Rob Shaul, Founder of Mountain Tactical Institute

Rob Shaul is the Founder and President of the Mountain Tactical Institute (MTI), where he serves as a self-educated strength and conditioning coach specializing in tactical and mountain athletes. His clientele includes professional mountain guides, alpine climbers, freeskiers, kayakers, backcountry hunters, as well as military, law enforcement, and firefighter personnel from various countries.

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Episode Transcript

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(01:27):
I have former Coastguardsmen Rob Shawl, who is in charge
of the Mountain Tactical Institute for Bettering Yourself as a
Mountaineering Extreme athlete or just want to be better. Welcome
to the show, rob Shaw.

Speaker 3 (01:44):
Well thanks thanks for having me bred Coast Guard.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
Huh yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:50):
I grew up in small town Wyoming. Needed to pay
for school.

Speaker 4 (01:55):
I ended up the Coast Guard Academy and spent time
there getting my cat me time, got out and went
on a buoy tender for a few years and uh
and then uh sat in the desk in Alaska and
then we went back to winding.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
So that's kind of my what what's a what's a
booie tender? Uh?

Speaker 3 (02:13):
The Coast Guard? Uh uh at that time, it was
a long time ago.

Speaker 4 (02:18):
Graduated from school in ninety I guess an academy, so
some old guy and uh yeah, and the uh at
that time the Coast Guard there two types of ships,
or white boats and black boats.

Speaker 3 (02:30):
And the white boats were the law enforcement guys.

Speaker 4 (02:32):
They're the guys who are chasing drug runners in Florida
and uh checking fishermen up in Alaska.

Speaker 3 (02:38):
And the buoy tenders were the black boat guys.

Speaker 4 (02:41):
And the black boats they took care of all the
buoys that you see along the coast. They all yeah, yeah,
I just that was kind of my blue car guy
and I didn't really want to really want to get
into the law enforcement side, and.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
So you enjoyed the water. And then if I can
just picture the let me just try to describe you,
correct me if I'm wrong. You have a boat and
it's probably got a flat back dock deck area where
you can hang out and do all of your maintenance
and get the booy's ready, and your booies probably have
like big cement blocks on them, and then you push
them off the back of that boat and then the
chain goes with it and the booy and the water
and you just are maintaining these all the time. Is

(03:19):
that right?

Speaker 3 (03:20):
Yes?

Speaker 4 (03:20):
Real similar to that in the uh this time since
that I mean the boot tender I was on was
a coast Guard cutter IRIS and it was from World
War Two. Actually it was a cold goal tender. It's
pretty cool, had old diesel engine in it. They need
constant maintenance. It had a single screw or one uh
one propeller on the back and uh you know, one
rudder and uh so from a ship driving perspective, it

(03:43):
was old school really, you know, basic didn't have a
ballot rust or anything. And uh as a deck officer,
as a deck officer on there and he had a
helmetsone he would drive the boat would steer it. But
as a deck officer, you know, you'd be on the
wing of the the bridge watching the tending deck. The
work deck was in the front boat, and so the
bridge is behind it, and you'd be up above watching

(04:05):
that and you'd have the throttle. You'd be manipulating the
throttle in your hand, just to joystick the throttle. You'd
be yelling to the helmsman to you know, come right
or come left or whatever. And yeah, you'd go up.
You'd get I was on the Irish was in uh
a story of Oregon, which is on the Columbia River,
and the yeah yeah, and so uh, I mean just

(04:26):
huge waves going through those bars and big ocean buoys
and we would uh yeah, you'd go up to the
buoy'd you know, be binging. You get it come up
to in the boat and the deck hands would catch it.

Speaker 3 (04:37):
They took on.

Speaker 4 (04:38):
We had a boom or come over and hook onto
the booys. You look at the booy at his base,
not the tower, but the base. It has these big
you know hooks in it or places we put a
hook you bringing the hood a hook in it, you
hook up to it, drag it up. But underneath it
it has it does have a chain. We'd have this thing.
It would go into the chain and would lock the chain,

(04:59):
and yeah, we would take and the boys need maintain,
they need to paint it. They don't have the barnacles
need to get scraped off. The electronics is working. And
then if the chain section of the chains rusty needed
to be replaced, the chain will go. Uh, the team
would go up and down on itself with the waves
right so that part of the chain might need to
be replaced. And then we make sure the position of

(05:21):
the buoy was was good, big ass huge cement block
at the bottom of them. And as a deck officer,
it was a big no no if you broke the
chain because as the buoy was on deck being worked on,
you were.

Speaker 3 (05:35):
Hooked to the boat was hooked to the block the
block down the below.

Speaker 4 (05:41):
If you pulled it too far with the boat, it
would pop the chain because the boat's heavier than and
then the guys then get managed it because they'd have
to do all the work to put in a new block.
And yeah, so it was uh, you know, it was
quite that you'd have to work with current and anyway,
this is geeky.

Speaker 1 (05:56):
No, I just actually learned how anchors completely drag into
the dirt and hew tension is pulled on the ship
to meet the tension in the dirt. So I'm like
completely fascinated by this. That's why it's like, does it
have the block with the chain and you get it
off the back of the boat and it's just like
Davy Jones's locker down it goes you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 4 (06:13):
Yeah, when they would sit in there and yeah, they
would lay out all the change and you know, fan
it out on the deck and a guy would hit
hit something with it.

Speaker 3 (06:19):
Ye yeah, go down and the boat, you know, popping off. Yeah,
everybody get out of the way.

Speaker 1 (06:26):
Get out of the way. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (06:28):
It was pretty cool too because we have to go
into these.

Speaker 4 (06:32):
All these different rivers or like Clumbering River bar, all
these bars, the bars where you know, the silt from
the river piles up right when it meets the ocean.
And what that does is when the ocean swells come
in they hit the current from but also the piled
up stiment.

Speaker 3 (06:49):
It makes really big and jumble.

Speaker 4 (06:51):
Seas and uh, I mean, yeah, there was some you
know search and rescue in the Climber River bar and
it is a lot of fun.

Speaker 3 (06:58):
Actually, sure of.

Speaker 1 (07:00):
The cowboys, state bro you turned into a pirate.

Speaker 4 (07:05):
I don't know about that, but yeah, well, I mean
like different experience for sure.

Speaker 1 (07:10):
You know, Darcy blows you know, I mean, did you
you know, I mean did you see whales and the
beautiful scenery? Was that just cool? At times you were
just like, this is my job?

Speaker 3 (07:22):
Oh yeah, it was pretty amazing. I really was surprised.

Speaker 4 (07:26):
I liked, you know, being out there in the cold
and the you know on the on the bridge wing
of the deck, you know, and you know.

Speaker 3 (07:33):
The wind in your face and your way all the time.

Speaker 4 (07:36):
And as part of my coast Guard career at the Academy,
there was a BYCE centennial Australia, so that country turned
turned years old and there's a tall ship rade and
the Coast Guard Academy has a tall ship, but tall
sailing ship with four masks on.

Speaker 3 (07:48):
It's called the Eagle, Yes, and.

Speaker 4 (07:50):
It's a training ship we used, but my class got
to sail the ship down to two semesters. Half the
class sailed the ship down Austelia I was on that
one of that settled back and we were on the
same cap from I think Galopagos to Fiji or something,
on the same caps, like thirty eight, I'll just go
on and you'd go up and work the sales and the.

Speaker 1 (08:10):
And the ropes and the the line. It's it's the
big ship. It's the big sailboats that we all see
that I've seen that I've seen. I don't know if
anybody out there has seen it, but you should google
it and see exactly, because don't all Coastguard cadets and
whatnot have to work that ship at some point?

Speaker 3 (08:28):
Isn't there like a yeah, yeah, every yeah, every class.
I think it's sophomores.

Speaker 4 (08:32):
It's spent a long time, obviously, thirty plus years, I
think sophomore spend.

Speaker 3 (08:35):
You know, there's somewhere on the.

Speaker 4 (08:36):
Ship a part of the summer on the on the
on the Eagle, and uh and then what my class
just got to do this centennial, so again have.

Speaker 3 (08:44):
Got to go to school that summer.

Speaker 4 (08:46):
We didn't get summer, but we had a condensed semester
and then we actually got taught a couple of courses
on the ship. And it's it's like a it was
a World Wars training ship for Germany. Actually we kind
of commented after the war, so it wasn't super old,
but you was the middle ship. But it was pretty cool,
really cool.

Speaker 1 (09:02):
Actually yeah, really cool. No, you're cool. That's really cool, right, cool.
You'd have your own Gi Joe character, you know, Coast
Guard guy with that ship or your your own ship.
That's so legit, you know, and I know that. You know,
there was this whole the Coast Guards Department of Defense.
It was military, right, it was a branch of the military,
and then it's moved into kind of like Homeland Security.

Speaker 3 (09:24):
I don't think the Coast Guard is ever part of
d D, you know, start the gosh.

Speaker 4 (09:29):
I think it's another department Treasury as a revenue tax
collecting thing. And the originally when I wouldn't it was
in it. It was under Transportation. It's always kind of been
until recently until Homeland Security, her transportation, until it went
under my Homeland Security.

Speaker 1 (09:43):
Maybe that's what I was thinking.

Speaker 4 (09:44):
It was never under do D because Coast Guard has
law enforcement responsibilities and they're able to arrest people on
US soil or whatever, you know, US wars, so it
can't be d D so that Yeah, it's a difference.
It's a military branch, but it's always been kind of
a weird one, I guess that way. Yeah, security, if
it's a perfect.

Speaker 1 (10:05):
Yeah, no, love it. And you guys, I'm not sure
if this is ever part of your gig, but sometimes
they would put coast guard men on naval vessels so
that they could use the navy ship to kind of
patrol the US and pull people over with a navy vessel,
but they have like two coast guard guys board it
with them.

Speaker 4 (10:21):
Yeah I remember, I never did that, but yeah, I
do remember that was, you know, to get around and
I forget that law is but you know the idea
that you know, D personnel can't enforce US lack on
US citizens or something like that.

Speaker 1 (10:33):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah exactly. And uh and so here
you are on a on a ship and you're always
out to sea, and you've got sea legs, and you're
trying to maintain your fitness and you're trying to maintain yourself.
What are you doing on the ship other than like
a push up? Is there is there a platform to
run around the deck or you guys doing calisthetics all
the time. Are you even doing that? Yeah? I was.

Speaker 3 (10:56):
I was the only guy the ship because I've always
been a yeah. But yeah, just you know, push it
ups and see it up and pull ups.

Speaker 4 (11:03):
And you don't wear squass and stuff on the on
the back. I mean, the ship's not that big. We
weren't out to see very long tea. That's another reason
I liked that. I didn't really like the idea when
I went to when I was on the Eagle and
we went Bustoria, we were, you know, underway I think
for thirty days at a time or something that was
too long for me.

Speaker 3 (11:18):
The boot with the beauty, the booty tenders.

Speaker 4 (11:20):
It was almost like a Friday work week, you know,
fun day and you know and be out to see
you know, KNT all these booes stuff and getting back
to port on Fridays. It was kind of nice. I
think we went out two weeks one time or something
that was long. But yeah, it was one hundred eighty foot.
It's not very big ship obviously, and so we always
rocking and rolling.

Speaker 3 (11:39):
But you just make dude.

Speaker 1 (11:40):
An Astoria that is famous for where the Goonies, uh,
the movie The Goonies were filmed in Oregon, they did
the whole. You know, Fatelli's house was on the bluff
up there. I went up to that and like, you know,
I got to see the rocks that he's like, guys,
the rocks they all match up, you know, goonies and
and here I am looking out at the horizon of
the oak and I see ships out there, and one

(12:02):
of those could be one of your ships, just cruising
along the coast right there, going up the coast of
a story that's so rad, bro.

Speaker 3 (12:09):
Yeah, story is pretty cooling.

Speaker 4 (12:10):
A Columbia River, I can't remember, but it's one of
a huge cargo ports and we would be coming in
the coming in from sea, your going out, and they
would have big car carriers. The car carriers would go
into almost I think they woud to Portland pick up
cars from factories and take them or I'm sorry, they
were actually delivering cars from Yeah, they would they would

(12:31):
becoming the car carriers would being cars from Japan and
they would take them to Portland.

Speaker 3 (12:35):
That's where the port was.

Speaker 4 (12:36):
And so yeah, these massive ships coming through you know,
the the Clumber River and up the bar.

Speaker 3 (12:43):
And we'd pass them, you know, in the channel. Anyway,
it's just.

Speaker 4 (12:46):
A really great experience there being there for sure that
one of the one of the things is uh, at
that time, that was just right. Astoria was a small town,
and it was fairly depressed, and the spotted owl.

Speaker 3 (12:56):
Thing was going on probably before your time.

Speaker 4 (12:58):
But there's a lot to cut a stop in there
or curtailing or dropping back of timbering timbering there, and
the town was a timber town. So it's kind of
a depressed little town, but it's still incredibly beautiful at
that time.

Speaker 3 (13:11):
It's warming now, I think.

Speaker 1 (13:12):
But you know, I just stayed in Astoria for about
seven days earlier this year, so we were all up
and down that coast going through those little i want
to say, villages right like fishing, like you know, total
exactly what you would imagine on the coast of an ocean.
Really not many roads getting in and out. It's just
that main road to go up the coast there. And honestly,

(13:35):
when I look out at the ocean and I see
a boat or a ship sailing, and I wonder if
they look over at the land and just think about
us the same way, Like God, that's cool. They're on
the water and they're like God, dude, they don't know
they're on land. You know. It's like just like you
always think it's green around the other side. How cool
would be, you know, but you guys are dealing with
trying to stay outside of the break of those waves

(13:56):
that are coming in and everything like that. Right, I'd
imagine it's just like constant, right.

Speaker 3 (14:03):
Yeah, you would.

Speaker 4 (14:03):
We would just travel up and up and down the coast,
and the booys would be you know, they would mark
all the channel of the bars, the rivers into the
different boards and those are the main and then we
those are the main booies that we They're all big
ocean booies that we'd work with. So in all the
little towns long we would go right down I think
right down to the northernmost town there in California, and

(14:25):
we have the and we go up to Puget sown
in Washington.

Speaker 3 (14:27):
So we had the whole Washington Oregon coast and all
the little towns.

Speaker 1 (14:30):
It's pretty cool today today. Last back in June, I
was just up there twenty twenty four. I'll tell you
the three things, maybe four things. Every town had to
be considered a town. As I drove the coast of
Oregon to astoria, some type of dollar store. Okay, a
cannabis shop. It looks like a fish and hut, but
it's like literally like the dispensary. Okay, that's like the

(14:53):
first two things you see. A dairy queen or like
similar is going to be in the town. And a
Fred Myers bro And I'm from Utah and so Fred
Myers used to be always around here and we have
all these Smith's marketplaces and stuff. But when we met
my wife and I started driving up the coast, We're like,
oh my gosh, fred Myers. Dude, there's a Fred Myers there.
There's a Fred Myers there. We're like nostalgic for it.

(15:15):
So that that's a really cool duty station. If you're
living up and down the coast of Oregon and getting
to check that out, you know, what a cool experience.
And as a young man too, right you were in
your twenties.

Speaker 4 (15:26):
Yeah, it's my twenties. And there's an air station there
and a story. And those guys are busy too. I
don't know if there's busy the guys up in Alaska,
but they were busy, and I would They had a
real tiny gym in the air station and work out
there as much as I could, and their survival men
or two and there, you know, those are the rescue swimmers,
Coast Guard rescue swimmers. List of guys they jump out
of the air here the helicopters, and I tell you

(15:49):
save anybody to day. And you know, Nevialie that they
you know, there's there's lots of people who actually get
killed on the Oregon coast. They get sucked out by
the rips in the ocean water and they get out
there and they just get sucked out.

Speaker 1 (15:59):
And those guys are busy, busy, and those guys are
just angels from up above. Right. I don't know what
you believe in when you're in that position, but that
guy jumping in or that guy jumping in to rescue
you like how you doing, don't want don't mind the
rotor wash, don't drown me on the knock you out.
So shout out to the really like rescue swimmers that

(16:19):
were all used to seeing and jumping out in their
orange and white helicopters like dolphins. I think they're called.
I'm not sure exactly, but you know, that's really cool
and it's crazy how much things I know all of
a sudden about like the Coastguard, from just talking to
you for a little bit just all comes into my brain.
I'm like this and that, but like Kodiak Island and
everything like that. But at the end of the day,
you really keep an emphasis on exercise, right, And I

(16:41):
want to expose MTI, which is something that you're very
passionate about and it's a project that you're involved with.
Is this your company? Correct?

Speaker 3 (16:49):
Yep, yep.

Speaker 1 (16:50):
Yeah. And so you've transitioned from the military side, you know,
as a veteran, et cetera, to a civilian side, and
you decided to get into this company MTI Mountain Tactical Institute,
where what I read about it was, you know, being
a quiet professional is talking about you know, can you
want to touch based on some of your fundamentals to
explain to my listener and viewer.

Speaker 4 (17:13):
Yeah, the work we do is primarily fitness programming for
mountain and tactical athletes. I started I started a company
about eighteen nineteen years ago now, and that at that time,
after go out of the Coastguard, I moved I moved
back and went back to Wyaloming and got my master's degree,
had a business in a small town I grew up

(17:34):
in and sold that business, and then I wanted to
I'd always been a gym rat my whole life and.

Speaker 3 (17:40):
Kind of wanted to, you know, pursue that.

Speaker 4 (17:42):
And just north of where I live as Jackson, Wyoming,
which you're familiar with Jackson Jackson, it's a credibal mountain town,
but it's also kind of the lower forty eighth premier
training place for you know, free skiers and open this rice.
Yeah yeah, back country borders and everything. And so I

(18:02):
wanted to go up there and start working with those
athletes and mountain guides. And I started a company called
Mountain Athlete, and it was just a gym and I
started doing programming. This is right when CrossFit was coming
on in Jim Jones, and so I was kind of
right starting when those guys started up too. And I
started that in two thousand and seven and then was

(18:23):
working along with that in two thousand and eight. Two
thousand and nine was when Obama had the Surgeon Afghanistan
and lost Army guys were going to Afghanistan deployments on
the mountains and just getting their asses kicked, and they
saw that I was doing for mountain athletes, and so
they started reaching out to me to program for Afghanistan,
and so I developed the Afghanistan Pre Deployment Training program

(18:44):
based on what I had learned from working with mountain athletes,
and we gave that away to thousands of guys, you know,
give it to battalion commanders.

Speaker 3 (18:54):
Squad leaders, individual soldiers.

Speaker 4 (18:57):
And then after that things built and built, and started
getting requests to program for military PFTs, special Forces selections,
and then pretty soon police wanted me to start programming
for them. So we started working with law enforcement officers
and then fire rescue, and now we do all tactical
athletes for wildland guys. You know, I consider wilderness professionals

(19:21):
like rangers, gardens, game Morton's, wildline, firefighters, so all types
of different tactical athletes.

Speaker 3 (19:29):
So now it's kind of I kind of merged the
companies together.

Speaker 4 (19:32):
We mountain athlete, we did military athlete, and we kind
of merged together to mountain tactical. So that's what I
do right now. I worked with the mountain in tactical athletes.

Speaker 1 (19:41):
That's awesome. I kind of live in that lifestyle right now.
I am an avid hardcore snowboarder, you know, I wrote
seventy days last season, you know, And that's in addition
to two hundred and sixty or two hundred days of
the gym of boxing in between all of those snowboarding days.
So two hundred and seventy days out of three hundred
six five of the year I can count. We're like

(20:02):
moving my body right and at altitude, like I'm at
altitude twelve three hundred and eighty eight feet is where
snake crests at the top. When I go to the
lift and I'm up there and i go to strap
my bindings in, and I'm like, I gotta do some
you know, just like kind of get my bearings, because
just bending over you exert yourself just to strap in bindings. Bro.

(20:26):
So you know, just like the simplest things. And so,
you know, and then all of a sudden, I go
from high altitude twelve thousand, you know, almost thirteen thousand
feet straight down to four thousand to go to work
that same day. And then when I go to work
that day, I'm running war games. And so I do
a huge airsoft wargame here in Utah in the mountains,
the deserts and inside indoor CQB close quarter battle style training,

(20:49):
and so I also am running people during briefing. The
thing I ask is, do I have any heat casualties?
People that you know are diabetic? Anybody I hear that
has any heart issues that I need to know about
in advance. I'm not a medic. I'm not trying to
pretend to be one. I just want to watch you
make sure that you know. Okay, this dude just went down,
He said he was a diabetic. Does anybody guy his insulin?
Anybody got an EpiPen? Anybody got anything for this dude

(21:11):
that said he's got this, that or that. So I
just want to know from these guys, because again, one thing,
you think you can play the video game. It's one
thing to think you can play the video game with
your thumbs and run through Call of Duty and get
all those kills. It's another to put all that gear
on and then just all of a sudden, you're at
the mountains with me and my guys and we're just like, yeah,
we're gonna go up in this hills right here, just
getting up to the hills to start the game, and

(21:32):
you know, are you gonna die on us? We haven't
even started the game yet. Right, and then people realize
through what we do with these large scale wargames is
that they got to hit the gym. Bro. You know,
I quit smoking in two thousand and four because I
started war gaming in O one. I was like, why
I heard myself on video going. I was like, I

(21:53):
don't like that the things that make you think about it, right,
And also I wanted to be able to keep up
with these younger dudes. I was in my twenties, but
I still getting chased by seventeen, eighteen, nineteen year olds,
thirty five year olds who have been in the military
out of the military. So for twenty years since since
I've been doing this, I have just been consistently maintaining
what I call the Donkey mentality. So I just got

(22:16):
to go up the hill step by step by step,
my thighs, my quads, donkey. Any thoughts on what I'm
telling you right now?

Speaker 3 (22:26):
Yeah, I mean you're talking about is uphill movea underload.

Speaker 4 (22:30):
That's right, That's a big part of I mean, that's
the fundamental fitness demand of any mountain sports is uphill
movema underload or most of them anyway, So except maybe
you know alpine lifted or lift assistant skiing.

Speaker 3 (22:46):
But you know, so yeah, we that was a big
part of our my programming.

Speaker 4 (22:52):
I mean the first when I first started programming for
mountain athletes, I learned some hard lessons. You know, the
training for football players does not work for training for
mountain sports, right, help you get up the mountain, and
so yeah, that's uh. The what was interesting about my
own career was, you know, I read every book was
out there, and there just weren't any books on focused,

(23:15):
professionally driven or professionally designed you know, training for mountain.

Speaker 3 (23:19):
And tactic athletes.

Speaker 4 (23:19):
And so well, over the years I've been able to
do hard knocks, learn those lessons, and developed the develop theory.

Speaker 1 (23:27):
Yeah. I see my father, which you may not know,
was a former Green Beret. His flax that's on the
mantle right here with his beret tactical athlete hands down,
all of his all of his friends, all of the
guys I grew up around my dad growing up. If
you could imagine, just always run a marathons. Who can
outdo who who can sit on their fingertips and put

(23:49):
their feet out? You know what it's like, who's got
the core, who's training with chuff Norris's you know, former
ex world champion that fought him and stuff like that's
exactly how those guys, you know, we're going and so
I guess I get a little bit of that from them.
I didn't go as hard as they did, you know,
at all in the military. I was Air Force, So

(24:09):
you know, I do when I talk to guys like
yourself or SF guy gets on the show, or former
sas or any of this, I always tell them, you're
like an Olympic athlete, and I know about that rat.
I don't know, cheery cheery cheero. No, No, you are, bro.
You're running, you're gunning, you're humping, you're you're keeping in fit,
you know, and you're doing all these huge missions that
or your training for missions. How is that not training

(24:31):
to be a tactical athlete. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (24:35):
I think what's kind of wonder over the years is
that the.

Speaker 4 (24:41):
What we helped to bring is some professionalism and just
some planning and design to that that program designed for
those types of athletes. And on the mountain side also
we work with on the mountain side, primarily mountain professionals,
either pro athletes sponsored or you know, or mount professional
will be like a you know, ski patrolman or somebody

(25:03):
like that has a job up there, so they need
to be professional by your fitness. I don't know if
I would call tactical athletes giving special forces guys Olympic athletes.
I've worked with Olympic athletes, and there's a different talent,
but they do have, you know, just athletic talent, but
they do have a really unique set of fitness demands,

(25:23):
and they have a you know, a burden of constant fitness,
especially on the off side, or they have to be
fit all the time, and and they have to work
over a long career and so you know, the you know,
I worked with the Olympic ski racer and I think
she was on the ski team about a dozen years,
which is a long time. You know, most a lot

(25:44):
of those athletes, they just don't have careers as long,
so you know, to be if you want to be,
especially if you want to you know, as you know,
some of the guys on the teams, and most guys
are able to stay on the teams at a twenty
year career fifteen years, you know, which is pretty awesome,
but that's that's a long time to you know, stay
fit and you know, they're retiring in their late thirties
or whatever, so which is old if you've been doing

(26:07):
that kind of work all the time. So yeah, it
could be professional about your fitness for sure.

Speaker 1 (26:11):
It's kind of like you know, professional athletes too, you know.
I mean they're kind of retiring at the late thirty
eight forty year old mark and you know here I am.

Speaker 3 (26:19):
Yeah, once you don't get injured, yeah yeah, right right.

Speaker 1 (26:23):
You know, like you know, for example, I think John
Stocked into the Utah Jazz retired like at forty, you know,
after putting in twenty years, missing three games, you know.
I mean, that's the kind of that drive is kind
of what I'm talking about where they know how to
break down either that fourth wall. You know, the Olympic
athlete can just run like an ex distance surround of
they you know, they sometimes they it probably crosses their

(26:45):
mind like I should just stop and rest. This doesn't
this sucks. But they can just break down and keep
going that wall, you know, and power through it, mind
over matter, per se, and then they collapse at the
finish line.

Speaker 4 (26:58):
Yeah, it's an interesting idea. I found that the more
experienced they are, the smarter they are as you know
what you know. I think you know you being a
sponsored snowboarder.

Speaker 3 (27:13):
The better your.

Speaker 4 (27:13):
Technique, the less fitness it takes to snowboard.

Speaker 1 (27:17):
I go fast, just go fast. If you go fast,
the easiest way, just straight.

Speaker 4 (27:22):
I tried to my pro skiers downhill, you know, and
I'm just pretty shitty skied, and I would be huffing
and puffing and despite my fitness at the bottom and
they wouldn't need work. It's just they're just something, you know,
their their technique is so good. They just use their muscles,
you know, less than others. So yeah, but I think
that in my work it seemed that the older guys
are definitely smarter about their programming and they can't understand

(27:45):
well ideally, if they've been professional about it, they don't
go hard. I mean, the the younger guys are really
going hard. The older guys that they're more smart about it.
So we hope to catch some of the younger guys early,
make them be smart about it.

Speaker 1 (27:55):
And make it me smart about it, yeah exactly, versus
like just throwing it all to the wind and just
you know, busting a backside three sixty cork or something
that at least get some you know, thought about what
you're doing. I mean, I know they're using air bags,
and like nowadays you got like fifteen year olds going
to Woodard Park City to train on during the summer, right,
they're just like hitting the air bags on their snowboards
or skis, and so they're just they're really doing the

(28:17):
same type of tactical training. They're just constantly training through
the summertime hitting the airbags. So when they go up,
but bro, it all comes down to landing. I don't
care air bag's not on the resort, you know what
I mean.

Speaker 3 (28:28):
It's like, yeah, so interesting on the on the mountain side.

Speaker 4 (28:34):
When I first started, it was just at the beginning
of the YouTube praise and Instagram praize and tiknok wasn't
around then, and so at that time there were competitions.
There still are free ride you know, free Ski World Tour,
Free Ride World Tour, and I know that I think
Rice is starting.

Speaker 1 (28:51):
To doing a natural selection.

Speaker 3 (28:54):
Yeah yeah, but that's my athletess.

Speaker 4 (28:58):
We had a team actually and they were into that,
and that was a way to sponsorship. You do get
in the competitions and then you would get sponsored. But
pretty soon the YouTube team came along, people started doing
their own clips, and then there was the personality side
that kind of went with being sponsored too.

Speaker 3 (29:15):
So you could have a certain personality not be race.

Speaker 4 (29:19):
Gear and and or a snowboarder and still get sponsored
and uh and so what we found in my work
was there was a movement away from training for the
feastkey competitions this other path and and as part of that,
a lot of the athletes really got away from you know,
being professional out their fitness, which is kind of shame.

(29:39):
I mean, they could get edit their own YouTube batus, right,
you know they only show that They only show the jump,
they don't show the landing.

Speaker 1 (29:46):
No. And it's funny that you say that, because like
there's kind of this like in the in the indust
in the community, the culture of snowboarding. They're like, you
know what happened to like the videos, you know where
it was like the writers and the team writers all
have these clips montag together maybe even in a twenty
minute video. Right, cool, we still call it a snowboard movie, right,
We're like, yeah, you know, all right, there's skating there,

(30:08):
there's snowboarding. A rail at the church parking lot. You
know in the video. But now we're we all have
a cell phone, right, we all have a production company
in our pocket, and these guys are like, hey, hold
this while I do this, And then everybody's kind of
just uploading right to Instagram. I'm guilty. I have a
YouTube channel for snowboarding and it specifically focuses on that.
And but at the end of the day, that's what

(30:28):
I like, I love to do that I'm doing this
with you. I just think that a lot of the
athletes get away from a lot. I think it just
becomes just so like I need to put something up
right now. You know, there's no one's willing to wait
to put the movie together and then put it out,
have a little premiere, have all the snowboarders kind of
come in and watch it and give them that oh
we're on the screen. Bro, look at that big shot.
You know, it's just like right on our phone. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (30:51):
So yeah, this is so interesting to see that the
kind of culture grow up.

Speaker 4 (30:56):
One of the things I get a lot of times
is from I mean, the in the mountain culture, the
mountain sports culture. There was one group of athletes who's
really came to the came to the gym with a
two groups.

Speaker 3 (31:08):
He came to the gym with a professional attitude about fitness.

Speaker 4 (31:11):
The first one was the Olympic ski racers and and
the people who did you know, the Olympic type racing.
And I think the reason for that is because the
selection for those racers is is very selective. You know,
you got to do via competition. You have to prove
it consistently. And on the free sky side it was
totally different. You know, the competitions were a little more

(31:34):
free wheeling and this, you know the h and you
can just jump into competition to do it. You didn't
have to come up through all the ranks to do it. Anyways,
that the Olympic skiers they you know, had their coaches,
they came to it, they trained hard, real profession about
their fitness.

Speaker 3 (31:50):
The other side were the really high level rock.

Speaker 4 (31:54):
Climbers who uh they needed to train you know, rock
climbing specific fitness primarily finger strength to excel what I
found And it's the same in all technical sports, especially
in mountain sports.

Speaker 3 (32:09):
Rock climb is a good example.

Speaker 4 (32:10):
When you first start, you know it can be you know, man,
it'll be really you know, stronger strength. You know this
is his grip strength, and this is his technique, and
so it can pretty much, you know, just pull up
his way up there, right. But as you get better,
all of a sudden, your your technique and your strength
start going like this. And at that level, you know,
at the high No. Five, twelve, five thirteen levels are
just bouncing back and forth like that. And so that

(32:33):
what we kind of learned. We'd always get. I'd always
give this question, is, you know, why do I just
snowboard to be better at snowboarding? And the reason that
I answered, and what I found was that it's really
inefficient to train fitness on the mountain, and it's really
inefficient to train technique in the gym.

Speaker 3 (32:50):
So what I mean by that is.

Speaker 4 (32:53):
If you get to the beginning snow like you said,
your season just started and I don't know what your
snowboard laser right now, but chances are they aren't that good.

Speaker 1 (33:02):
So I have though let's say someone else hasn't. Sure.

Speaker 4 (33:05):
Yeah, So the so you know, the first part, the
first you know, maybe two three weeks your season are
going to be getting your legs back underneath you. If
you're pros you know, And what that means is that
first two or three weeks, it's time that you're not
working on technique. And at the upper levels, it's not
fitness that separates, it's the technique and so that's time

(33:26):
the technique training that's lost. So if you're able to
get to the season fit, then again it's any fishing
to train technique on the mountain, right, You don't want
to just be laps up and down the mountain to
train your legs, is mt. It better to get to
the mountain fit and then to get your mountain time
training your technique, your carves and all the technique that
goes into it. Because if you haven't been snowboarding for
six months, right, your your technique is going to be rusty.

(33:49):
Got to you got to get you know, you got
to get your technique back up to speed.

Speaker 3 (33:52):
So and that's the same same two for all these
different sports.

Speaker 1 (33:56):
See and I work on my core consistently. So like
today I went to the gym right before we got
on the podcast, and today was what do we do planks?
Burpies six up, six down? So six five, four three
two one, So you would do six purpies, I would
hold a plank, I would do six purpies, you would
hold a plank, I would do five burpies. You still
hold a plank. You do five. So it's like you go,

(34:17):
I go. So I just did that this morning, like consistently,
and I've been doing that, like I said earlier, like
probably almost every day in preparation for snowboarding. Every time
the coach is like, all right, everybody, we're getting ready
for the summer. And I just look at him. He's like,
except for you. Read you're getting ready for like today
because I look out the window and I tell him, hey, coach,
it's my summer out there. Look and it's like snowing

(34:38):
yesterday coming down. He's like, oh yeah, dude. And when
I'm in the gym and we're doing we have to
hold squats, okay, like a low squat. We got to
hold it for thirty seconds. I kind of put it
in the snowboard position. I kind of lean to myself,
just kind of like bearing the weight and just kind
of move like I'm moving left or right with my
and I like looking at my calves in the mirror.
I like focusing on my legs and on my quad

(35:00):
to make sure that you know, there's they got some
tone to them. I like that, So yeah, I definitely
really love talking about it too. And this is great,
you know, it just brings out a better thing in me.

Speaker 4 (35:11):
We have a there's like two two primary fitness demands
for lift assistant skiing.

Speaker 3 (35:17):
The first one is eccentric leg strength. So as you
go down the mountain, gravity is trying to push.

Speaker 4 (35:24):
You into the hill, right, so you've got to control
that deceleration and then pop out of it.

Speaker 3 (35:29):
But they pop out of it is a.

Speaker 4 (35:30):
Lot less because you get gravity to help you then, right,
but that that.

Speaker 3 (35:33):
Pushed down your your legs are contracting strength. And so
we developed.

Speaker 4 (35:41):
Our dryeland training for some orders and skiers have specific
focused eccentric strength training. The other the other things what
I call it leg lactate tolerance, but that's just you know,
your quads get full of black take and uh as,
the ability to push longer before you have to stop,
and then to recover faster when you do stop. And
we developed over the years, we developed this just unique exercise.

(36:06):
It's called a touch jump touch the box and so
you actually you start with a like a sixteen foot
box or bench. You start on the side of it,
touch your inside hand jump up laterly to the box,
jump back down, touch your inside hand. You you don't
have to stand up at the top of box, just
go back and forth as fast as you can. And
we do that intervals of that. That's one of the

(36:28):
most intense.

Speaker 1 (36:30):
And that's a sixteen inch box, right, not sixteen foot yeah.

Speaker 3 (36:33):
Yeah, just inch box.

Speaker 4 (36:34):
Yeah, so you'll find you have to come into the
inside and it just blows.

Speaker 3 (36:39):
Your quads up and gets your hearts going.

Speaker 4 (36:42):
And yeah, if you look at our one of the
one of the things about programming is just like all
are You're an artist, right you you try to everything
starts complicated and sophisticated design we say as immature. It
gets more mature as you start cutting stuff away and
getting a better and better and better. And so that's

(37:03):
been my work as I get better and better, programming
more experiences, just cutting the stuff away to get down
to the essential. And so our dry land programming is
dominated by those two exercises.

Speaker 1 (37:13):
I love that.

Speaker 3 (37:14):
I love that the same thing.

Speaker 1 (37:19):
So I'm really stoked to get on the mountain. I
feel like I've really been training okay hard since the
last season. Since May, I have been in the gym NonStop.
The only time I wasn't in the gym consistently was
when I was in Astoria on this family vacation for
like four days in Northern Cali, and then we drove
all the way up to Oregon and I brought my
jump rope and I brought it on the plane. We

(37:42):
rented a car, but I brought my jump robout and
I started jump rope in a Northern Cali at this
house we were at and all the kids that were
at the family park at the family get together were like, oh, uncle, Eric,
can we jump rope with you? And I was like yeah,
So I handed my jump rope and I'm watching them
trying to like do like kid jump rope and just
having a fun time. But it's contagious, right They see
me doing it and they're laughing, and then they take

(38:04):
the rope and then they're kind of struggling, and I'm like, Okay,
well now who's laughing?

Speaker 4 (38:10):
You know.

Speaker 3 (38:11):
So do you get any downhill mountain biking?

Speaker 1 (38:14):
You know, I haven't done any mountain bike in I
have not.

Speaker 4 (38:19):
Yeah, I just I just hear that from you know,
some of my free skiers that downhill mountain bike in
just in terms of reaction time, did they see a
transfer to skiing?

Speaker 3 (38:28):
Just kind of interesting.

Speaker 1 (38:29):
So I skateboard still even though I'm a little older.
I'm like, I'm forty seven, so I still have the
ability to skate Is that is that crazy? Because when
I was looking at forty seven year olds, I didn't
think they would ever be able to skateboard. Dude, I
was like, you're like an old man, bro. But uh,
I'm still like saying, Bro, Bro.

Speaker 3 (38:46):
Did you still do the do you do the surf skate?

Speaker 1 (38:49):
Oh? Yeah I can? Uh yeah, So I actually like
skateboard eight point twenty five deck independent trucks, you know,
German bearings, typical, you know, ramps tracking. But yeah, I'm
just kind of like basic skateboard, you know, like that
you would see someone riding at the park. And then
there's longboarding. And I really had a close call to
death because I thought, oh, I can skateboard, so let

(39:11):
me set this, let me set the picture for you. Can.
I mean California. I'm in Hollywood, I'm an actor. I'm
going out to auditions. I'm hanging out into paying a
canyon with a friend of mine who's been in like
the Sam Ziggy says, we gotta go. What's that show
called Sliders or something like that, Quantum Leap. So buddy
of mine was in this TV show called Quantum Leap
and he was like a younger guy in that show.
So he's like, hey, hey, it looks like you, uh

(39:33):
you skate right. I'm like, yeah, bro, And he's got
a skate ramp out of his house and everything, and
I'm like, he's like, when you come back tomorrow, we're
going to longboard the canyon. Cool. And I'm like, yeah, dude,
totally fucking cool. Bro, Like totally cool, dude. Let's go, right.
I ski, I mean, I snowboard, I skateboard. I'm not
a scale. I'm not I'm not scared. But there's a
difference between a skateboard that I can tick tack and

(39:55):
a longboard that just gets going straight like an arrow.
And it's then all of a sudden, so here I am.
It's the next day, and yes, I wore my skate shoes.
He's like, looks like, you wore your skate shoes, bro,
And I was like, yeah I did. He's like, I'm
just greasing up your wheels, like getting there, you go right,
and my wife's there and some friends were at this house,
and he's who he is, you know, and I'm cool

(40:16):
with it, and I'm like yeah. And he's like, hey,
we're gonna have a chase car follow us, right, and
I'm like yeah, cool. So everybody piles into the chase car.
Me and him, I think one other dude were riding.
He's like, just remember this, every curve that goes down,
there's gonna be an ups so it'll slow us down,
all right. So if you feel like you're going too
fast around the corner, just keep going down and you'll
see that there's an uphill. And I was like, all right, okay,
that's gonna slow me down, bro. So here I'm going.

(40:40):
I'm like, okay, cool, I'm kind of surfing it. I'm
riding it like you were saying, how you surfing it?
And I was. And then all of a sudden, I
started going straighter and straighter, and my board wasn't turning anymore,
and now I'm just going straight and so now I've
just got speed and I'm just like I'm doing probably
like thirty five miles an hour, no gear, no helmet,
no handguards, no nothing. And I'm like okay, he told me.

(41:02):
And I'm going super fast right now, and I see
a three hundred foot like drop down to Sean Penn's
house where he was living in a trailer down the mountain.
And then I have a hill next to me. So
I'm on this tiny road and I'm like, okay, he says,
if it goes down, it's gonna go back up. Okay,
goes down, it's gonna go back up. And I'm like,
oh shit, it just keeps going down, dude. So I
go around this corner and the chase vehicles behind me

(41:22):
cause I'm going so fast. And then all they know
is they come around the corner and I'm walking up
to them with the skateboard. At that moment, what they
didn't see and what I cleverly disguised was me eating
shit super hard. And I went face first, and I
had to decide do I go off the side of
the mountain pish, or do I go into the mountain
and at least they can recover me. So I'm like,

(41:43):
all right, all right, all right, I'm gonna put my
foot down, try to slow down. Immediately put my foot down,
it starts to skid, speed, wobble, boom. I hit it
with my elbow right here. First he rose style into
the mountain. I get up and like all of the
flesh off, my elbow is hanging and I get to
the vehicle and they're like, are you okay? I was like, yeah,
check it out. Look and it's just like gnarly. My
bax got gravel in it. And so my wife at

(42:06):
the time was my girlfriend. We go back to the
apartment we're staying at and I'm jacked up. Bro. I'm like,
she's like, oh, Aaron, you're so jacked up from this.
I'm like, I'm jacked up, and she's like, getting the shower.
So I stripped down getting the shower, literally picking rocks
out of my back, hitting the bathtub. It's like like, oh,
I'm jacked up, dude. I want my mom. So we

(42:26):
go to the local CVS pharmacy. I get some like
medical rap and I just wrap up myself without going
to er. And now there's a big old scar here.
You can't see it on camera, but I had to
say the story because you said, are you longboarding? And
I'm probably not gonna longboard again. I was telling you know,
I was about twenty five.

Speaker 3 (42:43):
You know, I read a book a few years ago.

Speaker 5 (42:45):
I forget what the name of it is, I how
to find it, but it talked about the advancement and
skill level of extreme athletes, and you know, he used
Lard Hamilton for some of the big sure surfing and
and uh, I think it had the some of the
guys that do the you know, the wingsuit stuff and

(43:08):
the free skiers. There was this, uh, this has been
a couple of years ago, but there was a there
was a video of I think, uh, I forget his
first name, David Shawan Combs or something like that, a famous.

Speaker 4 (43:24):
Uh, Jackson's free skier, one of the originals who kind
of started at skiing.

Speaker 3 (43:27):
This run in Alaska.

Speaker 4 (43:29):
Valdis and the guys in Jackson are the ones that
kind of first discovered Valdis for backcountry skiing.

Speaker 3 (43:34):
I guess the snow in Valdis is howery, but it
kind of sticks. Is not a big as much.

Speaker 4 (43:38):
Avalanche teacher Ohella skiing is up there and he's you know,
taking many turns down and then they showed one of
the current guys doing it and the guy he took
like two turns going down all the time. And and
this and this author kind of described Another thing he
took out was a free divers. You know, the guys
you hold their breath and go down three feet or

(43:58):
whatever even I don't know, you know, come up and
uh and he just uh, he just did some comparison
of the advances and those skills and those sports compared
to you.

Speaker 3 (44:08):
Know, track athletes and stuff and that, and that gave me.

Speaker 4 (44:12):
I always appreciated my athletes because I thought what they
did was amazing, you know, the free skiers who I
worked with, and the skiers and and of course, but
I never got an idea of how how incredible that
stuff is and how much those sports have advanced.

Speaker 3 (44:26):
Just in this first time.

Speaker 4 (44:27):
It just reminds me of what you're talking about now,
you know, I just I just did this. Talked about
an article or Astoria a few weeks ago about a
whole new type of skiing snowboard movie that is urban.

Speaker 3 (44:41):
Oh yeah, the whole things in an urban like you
talked about, you know, going a snowboard on it on
a church trail. Like, the whole thing is urban, right,
I got it.

Speaker 4 (44:48):
You know these guys are and you know the parkour
thing with those guys doing that stuff.

Speaker 3 (44:53):
And you know, I see these these videos, these guys
you know, doing these.

Speaker 4 (44:56):
Jumps, you know, dives into water, just incredible, incredible. I mean,
there's just been something and I think you can look
at that stuff, you know, being the old guy like
I am, you know, just thank you, you know, but god,
I mean you realize the athletic ability and the danger.
I guess you don't see him breaking stuff, but I mean,
if they're making the video, they've come a long way.

(45:17):
But it's just it's just amazing, you know. The parkerself
is just amazing. What they can do is amazing.

Speaker 1 (45:22):
They're going more fearless. It's like you know, they're able
and and they're taking there. Like if you're a gymnast
and you put some skis on or a snowboarder, you're
probably gonna if you're smaller. See, I'm six foot five, okay,
and I went and I wait two seventy five and
that's working out, bro Like trying to keep it off right,
I'm like, I don't want it, kay, I don't want
the beads. I don't need it. Kay, I don't want it.
It's all around me and I'm dodging it. Okay's over there,

(45:45):
diabe's over there, diabetes over there. Okay, that's literally how
I'm looking at it. Bro By stay active and these
young younger dudes and gals that can just say, you know,
I don't ride resorts, I just ride street and I
know I follow some of them on Instagram. And this
one gal, she's just hardcore. She just doesn't go to
the resort, but she's a snowboarder. And what she does

(46:07):
is they just take their shovels and a couple crew
and they go build up the hits and they pull
themselves either with a car or with themselves or some
kind of like power generator that they've got that can
pull them and like give them enough speech to just
get up and hit the rail and you know, make
these videos. Bro the street core kids. And I grew
up with those kids in high school, Like they had
a VHS. They were like snowboards yeah, oh yeah yeah, JP,

(46:32):
J P. Walker, Jeremy Jones, these guys here in Utah,
they're kind of like popular, uh snowboarders. First of all. Second,
they're the ones that brought street riding to the scene
because JP would always just go and do the local
church in Farmington or he'd go do the gap up
the road, you know, and all that kind of stuff.
And they had cam quarters where most people didn't have them,

(46:54):
so they were able to start capturing that kind of
you know, Mac, do.

Speaker 4 (47:00):
Anybody It seemed like Travis Rice's you know, natural selection
tours kind of bringing those two together, right, because he
has artificial.

Speaker 3 (47:08):
Obstacles, I don't know what you'd call him features in.

Speaker 1 (47:13):
And no one touches the sales. Yeah, he pre builds
it all right, it's all He's got it all set
up on the mountain and then they drop and that's
the first run and no one's touched it, no one's
pre rode it before. It's like straight fresh powder. You
got Mark mc morris, Victor de LaRue. You know, all
these hard chargers, the gal from Australia, she's like twenty

(47:34):
four now, Alyssa or anyways, sorry if I forget your names.
You're all hardcore. I look up to all those snowboarders
that just go big, you know, because.

Speaker 3 (47:42):
I saw this just in the fisky uh stuff, and
I was I was doing it.

Speaker 4 (47:46):
You know that the winners of first you know, the
women who would win, would you know you have to
do some drop, some cliff job. And you know, by
that time, men were doing backflips and spins, right, you
know on that Natural Features and now and now I
haven't watched it, but I'm for sure to women to
be competitive, you're needing to be doing some type of
backflip or spin and.

Speaker 1 (48:06):
Oh it's happening one hundred percent. Yeah, go watch Natural Selection.
If anybody is interested in what we're talking about, go
watch either the first, second, third, or the fifth iteration
of Natural Selection with Travis Rice and you'll see they're
doing all the big hits.

Speaker 4 (48:19):
It's so interesting to see that and then like, I know, realize,
did you do too?

Speaker 3 (48:25):
How fucking dangerous that is? Bro, How dangerous it is.

Speaker 1 (48:30):
No airbags, That's what I'm saying. There's no airbags. You know,
it's either you're smashing your face on your knees if
you're coming down too hard, and it's not where I mean.
And what a lot of folks don't realize with these
extreme athletes in skiing snowboarding is they're wearing a mouthguard.
You know, they're training with that in there. And if
you've ever tried to box with the mouthguard or breathe
of a mouth guard. It's difficult, it's very you want

(48:52):
to take it out, you want to spit it out,
let alone. Okay, my brain says that my neurons can
fire my kneecaps, to do my feet, to take my
toes to three sixty, let's go. And you got a
mouthguard in your mouth while you're trying to breathe, you know,
So you got to train yourself and and then you're
at altitude and you gotta breathe with a mouthguard at altitude.
And I hope that makes sense because it's true I feel.

Speaker 3 (49:15):
But I mean that just the whole thing.

Speaker 4 (49:16):
I mean, the even even before that, they would I
mean I went to watch one of these competitions. It
was in Crystal Crystal is uh Scaria east of Seattle,
Crystal Butt or something like that. Anyway, it was frigging
cold and windy at top, yeah.

Speaker 3 (49:34):
And up there for the competitors. But they'd have to step.

Speaker 4 (49:37):
Out of that tent, you know, come squat and ski
down this deathifying stuff that if there was serious jeopard
if they feel and of course it's the same like
it is on the guys.

Speaker 3 (49:47):
You get dropped off the helicopters for skiing.

Speaker 1 (49:50):
Corbett isn't Corbett Jackson hole, Corbett's Corbett. Yeah, bro, I
mean go watch that. Go watch these athletes, dude, and
there's like a there's a guy in a bucket chair.
He's like, you know, uh, you know, is adaptable or
adaptability whatnot? Disabled?

Speaker 3 (50:05):
I saw him do it right?

Speaker 1 (50:06):
Oh my god, yeah I did. And then the dude
that was on the snowboard that just went off, hit
the cliff, rode the cliff and then landed inside of
the channel of Corbett. How the mind right? The mind? Wow?
The body? And and and you being mountain tactical institute,
who would you look for who would want to reach

(50:27):
out to you and get your services? Who are you
looking for? Who? Who would you say, hey, come to
me if you're this guy or gal?

Speaker 3 (50:36):
Uh boy?

Speaker 4 (50:38):
You know uh, I think that neither the mountain or
tactical side we are programming. The idea isn't based on
the athlete. It's based on the demands of the event.
And so the events that we programmed for the sports

(50:58):
or of the jobs are.

Speaker 1 (51:01):
You know.

Speaker 4 (51:02):
One of the unique things about the athletes that we
work with the program for is that they can get
seriously injured or killed doing their job or sport, and
the programming reflects the intensity in that straightness. So someone
who either is or aspires to be professional about the fitness,
you know, we're not it's not beach bodies.

Speaker 3 (51:22):
We're not training that. We're training for events.

Speaker 4 (51:25):
And and so that's that's the first thing. You don't
and there's no prerequends to do that. That's just an attitude.
You want to be professional about your fitness, and then yes,
then move forward with that. So and then that's that's
the primary, the primary thing, and the programming that you know,
we're not in the gimmicks, not.

Speaker 3 (51:43):
In the tricks.

Speaker 4 (51:43):
It's it's not designed to entertain you, trying to gets
you fit for your job or or your event. And
we do a really good job of that, I think.
And so and you know, we work with all touches
of different athletes. Still need to be a professional mountain
athlete or a no A.

Speaker 3 (52:00):
Soldier, special Forces day.

Speaker 4 (52:02):
We work with all types of people, civilians, stuff, But
everyone is serious about their fitness and want to professional
where they want.

Speaker 3 (52:08):
You know, we we designed plans. We can get pretty
arrow on our plans.

Speaker 4 (52:12):
We designed plans for example, to do the the rim
to rim of the Grand Canyon specifically for that so
and in along you know, along with the plan for
dev gru and uh, you know and GAG and selections
and stuff, we really get success with those. So those
those types of athletes, I guess you're kind of interested

(52:32):
in that and want that that level of programming.

Speaker 1 (52:35):
Yeah, and you guys have a pretty cool, uh website here.
Let me just pull it up real quick. I had
it on my my phone and dark as we were talking.
But your mountain so you got mission first, Let's see
where we at here, Mountain Tactical dot Com. It's empty
and tactical dot com correct, yes, sure, yeah, right, And
so if anybody is interested and you've enjoyed our conversation

(52:58):
and what Rob and I have been talking about, you
can go check out MTN, which is Mountain Tactical dot
Com and just really it's just really easy, just hit
the three lines that we're all used to seeing. You've
got you know, athlete subscription, daily programming, fitness plans, mountain military,
law enforcement, fire rescue, general nutrition coaching, you've got resources,

(53:21):
you know, quiet professional essays. Kind of intrigued me. Just
growing up in a my dad's culture of quiet professionals,
I kind of pick up on what you're doing there,
you know, so I would recommend your passion. You're passionate
about it, and that's what I love. So my coach
tells me this, you know why you're here. I don't
make you come here. You choose to be here. These

(53:43):
are the things that we're doing. So you know why
you're here. And I'm like, yeah, I'm here because today
is the day I didn't know I needed my ass kick,
but I needed my ass kicked. That was today. I'm
just saying, so very yeah.

Speaker 4 (53:59):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a that's an interesting thing. I mean,
we kind of track a certain type athlete and we
don't mess around, but respecting and hope and the certainly
investment athletes.

Speaker 1 (54:13):
Yeah, so I bet if you give, if they give you,
they're all. You give them your all, and it's uh,
it's you know, let's get this, let's get let's accomplish.
And you want to be a part of a winning team.
If they're a professional athlete and they're coming to you
and they wind up winning, you're like, hey, all right,
you know I had a little bit of of something
to do with that, you know, uh, and I think
that's really cool and and you know, I know, I've
had you on here for like an hour and we've

(54:34):
been talking and we've been going back and forth about
all sorts of extreme activities. But it's that easy to
talk to you about it.

Speaker 4 (54:40):
Yeah, well yeah, it's kind of yeah. These uh the
need to be uh excited about the athletes to work with. Sure,
I mean pretty privileged to work with the Cup athletes.

Speaker 1 (54:50):
Now. Now, when somebody does sign up and become you know,
a member of or however they you call it at
your at your organization at mt I, is that something
that they do on their own or is there I
find it to be a little bit more helpful to
have a guy in my face saying, hey, rad you
need to pivot this way, or hey do this is it?

(55:10):
Do they come to Wyoming? Do they stay in Seattle?
How does the program kind of work if somebody does
want to reach out?

Speaker 4 (55:17):
Yeah, yeah, we uh, we we help people get starting,
but most people train on their own. So yeah, we
we have worked with individual athletes, have traveled to military
mini military basis to teach programming courses over the years,
and uh, you know, and so.

Speaker 3 (55:34):
If you came for example, and I got an email.

Speaker 4 (55:39):
This week from a guy who's in the Border Patrol
wants to go to bor Star selection in the year
right and asked and asked for you know, what, what
plans do I need to do to prepare me for
that selection. We have a we have a plan just
for that selection. He has a year, he doesn't, you know.
The plan is I think eight weeks long, designed to
be completed directly with you for selection. He has a
year between now and then, so we can help, you know,

(56:01):
prescribe him programming to be able to get prepared to
train that plan and maybe you know, get that plan
right before he goes to selection. And so that's the
same for all the different athletes. I've had the same
type of questions for people who are you know, climbing
to Naley or you know, doing a high level ski
mountaineering trip in Alaska all types of different activities, or

(56:25):
you know, we're just doing a backpacking trip in the summer.

Speaker 3 (56:27):
They just want to be ready.

Speaker 1 (56:28):
To you know, it's right.

Speaker 4 (56:29):
About ten miles a day in the summer and get
ready for it. So yeah, we certainly help with with
that kind of stuff. But the programming self isn't complicated.
And people ask me about motivation.

Speaker 3 (56:45):
I'm not. I'm not. I don't.

Speaker 4 (56:46):
I don't try to adult as grow an adults. I'm
not a parent to you grown adult.

Speaker 3 (56:51):
You know.

Speaker 4 (56:51):
The programming is I mean, I can't do the work
for you, right, I can't do it for you, right,
And I'm not, you know, And so I think, come
to come. A lot of people graduate to MTI from
CrossFit and other stuff. They've kind of you know, gone
through that stuff, and now they're ready to work with programming.

(57:17):
It's a little more planned and programmed out and trained
for specifics, and also.

Speaker 3 (57:25):
They're ready to you know, take that responsibility and professional.

Speaker 1 (57:30):
Yeah. I show up to the gym with purpose, you know.
I know, I'm I'm not going to be pro boxer,
but in my mind, I'm like, you know, I want
to be the best I can be at whatever age
I'm at right now.

Speaker 3 (57:41):
So I hate to be your partner six five.

Speaker 1 (57:43):
To Yeah, it's all good, baby, it's all good. Let's go,
let's go, let's go.

Speaker 3 (57:51):
So it reminds me of story there.

Speaker 4 (57:53):
You know, I went to one of the first CrossFit
sort of cases way back when, and I had this
guy train with me. This is before I started my gym.
I was in the gym and he's an oil fil wilder.
His name was Curtis p And uh, Curtis was even
as big as you. But he's a pretty big guy.
And you know, we beat training and and then uh,
at that time Glass and CrossFit, he had the coach

(58:16):
for Chuck Ladale or remember Chuck Ladale, you know the
guy from Ohawk. I was gonna teach you know, a
CrossFit for m M A guys and uh and Santa
Cruz and went.

Speaker 3 (58:27):
I said, let's go to this thing.

Speaker 4 (58:28):
And so we went and uh, there are some other
guys there, but uh, CrossFit at that time they had
this guy named Tony and Tony's like their marketing guy.

Speaker 3 (58:39):
And Tony was like this big guy and we had
to be like this clinch work.

Speaker 1 (58:46):
Christy got back to the.

Speaker 3 (58:47):
Hotel room was like, oh dude, I'm still storre. Tony
just thrown me around like it was so funny.

Speaker 1 (58:56):
Man.

Speaker 3 (58:56):
And I saw that coach. I'd never I've never been
in the UFC match.

Speaker 4 (59:00):
And there was a guy that like one of the
first monsters for CrossFit at that time, CrossFit had like these,
you know, some of the athletes, like one was named
Annie and one of his name cam Girl. And this
guy Almondson, this guy Orbinson, he was like a cop
and he was like this big monster. I know him
ball guy, and anybody got first they recognize this guy's name.

Speaker 3 (59:20):
And he was just holding up a pad and Chuck
o'dale's coach.

Speaker 4 (59:24):
I can't remember that guy, but he's a beast two
and he hit this pad and he kicked it.

Speaker 3 (59:28):
I had never seen anything so freaking hard. I was like,
oh my, I would have killed me. You see that right?

Speaker 1 (59:35):
Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh I think, oh dude, I
think I can throw a hook, and I probably can
throw and my coach thinks I could throw a good hook.
But I watched my coach and he's pro right, and
he's like twenty nine okay, and he's and he throws it,
and it's like all right, I want the bag to
sound like pop. And I'm just like, so every time
I hit the bag, I figgle pop. I just say pop, dude,
I just say it so hopefully echoes the hit of

(59:57):
the bag. But Bro's got just a different type of torque.
To his hips. You know, here's just something.

Speaker 4 (01:00:04):
Hit this guy and he's probably two hundred twenty five pounds,
and I like, jump back ten yards.

Speaker 3 (01:00:08):
I was like, oh, that's three yards. I was like,
oh my god.

Speaker 1 (01:00:13):
I'll tell you. The one thing boxing taught me is
I'm going to become a runner, whether I like it
or not. And so I do so much cardio running
at the gym that I hated it. But now I'm like, hey,
I'm way better at it. I still hate it, but
I'm like, wait, I'm doing way more laps. Like now
my side crunches are no longer like I don't have
to use the floor so much to help me on

(01:00:34):
my side crunches. Now I'm using like my core to
get my side crunches. You know what I'm talking about, right,
So it's like I can see these improvements in me
in the last year and a half of just taking
this seriously at my own gym, and I can imagine
someone coming to you and have it you just like say, hey,
here's what you have to go through. Here's your syllabus.
If you're serious about it, then you'll know that this
is a serious situation and you'll take it seriously.

Speaker 3 (01:00:57):
They just just keep grinding.

Speaker 1 (01:00:59):
Keep grinding. Broch shuh, Yep, that's it. That's it, dude.
You've been great and you're welcome back anytime on the
show if you got any health tips or you want
to talk about like summertime. You know, I know this
is gonna come out and it's gonna be kind of
winter time and this will you know, snowboarding, skiing, et cetera.
So anytime you want to come back on the show
and talk about Mountain Tactical Institute, you're more than welcome

(01:01:20):
to be on here. Coach Guardsman, I think that's so cool.
Thank you for your time.

Speaker 3 (01:01:24):
Rand really appreciate talking to you.

Speaker 1 (01:01:26):
Yeah, and to my listener out there, and to the
viewer that's been watching this probably on YouTube like a
subscribe calm it down below. Hit your buttons, Rob Shawls
his name, Mountain Tactical Institute is his game and you
can find it emptyantactical dot com. And we'll have that
in link form in the description of the title of

(01:01:48):
this If you've clicked on it, you can probably find
it somewhere in the description of your website. Okay, so
we'll put that out.

Speaker 6 (01:01:53):
There, Rob, Yeah, and on behalf of Rob and myself
and random Web who puts me in front of this
camera and says do this, rat, I believe in you.

Speaker 1 (01:02:04):
And to Callum who's my producer in the background, and
to Chris and Amanda and everybody behind the scenes, Mark Martin,
thank you so much from all of us here at
soft rep and to you the listener. Please make sure
you like a subscribe comment do below. Do all those
things to help us rise in the ranks, and keep
on the air, and check out the merch store and
the book club which is book hyphen Club soft reap

(01:02:25):
dot com Book hyphen Club. So I just want to
say thanks again to my guest and peace.

Speaker 2 (01:02:50):
You've been listening to self Rep. Lady