did that philosophy come from, and you as a physiologist and the nutrition strength coach? How did that come in? Where did that come from? That they realize that those particular movements slam ball and the deep tuck became a crucial component in the military action?

 

[00:58:27] Jeremy McGowan: So I know the people are Major Matthews, who used to run aged 12. She’s transferred over to a different military side now, but she used to work at the Olympic training facility in Colorado, and I know she helped develop the test. So I would guess I don’t know for sure, but I think she played a significant role in that. Yeah, because she does see a lot more about that side of things. I know she helped create, you know, with the power throw and stuff.

 

[00:58:57] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: What was her name again?

 

[00:58:58] Jeremy McGowan: Major Matthews.

 

[00:58:59] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Major Matthews

 

[00:58:59] Jeremy McGowan: So you know, we met her. She came down. I think it was a little bit before Taylor got here, so she came down and talked to us and explained, you know, about the test and why they were doing it and whatever. And she played a big part in developing a test because of her background.

 

[00:59:19] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC* Have you guys gone to Colorado Springs before to watch the take a look at the Olympic Center?

 

[00:59:23] Taylor Lile: I have not.

 

[00:59:25] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: You know what? I got to go there, but I got to watch from the outside inward. I got to tell you that you can see top athletes from around the world, I mean, from powerlifters, but you can see that they’re not very big in the sense of muscular build. Still, you can see that every athlete had a trainer with them and used it as a physical therapist that was right with them, and they were talking mechanics and movements. And these athletes in all the sports have to see this as outstanding. It’s almost like watching something out of a fantastic superpower show where you see these athletes running from all different directions.

 

[01:00:00] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: These are the top athletes in the world training the centers from swimmers to jolt high bolt and whatever the sport is, I can imagine, but you can see them training in the center, and they focus on the range of motion. And you can see the physical therapist showing the motion. And actually, the intensity of the movement is essential. So the science of deep tuck and force translation is enormous now. And it’s incredible that now to be able to do that is at the forefront of the military’s progression. Now that you know that your science and understanding is about the youth let me ask you this. How do you correlate that and take me into the progression of how to get kids, let’s say a high school kid, into doing that particular component of translation of forces so that we can make them great at being a lineman or just torquing the heck out of someone in wrestling, you know, kind of that deal.

 

[01:00:55] Jeremy McGowan: So you made mention the range of motion. I’m a big God that believes in mobility. I get made fun of it and am made fun of a lot because I take about 20 minutes even to start lifting.

 

[01:01:09] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Wait. How many minutes? You’re an athlete.

 

[01:01:11] Jeremy McGowan: About 20 to even get ready to start lifting.

 

[01:01:14] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: OK, so right off the bat, I had to stop here. There’s a lot of people at CrossFit that are always late for class. And they come in, and the class starts at six, and they’re just throwing their clothes on, and they jump in. No warm-up. No nothing. OK, so this is for them. Tell me a bit about the warm-up and the getting ready.

 

[01:01:28] Jeremy McGowan: I do a lot of mobility work. I do a lot of mobility work with my athletes, whether at the collegiate level or here. It’s, so mobility is just moving through a full range of motion, right? So if you’re strong and stable through an entire range of motion, then the force is going to translate better than the health is going to stay around. So you’re going to be able to withstand that lifting weight through that range of motion. So we do a lot of shoulder range of motion. We do a lot of hips, and we do a lot of thoracic spines. So those are three areas that I firmly believe need to be worked on a lot. Many people also have some ankle issues and things like that in a deep squat. So that’s something we focus on as well. But that’s more of a person-to-person basis, not an entire group thing. So as far as a high school athlete goes, those things would be crucial. Being able to do that, so, you know, if a guy is mobile but can still get after it in the weight room, lift a lot. He’s going to have a lot better chance, especially as a wrestler or linemen, at getting into those weird positions and being able to handle that weight position and get out of it and get the guy out of it with him. You know, whether it’s a lineman and pushing somebody to the ground or, as you said, an athlete or a wrestler trying to get somebody.

 

[01:02:42] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Ectomorph, mesomorph, and endomorphs in terms of the squatting, because that’s one of the basic stuff. I’m a squat guy, so I’ve always been a squat guy. You know, when you look at someone tall, lanky, how do you adapt their mechanics?

 

[01:02:57] Jeremy McGowan: So, as I said, I like to start with the goblet squat and break down mechanics in that, so they’re not one; it’s easier to write down mechanics that are not loading their spine. I can fix and play with their mechanics a little bit there. Once somebody is under the bar, there’s only so much I can change mechanics. So I need to make sure they’re correct before they get under it. So when it comes that I’m trying to make sure that they sit back, that their hips are moving correctly, they’re not first creating knee bend. So many tall guys create that knee bend first because I think I have to get down. So their first move is knee bend. It’s not hips back and then starts to slide down. So something that I can do is really, you know, kind of pretend there’s a wall about a foot behind you, and you want to sit your butt back and touch that wall and then you and then from there it’s sliding down. Nice. That’s something I like to queue to get that first movement to be the hips. A lot of guys, as I said, bend that knee first. And if they do that, then they’re going to sit straight down their knees or weigh out over the toes. Because of that, they’re getting a little bit of inversion in their ankles a lot of times. So it’s going to cause a lot of different issues with that. And tall guys are the leading proponent of that because their hips are sitting up so high they think just drop. They don’t think, sit back.

 

Conclusion

 

[01:04:09] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: You know, I got to tell you, I could sit here and talk for over an hour. This is a band. We’ve been over at least 60 minutes here and there. When you look at YouTube and me is going to shut me out, but I got to tell you, this has been an exciting moment because between the both of you, I feel like I’m in a show of Jumanji knowledge. You know, it’s like I just opened up a Pandora, and you guys are full of great knowledge. Again, I got to tell you; El Paso has these individuals; again, I don’t know what information will be there for them if you want to communicate with them. I got to tell you; we have them. We have such great talents, such smart individuals out there. Birds of a feather flock together. So for both of you, I can see how you guys migrated into appreciating the levels of vast knowledge and in the directions you have for both of you. I honestly see you guys as PhDs and whatever you do, so it’s only one step away from being PhDs. I will say that strength coaches are different characters, huh? They’re just different, man. They just there’s no joke. And when you’re under that bar, they want to take care of you. So they’re the most compassionate people and the most serious of all people. And as you said in the gym, everyone seeks out both of you guys for the greater order. That is what you guys do. You guys have great knowledge, and I’ve been a big proponent of great order rules. So you guys have been pulled in through whatever the sources are to bring you to create great order for these young kids and young men to perform the best they can in the world that they have to go into. So I got to tell you, thank you, guys. Thank you. I know that that this information was something that correlates to children. I could open up each one of those conversations and open it up for another hour each. So, Taylor, I got to tell you, thank you so much for bringing us some knowledge, and I look forward to talking to you guys some more in the future and bringing you in and breaking it up into a different because we talked about the leg, we talked about the knees, we talked about nutrition. We can spend hours talking about each of these directions, and it’s out there. And just to let you know, my goal is to bring it out so that the parents can also see what’s important. I think what we got here is good nutrition, good body mechanics, range of motion, dynamic transfer of power, and the progression from even young that you know you can’t be accused of abusing your children when you put them under a weight machine. If you have, the understanding is the proper mechanics and the right age and its dynamics. So nutrition plays a huge role. I always knew that the core holds the secret. Now I’m not the smartest guy in the world, but when God put the baby, he put it where. I put it in the court. OK, so when you look at it, the Orientals called it the Chi, the center of the power right in kung fu. Watch the hips, watch the hips where you can see where the guy’s going because the center of the order rules and sports in translating and when your life depends on it, your core, it has to be one of the most important components as to where you translate force and reaction time comes from there. It’s the basis of what body dynamics is. The pelvis, the hips, the range of motion, and the knees. Those are the sciences that these young individuals have brought in the nutrition of it because when it comes down to circulation, you know what’s in the circulation, the food, the stuff that you put in that hole in your face and the rest and the sleep in the water, in the hydration. What I’m very pleased about is that I’m a lot older. I appreciate the level of youth and young this in them, so to speak, that will be changing the world for the future individuals and families around El Paso and in the regions that this kind of can reach. So thank you, guys. I appreciate your information and I’m a fan of both of you guys, by the way. Okay, because you guys are an amazing future talent, I got to tell you. I have a window before you were here in the 1990s where there was a different world. El Paso is different, and Sylvestre Reyes, by the way, that’s the senator that I wanted to call out. It was his dream to make that military force out here and make it as big as it was. It’s got a long history, but in that impact of those big centers, those training centers was this dream. So I got to tell you for that senator, I don’t know if he anticipated you guys coming, but he did create the great order so that you guys would come and share your knowledge. So I wish you the best and thank you guys for everything you guys have offered. And I look forward to hearing from your best and thank you. Kenna, I thank you for everything too.

 

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