Adam Torres and Matt Wenning discuss longevity and performance.
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High performing entrepreneurs and executives often sacrifice their health for career success. But it doesn’t have to be that way. In this episode, Adam Torres and Matt Wenning, 3X World Champion Powerlifter & Founder of Wenning Strength, explore how longevity and performance can be achieved even as a person ages.
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About Matt Wenning
Matt Wenning is a 3 time world champion powerlifter. He has directed over 6000 troops in strength, conditioning, and wellness for the U.S. Army including Infantry and Ranger Divisions. He holds a Masters Degree in Biomechanics and a Bachelor of Science in Exercise Science from Ball State University.
Matt grew up in Indiana, raised by a hard working, middle class family. His mother was a nurse, and his father was a Marine and truck driver. When he was six years old, Matt was hit by a car going 50 mph, which took a toll on his physical development. After undergoing 12 months of full leg casts and 12 months in a boot, his legs were underdeveloped.
Four years later, Matt discovered lifting. It allowed him to see he was capable of anything, despite what he had gone through during recovery from his injuries. Then, when Matt was 13, his father passed away due to cancer; a result of complications from agent orange. That’s when he started lifting in competitions.
In the beginning, lifting was just a stepping stone to the goal of football. But it became a much larger pathway in his life. Lifting inspired Matt to attain higher education and become a strength coach. He excelled with a 3.9 GPA.
He has been an adviser for the NFL, an international speaker for the NSCA, as well as a contractor for border patrol, airborne divisions, and the pentagon.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest in the show, just head on over to missionmatters. com and click on be our guest to apply. All right. So today is a very special episode. We’re bringing on first off three time world championship, powerlifter and founder of winning strength.
Matt wedding, Matt. Hey, welcome to the show. How’s it going? Good. Good to see you. All right, man. So I’m excited to get into today’s content. A lot of business owners, a lot of executives, a lot of entrepreneurs that, that watch this show all around the world. And I’ll tell you one thing, performance, longevity.
I mean, our health, like this is at the top of our mind, because if we don’t have that, then then we can, we can’t do what we do in business. So we’re going to get into that. I want to get into some of your methodology and also, you know, some of your past. But before we get into all of that, we’ll start this episode, the way that we start them all with what we call our mission matters minute.
So Matt, we at mission matters, we amplify stories for entrepreneurs, executives, and experts. That’s our mission. Matt, what mission matters to you? Well, the big thing is founder of winning strength is striving to help people. Have a delicate mixture of higher levels of strength, which can and will reduce the aging process, common issues such as lower back pain, posture issues, and overall health.
That’s kind of what we’ve been striving for and what has kind of gotten me into the longevity standpoint. And why we have so many people that are over 60 years old coming to winning strength and helping them to achieve things that they couldn’t even do in their prime. You know, most people think, you know, when you get down to 18 years old, that was kind of like the peak of your performance right out of high school or maybe your first couple of years of college.
But for a lot of people that work with the business, we don’t touch our peaks until we’re in our early mid forties. So it’s trying to maintain that longevity and that performance aspect. Both mentally and physically and that’s a huge issue for a lot of business people because as they start pushing the business further They start putting their health to the wayside and then at the end, you know they’re they’re taking all the money and all the all the different things that they’ve Developed over their life and they’ve had to sacrifice those now to get the health back if it’s possible And so we try to build everything up in one interval unit Yeah.
And I definitely want to go further into that because like I said, we need your help out there. But before we do like, let’s start a little bit further back in your career. Like, like where did this where did this fascination with power lifting or weights or like whatever, however we want to tee that up, like where’d all this begin for you?
Well, there was a couple of different factors involved. I think one, a lot of people can relate to, especially today was. I wasn’t the most athletic or the most gifted kid right as a youngster mostly because I was bedridden at six years old from getting struck by a drunk driver on my bicycle. So when I got hit by the car I was in four legged cast, shattered my pelvis for I was, I was in a hospital bed for almost a year.
So getting out of that, when that, when that happened, I wanted to play sports with my And I just so happened to just be able to walk again. And I went to the The grocery store with my mom at the time and I had just been in the magazine area because I didn’t want to go and pick out the groceries with my mom.
I just kind of want to go look at the magazines. This was long before the days of like, you know, other things to do. So I go look at the magazines and I see Then talking about this professional football player. I don’t remember who it was and how he was lifting weights in preparation to play football.
And I thought, well, I want to play football with my friends. So maybe if I start lifting weights, my legs will heal in my knees and my ankles and my hips will get better from the car accident. And I’ll be able to play and fast forward 10, 15 years later, I’m breaking world records. So it’s, it’s one of those things where it’s kind of really one of the most insane stories I’ve ever heard from going from being crippled to breaking world records, you know?
And during that rise, like. Like, what was, what did it take to get to, from like, you know, novice? I mean, cause I, I mean, I heard it, I heard an interview, for example. I just want to build this out a little bit more for the people can understand. I heard an interview that you did with Dave Tate over at Elite FTS.
And I think you were talking about like, you’re literally like you could hear your bones cracking when you were younger, because it was like, that’s not a quick recovery, right? No, it was terrible. I remember the first year or two, my mom was in the stands and I would try to run to first base after hitting.
Hitting a ball off the tee and my mom could hear my knees and my ankles and everything just cracking and breaking all the scar tissue away. And it was, it was painful. You know, it’s been so long ago now it’s, it’s hard to remember, but I remember initially I just got gravitated to swimming because I could use my legs in a buoyant state.
And I was just kicking in the water. So that didn’t really bother it. But initially as a, as a kid, when I got out of those casts. A lot of jumping and running was, was painful and Mm-Hmm, and it hurt pretty bad. It, you know, that was just the, the start of physical therapy. So nobody knew that, you know, once I got outta those casts, I needed to move and be stretched immediately.
They were like, oh, just go and play and be a normal kid and you’ll heal up. And that was good and bad, and I think mostly bad in that particular time. This was in the mid eighties. So so luckily at 11 years old, I find weight training and my upper body had already been slightly developed from the swimming.
I was a freestyle sprinter. And so when I found the weights, I started to really hammer on the legs cause I was. I think first visually I was guarded because my calves were so small and my quads were so underdeveloped. And so I really wanted to focus on those areas mostly for aesthetic purposes and started to realize that my legs were adapting to training very quickly.
And I would say, well, other than the bench press, as far as lifting is concerned, I’m mostly known as a world record squatter, which is kind of, kind of crazy. But a lot of it started from insecurities of. My legs just not feeling, you know, feeling like they were at least average compared to other people.
They felt smaller, weaker, and that just had a fire in me to, to make those, make those things right. Now, were you a like, were you some type of child prodigy or like, what do you think was your competitive advantage kind of on that road to breaking world records? Like what, what was the differentiator for you?
Well, I mean, my mindset was, I didn’t matter how good I was at something starting off, I was willing to put the time, effort and energy into being great. I think the first inclination that I knew I was maybe a little different than most people. Is that by the time I was about 11, I was swimming a 50 meter freestyle faster than some of the kids in the high school in like literally sixth grade.
Wow. So I knew my upper body strength was pretty high. Yeah. But you know, I was, I was still a bigger kid at the time, so I wasn’t fast enough to get a college scholarship at the time to swim. And I knew that my body. Was never going to be small enough to be a competitive swimmer. Meaning when I graduated high school, I weighed two 50.
You don’t see 250 pound swimmers in high school. So I, you know, when I was doing that, I was still already almost at 11, 12 years old, I was already like 150. pounds and I wasn’t carrying a bunch of fat, but I wasn’t lean either. It was really Husky. I would say. And the first thing inclination that weight training was going to come to play was seeing that magazine with my mom.
And then my uncle had moved back home with us. Cause it was my mom’s brother moved back home with us. And he was kind of a wild party animal. You know, he’s the cool uncle motorcycle. Always had all the girls and was working out and he brings in this Stanfield set of weights and he sets him up in our family room and I see him benching and he’s, he’s doing about 125 or 135 pounds and he’s benching it for like a set of 10.
I come in, I go, Hey, uncle John, I want to live with you. And he goes, well, okay, let me take some weight off the bar. And I said, no, let’s leave it. I’ll do what you’re doing. And he’s like, he argues with me for probably minutes and he goes, fine, if you want to try it, you can try it. So I lay down and I do the same amount of reps as my uncle at 11 years old.
Wow. I mean, he’s like, Oh my God, dude, like, how are you able to, I said, well, I’m swim, I swim like two a day practices for swimming. I already have some shoulder development. He’s like, man, that’s really cool. Well, you know, you impress your, your fun and cool uncle, which is probably, you know, Like impressing your father at the time.
And I begged my mom after seeing the magazines and that happened to get me a get me a, a little membership to the YMCA, which was only a mile and a half bike ride from my house. And just so happen when I go in there, there are two national caliber power lifters that are in the same gym in a small town in Indiana.
They see me and think I’m in high school and I’m in sixth grade. And they were like, they call my mom and they’re like, he’s going to start coming and lifting with us. Now, to give you an example of how strong these guys really were, Tim Smith was 181 pounds. So, you know, a stocky guy, but not big and could bench press 500.
Oh my gosh. So you’re witnessing this like in real life, this isn’t on TV. Like you’re watching this guy. I’m watching this guy do five 45 pound plates on the bar and I’m in sixth grade. And they want to train me. The other guy was named was Jim Dawson. He delifted over 700 pounds in two at 240 pounds of body weight.
In 1970, before anybody had deadlifted 800. So he was a world class deadlifter in the early seventies. And so they were two different generations, but they still train together. They see me and see, you know, stars going off. And we’re like, if we can get this kid to stick to this, he’s going to be a champion.
So, you know, I do my first bench press meet and I do like two 50 as I’m, when I’m 13 years old and which is awesome. And then the, the gains come really slow because the coaches won’t let me push. To a hundred percent. They’ll only let me go to about 90%. So everything I was doing the first five or six years were easy.
And what, what they were doing was, is they were actually building confidence in me. So what they were doing is never letting me fail. So every time I stepped on the platform to do a competition, all I knew was winning. So I my first worlds, I expected it, right? Like when I didn’t expect it, but I did, I never attacked a weight and had any fear because all of it felt easier.
It never entered your mind then it was just literally like, cause I don’t think I ever really strained on a weight until I was 20 or 21, which was almost 10 years of training. Whoa. So I actually trained hard enough where I was like, Oh, that was hard. I think the first one I did, I went to worlds when I was 19 and I won.
And then the next year what would have been the next season, which would have been like three or four months later, I turned 20 and then I’m one of the youngest guys that squat 700 pounds. And when I do that 700, it was kind of hard. And that’s when I realized I was up at the big boy weights. And it was, it was a slow grind.
It took me a couple of years to get up to 800 and then another year and a half, two years to get to 900 and then another year and a half, two years to get to a thousand. And we’re talking, when I say a year and a half, two years, I can look back probably from the age of 38 when I retired from competitive lifting, there was probably only in that 20 something year span.
I bet you in total, two months off of training. So from 12 years old to 37 years old, I only took two months off. You know, I mean, that’s, that’s the kind of dedication that I personally had to have to be at that number. And to do the things that I wanted to do, but that created a very structured mindset.
So when schooling came and like building the business came, it wasn’t a big deal for me because I was always used to structure and just grinding myself out of a negative position. I remember when I finished my master’s degree in 2005, I moved over to Columbus, Ohio to start my business. I had 800 in my checking account.
Oh man, I had nothing. I had one month rent and a little bit of gas. And fast forward about five years. Well, yeah, four years later, I get my first big military contract. And then I’m pretty much set as far as like what normal people would be called. Like I’m in the money, you know? And that’s when we started to notice a big transition into business, but I was still competing at the time.
So the business still took a backseat to the numbers because for me, it was always about, I never felt like I wanted anybody to do something that I wasn’t willing to do 120%. And so for me, it was, if somebody wanted to get stronger than I wanted to be the person to go to, because I had worked through a lot of adversity and I had, you know, not taken any time off and had any excuses of why I didn’t achieve a goal that I didn’t want to achieve.
And when I retired in 2007, my income year or 2017, my income nearly tripled by 2018. Yeah. Then what happened was, is that COVID hit and the in person training started to dwindle because obviously we were in quarantine. The fire departments that I were training, they were very difficult to get in because they didn’t want public people coming inside, passing it on to the fire departments.
So there was about a year and a half there where my contracts and some of my big business entities that were making me good money were frozen or they were heavily reduced. So that’s when I really started to plug in the winning strength website and started to really try to figure out a way. Okay, this is the time.
To build some of this passive income and be able to train people remotely instead of in person. And that’s when the business changed about 2021, about almost three years ago now. And then everything catapulted again, just because I saw the market. Yeah. When did you, like on this journey, like when did you decide or think about like, you know, I was able to do these things.
So, you know, you hit these, you hit these world records, you do these things and not saying that everybody you train has that aspiration or wants to, you know, different people, different levels, different goals. Right. But when did you feel that inclination to, Want to help others reach their goals to stop looking, you know, from within and saying, how can I help others?
Like, how did that from the outside? People don’t realize that powerlifting is a team sport. Now you might be lifting the weights yourself, but there is no way I would take a thousand pounds squat without five, six spotters, five, six highly skilled guys around you that not, not only appreciate that, but also are passionate about the same thing.
So I learned that by having that aura of not only the world records, but the education and being able to talk to training and actually show other people improvement, that that was going to be a viable situation for me to get better. But that was kind of my goal the whole time. My initial thought process in this whole situation and going to school was to be a professional strength coach at like a pro team.
But then I realized no matter how good of a strength coach you were, say if I was a strength coach for. Let’s just say the Cleveland Browns, for example, I could be the best strength coach in the NFL, but if the team has a bad year and they switch all these coaches around, that means my job’s gone too. So I didn’t like the fact that someone else, a coach or a franchise could dictate my job.
So I felt that the best fit for me was to create my own entity. That way I was in charge of my own destiny. Yeah. And I’ve learned a lot more about the, as I’ve kind of researched your background, I’ve looked at what you’ve done and just, and also Brooke Sousa, who I know you’ve trained. And like, I’ve gotten to know that whole community through her and seeing like how, you know, her posts and Instagram and all these other things in the gym.
And I’m like, I guess I never really thought about that before until I’ve kind of been able to peek into that world and be like, yeah, it takes a lot of. people in order to make this happen. And a lot of like distribution of knowledge, whether it’s from generations, whether it’s from books, whether it’s from like all these things, like this, isn’t this, this knowledge isn’t like through osmosis.
Like somebody has to show you these things. Well, that’s another thing, you know, even with like Brooke has probably told you at least in person is that. There aren’t a lot of people, there’s a, there’s a very delicate mixture that comes along every once in a while. Powerlifting and strongman don’t necessarily attract the smartest people in, in the country.
They like, they, they, they get the hardest workers physically, but they may not train the smartest. And so when I got a hold of Brooke and Brooke told me she wanted to be the world’s strongest woman I knew that she had the drive like I had. So, but she was also willing to train in a, in a obscure way compared to what the other people were doing to avoid the injuries.
Which is what I did. And so that was a first taste of training somebody in a similar sport, but very different modalities, meaning they pick up stones and move on objects. And I lift a barbell, but in the deep down crevices of all of it, very similar in strength requirements, very similar in weight and size requirements, and also very similar, and most people that train those events over train the specificity.
Right? So they think, well, if I have to lift stones all the time, then that’s all I’m going to do. Well, that’s a very wrong way to attack things because the fastest way to get good at something is to practice the same thing over and over again. But it really narrows your general scope of what you’re good at because then if something’s a little off, or maybe you show up and the bar is not the exact same bar you trained with, or it’s not the exact same stone you trained with, what do you do now?
And so a lot of times in Strongman, Unlike powerlifting, you might show up in the events may not be given to you until you get there. So now you have no clue of what to really train for. You might have an idea, but back in the old days, like when Bill Kazmaier, those guys. We’re doing world’s strongest man.
They just had to show up and whoever brought it, brought it, but they couldn’t specifically train for it. So for me, I’ve always, my methodology of training is keep it variable, but the reason you keep it variable is to reduce injury, because if you’re doing the same thing all the time, then your body is slowly going to get wear, tear, and mileage.
So what we want to do is we want to rotate the exercises in a smart fashion, which means that we utilize weaknesses, right? So if I want to attack a business, for example, then I want to look at this weakest links because it’s strong links are probably only doing their job, but the weaker links are probably lagging behind.
It’s what’s keeping everything from growing. I look at, have you ever studied Lieberg’s law of minimum? No. So Lieberg’s law of minimum was, was actually utilizing agriculture. But it talks about a wooden barrel, right? So this wooden barrel is standing up, you know, how wooden barrels have the long sleeves that are attached.
It shows that when you fill a wooden barrel full of these long sleeves, the shortest sleeve is where all the water drains out. And so that’s called Lieber’s law of minimum is which nutrient for the plant is the lowest. That’s the one that keeps the plant from growing at optimum. So back in the day that it was nitrogen, but now it might be another particular soil, but it’s the same thing with training or business is the weakest link in the soil, the training or the business model is the one that limits the rest of the things growing.
Mhm. And I think that’s actually a great transition to your technology and the way you train people. I know I see, I guess I’ll start off. I seen that clip on your on your instagram, which by the way, everybody go check out at real matt winning. And we’ll leave links to that in the show notes so that you can see the clip as well.
It’s definitely on his instagram, but stone cold steve Austin talking about like, you know, weakness in his back and other areas. And he’s like, you know, he’s on one of your strength programs. He’s yeah. Buying into your methodology, like maybe let’s start going down that that path and tell us a little bit more about how that works.
Well, so, you know, if you look on Stone Cold, Steve Austin’s Instagram page, he doesn’t follow back a lot of people. I think he has 7 million followers and follows back like a hundred. So if he follows you back, you have something that’s caught his eye or he respects what you do. And so long story short about two, three years ago, I see I don’t see that he follows me because he follows me at night, he’s on Western.
I wake up and I have like 15, 20 DMS and people like, dude, Stone Cold Steve Austin’s following you. And I’m like, okay, cool. Right. I get on there and I realized he doesn’t follow people back. Yeah. And so I, I just basically sent him a message and I was like, Hey man, great, great having you follow me. You know, you were always, I always looked up to you when I was, when I was growing up.
You ever need anything, strength, conditioning wise, man, just haul her out. Not thinking he’s going to message me back. Yeah, dude. Within like one day, he messaged me back. He’s like, man, I’ve been following your stuff for a while and you trained really smart and I’m, I’m very intrigued by how you’ve able, how you’ve been able to get to these numbers and create literally zero injuries.
And I thought, I thought, well, yeah, man. I mean, I was like, the biggest thing is knowing where your weaknesses are. He goes, yeah. He goes, I, I, I get that. He goes, but you know, I’m an old school meathead. So I just go in and train whatever. You know, they just bench press and squat. Same, same lift, same, yeah.
Yeah, so just getting worn down, not a lot of rotation, just beating the same, you know, the same head right into the wall every time. Yeah. So we started getting a little dinged up, so long story short, I make, I said, well let me design you a manual. I didn’t want anything back in return. I said, I’ll design you a manual, I just, I’d be glad to help you out in any way I can.
So I write him a manual, but I’m not realizing that my capacity . Mm-Hmm. to write workouts. You know, some of my terminology is high level. Yeah. No, I’ve, I’ve seen, like, I saw that interview with you and David Tate, and I’m like, I’m lost in the weeds on this one, but I know that you are a unique specimen. You nerd out on the workout.
This is like a, this is like a plan. This isn’t like a, a little scrap writing down do three sets of this. It’s different. Go ahead. It’s more complex. All the audience said, because I wasn’t prepared. Yeah, so we did that. So I did that. I wrote it to him, but he was embarrassed enough that he didn’t message me back.
I’m like, Hey, did you get the manual? And he’s like, yeah, he just sends me a thumbs up. I don’t realize he’s embarrassed. He doesn’t understand any of it. Yeah. And so literally after a five, six phone calls, he would just call me back. What do you think about this exercise? What do you think about that exercise?
And I’m thinking, I don’t have those exercises in that manual. So I know for damn sure you’re not following it. So fast forward another year or so, we’re still talking here and there in Texas. So I go out on my motorcycle to visit Mark Bell at a super training, which is one of the largest gyms on the West Coast.
And we’ve been friends for years. And it’s only two hours from where I think I knew where he lived, which was South Lake Tahoe. And I was like, Hey man, I think I’m only a couple of hours from your house. I wouldn’t have a problem riding out and kind of take checking out your gym and just hanging out with you.
And he messaged me back and he’s like, yeah, man, come on by and sends me his address. Yeah. So the next morning I get up super early and I whip out there and he’s showing me his, his big estate and his gym. And I just sat him down and we pulled the manual out for him. I’m like, You didn’t follow a damn bit of this, did you?
And he goes, he goes, man, I’m not going to bullshit you. I looked through it. I couldn’t understand a lot of it. It just, you know, I just panicked and just went back to what I was comfortable with. So I said, okay, okay. I said, well, let’s walk through this a little bit. So we walked through every exercise. I show him how to do it.
I give him all the things that he needs to understand. Write him out a whole simplistic thing. And now he’s been busting butt on it and loves it. And you got to remember too, he’s 60 years old. He’s got a broken neck. And so for him to feel better and train harder at way past his prime with a ton of mileage on him, I think is a huge testament to what we do at winning strength and how we get guys to feel better no matter what your ailments are.
Because most people that are going to watch this, they’re not walking around with a broken neck, constant knee surgeries, and have been in the ring with some of the best people in WWF getting bodies slammed for like 20 years. And so if I can get him to feel better, then I feel like I can get anybody to feel better.
Yeah. And so, so speaking of our, our entrepreneurs and our other individuals out there, I know I was looking at one of your programs specifically that you have an anti aging program and it’s really in its market for anybody over the age of 40. I’m sure people below that can benefit too, but Hey, I’m, I’m being selfish here.
a year ago and I’m like, I’m like, okay, like I have all these. Notions and things I’ve been told in my head and through an externally like, okay, now it’s time to start being careful in the gym. Now it’s time to do this, this, this. And it’s, I probably now, when I look back and when I start getting into your stuff, I can say point blank, I’ve been doing it wrong for the last, you know, 20, 25 years.
I’m like, I’m like, Oh, that makes sense. That makes sense. Follow for anybody is consistency. Consistency is the most important thing. But the second thing, which is probably right there. As important, if not more important, is making sure that you’re not spinning your wheels doing anything incorrectly or advancing the aging process by doing exercises that are damaging joints or enhancing or increasing postural deficiencies.
So you find that a lot of people, especially in the business world, if they do make time for the gym, they tend to train everything they see in the mirror. They want a flatter stomach. They want better looking shoulders. They want nicer looking legs. Well, the real key to all of that is making sure you’re training everything you can’t see in the mirror.
So most of the muscles that you can’t see on the backside of your body, hold your posture, keep your breathing and your heart rate and your lower back from hurting, which is an 80 percent of the population have an issue with, mostly because they don’t have any glutes and their hamstrings are weak. Now, all those muscles I just talked about are not the first ones you see in the mirror.
Yeah. And so by doing a lot of bicep training and pec training and quadricep training, what you’re actually doing is enhancing the aging process instead of working on the muscles that actually keep you erect and keep you breathing properly and keep your shoulders healthy, which is probably the second thing that people have problems with.
Yeah. So what I find is that although people will complain about these areas, no matter what their background is or whether they like to lift weights or not, how many people do we know that have shoulder and back problems or knee issues? Yes. But then when you start digging around and asking them, well, what are you actually doing?
To fix these areas and it’s just like a, I don’t know, you know? Yeah. Walk general, walking on a treadmill and just slightly watching what you eat, although are great starts Yeah. Are not necessarily the most optimal thing to do when you need to get these things changed. And one of the things that I, I just wanna.
Pull this piece out. And again of that Dave Tate interview that you did because I, I heard that and I was like, what, what impressed me about you is that you’re not just preaching these things, but you’ve also used these methodologies to hit those numbers. Like you talked about at a certain point, you maxed out your gift in terms of for your weight size and size in your body frame.
And you had to be smarter to like hit those records like. Can you maybe elaborate on that? Just so people know that when you say things, you’re not speaking from just this, you were, yes, you were a project. You were talented. Yes. World record. But you also use some of the philosophies and all the philosophies you’re talking about to hear things that you now pass on.
It’s different. So by, by that time, so by about 20 years old, I’m already benching 500 pounds, but you remember I’m a big guy, so I’m already benched with 500 pounds, but my shoulders are bothering me. My legs are achy, which, you know, I, I attributed at that time. To, well, look at my background, right? I got hit by a car and I’m like, well, of course my shoulders are going to be achy if I’m bench pressing five plates on each side, I start reading a powerlifting USA, a guy named Louie Simmons, which is a real reason that I moved over to Columbus, Ohio was to train with him.
And he starts talking about all of this posterior chain stuff that we just mentioned, right? Lower back, hamstrings, glutes. And I’m thinking I do those areas, but I don’t have a lot of focus on him. And he starts talking about getting faster to get stronger. And I’m like, I don’t do any of that. It was just these light bulbs going off in my head.
Like maybe I’m training not the best way. And so as I drive over to Columbus, which was about a three hour drive one way, I came over and I started learning more from him and keep in mind, this guy had 10 world record holders in the same gym. Yeah, it was invite only. You had to be a complete badass to get in there.
That’s crazy. But because I’m a prodigy and I’m pretty good. I’m I can hang but I can hang enough to have his knowledge dip down for me. I started realizing there was this system developed from the Soviet Union called the conjugate system, which was a piecemeal system. So imagine that you have all of these exercises in a cafeteria and you’re taking your tray and you’re putting on what you want out of that tray.
And I was like, well, I train real basic, you know, I squat on squat day and I bench on bench day, but I wasn’t doing a lot of variation. And so he’s saying the reason that you’re sore is not because you’re strong or the reason that your joints are achy. It’s not because you’re strong, it’s because you’re doing the same stuff over and over again.
You’re doing what you like to do and what you know versus what you need to know and what you don’t like to do. Wow. And so I’m driving home with this, you know, this light bulb in my head going, man, I, I need to mix up my training. Yeah. So about, about a year later of developing this system and learning my own body.
My lifts went up like 20 more percent from already world class level. And now I’m one of the top 10 in the world. And then by the next three to four years, I am the best in the world. And the point being is that I needed variability in my life. I needed change, but structure. So structural change. And I needed to know, again, where my weaknesses were.
Like what Stone Cold Steve Austin was talking about. He was going to the gym and training muscles. But he wasn’t putting the right emphasis on the weakest links. So once I started figuring out these cheat codes, that’s when not only did I get stronger, I felt like I just shaved another. 10 years off my body because I wasn’t trying to just keep hammering my head into the same wall with no results.
And it seems like to me, and again, for everybody watching, we’re definitely not providing medical advice or anything like that. So, and, and obviously you need to, you know, consult a trainer one on one. So just generally speaking, it seems to me like there’s a lot of people in the, in the population that like myself, I’ll pick on myself that have been doing exactly what you’re saying.
And even though we’ve hit the age of 40, it’s very possible that we haven’t, it’s not about like, I don’t want to go try and max out or anything like that. It’s just not even something I want to do. But I just mean in general, like. I can probably improve across the board, be healthier and increase my longevity based on adding some of the things you’re talking about, like strength is a, yeah, strength is a key component to that.
And it doesn’t mean that it has to be at a high level, but the problem is maximal strength is a lot of times the limiting factor for not only how fast you can run, but also how high you can jump and how slowly your muscle mass will deteriorate as you age. So if you can stay stronger as you age. Then the amount of stripping that your body is going to do to get rid of that muscle is negated.
I mean, let’s look at Arnold Schwarzenegger, for example. He just had his 76th or 77th birthday. He’s back into weight training and he looks pretty darn good for his age, right? Yes. He’s walking around a lot better than most people his age. My, my opinion is he looks around 60. Yeah, he doesn’t look 76. So for you guys listening, you know, he is the epitome of strength training.
Why not be that healthy at 76? Why not look that good at 76? What kind of presence would you have in your business meeting? If you walked in and looked a little bit like Arnold Schwarzenegger, it just creates this vibe of you that what you have can’t be bought. You have a certain work code. You have a certain.
way that you carry yourself and a certain discipline that you have that average people really look up to. I mean, I wouldn’t be able to go in and work with these 55 and 60 year old firemen if I didn’t look the part. I’m not saying you have to be a world class lifter, but it definitely helps the, the, the key of being able to lead other people by example.
And so Matt, I, I think that’s a great, you know, kind of transition into how people can actually work with winning, with winning strength. I mean, talk a little bit about the programs, the approach and like just people, you know, people are going to listen to this. They’re going to be excited. There’s like, I was excited.
I’m like, Oh, I got new hope. Like this even just freshens up what I’m doing in the gym and it makes it fun again, like all of that, like a new challenge, like how do people work with you and your team? Well, what we do is we have a couple of different options. So at the highest tier. You would work with one of our online coaches or me.
And what we would do is basically do a full assessment. Like what are your needs? What are your goals? Where are you at now? And what’s obtainable and what’s smart. So we don’t increase mileage. Okay. Now those things take a lot of practice and a lot of skill mastery in those particular areas. So we have quite a few clients that we take care of that way.
Those will be our highest tier. The next thing that we do is we also have very educational manuals, like the over 40 manual. The over 65 manual and we were working on right now a manual when you come out and a doctor clears you say from a gallbladder surgery or an ACO repair, we have a program developed for that to kind of keep muscle from wasting away as soon as the doctor allows a clearance for physical activity.
So what we’re trying to do is attack as many people as we can at a different budget level. So the manuals are obviously very budgeted. Then we also have. A Q and a patreon channel where you can come on and personally ask me any question that you need Fitness oriented and I can help guide you down the right direction To make sure that you’re getting your optimal abilities plus on the patreon channel You’re also able to see the workouts that I provide With my firemen and my clients and all different levels, depending on if they, you know, are working 50 hours a week and have three kids or they’re on their feet 60 hours a week, working a construction job, we show you these programs to be able to get you the right fit with a minimal cost, but also have access to a, it’d be like having access to a doctor at all times for strike training.
And that can be very, very helpful as far as guiding you down the right path and getting you the results that you want without the dings, you know, kinks and bruises that come along with just going into a general gym and not understanding what you’re doing. Yeah, it’s awesome. Well, well, Matt so first off, everybody watching, we’re going to put the links and all that good stuff to winning strength on, in the show notes and definitely go, go follow Matt on, on Instagram.
So at real Matt winning and you, you won’t be disappointed. I mean, great content, lots of different variation, lots of learning. You could just go on the Instagram and begin that, that learning journey. But that being said, Matt, I mean, first off, really appreciate you making time for us and coming on the show number one.
But Number two, I mean, what’s next? I mean, you got a lot of things going. You’re, you’re growing. I see I see the content that’s out there. It’s, it’s great. What’s next? I mean, what’s next for you? What’s next for winning strength? Yeah. I mean, I just try to find out which is the best avenue to go to help the most people that we possibly can.
And a lot of that’s turning into passive and online. You know, I live in Columbus and it’s a very fit town for the Midwest, but there’s still only so many people that you can train in a given day. So I find that with different content, you can help people at different parts of their journey. So we’ve really tried to step up the game on the YouTube channel, the winning strength YouTube channel, which there’s also a lot of videos on that.
And just, just trying to reach out to as many people as we can and make as many life changes as we can. Fantastic. And Oh, one last thing. I forgot. Are we allowed to say there’s a book coming out in the, in the, I don’t want, we don’t have to put a date on it and don’t worry, you know, I’m going to be bringing you back in the show when it’s out, but let’s, let’s leave a little teaser here to leave it with.
Yeah. So I’ve written a book and it’s, it’s published by human kinetics. And for any of you guys that would ever go to school or ever heard of like exercise science degrees or nutrition degrees. Or even in some cases, medical degrees, human kinetics is the publisher. So if you have a human kinetics book, that probably means it’s college level or graduate level information.
So they contacted me about two years ago about writing a book. I turned it in around April. They’re sending a professional photography team to do all the pictures that we want in it. It’s going to have different exercises and modalities. One of them is going to be a workout that I designed for a pro football team.
Another one for a professional MMA guys, some anti aging ones, some tactical ones for seal teams, just just to get people an idea of what these types of structures would look like in different scenarios. But I felt that a lot of the information it was actually a funny statement I was reading this morning to keep, I constantly read, but the information on the internet is basically 95 percent garbage and the other 5 percent for the average person that’s not well read and studied in a certain area.
It can be very confusing and kind of hard to navigate. So what I wanted to do was bring all the books and all of the knowledge that I had and put that in a, and I feel a very digestible level for people can read that book and go, I know I need to train smarter. Here’s some avenues on how I can make this happen.
And we’ll cut it with that. I’m going to leave it right there. That’s a great teaser. When that thing is out, you know, coming back on the show, Matt. So first off again, thank you for, for coming on the show to the audience, to the audience as always we can’t do this without you. So thank you for tuning.
And if you, this, if you’re, this is your first time with mission matters of the platform, we’re all about bringing on business owners, entrepreneurs, and executives, and having them share their background, their passion. Like the reason why they do what they do, like what’s their mission? Like, why does that get them fired up in the morning to go out there and to make a difference?
If that’s the type of content that sounds interesting or fun or exciting to you, we welcome you. Hit that subscribe button. We have many more mission based individuals coming up on the line and we don’t want you to miss a thing. Matt, appreciate all you do, man. I’m going to be, I’m going to be creating some more content.
I’m going to be going through these manuals, doing some other stuff. You’re, you’re not done hearing from me. I assure you. Okay, buddy. I’ll talk to you later.
