557 QnA 🎙️ Strength Coach Training People for FREE!? Wrestling Dad Needs Help

Welcome to the Strong Life Podcast where we talk about dominating and strength, health, business, and life.

And by the way, if you're a parent out there and you've got a teenager, get over there and see Zach. Talk about being jacked up his place and jacked up and ready to go.

There's no better program than here. I pushed myself beyond the levels that I can go in here.

Have you ever seen Zach Evanesh?

Oh, what's that? He's a trainer out of New Jersey.

First of all, let me just congratulate him on his badass name.

That's a great name. What's his name again? Zach Evanesh?

Evanesh. Evan, that's a pretty nice name.

All right, team. Welcome back to the Strong Life Podcast. I believe we're on episode five, five, seven.

Hope you've been keeping up. I know I have not been keeping up with posting the Strong Life Podcast every week.

And I got to get back to that. And what really helps me deliver a great Strong Life Podcast is when you ask questions, when you send in your questions.

And so I've got two questions that I'm answering. I've already answered them directly to the people that have come in through email, text.

Sometimes they will come in through Instagram and I'll be honest. Sometimes I don't keep up with everything.

But if you ask me a solid question and I feel it's worth sharing, it's going to help a lot of people. It's going to inspire a lot of people.

Then I will share it. One thing I want to talk about before we start is if you're in the New Jersey area, I've got two Strength Edition and Clinics. I'll be speaking at.

We have the NSCA State Clinic. You go to the NSCA website, but I'm going to link that up below. And you also have NHS SCA, which is coming up the end of March.

And that'll be at 100 Central. And that's for high school strength coaches. That's going to be amazing.

So we're looking forward to both. And also Nate and I, Nate's out our head coach at the Underground.

I really want to bring back a certification. Big concern is like, man, will people show up? Are people ready to get on an airplane, travel, hungry to learn, hungry to train?

That is getting tougher and tougher to find. And again, what I'm talking about these clinics, they're linked below.

So is my newsletter where you get your free strength training courses, which would actually solve a lot of the questions people have.

They ask me questions to things I have available for free. And I say that all the time, but I want to talk about something before I answer these first two questions.

Something that's very concerning for me. So check this out.

This is going to be a, I think it's a major let down now, but I think it's only going to get worse. I hope people can leverage it for good.

So I received an email a couple days ago from a student who's finishing up his PhD in a physical therapy school.

And he has to do his clinical work. And so I received an email that was just a cut and paste. He probably sent it out to 10, 20.

Who knows how many emails he found and just sent it out. And it said it was addressed to whom it may concern.

As soon as you do that, I know you know nothing about the underground strength gym. And it also tells me that you just didn't want to even Google underground strength gym.

Watch a couple videos on YouTube or Instagram and try to get some background knowledge. So I said, you know what?

Let me just read it anyway. I read it. Perfect grammar. Total cut and paste job from chat GPT or whatever.

You know, whatever AI generated source people use today. I'm sorry. I can't keep up with that.

And I was tempted to just say, you know what? I'm not answering. Forget this shit. Fuck this guy.

And I'm not supposed to curse and some of you have kids in the car, but it's too late. I blew it because I get pretty fired up with this stuff. And I shouldn't, but I do.

So I respond back to whatever his name was. We always use John Smith around here. I apologize for John Smith's out there. And I said, listen, man, we are not a physical therapy clinic.

And it sounds like you need to do your clinical work. It should be, you should be addressing and doing outreach to PT clinics.

And I said, this also looks like a cut and paste job. And I said, it's not going to help you. You have to do better. Well, he responded a day later. And it seemed like a sincere apology. But then I was like, man, there's no way.

This grammar is so perfect. Every perfect comma, every, you know, combined word that had a dash. I was like, ah, this doesn't look right.

So I googled how to check for AI. And I know teachers could use this. So I took a screenshot of the email. I uploaded it. And you could get three responses. You could get this 100% AI, or this is a mix of human plus AI.

More human. And then the third response is a mix less human, more AI. This thing came back 100% certain AI generated. I said, damn, he still doesn't care.

He was asking me to refer him to another clinic. And I thought to myself, should I refer him to my buddies at resilient?

Should I refer him to our guy, Dr. Jeff Lewis? And I said, no way. This person has to work with humans. The most important foundational principle when working with other people is to genuinely care.

Because when you genuinely care, if you don't have the answer, you find the answer, you go seek mentorship, you do research, you learn.

This young man who will be a doctor of PT has proven on both occasions through email that he doesn't care, that he will cut corners.

And so he will be the guy when somebody tears their ACL or breaks a foot, he will make sure they stay in physical therapy for an entire offseason while the health insurance pays out.

And when that athlete comes back, he or she will be worse. He or she will be unable to perform a proper body week squad after nine months of physical therapy.

He or she will be at physical therapy for their broken foot and will have never done actual training. They'll just be getting massage and a warm towel. He will make them weak and he will not care.

And I have a problem with those people, just like I have a problem with, you know, people who might be in a youth coaching program, but they punish other people, other people's kids, and they favor their friends son or daughter because their friends, that friend is their bar buddy.

That's who they hang out with. Oh, I'm not best friend. So his son and daughter won't get the playing time. I got a problem with those people because we don't need that kind of bullshit in sport.

Now, the two questions I'm going to get into one is from a strength coach who does training, rent space out of another gym, but also does like a special free training for people out of his garage.

And the next question is going to be on dad who's got a son who he feels is starting to hit puberty and he's ready for strength training. So we're going to talk about that.

All right, here we go. Question number one, I'm going to address for our strength coach buddy here. All right, so we're going to read this question that came through from the strength coach.

Good morning boss. Hope you and your family are well. I was listening to episode 550 and I got to say, man, every time I listen to you speak, I still get so much from it. 17, 18 years later, I've been listening, something like that.

And I believe he's right. Somebody asked me, when did I start my podcast? And I said, I know I started it before I even could put it up on audio. It was going on YouTube.

So I do believe it was somewhere around 2010. I don't know, 11 possibly 2012. And then of course, I've been doing these videos on YouTube since 06. So he says, I really wish I lived in an area that people

cared more about strength. And for context, he lives in the Northeast, not in rural area, but a bit more spread out. So he continues kind of frustrating when you have all of this experience and very few people who actually want to benefit from it. I still train people for free out of my gym, which is his garage gym, which is pretty dang cool setup.

And I still have a few clients here and there. I'm still doing what I can to spread the good word. Thanks again for putting your passion into your life's work to help so many people.

An old dog I used to know before he passed away, used to say, unless you made other plans, have a great day. So this guy has got a lot of experience and strengthening and

conditioning. It's not his full time job. He kind of does it a bit of like a hobby. He trains people out of a local gym. And then he's got his personal garage space, which is really tricked out. It's freaking cool as hell.

And that's where he'll invite people. Maybe he's those somebody and they he offers to train some of the athletes, some of the adults and so on. And so I got on the phone him quickly and I said, listen.

You know, I had this conversation with our head coach Nate. I've had this conversation with our physical therapist at the Underground, Dr. Jeff Lewis.

You know, we have gone, we have given several free seminars that I used to never do these things for free. You know, everything was always had to have some form of skin in the game, even if it's just $20.

And people don't value free. I often use the quote, people who pay, comma, pay attention, skin in the game. And so when it's free, people don't value it. And by the way, a lot of people don't value strengthening.

We think they do until you go to, you know, go to this local supermarket, go to, you know, I don't know, there's no such thing as malls anymore by us. There's the boardwalk go to like large public places and you'll see the majority of people look like they can't do a push up.

So I said to him, listen, you know, we do all these free clinics and even our own people don't show up. People who should be there, people who almost have to be there and they don't show up.

And so I shared last episode, the story of Mark Smelly Bell and Jesse Burtick showing up, telling me, and you guys got a list of two in full, but I'll give you the, you know, 15 second version showing up for a seminar in New Jersey, where we thought only one person might be signed up for.

Okay, and after Jesse had a loss in his family showing up, if it's in your heart, you're still, you're still showing up, no matter who is putting up the brick walls to try to keep you out.

The other thing I said is you can't train people for free. Nobody gives a shit. We have scholar athletes who coaches reach out to me and say, listen, hey, single, single mom, no help from the divorced husband has to work two jobs, can't afford it. Sure, I'll train that kid for free, say no more.

Kids live minutes away by bike. They show up once every six weeks and require us to chase them. That's our scholar athlete. That's who's getting trained for free. That is the problem. No skin in the game. Now, I posted something on Instagram. A lot of people would not like it, but it was about excuses versus results.

The people who have no money usually have a luxury car or a luxury SUV. They also have tattoos all over the body. They also go to the local bar every weekend. They eat out three, four, five days a week. They have the money, but they choose to spend it and waste it elsewhere. It's what they value.

Not everybody values their kid being a champion and getting that advantage. So free stuff is never good. Getting people locally to care about stuff, you know, we could build awareness, we could educate, but we can't change what they care about.

My advice is to this guy is, I said, listen, you've got all this knowledge. You've trained so many people. Why don't you go to the local bookstore and see if they would, if they would help you self publish a book. You write a book, and I've done this with clients want to do business coaching with them. I get them to write a book. Share your story. Why do you get into strength training? Why are you a strength coach? Now share transformation stories. What obstacles did people overcome?

What nutrition and training methods did you guide them and coach them through to help them achieve their results? And you turn that into a book. And he said, man, that's a great idea. You see local bookstores don't like when you use Amazon, but as much as I want to support small local businesses, Amazon allows me to distribute worldwide.

A local bookstore might say they can, but it's just like saying, hey, at the underground, we could do XYZ, but if we can't, we can't. That's just not maybe the equipment we don't have. We don't have maybe all this stuff to measure your body fat. I don't have an in body. Just be honest. This is what we do. So what we can do is what we cannot do or what we don't do.

Then I told them I said, listen, instead of you allowing people to train for free, they should train with you. Why don't you start a club? It could be men, women, men and women, whoever you're training. It's a club. And that way they pay through effort. They pay through showing up. They pay through being a great training partner.

Very much like Louis Simmons did. You don't have to take people out to eat and all that stuff, but I don't want to be offering stuff for free. I mean, I do it enough. I've got thousands upon thousands of videos and audios and articles on my blog. And people don't read it. And so remember people, the value that is attached to free stuff, it doesn't really, it's not viewed by anybody.

Okay. And most people think you should volunteer it and give it away. Right. And it's like saying, hey, why don't you go to work and say today I'm volunteering. Please, no paycheck today. Well, that happened. Of course, it's not going to happen. But when you're in the coaching world, that's how a lot of these relationships are built. You help for free, but you learn that 90 plus percent, 98, 97 percent. Don't give a crap. Can't let those people stop you. You got to keep going.

So next question from Jason, let's get into this great wrestling dad here, asking questions. Right. So now we're going to get into the question with our wrestling dad. So pulling this question from Instagram DMs. And I try to answer these through the DMs as an audio. If not, if they're thorough and something I feel could really impact other people out there for what we want to cover.

With the strong life, then I'm going to share it. So I don't mention names. I keep your name anonymous. So again, this is from John Smith. A lot of questions from John Smith always apologies for any John Smiths out there listening. So here it is. Zach, I need your help. My son is a rassler, like to say, rassler. He started varsity at 106 this year as a freshman for one of the top teams in New England. He is a late bloomer, but he's finally into puberty.

He is extremely physically fit. But this offseason, he wants to hit the weights hard and gain wrestling strength, not become a bodybuilder. I hired a trainer for him, starting in the beginning of June. So I would just kind of interject there. I don't know why you'd wait for June.

I really don't I'd get it going now. Get the instruction happening now. I'm not saying that just oh, Zach's a strength coach, but I'm just not a believer in like waiting. If the season ended, take a week to two weeks off, preferably just one week.

And then we do a light two weeks. And then from there, we build, but I would like to see him working with a strength coach and being in a competitive environment. So I'm not sure if he'll be with a with a trainer, a private one on one. I'm really not a fan of that unless it's really needed for the athletes focus. The athlete is just so far behind or coming out of a serious injury and or surgery. So back to it.

He could go four days a week and basically will have 25 weeks of training before the season starts. I would like to buy a program that has a day by day program for him to get as strong as possible geared towards wrestling strength that I could hand to his trainer.

The gym is equipped with sleds, kettlebells, ropes, racks, etc. He has been strengthening the last few years with light weights just to practice technique. But as you know, before puberty, a kid can only get so strong. Now that he is able to add mass and strength, he really needs a specific combat sport program.

I've read a lot about you and thought I would reach out. So I sent him an audio message back. And I think I believe I told him about my standalone programs on training heroic. We have beginner strength and we have wrestling strength level one, level two.

So he said, how would wrestling strength level one be for him? Again, he wrestles four to five nights a week in a wrestling room all off season.

But he wants to focus on strength in the mornings, four days a week. His nutrition is locked in with eggs, whole milk, lean meats and whole foods. Love it.

So I told him I would answer this on the podcast. So I liked the nutrition. Morning workouts really depends on the kid. You know, my concern always is these kids are going to lose every time he does that.

We're taking away an hour of sleep, which is crucial for these kids getting strong. And I always feel like, you know, our best wrestlers often did off season wrestling three days a week. It might be more now.

I think it's a little too much now. But they would often train two week nights and then Sunday was a big day at these wrestling clubs. And then they would train with us usually three times a week.

There would certainly be days that was double session. Go home, eat a meal, get a little bit of homework done, come to the underground. And then from the underground, they would go to wrestling practice. It's interesting. Now we have a lot of kids showing up early to our earlier slots after school.

And in my first location of the underground, as well as from my house, I always did a 7 p.m. time slot. And we had a lot of 7 p.m. kids showing up. This would be after they ate dinner or they just did a lot of homework had an early dinner.

Now it doesn't seem like 7 o'clock is not good for strength and conditioning. It's only good for going to these wrestling clubs and baseball training at eight, nine at night. It's kind of wild.

Now, I've got standalone programs on training heroic. You could go to train heroic or if you go to Zach evidence.com, you could see my programs on the front page. But I could also email them to you. So I'm going to give you a breakdown of my standalone programs on training heroic. So we've got gladiator strong, which is a team. And then we've also got dad strong, which is a team, which means monthly workouts, private form.

I have a program called high school strong off season, which would be great for your son. Bodyweight bodybuilding. I feel it would be great for wrestlers. But it would be, I really like bodyweight bodybuilding as an adult who's taking a break from the weights.

Old school bodybuilding, great for putting on size. It requires volume, not necessarily the best for athletes, but pretty good for adults, minimal minimalist training, the adults strong over 40 summer strong. So I've got beginner strength, which could be very good for your son. It's very simple.

And then I've got wrestling strength level one, haven't put out level two yet. And I'm not sure I ever will. I really think when they're done, they could transition into gladiator strong. Then I have in season strong, which is building hammers. And so a kid who's ways of 106, you know, smaller kid. My number one thing is basics brilliance with the basics and having a coach from the get go. If this guy that you hired as a coach, step one is, why are you handing him a coach?

Why are you handing him a program? The coach should be able to put together the program. And the way we do this, we teach this at our certifications. And by the way, those of you who are dads and coaches, go to underground strength cert calm, get your, I've got two free videos that are excerpts from the certification.

But basically we do an evil on day one. It's not anything complicated. And we see athletes showing up with the common theme of kind of being weak. They don't really move very well. They can't squat low. They don't have good overall general physical preparation.

Children, kids are struggling. They can't do pull ups. So all these basic things. But that really gives us a starting point, which is also inside of underground strength coach certification.

It's not the tools that matter. All right. I do feel that blending them together properly and optimally is very helpful. But if your son is wrestling for to five nights a week.

And then I'm just going to safely say once a month, even twice a month, he'll be at wrestling tournaments on the weekend. That's four or five workouts there. And then he's waking up early.

And so teenage athletes need to sleep. They need to get to bed. They need to have lights out at 10 o'clock. A lot of these kids go to bed. And then it's phone on from 10 to midnight or sometimes later.

So they're already operating at a deficit. And so very important with the sleep. And I think the basics need to be worked. So beginner strength as well as wrestling strength level one.

What I told his dad is these programs are standalone. I forget how long they are. All my stand loans are somewhere around four months, something like that.

If week one is tough, you do week one over again. You don't go right into the next week to I operate and program with mini cycles two weeks, three weeks, then I change it up.

It's based on the conjugate method. It's very much based on all the conversations I've had with Louis Simmons, probably one of my biggest mentors in strength and conditioning.

We're still doing the pushing, the pulling, but we change the variations of those exercises up. That's what that's what helps build athleticism.

The athlete is learning new movement patterns. The athlete is not just doing strength and hypertrophy work to build muscle, you know, AKA bodybuilding, but they're also doing power. They're also doing speed.

And so this builds a total athlete. We don't need quote unquote sport specific training, especially if we're training four to five times a week and we're in high school, we need general strength training.

The other thing I'd like to talk about and maybe you guys could reach out to me and give me feedback on this. You know, the underground strength academy is my membership website since 2004.

Okay, we're looking at 22 years in business now. I've been putting in videos, workouts of the month seminar excerpts. There's got to be hundreds upon hundreds of videos, more like many movies, 10, 15, 20, 30 minute videos of behind the scenes training.

And then a gazillion of my workouts are in there. If you're trying to learn how to train somebody, dads and coaches get inside the underground strength academy.

So I was contemplating putting it on school, but I just feel like I'll be spread too thin. It's really hard that I've amassed two plus decades of content. Don't know where to put it.

So I would love to hear your feedback on that guys. If anybody's using school, if you'd like me to do that.

And so back to dad here. Don't wait for June. Okay, we're only in the middle of March. So we've got April and May and then half of June. We're three months out from that in three months.

A kid like your son, we could put on 10 to 12 pounds of muscle proper eating, strength training three days a week, and then the wrestling.

Absolutely. And I don't know if I would recommend it in the morning. I would get that sleep and have a nice breakfast where we're not rushed in the morning.

And then he's going to have to do strength sessions after school. And then he goes to wrestling later in the evening. That's the way you're going to have to split it up.

And does it take a lot? Yes, it does. But that's what it takes when you're trying to be successful. It doesn't take an average amount of work. It takes quite a lot of work and takes a whole hell of a lot of consistency.

And the last thing I'll say is this dad said, you know, we're going to have 25 weeks of training leading up to the season. I want you to think about just year round training.

We're going to ebb and flow with the seasons. So right now we're in the off season. Okay. We're in the immediate postseason. But we go right into freestyle and Greco.

Then we've got the summer tournaments, freestyle and Greco and national tournaments team and individual national tournaments.

Then we're on that circuit again in the fall. And it's just kind of crazy. That basically wrestling season doesn't end.

And so in season, you know, our best wrestlers have always trained in season, preferably twice a week, about a 30 minute shorter workout. That would be the ticket.

And so don't hand a program to this coach. If you're hiring somebody to coach your son, he should have the knowledge, the skills, the wisdom, the experience to put that together.

All right, team. So I hope you guys enjoyed this little Q&A. Please leave a five star review. I'm going to take a look right now to see if we've had any reviews. We've been really struggling on reviews. And it makes me think, you know, maybe I love the strong like podcast, but a lot of people don't.

And so March 5th was the last one. And we are now March 18th. I'd really love to see a new review at least once a week. I mean, sounds like I'm asking for too much.

The last review says, and this is from GCP 1977. GCP hit me up. I'll send you a free training course. It's the best. There are a few people like Zach in the world. He constantly pushes himself and looks for the same dedication and others.

This is not the podcast for all. Only a select few with that same fire in their belly will appreciate his enthusiasm for hard work in life, the gym and business. I applaud Zach for sharing his thoughts and giving his blood sweat and tears so that we may all be better. Damn, that's it. Speaking the truth. All right, GCP hit me up with a email and a screenshot. How do you email me? You guys respond to the strong like newsletter. You go to Zach strength.com.

Check this out. This is from Jake Tab. Best of the best in the world of strength. Damn boy. My head just grew. That's okay. I'll take a compliment. You don't get too many of them.

Ben following Zach since 2015, but this was my first time listening to the strong life podcast. It was an amazing episode with Logan Galbrick of Doos Jim. I love all of his stories of your his advice. And this is how you know Jake hasn't been listening for a while because that would say his advices and the light he shines on business strategies for Jim owners.

He's also really great. He does really. He's also a really great interview. Thank you. Appreciate the details he pulled out of Galbrick regarding how he overcame obstacles to launch Doos. Thank you, Jake. Please hit me up with an email and a screenshot. I do want to say this. Sometimes I catch myself interrupting the interviewer, the the guest. Sometimes I catch myself asking too many questions and I do apologize. I do catch myself doing that. I'm trying to be better.

Episode 550 from Lee February 19th. Dang. Great episodes, Zach. Something most of us need to hear more often than not. I just wish I was 40 years younger and can train like you did in your teens. Keep up the great shows. Nice. Nice. Nice. All right. I'd like to get an email from the last two from GCP 1977 and Jake Tav. And that's it. Team spread the word. Share with friends. Go to Zach strength.com.

And check out the links below if you're in New Jersey. Get to the NHSCA State Clinic. Great for sport coaches, phys ed teachers, anybody who's a strength coach. And then the NSCA clinic. I'll be on. I'll be on a expert panel on training middle school athletes talking about preparing them for the demands and rigors of high school sports. Can't wait to see everybody there. And that's it. I'm out of here. Thank you so much.

People ask me what warrior? What are you passionate about? It finally came to me years ago. You know what I'm passionate about? I'm passionate about fucking passionate. I'm passionate about intensity. All the self-help books, all the motivational books, the inspirational tools that you can buy. The bottom line in them is do the work.

Once you get through all the pages and all the rules and all the principles and all the formats and all the plans and all the templates comes down to that. Do the fucking work.

And sometimes the only way to go about doing the work is get fucking raw and get fucking intense. Get angry and aggressive and make it fucking happy.

The experts, the gurus, in health and fitness, they will tell you that resting recovery, 8 to 10 hours sleep a night is what you need. Let me speak blunt with you. None of those fucking triple jam, punchy belly, basting face, mother fuckers can groom the drawing hairs on a warrior.

What is that for you? Is it did you? What is it did you? Is your fucking enemy and you need to kill it? Your fears, your doubts, your lack of confidence, your lack of belief in a certain absolute destiny you have to do something unique and correct on this planet.

Start today at 6.15 a.m. and you're already up and you're already dragging us by 6.16. You can change your fucking perspective of the world, love your life. My advice, fucking do it, dig, fucking deep and get it done.

Life is not worth living without passion, without intensity. Warrior man, what's your passion? My passion is fucking passion, intensity for life, whatever you do.

Make sure to head on over to ZachStrength.com and get exclusive content, a badass, free training course along with a special discount code for any of our training courses thanks to everyone for leaving five star reviews.

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