In this episode of the Flex Diet Podcast, I sit down with human performance specialist and coach Rob Wilson for a wide-ranging conversation that spans music, coach education, and what it really means to train for performance longevity. We dig into Rob’s new book, The Check Engine Light: Tune In Your Body and Mind to Achieve Performance Longevity, and his work educating coaches through ALTIS and with special operations communities. Rob also shares why jiu-jitsu strength and conditioning still lacks clear performance standards and proposes building sport-specific frameworks (like lower-body clinching demands) before jumping to exercise selection. We talk grip strength vs endurance, avoiding redundancy and tendon issues, contra-specific training for durability, and why “recovery” isn’t the goal—adaptation is—especially in elite sport.
In this episode of the Flex Diet Podcast, I sit down with human performance specialist and coach Rob Wilson for a wide-ranging conversation that spans music, coach education, and what it really means to train for performance longevity. We dig into Rob’s new book, The Check Engine Light: Tune In Your Body and Mind to Achieve Performance Longevity, and his work educating coaches through ALTIS and with special operations communities.
Rob also shares why jiu-jitsu strength and conditioning still lacks clear performance standards and proposes building sport-specific frameworks (like lower-body clinching demands) before jumping to exercise selection. We talk grip strength vs endurance, avoiding redundancy and tendon issues, contra-specific training for durability, and why “recovery” isn’t the goal—adaptation is—especially in elite sport.
Sponsors:
Available now:
Episode Chapters:
Flex Diet Podcasts you may enjoy:
Connect with Rob:
Get In Touch with Dr Mike:
Speaker: [00:00:00] Welcome back to the Flex Diet Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Mike T. Nelson. On this podcast, we talk about all things to increase muscle, increase performance, improve body composition, all without destroying your health in a flexible framework. Today, got my buddy Rob Wilson on the podcast, and we're talking about just a w- wide variety of stuff from music to movement patterns, how to know what are some standards for strength and conditioning, especially for newer mixed martial arts BJJ, et cetera.
I originally met Rob through the Art of Breath that he was teaching for Brian McKenzie through Shift Adapt many years ago. I got to sit down and chat with him afterwards, which was great. Learned a ton from him at that point and wanted to get him back on the podcast 'cause I really like the creative, uh, thought [00:01:00] processes and the time and effort he puts into everything here.
Uh, make sure to check out his brand-new book called The Check Engine Light: Tune In Your Body and Mind to Achieve Performance Longevity. Uh, this is published by Victory Belt with a forward by our good buddy Dr. Kelly Starrett. So Rob Wilson is a human performance specialist, educator, coach, author now.
Spent more than two decades working at the intersection of breath movement, performance, resilience, and long-term health. As I mentioned, Rob was one of the key educators behind, uh, the Art of Breath. Uh, he has worked with tactical populations, high-performance organizations, just a ton of people in the background.
Also, uh, helping with the curriculum at Altus and just a really cool guy. You probably have not heard of him, but he's one of those guys who kinda stays a little bit more in the background but has a ton of really great stuff. [00:02:00] Uh, so make sure to check out his links, his book, and everything else. We'll put them all down below.
If you want more information from me, you can hop onto the newsletter completely free. I send you cool fitness stuff related to all the, the topics we discuss on the podcast here, uh, directly to your inbox and try to make them as entertaining as possible also. So just go to the link below and you'll be able to sign up completely free.
So without further ado, here's our wide-ranging conversation, Mr. Rob Wilson.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Welcome to the program. Rob, how are you doing, man?
Rob Wilson: Good. Thanks for having me. Appreciate you.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. Thank you. We got to hang out at... Does it seem like the older you get, like, the faster... I just lose track of time now. Like, I think the last time we saw you, you were in the Twin Cities doing the Art of Breath teaching that I went to, which was great, and- Awesome
that was 2018, I think. It was like eight years ago, which doesn't seem like it's that long [00:03:00] ago.
Rob Wilson: I know. But it, it's funny because whenever now I see... like, I'm a '80s kid- Yeah. I was an '80s kid, and now I see, like, great classic movie or, like, l- now, like, some of the younger athletes and stuff that I'll work with, they'll be like, "Oh my God, I love this classics- this classic grunge."
And I'm like, "Oh my God."
Dr Mike T Nelson: Classic grunge, oh my God. Yeah. And
Rob Wilson: I'm like, I'm like, "What are you listening to?" They're like, "Oh, Alice in Chains." I was like, "Oh, man, that was, like, new when I was- Yeah ... in junior high and high school." And they were like, "Wow, really?" I'm like, "Yes." Yeah. I- I'm officially old.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, I just put up a post the other day that this is March as we're recording this, 1994 Soundgarden's Superunknown and Nine Inch Nails' Downward Spiral both came out on the same day.
And I remember listening to both those albums. Super unknown, yeah. Yeah. Love that. Because they used to have, like, release days were, like, the same, and I remember listening to both those albums once, once I [00:04:00] finally picked them up, and just being blown away about how different comparatively in styles and everything they are from each other, and just how varied music was at that time, and how a lot of that was new.
And obviously Nine Inch Nails had been around for a while, Soundgarden had been around for a while, but, both those albums were probably one of their biggest ones, to date. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. It's this weird comparison of the two things and how... There's a lot of innovative music now still, but yeah, how now people are like, "Oh yeah, that's, that's classic stuff."
Yeah. It's like, "I
Rob Wilson: remember
Dr Mike T Nelson: when
Rob Wilson: that was new." Golden age of hip hop too,
Dr Mike T Nelson: Oh, 100%. Early Public Enemy- oh, ... Beastie Boys, A Tribe Called Quest. Yeah.
Rob Wilson: Yeah. Yeah, a lot of good stuff came out in, early to mid-'90s. Yeah. This is just old man talk, though, I know. In 25 or 30 years from now, our kids are gonna, be, "Well, back in [00:05:00] 2025..."
Dr Mike T Nelson: In 2026- ... back in the
Rob Wilson: day. Yeah. Just the... It's just the way the clock works.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. Side note, and we'll get into the topic of the day here, but any good bands, music you're listening to right now you like?
Rob Wilson: That are modern? Just anything
Dr Mike T Nelson: somewhat newer, or what have you been listening to a lot, doesn't have to be new.
Rob Wilson: Yeah, I listen... so I tend to- I tend to shift themes in times of year. Hmm. There are some things that are, that are pretty stable. But over the winter I tend to listen to a lot of jazz. Oh, cool. A lot of classical. Like, my sort of schoolwork or, like, thinking music lately is listening to a lot of Bill Evans Yusef Dayes.
Of course there's Miles Davis. Yeah ... Thelonious Monk or T.S. Monk. Yeah. So Monk. Also Chet Baker.
Both: Hmm.
Rob Wilson: So that stuff's kind of playing in the background. [00:06:00] Classical. I actually really like a pianist called Valentina Lisitsa. Hmm. I've heard of them. And I believe she's Ukrainian. Okay.
But she has a really good album where it's all of Chopin's etudes, and it's just, like, a really incredible virtuoso piano playing- Hmm ... with a lot of feeling behind it, and it's really, really well-recorded. And so then, but as I get into spring and summer, it starts to warm up, I start listening to a lot of hip hop and reggae.
'Cause that- Okay ... tends, that, that music tends to give, like, drive a lot of energy. I get a lot of energy from it. So I'll get into, like, I'll start listening to, like, Buju Banton and I'll listen to, like, '90s underground hip hop and, yeah, I just ki- I just kinda get in the mood. Right now I have a playlist on Spotify that's just, like, a bo- it's called, like, Boxing Playlist, and it's all just stuff you [00:07:00] wanna jump rope and punch a heavy bag to.
It's ju- it's just such, it's like, the vibe of it is so good and, like, there's just a lot of drive to the beats and the, the tempo of the, the lyrical delivery. Same thing with, with reggae. As it gets really hot, reggae will take over all of it. Like, reggae will just be on constant all summer. But yeah, that's, that's where my head is at.
Fall is all grunge. Like we were just saying, I'll, I'll be in y- Soundgarden and- ... Alice
Both: In
Rob Wilson: Chains and Nirvana and Tool. And Tool's really more like alt rock, but still.
Both: Yeah.
Rob Wilson: I'll kinda, as things start to get darker and heavier, then the music gets darker and heavier. Yeah. I have varied musical tastes, and what I listen to in the course of any day can, can shift wildly based on whatever my current mood is or what I want my mood to be,
Dr Mike T Nelson: yeah. An [00:08:00] old-school one if you like jazz and hip hop is Guru's Jazzmatazz. Great album.
Rob Wilson: Oh, it's so amazing. Yeah. I love them.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. Yeah.
Rob Wilson: It's awesome.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. And just so upbeat and positive with just the amazing delivery and just everything about it, I think, is just so cool and hard to... I don't know anyone else that's done anything similar to that.
There probably is, I just don't know of it.
Rob Wilson: Yeah, DJ Premier is-
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah ...
Rob Wilson: all time. He's- Yep ... so much amazing work.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. And side note, if you like metal and jazz together, the earlier stuff from a New York band called Candiria is really good. Like The Process of Self-Development, I think, was, like, 2005.
They had everything from rap to jazz breakdowns to metal, and it sounds like- Cool ... it'd be horrible. And you listen to it and you're like, "What is this?" And, like, the third or fourth listen, you're like, "This is amazing."
Rob Wilson: I feel like I've heard [00:09:00] Candiria somewhere before. I had some buddies that I grew up with who were, like, intense musicians and, I was hanging out with them all the time, and the singer of the band they were in was, pretty...
not pretty. An extremely gifted musician. Could play anything, could p- had perfect pitch, could hear notes. You play him a song, "Hey, Chris, how do you play this?" And he'd be like, "Play it again. Oh, okay." That's so crazy. I know. And he used to listen to a lot of, like, prog jazz. He got me- Mm
into, like, Chick Corea which is, Chick Corea played with Miles Davis in, like, the Bitches Brew era. And that sort of jazz fusion, and then that's where I think I've heard Candiria. And I don't remember. Now I'm gonna have to look it up. Yeah. But bands like that. Sepultura, Yes ... [00:10:00] meshuggah.
Yeah. Some, some... There's some good stuff out there.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. There's some good stuff- Sleep Token fan? ... out
Rob Wilson: there. I'm brand new to Sleep Token. I just, I can't- Okay ... remember where I heard of... On somebody's Instagram story or something, and I was like, "What's that?" And I'm just starting to dabble. I'm just dipping my toe in the water for Sleep Token.
I think I'm a little bit behind. I've, I, I... They, they have quite a few albums out, right?
Dr Mike T Nelson: They have a couple. Their last one was good, but definitely more mellow. A lot more clean vocals and stuff. I liked it, but I think their previous one was better. Just the, the range of his voice. Like, all the performers are good, from metal to slight jazz here and there to hip hop to...
Yeah, and his delivery on multiple chorus lyrics is just a little bit different each time. It's... Yeah, it's, I love them. I think they're amazing, and it's cool to see [00:11:00] them- Go from, like, no one hearing of them to becoming, like, super popular. So I always- Well, yeah ... I always like that.
Rob Wilson: Writing it down.
Dr Mike T Nelson: There you go.
Let me know.
Rob Wilson: Endura
Dr Mike T Nelson: Sleep Token. And, So I know you've been busy doing education stuff around, around the world now. Tell us about that.
Rob Wilson: Yeah, yeah. So I've been traveling and teaching for a while. And like you mentioned earlier- Yeah ... we met when I was teaching Art of Breath, and that's how I catapulted myself into not just athlete direct athlete work, but...
And to coach education. And so in the last three years, I, I, I've been presenting a ton behind the scenes working with people in the special operations community whether it's direct with operators themselves or with performance professionals that work with [00:12:00] that community. So I've been speaking privately both inside and outside the wire for, for a few years.
And then more recently even I've gotten more and more involved with Altus. And of course I'm wearing an Altus T-shirt. And if s- there's any, like, human performance or, health professionals that work in the performance space who are not familiar with Altus, then I would highly encourage you to crawl out from under the rock-
living under and check out the work of, Dan Pfaff Stu McMillan, Andreas Beam, and, and Kevin Tyler. And that, that group and that network of coaches around Altus is, in my very biased opinion, like the, the pinnacle of, of coach education. And in the last year, Altus has developed a master's in strength and conditioning, and I've been fortunate enough Stu McMillan and Rich Clarke, who [00:13:00] were the masterminds behind that, and Rich is the, the dean of the school brought me in to help mentor the students.
And then since then, that has grown and spoken at several apprentice coach programs for Altus. So that's gotten me in front of coaches more and more, professional coaches who are post-graduate level coaches. And then even more recently, I've been doing work educating coaches on specifically jujitsu.
So I've been working a lot with elite jujitsu competitors over the last eight years, but- quite more frequently, quite a bit more frequently in the last five working with a specific team, which is Standard Jiu Jitsu, which is in Rockville, Maryland. And the head coach there, Greg Souders, is a good friend of mine, and so I've been working with various athletes on that team [00:14:00] and starting to identify some, some gaps, honestly, in what we know about working with those athletes, because up until recently it wasn't a truly professionalized sport.
Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Just kinda everyone's off kinda doing their own thing and- Yes ... yeah. High-level,
Rob Wilson: high-level amateur sport- Yeah ... until probably the last two years. And most sports, like if you wanna be like whether it's on the medical or on the S&C performance side, there's some pretty clear frameworks that coaches operate within.
Like, we understand the breakdowns of the skills that, like if you're gonna be, if you're gonna work in hockey, like you understand there's some consensus on like what are the basic chunks of skills required to be a good hockey player? What attributes can be developed that support those skills? How do those attributes [00:15:00] affect the players tactically, technically?
How do they contribute to or detract from likelihood of injury? How is the game changing? What is the athlete's psychology? Those things have been pretty widely explored because hockey's been a professional sport for a while. NFL, for sure, there's tons of data and information. MMA, it's better because of the UFC Performance Institute, but for jujitsu it's basically zero.
Mm. Like, I couldn't tell you what are the expected performance parameters for elite players at different weight classes. I couldn't tell you which ones are most predictive of performance outcomes because we don't, we just don't know. Everything is a guessing game based on coach biases. But if you're in the NHL and you play a certain position, we know what are the ranges of capacity [00:16:00] and different attributes that you probably should possess just to punch your ticket to the game.
Dr Mike T Nelson: At least the bare minimums, yeah. The bare
Rob Wilson: minimums, right? Yeah. Hey, what do you, you need? We don't know any of that stuff for jujitsu, and it's mostly argued over based on people's opinions.
Both: Hmm.
Rob Wilson: And there aren't even good frameworks yet for describing what we need. So that's a project of mine as I'm going through some graduate education, and I'm wrapping all my sort of thesis around- Developing some frameworks.
Like, do we even have clear categories for aspects of the sport that c- we can- where we can come to some consensus and say, "Yeah, here's some stuff that everybody should be able to do, and then here's how you train for that and the skills, and then here are the S and C attributes that support it"?
Everybody can kinda figure out the details differently, but there's not even clear categorizations of [00:17:00] stuff that everyone should be able to do. So that's really something I've been quite focused on, I would say, last six, nine months, and I was actually just in Dublin, Ireland last weekend presenting on that information specifically, what does it mean to be sport-specific in the context of, of, of grappling and jujitsu?
So fun stuff.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Is that more on the, the strength side or the, the conditioning aerobic side, or is it all of that combined? Are you looking at both or?
Rob Wilson: Yeah, all... all of it combined to s- to some degree. We didn't get super granular other than a specific question being asked, but it was more like
what are the, what are the fundamental context clues for the- Hmm ... for this sport? What, what, what are the... So I'll give you an, an example would probably be easier to, to, to claim it or to explain it. So in all grappling, there's clinching, right? Which is [00:18:00] basically when athletes grab each other's body and try to hold each other still.
When you watch wrestling or you watch MMA, you see this happen all the time. People grab each other's necks, trunks, and shoulders in an effort to move each other around or hold each other still. In jujitsu, there's lower body clinching, and that's very unique to other combat sports. There's lower body clinching where, and this happens to some degree in MMA, but not nearly as much, where players use their legs to hold onto each other's legs, to hold onto each other's torso, or to hold onto each other's upper bodies so that you can immobilize the other person or break a limb or strangle them, right?
Well, everybody knows that you have to be able to, like, hold on hard, but- Yeah ... like, like, that's, that's kinda duh if you watch it and somebody- Yeah, yeah ... wrapped around another person and you go, "Oh, you have to hold on hard." That's not the same thing as going, "Okay, lower body clinching is a [00:19:00] skill that's required.
What are the attributes that support that fundamental skill that em- emerges over and over and over in this sport? No matter what weight class you're in, no matter what gender you are, it's a fundamental emergent property of- jujitsu, modern jujitsu, what are the things that we should consider? And like the ones that I propose are you have to be able to clamp.
So you have to be able to squeeze with your legs. That's both adduction and then contralateral flexion, extension of the hip. So you have to be able to do both of those, and to some degree at the same time, or alternate between them very quickly, right? So that's clamping. We have to be a- we need torso like axial control.
So you have to be able to rotate, on the transverse plane, laterally flex and [00:20:00] flex and extend the spine in combinations as the game unfolds. And then you have to be able to pummel legs. You have to be able to consistently work your legs into different positions, which requires a lot of dexterity and agility and mobility.
And so I have proposed that, okay, here's the things that you have to have to some degree to be able to do this thing. What's the hierarchy between these three? And then if we st- and this is still a conversation that's ongoing, it's just one that I'm trying to propose. Okay, if we all can come to some consensus that this is a reasonable framework, then what exercises can we start to choose that will support these attributes that are time-efficient and adaptation-effective?
All of that, if you're in human performance at all, in any other [00:21:00] sport, is like duh.
Both: Yeah. That
Rob Wilson: is not, that is not sophisticated or really advanced thinking. That's stuff that if you read any textbook on any other sport and how to train it, that's how it's broken down, right? What's your sport? What's the stuff you have to be able to do?
What are the physical qualities needed to do it? Duh. None of that work has been done in jujitsu, as I mentioned earlier. So this is basically the starting point for the conversation. So when I was talking with these coaches in Dublin, we weren't even at, like, what's conditioning should... what should conditioning look like.
We're not even at that level of detail yet. We're still at, like, do we all agree on the stuff we need to be able to do, and general ideas for what we should call it, 'cause it's not standardized yet. Hmm. It's just like it's used very, very contextual language, like the guard. And it's like, well, okay, it's the guard, but what does that actually mean from a [00:22:00] physical attribute perspective?
The guard is something that serves a function, but what's happening with your body when you do it? Because if we can't clearly discuss those things, then nobody knows, we can't get to the bottom of what exercises we should choose, right? So that's the level of conversation, and I don't- I'm not saying my framework is right, I'm just proposing- Yeah, yeah
so that we can have a discussion, 'cause I could have it wrong. But right now, if you look on the Instagramosphere, or on the internet of things, mostly what is proposals for exercises, right? People start with exercises that they often feel like mimic the demands of sport. They don't start with demands of sport and then- No, they don't
select exercises that support. And it's just backwards logic in my view, right?
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. Do you include, like, the different components of, like, grip in, in that also? [00:23:00]
Rob Wilson: Yeah, grip is definitely a factor, and this actually, this is something I was discussing both with coach- a couple coaches and with some elite-level competitors recently that I coach.
And what's funny is, like, when you look at... So there's no real research on jujitsu specifically, but there's tons of research on Olympic judo, Olympic Greco-Roman wrestling. They've solved a lot of these problems. So there's some analogs. And when you look at the research there on grip, what you do find is that there's a clear correlation between grip strength, but even more essentially grip strength endurance- Hmm
and, and level of competitor. What's not clear is what came first, the chicken or the egg. Hmm. So is it that somebody's grip gets stronger, and then that- that's higher- high enough in the hierarchy that it catapults them into the next level of competition? Or [00:24:00] is it that you develop a strong grip by constantly grabbing onto humans that are resisting you?
And so the more you do that, then they're sort of like that's your ticket to the game. But one, one question I have is at what point does additional grip strength no longer help, right? Sure. So you're whatever. If I, once I get to 70 kilograms, is that strong enough for my weight class? And then anything more than that doesn't necessarily help me unless I have a very specific tactical reason.
And these are, again, these are normal types of questions we would ask in any sport, right? Oh, yeah. Correlation, is this causation? And then you would have maybe a pool of data to look at or a research project to do. None of that exists in my sport yet. So we're just- we're borrowing analogs very often, and then making assumptions.
And this [00:25:00] is actually something that came up i- in the seminar around sport specificity is being careful with redundancy, right? Because sometimes in a sport you're getting so much exposure, especially to something like grip- ... it's really easy to blow up flexor tendons. Yep. Sometimes when you just add grip on grip, it's like a sport that's has a lot of jumping in season.
And you're like, "Well, let's do- let's keep the plyo volume the same." And it's like, well, how long do you think, like, the calcaneal tendon will just con- continue to be compliant with that kind of overload? And the same thing happens with, bicep tendons and flexor tendons is like... And, if you've ever had tendonitis, tendonosis in your elbow- Oh, yeah.
It sucks ... it, it sucks and it takes forever to go away because you have to grab stuff in life. So these are all open-ended questions. I don't [00:26:00] have perfect answers to them. I'm sure some people train grip really intensely, get no tendonitis, and it helps them. Some people never train it and probably should because they're not strong yet.
Who and when, at what level, all I have right now are, like, my best guesses based on my own work, which is obviously insufficient to make strong claims from. But my goal with all of it really is just to try to open up professional dialogue with strength and conditioning coaches who happen to be working with jujitsu players as well.
So exciting times, as you can tell, I get- I'm, like, going off on tangents about it 'cause it's something- Yeah ... I'm really passionate about.
Dr Mike T Nelson: No, it's cool. Like, I did a, a grip product with my buddy Adam Glass, who's been a grip competitor and competed at Mighty Mitts and all over the world and stuff. And [00:27:00] our initial thought was we created it as like a platform for any grip athlete or jujitsu or whatever.
Like, here's the basic patterns you should know. Here's how to, to train them. And what I've realized is we probably goofed up the marketing 100%. Like, no one wants to do the, the... 'Cause we would look at all these sports and we're going, like you said, like some of the jujitsu people were really good in a crush grip, but, like, open hand, pinch grip, or if you're doing gi, no-gi, if you have to grab the gi this way or this way, or they were horrible at any of those other positions because everything was just like that.
And we saw these gaps in the different sports and- Thinking about it now and again, I'm like, should probably just redo it and make it specific to one sport, and you're probably telling them the similar things again. And like your comment, like for some people, yeah, your crush grip is probably a rate limiter and you need to work it.
For other more advanced people, it might be the inverse. [00:28:00] Like, you have so much work in this position, you need open hand position, flat position- Exactly ... radial ulnar deviation. Like, you're- Yes ... you're missing those other components. And even simple stuff like, like we call like a monkey grip where your thumb is on the same side and your hand is bent.
Yeah. Because a lot of times you're not grabbing people like this, you're using your whole hand to like rip people towards you and stuff, too.
Rob Wilson: Yeah. Yeah, that- it happens in Muay Thai quite a bit- Yes ... as well. Yeah, yeah. They're... Especially when they're wearing, 12 or 16-ounce gloves, they're essentially like you're hooking onto the person's neck and head.
A friend of mine Sean Yarborough, he was a professional Muay Thai fighter and won some, some pretty awesome titles in, in Thailand. It's crazy when you shake Sean's hand. Oof. The ulnar side of his hand is like s- A- It's like a s- Huge ... it's huge. It's just like a big, giant piece of meat here that is not in most people's hands.
And I, I asked him once, I was like, "Sean, like what [00:29:00] is this?" And he was like, "Oh, this is fr-," he's like, "Thai's, Thai fighters have this. It's from doing this on, all the time and like grabbing people and trying to hang on to them." When y- your hands are, basically inside of a mitt, like-
Both: Mm-hmm
you know,
Rob Wilson: when you're wearing a boxing glove, a 12 or 16-ounce boxing glove, you're just like this all the time, so all you have is this motion. He said, "Yeah, it's just having a claw, yeah, it's funny that you brought up that idea of like a, a rate limiter, and I think that's the thing is you have to know is, is this a developmental athlete?
And- ... if they're a developmental athlete and I can progress their grip strength and it helps them move up the chain, like it gives them access to a skill set that they wouldn't have had access to otherwise faster- Yeah ... great. When I work with elite athletes, especially some of these guys who are doing it'll be 5 10s, 10 10s, 100, we're talking six and a [00:30:00] half hours of live grappling training a week.
That's a lot. And I mean- Yeah ... all that time is against live resistance. So grabbing onto bodies like that all the time at an elite level where the athlete can produce a lot of force, some of those guys I'm like, "Let's do more handstand-type- Inspired
Dr Mike T Nelson: Open hand Where you have,
Rob Wilson: yeah, where everything- Extension
yeah, opened and stretched and the elbows extended so we can get all those sort of bi-articular tissues with, or even, like, we could even say tri-articular tissues-
...
Rob Wilson: Completely at their end ranges in ways that they wouldn't get exposed to otherwise. 'Cause now it's been, 15 years of just constantly squeezing the shit out of their hands.
That's the game though, right? That's the- Yeah,
Both: yeah.
Rob Wilson: That's the game you play in the performance business. It's just that [00:31:00] in other sports there's data to look at, and there's- ... there's coaching history, right? So even if there's not great data, if you're in baseball or hockey or rugby, you could, like...
And nowadays you can message somebody on Instagram and say- For sure, yeah ... "By the way, I notice you've been doing this for 35 years." Like- Yeah. ... "Here's what I'm trying. What's your experience been?" Jiu-jitsu's so new that sort of we're all playing, like, Guess Who, and so my hope is to take, some things that I've learned from, from other sports or, access that I've had to other high-level professionals and start bringing some, some more systematized thinking into the sport that I, that I like so much, and a sport that I like not only to, to do, but to, I like to work with that athlete population as well.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. A couple of big ones for extension we've found, I got this from my buddy Adam [00:32:00] also, is if you've ever played with the Eagle Loops, they have little loops that go down through each hand, and they go back to a single point. And so you can wrap them around just this part of the hand. So if I'm looking at my hand in the side, instead of it having to be completely crushed, I can have this part be extended, and I can get a huge extension load pulling through the fingers.
Like, rock climbers use them a lot. And then I've done, like spiraling movements with that. Like, a high cable point from a split stance where you start maybe palm down and you end palm up. So you're adding those movements in as this is pulling tension on the entire basically this part of the fingers.
And you can go pretty heavy on it. Obviously you gotta go slow. You don't wanna, dislocate your fingers and all that kinda stuff, because if you look at the amount of load they're normally running through their system like this, "Oh, just put a bunch of extension rubber bands on your hands," it's like a...
I haven't found that does much of [00:33:00] anything for athletes in sport where they're generating high forces. That's,
Rob Wilson: that's very, Like kung fu or like karate. That like feels very traditional martial arts to me. Yeah, yeah. In a good way, in a good- Yeah, yeah ... Where they were training these sort of like very specific, like iron claw, yeah, yeah, yeah. Make their fingers like really ridiculously strong.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. Eagle- Another one we did is we took a- Eagle loops. Is that what you said? Say again. Eagle loops. Eagle loops. Yeah, they're from Iron Mind. Ah, okay. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, all the crazy ... 'Cause I do grip stuff, so all the crazy grip people have just an infinite amount of weirdo toys for every little infinitesimal movement.
The blob. I'm sure you've used- The blob, yep. Saxon bars, all that fun stuff. And the one we've done lately, which I haven't seen anyone do, is I was over at buddy Adam's house, and we're like, "How [00:34:00] do I get high force extension of the hands?" 'Cause you can only go so far with rubber bands and all that stuff.
And so what we figured out is I took like an old five-pound protein container, and you stick your hand in the middle and then go into extension, and then you can start loading the bottom of the container and to pick it up that way. So you're putting all your hands out equal distance in extension loaded in order to pick it up, because again- How are you,
Rob Wilson: how are you loading the
Like how do you load the bottom?
Dr Mike T Nelson: I just stick light weights in the bottom of it. Oh, really? Or you could do sand in the bottom. Yeah. But like
Rob Wilson: change plates? You're just like dropping change- Yeah ... plates in there- Yeah ... and stick in your hand and-
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yep, and we've been- What the- ... putting a magnet in the bottom and sticking magnets on the bottom 'cause I can't get any bigger plates on the top.
Rob Wilson: That is, that's some strength nerd shit to do right there, and I love
Dr Mike T Nelson: it.
Rob Wilson: Yeah, yeah. I'm like, I'm making notes on all this stuff right now. This is awesome. Because
Dr Mike T Nelson: my limiter sometimes was just because I do a lot of compression stuff, one of my goals is [00:35:00] to pick up the 175-pound inch dumbbell, and so part of that is getting the thumb to stop the rotation, getting all that stuff.
But as you said, there's only so much specific work you can do before you start developing all these other issues. So the fastest way then is gonna be contra specific. If I bench press a lot, I should probably do some rows, right? That kind- Yeah ... of thing. But how do you get loaded extension?
And so that was a way to get loaded extension with weight where you're holding that extension against a force the whole time. So that's been fun to play with, and it's easy. It's almost more like a, a rehab-y, type thing. But again, it's, it's fascinating to me how physiology is wired where you don't sometimes need a ton of the contra specific stuff to see a huge effect from it also.
It's not a one-to-one ratio at all. No. Not even close.
Rob Wilson: Well, it's just the novelty effect. There's-
Dr Mike T Nelson: Oh, for sure. There's novelty, for sure.
Rob Wilson: Yeah, and sometimes... And I'm not saying that to diminish it in any way. Oh, [00:36:00] no, no. Like, that's really powerful sometimes just to, like, give the system, like you said, that's contradictory and unexpected.
And I, I especially, what I really like about the, that extension in a tub or a bucket is that there's end range isometric load- Yes ... through the tissues. So rather than just, like, doing some kind of, like, stretching, you're, you're asking for a lot of activity, right? There's re- Yep ... that's really high neural drive- Yep
in the opposing action, which I think is really, really important and, and very often missed in like, whatever you wanna call them, like balancing exercises. Yeah. Is it's not sufficient enough stimulus-
Both: No ...
Rob Wilson: to actually give it a, a contradictory effect. It's just... Or people go so overboard that there's interference with volume and stuff, right?
Yeah. But, but I like the idea of, like, [00:37:00] low volume, very high specificity, high intention, high neural drive. Not any different than if you have a sport where there's, a lot of mid-range knee flexion. Yep. Be- s- finding oppositional spaces for that with s- like, very purposeful, for example, like straight leg Jefferson curls with a, with toes-
Both: elevated.
Rob Wilson: And just putting all those tissues through, like, their deepest end range under a lot of tension.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. Yeah. 'Cause a lot of, with, with high-level athletes is you may not get the biggest bang for your buck with specificity anymore. You get it with transfer and just, like in the case of BJJ, just keeping them on the mat so they can do the specific practice.
Yeah. Whether it... Even with high-end sports like NFL and, NBA is notorious for this later in their career. Like, a lot of, people like Jordan and people, Karl Malone, all those guys [00:38:00] figured out that, yeah, training does enhance my performance, but it allows me to perform at a higher level for a longer period of time, too.
And the more you can just keep it together and not get injured, the more specific practice you can get, the longer career you can have. All those things, too.
Rob Wilson: Yeah, I agree, and I think sometimes on the S and C side, and, and some of this is, like, the pressure of the culture and being really obsessed with, with measurables.
It's like ha- like either feeling like- You have some obvious clear direct effect on performance or being able to measure it because the stakeholders wanna know why they're paying you. Oh, of course. So there's ego of the coach, or the stakeholders want some clear, like, what percentage exercise improvement did you get that made them better at this?
And it's like, I wish [00:39:00] it worked like that, but it just doesn't. Yeah. How about especially at elite levels, there's just too many factors. At developmental levels, high school, college, early college, that there's a... it's a lot more linear. For sure. But once something is post-co- end of collegiate, Olympic professional, there's so many things that are contributing to the end performance outcome that, if you're a S&C or, you're a performance professional, a bunch of what you're doing is just managing the attributes they already have.
You're like, number o- I just want them to not be or feel worse.
Both: Yeah.
Rob Wilson: Then if I can get them to get into habits that keep them practicing, like, that's actually gonna be what will yield performance benefits, but it's just not, it's not as fun to tell a head coach, like, "Well, listen, I'm not sure exactly what it is.
Like, if you want a number for what I'm contributing [00:40:00] here, I can't give you one." It's like, that doesn't sound that great at a budget meeting,
Dr Mike T Nelson: oh, yeah. And that's, and my good buddy Cal Dietz has said h- all his new programs he tests out on, track and field and swimmers and basically anything that's timed, because I know if we made them faster or not.
He's like, my hockey players, it's, it's so much fuzzier than that." Like, yes, you want transfer, but it's not as simple as, oh, a timed event. Like, if you're doing 100 meter dash or run, or 200, 400, whatever, you know if you did better or not. It's very linear. But you start getting into, Dan John calls them the fuzzy sports.
It's like, ooh, who knows, and it, it's just a lot of that is just qualitative. Yes, there's some performance data, but in a team setting there's so many variables now to contend with, it's hard to figure it out.
Rob Wilson: Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, it's and that's something that, Stu McMillan and I have been talking a lot about is just, like, the complexity.
There's [00:41:00] so many things that are moving dynamically-
...
Rob Wilson: All the time, and their relationships to each other are, are changing, that it can be very, very difficult to pin down- causal factors, except in retrospect.
Both: Yeah. After the
Rob Wilson: fact. And, and usually those are, those are wrong. Yep. And, we use them to justify like, "Oh, it i- think it was that thing that I did.
It must've been, that I put whatever, B-stance rotational RDLs back in the program." Yeah. "That cleaned up their thoracic rotation, and so therefore more slap shots," or whatever, and it's like, no. May- maybe it was just that the other teammates were opening the net more. It's like we don't...
Or what combination on what ga- We just don't know,
Dr Mike T Nelson: yeah. On, on that, would you agree that gait and running is probably the best proxy for strength training [00:42:00] performance that is most likely to transfer? Meaning if I did an exercise for, this is for me personally, and I've, Cal's talked about this too, and they walk away from that exercise worse, ah, that makes me nervous.
Like, I may be able to get them stronger. I may be able to justify that movement to the coach. But I, I'm not convinced I made them a better player on the field. I think I might have made them a worse player on the field. Then again, gait can change, depending upon the day and, and all that kind of stuff too.
But I don't know. To me, that's like the best proxy I've found to see is it gonna transfer. In terms of an acute setting, when you're trying to set everything up without running 16, 24 weeks and trying to figure out what happened.
Rob Wilson: Yeah. I think it, I think it can be. I, some sports I think it's probably more transferable than others.
And again, like- For sure ... with something like in field sports, I think it's, like, that's a pretty easy- Yep ... [00:43:00] predictor. I think that's a really powerful proxy, especially skipping, bounding dribbling, right? Th- those kind of striding, those sort of sprint precursors I think are very, tend to be give a lot of clarity and predictability.
In sports like grappling surfing, skating, or tactical, tactical might be still there. It can be tough because I tell you want to see some w- some pretty ugly, like, sprint or, like, jog mechanics, then ask most combat sports athletes to run fast.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. Or I think of hockey players is what I thought of right away.
Rob Wilson: Just, like, so s- just so much stiffness in their, like- don't really move very much. But what I have found, and I've been doing more and more of, is using fundamental plyos and gait work with athletes [00:44:00] to encourage a lot of healthy trunk motion and- For sure ... shoulder girdle, trunk axis coordination just for health.
I- Yep ... doing it doesn't mean, like, this person didn't win the championships and now their arms are timed better and so now they win the
Both: championship. Yeah,
Rob Wilson: yeah. But what I have found is that sort of openness and looseness helps them feel better. They just- Oh, for sure ... they just feel better in their body.
And an elite grappler that I work with quite often, his name's Deandre Corby, one of the top 10 guys in his weight class in the world. He's not a sprinter. He's never gonna have to sprint. He doesn't have to bound in his sport. It's all, like, squeezing, a lot of high-output isometric activity.
But we've, in the last year, put more and more, like, just sprinkles on the ice cream cone of basic track work.
Pogos, dribbles, bounding [00:45:00] work, and just getting him to, like, let his upper body move. Jumps with a med ball with- Mm ... getting really big because everything in grappling is-
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, it's contra-specific too-
tight and tight ... because you're
Rob Wilson: all like... Exactly. It's contra-specific. So it's this, like, okay, I have to get loose and open and rhythmical. And so I found that that's been a really strong indicator of his, like, thoracic health. Hmm. And, like, the, those movements have been a r- a really powerful inclusion in his programming.
I, and I'm gait- kind of, I'm a little bit... And not as much now, but I used to be very gait-biased, ... just because I came up doing physio work. And so I would look at, like, whatever, Leon Chaitow's work or- Yeah, yeah ... vladimir Janda's- Yep ... upper and lower cross- Upper cross,
Dr Mike T Nelson: lower cross
but- All the names for [00:46:00] everything All the names ... Trollberg Gait and
Rob Wilson: Yeah, exactly. And so it's not perfect, but it gave me, a beginning frame of reference. Watch people walk forwards, watch people walk- Yep ... backwards, moving laterally. And so I think gait can be for general population especially, it's very enlightening.
Oh, yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Go to an airport or a mall, it's like I wanna throw battery acid in my eyes. It's so bad
Rob Wilson: If I, it's- I have this picture on my phone. I'll send it to you after. Yeah, yeah. I took a picture. I was in the line at the pharmacy the other day. I was in line at CVS, and I was picking up some medication for my dog, and there was a an older woman, and she was, she was in front of me in line.
And I, I, normally I wouldn't do this, but I was just like so amazed. I was like, "I have to take a picture of this and then show it to my wife." You can't see her face or anything, but she's standing. She's a very small lady. I would guess she's 4'8", maybe. Mm. Very small woman in stature, and her entire, like, [00:47:00] thorax was displaced laterally from her pelvis.
Whoa. I- I'm not even kidding. Had to be... If you drew a, a line through the center of her, if you dropped a plumb line through the center- ... of her pelvis and a plumb line through her, like, T5, they would've been offset by, I would guess, at least three inches. Whoa. It was pretty significant, and her, her kyphosis was intense.
I'm like, there's no way this lady feels good.
Both: Yeah.
Rob Wilson: So she was completely displaced and then folded, folded forward and twisted. It made me think, either she has a congenital issue which might have to do with how small she is in stature- ... or she had some kind of structural trauma.
Injury. Yeah, she had- Yeah ... is an injury or some kind of pathology that's compressing her. I wanted to, like, tap her on the shoulder and be like, "Can I help [00:48:00] you?" Like- Yeah, I know. Like, I just wanna help you do some stuff just to, like, move around, and like, there's no way the quality of her life is being optimized in that kind of shape.
But at the same time, I was completely amazed that she was, like, clearly ambulatory.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, she's
Rob Wilson: there doing her stuff. She's there. She didn't have, like, a caregiver. She was just there in CVS, and I thought, "Wow, the human body is so amazing at its compensatory capacity." It just never ceases to amaze me. And when you take that same compensatory capacity and then we expound that to elite populations where the genetic potential is extremely high, the psychology is uniquely motivated, the amount of- The amount of crap that elite athletes-
get away with, where I'm like- ... I, I think my [00:49:00] foot would've blown up, yeah. How are you, how are you doing what you do like that? And they're usually just like, "What do you mean?" You just, they just- Yeah ... found a way to solve the performance problem that works, until it doesn't, right? And then it's like, "Hey coach, all the sudden..."
Or, "This came out of nowhere," that's my favorite one. "This came out of nowhere." I'm like, "That did not happen yesterday," like
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. And that's what's... I won't say his name, but I was in, we'll say Europe last June to work with a very high level tennis player. Guy makes millions of dollars a year, 'cause tennis you can see how much everyone has made and everything.
It's very public at that level. Super nice guy, everyone in his place, everyone where I was is super wonderful. But to watch him walk, and walk out and move onto the court, I'm like, "Oh my God." But on the flip side, to see him play as [00:50:00] well as he did with... And I got to, test him. I was there for, four days hanging out with him from freaking 8:00 AM to 10:00 PM at night.
And so you get to do stuff, you get to do some body work, you get to do all the testing and everything, and you can see and have confirmation what his actual limits are because I'm there working with him. And then to see him play at the level he played at blows my mind. And, but on the flip side, knowing that, oh man, you're, you're running the race car with it on red.
Like, at some point it's just going to blow up, and that's why we're there. He unfortunately got injured 20 minutes before I showed up. And so they throw him up on the table and back, and it was a bunch of guys in a foreign language 'cause English wasn't their first language. And I literally got off the flight, got all the way there, walk in, he walks out, hobbles.
They throw him up on the table, and they all look at me and point and go, "Fix him."
Rob Wilson: And I'm like, "Oh, shit." Yeah. All right.
Dr Mike T Nelson: But it's so crazy to see the, the [00:51:00] dichotomies on, on both sides, and it's so hard with the psychology side too, because on the athlete's side, they're like, "I don't know.
I've always been this way, and look what I've done." And, and you're, you're, you're correct. Like, you've been able to do amazing things with what you, you have. But at some point the engine's gonna blow, yeah.
Rob Wilson: Yeah. Well, and it's often in spite of, not because of.
Like, so that's the thing I try to get across to, some of these elite performers that I work with as well is, like, you've been succeeding in spite of your compensatory behavior- Yeah.
Both: Because- ...
Rob Wilson: not because of your s- compensatory behavior. It's actually funny that you used the analogy of, like, an engine blowing up.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, you got a book
Rob Wilson: Yeah. And that's the analogy
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. Yeah, tell us about
Rob Wilson: it ... is this check engine light. Basically for a good chunk of my career, mostly behind the scenes, I've been working with special operations community, individuals, groups, [00:52:00] commands.
And in the last handful of years, I had the opportunity to work as part of what's called a Continue Mission program or the Warrior Fitness program, and essentially it's like a holistic hard reset for operators.
Both: Mm. Cool.
Rob Wilson: So it's run by my good friend Alex Oliver, Virginia High Performance, who's a retired SEAL, and he got out and founded this program, and essentially it's- everything's paid for by a non-profit.
These operators come in for a month. They get nutrition based on blood work. Nice So we customize individual nutrition and supplementation. All the meals are cooked for them, by the way, so they literally just pick up their meals for the day. They have strength and conditioning twice a day. They're getting manual therapy.
They're getting mindfulness training. They're getting hot and cold therapies. They're getting light therapy. It's an amazing [00:53:00] program. My role there is to try to take these sort of like insanely hardened, tough warriors and convince them that they should pay better attention to their health
Both: Yeah. Which
Rob Wilson: is oppositional to their- the way they think.
Yeah And that's using this analogy, this check engine light, which is basically like you were just saying, like, hey, there are signals long before the system shuts down that say like, "Hey, look over here. Something needs your attention." It doesn't mean you have to turn into like some kind of soft wimp. No.
But you have to learn what these signals are, how to attend to them so that you can keep being awesome. Like, I just- I'm not saying you need to like become like a, a watercolorist who lives on a yoga retreat- ... smokes weed all day. What I'm saying is like if you wanna be the best warrior you want- you can be for as long as you could possibly be that- Yeah
and have something [00:54:00] left when you're done-
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah ...
Rob Wilson: for yourself and for your family, then you have to have some system that's in place. And so basically the book, based on this class that I've been teaching these guys for about three and a half years, is that system. So how do you actually investigate what these signs are and start doing experiments?
Because what will happen is if you don't pay attention and the engine keeps running hot, it'll blow up. Yep. And we don't always know how, right? So the thing about the human body is the symptom or the actual f- like f- failure mechanism doesn't always happen right- Next to the causal mechanism. It can- No
spider web way down the chain, and something that just happens to be an inherent structural weakness in the system. So that's like, for example, like lower back pain. Like, the lumbar curve and where it transitions between the sacrum and then again where it transitions to the [00:55:00] thorax, those are just structurally vulnerable in bipeds.
And so those are areas that get hot from, like, a billion different things, including, like, depression.
Both: Yeah. W- so- Big correlations ...
Rob Wilson: there's big correlations between p- it's not always, like, my hip flexors are tight so my back hurts. It's not always quite that simple. There's all kinds of other spider web components that add up to those things, and if you don't have some system that helps you monitor that stuff, then what will happen is you'll get surprised and you won't know why.
And of course, that's how people like us make a living, is we- Yeah. ... we get brought in to help figure out what's the thing that needs to change so these people can continue to perform. But no matter how good a h- helper professional expert is, we don't... Like, you went for that, that [00:56:00] athlete, that tennis player.
You were there for four days for, whatever, 14 hours a day. Once you leave, you're gone. Yeah. And this guy- That was the issue ... and he's there with himself now,
Dr Mike T Nelson: right? Yep. So- And trying to train some of the other staff, too, of, like... And they were great, but, like, we, we had an issue trying to get his left glute to fire.
We couldn't figure it out, had some back pain, whatever, and you could see on a test that, like, his hips were not working, like were completely shut down. So it took me, like, a, eh, about a day to figure it out. Finally figured it out. You'll find this interesting. Had to lie on his side, do a convergence test with his eyes looking left as we did some other stuff at the same time.
Soon as we did that, like, his glutes and everything would fire automatically. And I looked over to the physical therapist who's there with him 24/7, travels with the team. Super nice, wonderful dude. And I was like, "Hey, man, we got his glute to work." He's like, "Did you see that?" He looks over. He's like, "Do it again."
So I did it. He's like, "Oh, yeah, yeah, I see it." "So can you tell that it's better or not?" He's like, [00:57:00] "Yeah." I'm like, "Oh, cool." I'm like, "You wanna know how I did that? 'Cause I'll tell you how I did it, 'cause I'm not gonna be here. Like, I don't give a shit. I'll tell you everything I'm doing now 'cause whatever. I don't care."
He's like, "No, I'm good." I'm like, "W- w- w- w- w- what do you mean you're, you're good? Don't you want..." Like, if I saw someone do that 10 years ago in my career, I would be like, "What the F did you do? Tell me exactly how- Yeah ... that thing..." But then I asked him later, 'cause it was bugging me, and he's like, "Well, I don't do eye stuff."
I'm like, "Well, this is... I can show you how to do it in, like, an hour. I can train you. You're a smart dude." Yeah. Like, you know all the background stuff. He's like- But you do
Rob Wilson: do athlete stuff.
Dr Mike T Nelson: But you do athlete stuff, and you're- Yeah ... with him, and you know that this is gonna happen again. He's like, "Yeah, but I just do a lot of the, the hands-on, the physical therapy.
We don't mess with, with eyes or anything else." And I'm like, "But what if it was a rate limiter? What if this happens before a tournament? He has to perform, and you're the only one there." He's like, "No, no, I just, I don't, I don't do it." And then it was- it's weird to [00:58:00] me how some people just have their box they live in.
This is my box. I live in my box, and I'm okay with living in my box, which I guess is fine, but it, it... Yeah, it's kinda crazy. Well- 'Cause y- you've been around long enough to know anything can almost affect anything else. And so 20 years ago, I was shocked by all this stuff, but now I'm just like, "Oh, it's pretty weird, but okay.
Sure."
Rob Wilson: Yeah, exactly. If it's a shift in gaze. Yeah. And I've, I've had that, that kind of weird stuff happen where, I can remember when I was... did a lot more manual therapy, where if you have a patient w- who has really acute cervical soft tissue pain and their, their neck's locked up- Yep
whether it's, like, motor vehicle, direct impact, or it's just chronic, to try to do something that's very direct to those tissues can feel like threat to the system, and will- Sure ... often exacerbate it. For those people, you can't... [00:59:00] Very often, if it's really acute or they have migraine symptoms, you can't move their head, right?
Because the system, it's too locked up. Their h- they just fight you. And so one of the things I figured out, actually, from... I got the inspiration from Cheetao, was learning how connected eye movement was to, like- Yep ... suboccipital tissues, that there was, like, there was pretension that could be measured- Right
on EMG with eye motion and suboccipital tissues. And so often what I would do is just put, like, fingertip pressure there, just barely, like, just touch, and then have the person start to move their eyes in different direction. You could feel those tissues- Yep ... contracting and, like, waves of contraction happening, and sometimes that would be enough to radi- to, like, reduce threat- in the system, and then you could go to other tissues on the cervical spine. See, I still have the, I still have the Jedi hand.
Yeah, yeah. That's good.
That's good for, for treating cervical issues. But you could get [01:00:00] into those intervertebral areas, and even if you couldn't make large motion, you could start getting eyes to move, and you could feel the tissues start to just come down in tonus-
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yep
enough
Rob Wilson: that they could maybe reduce symptom And, and or accept a more robust therapy. And those kind of things are just, like, pretty amazing. I know I had mentors who knew all kinds of stuff. Weird, viscerosomatic reflexes and things that- Yeah ... that are in the human body that I, I... Like, I'm like you.
I'd be like, "Hold on a second. That's- Yeah, yeah. ... what is, what is this voodoo that you- Yeah ... just did with this thing that no- that, like, couldn't be affected before? We've been trying stuff for two days, and then you got him to move his eyes laterally, and then his hips changed in their functionality. Now I wanna know everything you did.
[01:01:00] Because even if I'm not the guy, maybe I'm the guy who tells the guy.
Yeah, yeah. Like, well, the
guy who does the eye stuff isn't here today. Show me all of it. Let's record it, then I'm gonna send it to the guy who does that stuff so he knows what you did. Yeah,
Both: yeah. '
Rob Wilson: Cause, like, but I, I agree that I think sometimes people are, they get in their, their box of comfort.
And the other thing is, if you try something new like that that's unfamiliar, there's a level of responsibility, especially with somebody who's elite. For sure. There's a lot of money on the line.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yep.
Rob Wilson: And you go, "Oh, well, if I do it wrong..." And it's like, yeah, but also, like, th- this is not just a paycheck. Like, this is a human being who's, like, in pain, and it's your job.
Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: And is not playing, by the way.
Rob Wilson: Yeah. Who... Yeah, and your job is to help them play. Yeah. And they're not. And you observe the solution and won't use it. I don't know, that doesn't make any [01:02:00] sense to me. Yeah. I, and I get it. So I wasn't there, and you made me just as annoyed as you were.
Dr Mike T Nelson: I know. And it's like, I get it.
If everything's running fine, yeah, then don't eff with it. Okay, I can understand that. Like, don't mess with the apple cart if it's all on track, all parameters are go. Okay, I can see that. I respect that. I get it. It's, it's a lot of money on the line. It's your career. Cool. But when none of that is happening it's like, okay, we're probably gonna take a few more, calculated risks here to try to get some stuff to go.
Obviously, you don't wanna make it any worse or anything like that. But, at that point I'm like... And it's hard because the athlete's like, "Yeah, just do whatever," 'cause they wanna play, they know what's, what's going on and what's at stake too, so it's... Yeah. And then you've got, as in those environments you've got the, the agent, you've got the people who are trying to get the athlete under contract.
You've got the staff that's around them. You've got all these other players that don't necessarily [01:03:00] always understand what's going on, either, and that makes it tricky to navigate, for sure.
Rob Wilson: Yeah. The more stakeholders there are- Yep ... the more difficult it gets. I've definitely had- when you, in the special operations community, there's like the assaulter level, which is like the athlete and what they n- need and what they think they need and what their experience is.
And there's human performance, but then there's all the leadership, layers and layers and layers of leadership that are deciding mission sets, how those will get executed, when, with what equipment, money, timing, how that is related to like large scale forces and intelligence and timing. And m- much of it is unknown to even the people who are doing it until it's time to do it.
So there's a l- there's a lot of stakeholders and moving pieces [01:04:00] and, just like everywhere else, as a human performance professional you can sometimes you can see like, man, like the solution to this would actually be something very simple done consistently.
And it's like, well, the place that they have to be to do it, they're never there.
Both: Yeah. Yeah.
Rob Wilson: It's like, well, well I guess we're just gonna manage this as best we can, so yeah, it can be, it can be a real challenge to, to deal with those kind of things. Yeah. And
Dr Mike T Nelson: a lot of times you have, like you said, the big thing too with those populations is also just logistics. Like I, I like using technology. I use a Dolphin, I use some other stuff. I think it's extremely helpful, but I also understand that when those people are deployed, they're not gonna have shit. They're gonna have like their hands to do some work on themselves, and that's probably about it, other than the things they need to do to complete the mission and everything else.
So it's, I think sometimes people from the outside are like, "Oh, if they just had this or that or this or that," and well, you're not wielding a freaking red light [01:05:00] on... there's like, you have to think about these things about limitations of what's gonna transfer. If you wanna use stuff, you've got a two-week window or whatever, great.
Use whatever you want. That's fine. Get it to them to a certain point, I have no issue with that. But sometimes the solutions are just so outwardly unrealistic it's it's mind-boggling.
Rob Wilson: Yeah. And you think you get, there's also like things that people think about like weight limitations as like how much- Yeah
How much shit a person or a group is allowed, and what are they gonna give up to bring red lights over? W- whatever- Yeah, yeah ... people have about the efficacy of red lights-
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, yeah ...
Rob Wilson: it's like, well, if they have to give up something that seems more clearly important in the hierarchy of shit they need for deployment, they're gonna dump that- Of course
Yes. And and who wouldn't, right?
Dr Mike T Nelson: I would if I was in that position. Hell yeah. [01:06:00]
Rob Wilson: Me too. No
Dr Mike T Nelson: question.
Rob Wilson: Like, well, can we get rid of the red lights and bring more bullets? Yeah. Yeah. 'Cause I'm thinking those are probably gonna be more important. But then we could just ask things like, well, okay, well, what's the effect that we're trying to get from including this, and is there a positive redundance in, or positive redundancy in some other modality that's already coming along for the ride?
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yep.
Rob Wilson: So that's, that's where we start to look for, like, overlaps in interventions is like, okay, well is this is really good for whatever mitochondrial density. And it's like, well, so is, riding on a stationary bike or, one of the m- So is cardio.
Both: So
Rob Wilson: is cardio. So it's like, are they gonna be doing cardio already?
It was like, well, maybe we don't need this. So we can just... It's like, let's talk about effects and not modalities. And that kind of [01:07:00] brings it back to what, I was saying about jujitsu at the beginning, is often people start at modality or exercise. They don't start with effect. And it's like, well, let's identify effects first.
What effect are we trying to have? And then, okay, what serves that effect? Where is there overlap? What's the return on investment for each one in time and money? And then we can start, you can start throwing stuff away, and I'm sure as you're aware at this, this point in your career, when...
Like early, probably first 10 years or so, it's all, it's like adding, right? Oh, yeah, yeah. Like me, I see your bookshelf. It's just like adding, adding, adding, adding. Then as you get past, like, the 15-year mark, what you're doing is, like, taking away, taking away. Yep. Like, don't need that shit anymore. That works for, like, I need that for, like, two people every two years.
I can get that same job done with something else. And then you... And it ends up coming down to, like, really, really basic stuff again [01:08:00] that you just know how to use better. So yeah, I think later stages of career tend to be a, a lot about paring down and knowing where's there overlap and big bang for the buck.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. I have this, what it feels like a weird dichotomy of I want to believe in the next latest whiz bang whatever thing, and if it's got good research and even plausibility, eh, budget-wise or time-wise, I test a whole bunch of shit, but I've also become very sorely disappointed in, like, 90% of it. You know what I mean?
It's like, oh, but every once in a while there's just enough things that come through where you're like, "Oh, that was actually super useful. That's actually pretty cool." I'm glad I did it, but like vast majority of this stuff I just find myself usually disappointed in it.
Rob Wilson: Yeah. And, I think like one thing [01:09:00] that's like had that kind of a dichotomy for me is like recovery technologies.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Oh, yeah. The, the recovery is, is sexy now, man. Come on, you gotta get in the, through the program.
Rob Wilson: Man, I tell you what, if you put recovery- ... on something and you get the right athlete to say if they felt better, you will make money hand over fist. Yeah. And, Mostly by
Dr Mike T Nelson: people who purchase it who are not athletes.
Rob Wilson: Yes. Exactly. And then you find out like, well, that athlete just like uses it the five days a year they're at home.
Both: Yeah.
Rob Wilson: And that's when they get their picture taken with it. But I wrote an article recently called Recovery Is Not The Goal, Adaptation Is.
Yes.
And it's like I get it because I'm sure the same was for you at, at the beginning of, our career time, which, I think w- we're probably around the same age, right?
You were like early 2000 to like 2- Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: I did CSCS, started training people 2005. Did a bunch of training early 2000s, so yeah.
Rob Wilson: Yeah. So at [01:10:00] that time there wasn't much talk about recovery- No ... at all. It was just sort of like do the stuff, and then recovery is when you don't do the stuff.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah.
Rob Wilson: And it got to like, hey, let's pay a little bit better attention.
Let's define readiness, right? You have people like Val Paradessan at Omega- Yeah, Omega Wave ... who does... He's a very smart guy, great work that they've done at Omega Wave. And start to, okay, we're gonna make this a little bit more measurable. But now you have it all the way to like we're in collegiate sports, athletes have like whoop mind.
Both: Yeah.
Rob Wilson: Their recovery s- is 2% less than yesterday- Ugh ... practice and it's like, guys, this is, this is sports. Like sports is hard.
Both: Yeah.
Rob Wilson: We're in season practice right now. Like whether it's like you're a collegiate wrestler, it's like we need people to wrestle against each other, or if you're a collegiate swimmer, [01:11:00] you have to race against your teammates in order to get...
Like the psychology of racing against another human is not the same thing as racing against a clock that you can't see.
Both: Yeah.
Rob Wilson: Yeah, you need teammates, and if you're not there because, yesterday was an intense workout... this kind of thinking has made its all way, all the way into like the NFL.
Oh, yeah. Like, sometimes you have free agents where load management is now like, whoa, okay, we had two hard practices two days in a row. And it's like, your job is to smash your body. Into other people's bodies. Like, you literally wear armor-
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah ...
Rob Wilson: in your sport because you smash yourself into other really large humans at, like, 20 to 25 miles an hour.
Like this is- I'm not saying that we should not pay attention and just, like, have carte blanche on concussion- Yeah ... but also sports are hard. Yeah. And [01:12:00] so the goal is not to recover, the goal is to adapt. And sometimes in the process, in like the meta process of adapting, you don't feel recovered for a while.
Sometimes right before everything gets awesome you feel like shit. But like if you- Yeah. And your performance sucks sometimes. Performance will suck for like a week. You're, "Oh man, I don't feel strong." Every- I know I've had this conversation with myself many times over the decades that I've lifted.
Man, I suck this week. I feel slow. I, I'm, I feel like I'm lifting in mud. I don't feel strong. What's wrong with me? Then the next week I'm like, "
Oh,
PR." Yeah. And it's like, well... Or two weeks later and I didn't know that that was coming, and it happens in skill too, right? Like, where you think, like, "Man, I suck at this."
And then there's a turnover where it's like if you really don't continue to give high levels of effort [01:13:00] and to some degree intensity during those time periods, sometimes you actually don't give enough of an investment to see the adaptation curve occur. So that's where I think some of the wearable devices ha- have their use has gone awry.
Plus I always wanna know what the, what is 100% recovered? I'm not sure how that quantification- Like, how do you... What's a, in order to have a percentage of something- ... you have to know what all of it is. Like, you can't- Yep ... say a fraction of a pie unless you know that a pie is 360 degrees, right? So what is 360 degrees of recovered?
What's the quantifiable metric for that? And is it the same for me as it is for you? I don't, I don't know. I don't think the people who make those products have those answers. I think that they're [01:14:00] psychological tools to change people's behavior, for better or for worse. I'm not saying that any of them are nefarious or ill-intended.
No.
Dr Mike T Nelson: It's a way to, as to, to try to simplify because a person wants to know is it a go day or not? And as like- Even readiness isn't that simple. Like, I use a lot of Oura, Garmin. I've got, the Megawave, the OTO system. Like, you name it, I've probably... I'll have other, we'll say, nameless wearables, I won't say, that were utter dog shit that I don't even consider using anymore.
And at the end of the day, I'm like, "Show me the research. Show me the actual measurement of the metric, even if you're using a Megawave DC potential." Whatever it is- Yeah ... I want to know what the measurement actually was. Don't give me your aggregated score. I don't give two rat's asses about that unless you can show me a piss ton of research to show it's useful.
And then, but then the hard part is you have to understand, if I'm looking at respiratory rate on Oura versus temperature versus HRV, like, what are those things telling me? But if you [01:15:00] understand that, it's super useful, but then you have to take that and apply that on top of what is your philosophy. And like you said, at some point I want those metrics to probably go south, especially in the off-season.
If we're really pushing you hard and we have the luxury of time because it's the off-season, there's probably gonna be one or two weeks where I actually wanna see your metrics probably drop, because I know we're putting enough stress on the system to see that response. Yeah. And then we're gonna get a rebound, super compensation, adaptation, whatever words you wanna use for it, on the back end.
We don't have to be hyper worried. It's the off-season. You don't have a competition coming in. We can apply more distress. But it just seems like everyone wants to simplify everything into, "Oh, it's a good day or a bad day." It's like, "
Rob Wilson: Ah." Yeah. It doesn't work like that, no. And even, so i- in the program that I work with, they use, they use the Oura Ring to track sleep- Yep
and people get fixated on the, the summary scores.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Oh, yeah, the [01:16:00] w- I was like, "Can I just be honest?" REM sleep and deep sleep, and I lost two minutes of REM sleep last night
Rob Wilson: and... It's like I would disregard that, the summary scores entirely. Yeah. Like, really wanna start understanding something like your sleep, for example.
Like, go to the actual hypnogram- Yep ... and look at the times and the, the shapes in those sleep phases, and look at things like, okay, when you're in your first phase of deep sleep, is it like you go into deep sleep and then you're kinda, like, hanging out there and you're in it? Or does it look like a hair comb?
It's just up- In and out ... you're in and out, in and out, in and out. Like, that tells you way more. And I, so I gave this example. I w- I wore the Oura Ring for, like, I don't know, three or four years. And I got no hate for it, I just lost mine and- ... decided to change. I decided to change. I've used the Morpheus as of late by Joel Jamieson.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. Shout out to Joel. He's awesome.
Rob Wilson: Yeah, he's great. And, But [01:17:00] the, the Oura Ring, I had a thing where I... This is something I tell my classes a lot. Like, I woke up one day after what I thought was, like, a beautiful night of sleep. I woke up and I was like, "Woo, all right!" Like, I feel like a young guy. Like, I'm gonna- -go today.
And I opened up my phone and I was like, "Oh, I wonder what my score is." Like, I just wanted to see the correlation. Yeah, yeah. My sleep score was, like, 78, and I was like, "What? This doesn't match at all." So I went to the second and third layer of data, and it was like, oh, you fell asleep at 7:30 PM, and then you woke up at 8:15, and then you were up for two hours.
So to the Oura Ring, it looked like a sleep disturbance. Yep. What happened was I fell asleep watching TV with my wife- Yep ... for half an hour, and then I just woke up normally, and I went about my business in the house, letting the dogs out, washing the dishes. And then I went to bed at a normal time, and I woke up at a normal time.
I got a little over eight hours of sleep, and it was really good sleep. [01:18:00] And I, I was like, "What?" And so then I, I tell this every time. I'm like, so I just took my finger and I slid my sleep time over- Yep. You change it ... to, to 10:00 PM and then went back to the main page and it was like, oh, never mind.
Sleep score, 92. Yep. And I was like, that's why you can't just take it at face value. You have to go to the next layer because it- these devices don't have, they, they don't understand context.
They're, they're just... They have a very limited set of tools that they're using to measure you. I'm like, things like, I'm like, like y- you're if it's cold outside and your hands get cold and then you come in and you do cardio and you use the Oura Ring to measure your heart rate, it's gonna be really inaccurate 'cause there's not very much blood flowing.
I'm like, there's a- there's lots of, like you say, like, that's a really good term, these sort of rate limiters on these devices that you have to be conscious of, [01:19:00] otherwise you'll interpret the information they give you really poorly. And then over time, the exponential effect on your decision-making is less and less adaptable instead of more and more adaptable, which is what they're supposed to be for, right?
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. And as like, sometimes, like, I like the eustress/distress model. Eustress, like, especially if you're in season, most of your training should allow you to get the stimulus, adapt, be able to perform relatively in short order. In off-season, you might be able to do a little more distress training where it takes you a little bit longer to adapt.
So I think people should have a model of what they wanna do. But even within that, like, there's a time and a place you can make an argument for if all your data is crap, especially with a competitive athlete, I may tell them, "I want you to go train today and tell me how you do." And they're like, "Why?
Well, all my scores are horrible. You told me to look at HRV and look at that." I'm like, "Yeah, but today's a distress day." So the goal is [01:20:00] when the chips are down, when the time comes at an arbitrary time and date, especially if you're doing social forces stuff, can you still perform? I'm not asking you to do this for eight days in a row.
We're not trying to bury your dick into the ground. We're not doing any of that. But you, you also need a skill set of when it's time to go, it's go time, right? And I think with a lot of the recovery stuff, it's like, oh, but I don't want to today or that, and well, and on one end, I agree.
Like, overall, yes. Will I flip days around? Will I try to make stuff? Like, I did it today. Went to the gym to train, felt horrible 'cause I was in Vegas at a conference, got back late. Just did some cardio, but I'll move that day till tomorrow. So I just flip my cardio and my lifting days. No big deal. End of the week, everything, the same amount of stuff gets done.
I can accommodate readiness. But, if you're Special Forces or you've got a game coming up on Saturday, you can't go up to the coach and go, "Hey, coach, my WHOOP score says it's bad. I'm not playing today, man." It's like it, it doesn't work that way.
Rob Wilson: Exactly. And and I think at some [01:21:00] level everybody knows this, right?
Of course they do. Yeah, yeah. And so what happens with a lot of athletes too is they just, they either become hyper-fixated on the technology and it starts to negatively influence their psychology like we talked about, or they just throw it away and disregard it entirely.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, and then they go, "I don't wanna know anything."
And I'm like, "Well, that
Rob Wilson: wasn't the
Dr Mike T Nelson: point either."
Rob Wilson: Yeah, exactly. And it's like we gotta keep the pendulum i- in the center a little bit more here where, load management is, is important. And like you said, there's ways that we can sort of
tune
exercises appropriately, whether it's- Sure ... reps, sets, density, exercise type.
Like, oh man, normally this is a high intensity day. I wanna make it a low intensity day. I'm gonna save this high intensity day for another time. Well, that's possible, but also, like you said, sometimes it's just time to do work. And I would say for me as a hobbyist, as an aging hobbyist athlete- ... [01:22:00] mostly what I do is to touch that dark places a couple times a year.
I just put myself in the dirt on purpose-
...
Rob Wilson: To drive the system to fatigue and keep pushing through fatigue maybe for a week or two, just so that I can go, "I, I need to preserve this skill," like you said. And that doesn't mean I'm gonna go do a bunch of high skill. I'm not gonna be like, "Wow, I'm really tired.
I should just- I'm not
Dr Mike T Nelson: doing CrossFit today. Yeah, I'm not doing
Rob Wilson: CrossFit or like do, I'm gonna do snatch max today.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, yeah.
Rob Wilson: But I'm gonna go to jujitsu and I'm still gonna grapple hard even though I'm really tired and, or I'm gonna still, g- go for the run today or whatever just because- I'm not gonna go hurt myself, but at the same time it's like sometimes the shit needs to get done,
Dr Mike T Nelson: yeah. And I think that's a good use for, like, the Concept2 rower or the assault bike or something that [01:23:00] you can push hard on it. It's gonna suck depending on what parameters you're using. It's probably gonna be relatively safe. There's not a lot of eccentric load. There's not a lot of things like that. So I think picking your modalities is wise also.
Yeah. And then when I used to train people more in person, like, the thing I would go to would be car pushes, 'cause it would always suck. Yeah. But you, you s- you couldn't... It's hard to get biomechanically out of place too bad. It, it just doesn't move. Yeah. And the neighbors would think you're all in- insane, but that was, like, a good kind of go-to concentric-only way.
And people always felt the sense of accomplishment, 'cause they saw where the car started and where it ended. So for the work they put in, there's this, like, physical representation of what they actually did. And at the end they're always like, "Oh, okay. Yeah, that was, that was worth it." They're
Rob Wilson: like, "Oh, this was great."
And you're like, "Well, we gotta go back, 'cause I forgot the keys."
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, yeah.
Rob Wilson: Get around the other side. Yeah. I'm- A car push is a great idea. [01:24:00] S- Similar, like, sled, sled work. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Same idea. The same... it's funny that you bring that up, because, I'm just back from international travel, and you know with that there can be some, some lag- For sure
in, in the neurological effects. And normally for me Thursday would be deadlift day, and lately... as of late I have, like, a short-term goal of, of going heavy, and I'm trying to get within, I'm trying to get within shooting distance of some prior, some prior PRs. I'm never gonna hit my one rep, the all time, but I'm like, okay, I'm 45.
I weigh, a little over 230. I feel like if I can trap bar deadlift 400 for 10-
Oh, yeah. That's great ...
I'm, I'm pretty strong. Yeah. And so I'm, I'm on my way back to four... Like, and not like a sharp 410, not like a grinding 410, right? Yeah,
yeah.
Today would normally would be my day to train that, but my nervous system...
Like, I can tell, like, I'm still... I don't feel bad, but I'm [01:25:00] not, I'm just not quite- ... back yet. So I was like, well, I still want to do something that's a strength stimulus. So I drug a heavy sled around for-
Both: Yeah ... I don't
Rob Wilson: know what I did today. Maybe, like, 100 yards of just a heavy sled pull, pulling it behind me with some overcoming isos.
So I'm still having some, some max neural drive. Yep. Some sort of grind through a pushing motion, but okay, I'm not gonna... if I'm on rep four or five of something that's decently heavy- I'm not gonna get it, get the speed wobbles and blow my back out- ... for the next few days. So it's the same kinda thing, it's just, picking the right modalities.
But it doesn't excuse me from effort just because I'm tired.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. Yeah. Do you find, like... I find, like, cold water immersion is great for that. Like, I try to do it most mornings. I've been doing it, most mornings I'm home since 2020. [01:26:00] God, so probably, like, six years now. And the thing I thought would go away would be, okay, with enough practice, enough adaptation, like, this will be super easy.
There's still always that hesitation. This happened before I left, of like, "What am I doing? This is stupid. This is 38-degree water. This is fucking dumb. What am I..." Yeah. And you always talk yourself into it. Yes. But there's always that, that hesitation that is still there. But I've come to realize that that's, that's good.
Like, I'm training more of the, the s- psychological, the mental aspect to push through. And just something that's very, as long as you're not an idiot, it's relatively safe to do. You're not loading your structure or whatever. Yeah. So I found that those things do tend to transfer to the other things of like, oh, okay, it's really sucking now.
Now I have a choice. Am I gonna back off today, or is it today I'm just gonna hit the goal even if the RPE is a lot higher, right? To, to kinda go the little more difficult route. Yeah.
Rob Wilson: I found the same thing with, with cold plunging, i'm, [01:27:00] I'm well beyond thinking of it as a recovery modality.
Yeah. But, but as a psychological training tool it's, it's pretty awesome. Especially if you have the time and the resource, yes. Like, we have one at home. I have one at home. It's an interesting thing to do with friends that have never done it before, and they're always kinda like, "Ooh."
Both: Yeah.
Rob Wilson: All right, so we had a couple... Maybe this was, like, a year and a half ago. We had a, like, a little winter solstice celebration at my house, and I don't have a sauna yet. Mm. Me neither. It's on the list. I have a cold plunge, and I have a big fire pit. And we had a bunch of friends and family over, and we were like, "Okay, so what we're gonna do is everybody get really warm by the fire.
Like, get real close, warm up, and then we'll take turns and get in the... We'll do cold plunges." And you can not do it at all if you... I mean- ... this is family time, right? But if you're gonna do it, you decide how long you stay in.
Both: Yeah.
Rob Wilson: And it [01:28:00] was really interesting just to kinda go, like, if you build it up in your head before you get over there, you have people like, "Oh.
Oh my God, is it cold? How cold is it gonna be? What's the water temperature?" And they get all in their head about it. It's a lot harder than if somebody just walks up and they just get in.
Both: Yeah.
Rob Wilson: Just get in. Just physically get in and start breathing.
It's like, I'm gonna breathe, and really you figure out, like, the first 30 seconds is the worst.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Oh, by far, yeah.
Rob Wilson: And then you're... You just If you let yourself, you get into a place where you just accept-
...
Rob Wilson: That it just is like that. And now it's really fun when it's December and it's really cold out, 'cause you get out and the outside is still cold.
Oh, yeah.
And so everybody was cold, but we had a good time. We changed, and it was like a fun, a fun, a fun way to turn the calendar, and everybody had this like, this rite of passage, this initiation for the winter. I think it's [01:29:00] something that we'll, we'll probably keep doing.
My cold plunge actually, the pump took a bit of a, a bit of a shit.
Both: Oh.
Rob Wilson: So I gotta replace the pump, but I love doing it. I did it... I was doing it every day for quite a while.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, I think it's, it's helpful. And the one thing I, one mistake I did make early on is I, I tracked time a little bit too closely and had highly competitive people do it in a row.
That was a mistake. I won't do that again. 'Cause- Yeah ... you get some of the people that are like, lips are blue, you're starting to turn purple. It's like, "Bro, you're getting out. I don't know." " I got it. He was doing four minutes. I'm gonna do four, three." I'm like, "Oh, shit. This isn't gonna end well."
Rob Wilson: You're gonna win, but you're also gonna die.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. So
Rob Wilson: get out. Yeah, don't, don't die at my house, yeah, yeah. Sign a waiver before you got in there.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, yeah. Cool, man. Well, thank you for all the info. Anything else I didn't ask you, I should've [01:30:00] asked you, or projects you wanted to chat about?
Rob Wilson: I don't think so. It's just been a fun chat with a couple of performance nerds talking.
Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: We're like all over the place, but that was fun.
Rob Wilson: Yeah, yeah. Just conversation. That's cool. No- Yeah ... it was
Dr Mike T Nelson: great. Tell us about the book, where people can find you, where they can pick up the book, all that stuff.
Rob Wilson: Sure. Easy to find me on Instagram at The Check Engine Light. My book you can find at thecheckenginelightbook.com.
My Substack, checkenginelight.substack.com. I'm trying to be- Nice ... trying to be very brand consistent. So everything I'm working on for sure you can see on social media, and then, as I mentioned, my, my book and my other writing work is, is, is pretty easy to come across.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Cool. Awesome, man. Well, thank you so much for that, and yeah, really appreciate it.
I highly recommend. I'm gonna pick up a copy of the book, and excited to read it, and I think it'll be super useful for everyone to check it out. And always love all the [01:31:00] great stuff you're doing, and thank you so much for sharing all of it. Really appreciate it.
Rob Wilson: Awesome. Thanks, Mike. Appreciate you.
Thank
Dr Mike T Nelson: you.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for listening to the podcast. We really, really appreciate it. A huge thanks to Rob for coming back on the podcast. Always love chatting with him, just where his brain's going on different things, and just fun to talk to other people to get different perspectives. Even on stuff you think you know, like, getting different perspectives is always a good idea, and you always leave, you know, thinking of a different direction you can go yourself.
Make sure to check out his book, published through Victory Belt. Uh, I am in the process of picking that up right now, and I'm definitely gonna give it a read for sure. I'm sure there's a ton of stuff I can pull out of there. And check out all his other great stuff. If you want more from me, like I said at the intro, check out my podcast here as you are, and then also check out the Fitness Insider Newsletter.
We'll put a link down below where you can sign up [01:32:00] completely free and get cool stuff delivered directly to your inbox. As always, thank you so much for listening. Really appreciate it. If there's anyone you think may enjoy this podcast, please forward it to them. Tag me on the old social media and Rob so we can say thank you for listening to this podcast.
And if you have time, leaving us a review goes a long way to help us with the old algorithms in addition to the likes and thumbs up and downloads and whatever else the old algorithm enjoys right now. Thank you so much. We really appreciate it. We'll talk to all of you again next week
Oh, a great little actress. Yep, and getting smaller all the time.
Speaker 3: This podcast is for informational purposes only. The podcast is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. You should not use the information on the podcast for diagnosing or treating a health problem or disease or [01:33:00] prescribing any medication or other treatment.
Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider before taking any medication or nutritional supplement, and with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on this or any other podcast.
Reliance on the podcast is solely at your own risk. Information provided on the podcast does not create a doctor-patient relationship between you and any of the health professionals affiliated with our podcast. Information and statements regarding dietary supplements are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
Opinions of guests are their own, and this podcast does not endorse or accept responsibility for statements made by guests. This podcast does not make any representations or warranties about guest qualifications or credibility. Individuals on this podcast may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to therein.
If you think you have a medical problem, consult a licensed physician