With the launch of Mike Robertson’s new Bulletproof Athlete I wanted to have Mike tell everyone what it’s all about. Mike is one of a small handful of people online whose products are always high quality and worth the money. Check out the Bulletproof Athlete now…
Podcast Transcript
Joel: This is Joel Jamieson from 8weeksout.com and today I’m joined by Howie Clark as always.
Joel: There goes Howie, and today we have special guest Mike Robertson of Robertson Training Systems. How’s it going Mike?
Mike: Doing well Joel, thanks for having me guys.
Joel: Great to have you. Last time we saw you, you were out here in Seattle. Nice sunny weather, I think it was the time for the Seattle Sounders and I think Howie told you a couple of good jokes while you were out here, right?
Mike: Howie kept me entertained thoroughly the entire time he was around. So I would I’d go as far as to say he was the best part of my vacation.
Joel: You guys did something I don’t know about?
Howie: They were just stories, and unfortunately they involved me, which ended up not turning out well for me. And then, ended up being the butt of the joke. But hey as long as I was there to entertain you Mike, then you know, that makes me feel-
Mike: I’m planning my next trip to Seattle just to hang out with Howie, let’s put it that way.
Howie: Let’s make it happen.
Joel: Now you know why I hired him.
Joel: If we weren’t on a PG rated podcast right now I’d have him repeat some of the stories but, you’ve got to come out and hear them yourself.
Joel: So anyway, just wanted to have you on and talk about stuff you’ve got going on. I know you’re launching a new exciting product each day. Could you give us a little run down on what you’ve got going on out there and what you’re releasing today?
Mike: Absolutely. So the new product is called ‘The BulletProof Athlete’. It’s a 16 week training program that literally gives you every rep of every set of every exercise for the next 16 weeks.
So I know people like done-for-you programs and people have asked me to create something like this. So I finally got my act together, put it all together and sat back and looked at it and realized, “Wow this is like really cool for a certain subset of people,” but it wasn’t perfect for a wide swath of people.
So what I did is I basically took the skeleton program and basically created three programs off that. And each program increased in the level of intensity and it also increased in like, the amount of time it would take to go through.
So you’ve got everything from like, the person that has two hours, or that has an hour twice a week to get a workout in. That would be the fat loss program all the way up to what I call the monster; which is like five or six days a week training, we incorporate all the cool energy systems protocols that you outline in your book.
So it’s three separate programs that kind of cover all the different bases and it allows you to figure out which program works best for you given your time, your schedule, your training history, all that good stuff. It’s a pretty sweet program and I’m really excited to get it out there.
Joel: Yeah you know, I’m definitely known for done-for-you program type of guy and all my stuff is mostly kind of about the individualization process. And really the story to how I want to get you on the show is that I got the product, I said, “Howie read through this. See what you think,just so I could make him do some work.”
And he said, “This thing’s awesome.” And so of course I took a look and, biggest thing that people, you know obviously just the done-for-you program is great and gets people some months of programming. But aside from that just learning the principles that you used to put the program together I think can get people really programming ideas on how to build from there. So maybe you could talk about some of the principles that you went through, that you applied to the program cause I think you did a great job of tying everything together in a way that makes sense.
Mike: Absolutely. Well, first off I’m glad to hear that Howie got my check. I sent that FedEx so I’m sure, I wanted to make sure he got it. But in all seriousness, what I wanted to do with the program was assume nothing, because if you go to most average gyms and you watch people move, they don’t move well. They’re not in nearly as good a condition as they think they are. Their mobility, stability, movement quality, etc. is horrible.
So what I tried to do is imagine that basic person, right? That thinks they know what they’re doing but at the same time constantly having like little aches and pains, or they’re constantly plateaued. They’re not moving up on their big lifts. I try to envision that guy and what I would do with that person to not only help them move and feel better, but to help them develop a training base, going forward.
So that’s how I started off writing the program. I thought about the average person that comes into or gym, what they need to work on. Those basic movement patterns, like teaching them how to hit pinch, how to sweat effectively, how to do push-ups, how to do inverted rows. And I know some of this sounds mundane, but you would be shocked if you watched most people move, how poorly they execute these moves.
So we started with that, and then what I tried to do over the course of the 16 weeks was build in all kinds of different variables. So for instance, month one we’re starting with like very low level exercises, trying re-groove your technique. And then month two we use more challenging exercises but we put a real premium on stability or control. So you may go through a certain exercise but take a three second e-centric. Or we may throw in a pause at the midpoint movement.
So all along the way we’re trying to rebuild your movement pattern so that at the end you’re back to all the big lifts like squatting, and dead lifting and bench pressing. And what I found is really cool, I actually ran a beta test with a couple hundred people and on the beta test what was really cool is, you’ll go for an extended period of time where you’re not doing the big lifts, right?
Like the first eight weeks you’re not going to like a traditional front squat or a traditional dead lift. But at the end we test you on all those lifts. So you get a little bit of training of those lifts the last eight weeks. And what you’ll find is, you end up with… I had people who were hitting their old PRs for sets of three or sets of five.
And it all comes down to, number one, they’re more efficient, and number two their body just moves in a more fluid and athletic manner. So that’s what I really enjoy hearing. We take some time and we back off some of the big lifts initially with the intention of knowing that at twelve or sixteen weeks you’re going to be hitting your old PRs just because your body is more effective and more efficient.
Joel: Did you, redesigned with it or specifics or just… You think it applies to any athlete, or what was the thought process there?
Mike: Absolutely. First off I think everybody’s an athlete, so I think the name is a little misleading. It sounds funny, but we have like 60 or 70 year old clients that are in our gym and we treat them like athletes. They push the prowler, they drag the sled, they throw med balls. So the name is a little misleading, but in all honesty I think everybody is an athlete.
So what I tried to kind of think about is, if I was starting myself over, if I was starting with a brand new athlete or somebody who wanted to have a solid foundation, moving forward; how would I start them off? And that’s how I kind of developed this program.
So I know that’s, to some people that’s not super exciting. They’re like, well I’m a badass, I can squat X and dead lift Y, but then they’re always injured or they’re always beat up or their squat max has been the same for the last three years. Well, this is the program that they need cause it’s going to help rebuild their foundation so that when they get back into those big lifts they’re stronger and more athletic as a result.
Joel: That’s what I was going to say about the foundation. You know, so many times it’s what people that are trying, or we, I’ll put myself in that group. It’s what I want to do, not necessarily what I need to do. And I think, I don’t think I know after reading it, it definitely addresses that.
If you have the discipline to do the first part, like you said, if lifting heavy is your thing and getting moving properly and reap the rewards at the end. It’s very long term is what I like about it. It’s not static like, do this, as you incorporate. And it’s really cool. When I was reading it I was looking forward to what’s going to be added next. And it’s not overwhelming.
Joel: That’s the word I was looking for. It’s very, very attainable, it’s minor adjustments and you can just keep going with it. That’s what I think was really intriguing.
Mike: And that’s kind of one of my foundational beliefs. Look, I want everybody to squat, and bench press and dead lift and so all those cool big bang exercises. But if you don’t have the foundation to do them successfully, one of two things is going to happen. Either you’re going to end up with injured or you’re going to plateau. Both of which suck. And I’ve been there, I’ve had both.
I’ve had the plateaus where you’re just banging your head against the wall. I’ve had little nagging aches and pains that have kept me from training. Part of this program was selfish in nature, this is something that I used on myself initially. We talked about the beta people. I was kind of the alpha because I wanted to figure out, what do I need to do to make myself more efficient.
And when I went back and powerlifted after I ran through this program I hit a personal all-time best dead lift at a lighter weight class. So I think it’s just a really solid program and I think a lot of people would benefit from it.
Joel: It’s a really bulletproof athlete foundations, that’s what you should’ve called it.
Mike: Absolutely. And here’s the other thing though, you can appreciate this, it’s not just the foundation for lifting but I think so many times now people just jump into high intensity energy system training. They think they’re doing abates or they’re just going balls out all the time and they’re wondering why their condition isn’t improving.
If you follow the monster protocol, or if you follow the weekend warrior protocol there’s a ton of energy system development built into that. So what I try to do there is give you that aerobic energy system base that you can utilize so that you can have a lower resting heart rate, so that you can improve your HRV scores.
Because I feel like the better your aerobic foundation is, the bigger your foundation is, as we all know when you do start to really get intense with your training you’re going to get a better result. There’s a foundational energy component system in there as well, it’s not just the lifting side.
Joel: That’s awesome. You’re one of the movement guys out there. I guess, I like to call them movement guys, but you are known for the corrective exercises, movements, blah blah blah. And really what you and I think Charlie Weingroff and others that are in that field are talking about is, the goal is to get strong, the goal is to build.
These other things are tools to get there, they’re not the end all means. It’s the foundation that needs to be built to do those things and I think that looking at programs like you’ve put together and talking to guys like Charlie, I think that’s been lost in a lot of areas. Where you want to be able to lift heavy, you want to be able to be explosive, but you just have to spend the time building the foundation and then the end goal isn’t just to do these exercises forever, it’s to progress. I think that’s about lost.
Mike: Absolutely. Honestly if you listen to a Gray Cook right? Who’s kind of like the godfather of corrective exercises now, if you look at this speech if you look at this talks the foundation that he talks about is movement. And I think almost everybody that has half a brain can agree that movement is important. If you move horribly you’re going to get injured, that’s kind of common sense.
But what enough people aren’t talking about, once you move past that, that next pillar in his pyramid is performance. It’s all the stuff that we talk about that we know helps build a badass athlete. It’s speed, it’s power, it’s strength, it’s energy system development. I guess I’ve had to refocus my message a little bit because people want to lump me into just this corrective exercise, and that’s all we do. And that’s not all we do.
That’s our foundation and I believe that should be everybody’s foundation but once you have that foundation now it’s time to perform monster athlete. And that’s what I’m most focused on now.
Howie: You know it’s funny, I can see parallels. I see a lot of the questions Joel gets and he’s known as a conditioning guy you know?
Howie: And they want to know how they fit their strength with their conditioning and all of this stuff and back to the bullet proof athlete I think it’s a great job of, once people see it and you see someone wants to do stuff for being explosive. Like they want to know how much, how often, when, can I do it on this day?
Logistically putting everything together can be overwhelming for someone’s who’s not in the field. And it’s a nice job and a nice order, you know what I mean? The volume’s right. It’s very doable. Like you said you’re going to be feeling good and that’s the whole point, to get you feeling good, moving well, build up your foundation. The movement as well as your conditioning, your energy system, and then just keep that progression. I think people are definitely going to dig it.
Mike: And here’s the thing Howie, like you said, if you think it’s hard for an average person to do this I can’t help but say it’s really hard to do this for me too. Because the more you look at this stuff, right, like let’s say energy system training is your thing. And I’ve learned a ton from Joel and then you look at Joel’s stuff and you read the references he reads.
Energy system is such a massive topic. So once you really start digging in you realize man, there’s a ton to this. And that’s just energy systems. That’s not strength training, that’s not power training, or speed and agility. So I think that’s the hardest part, and what I keep coming back to is my goal as a coach is to develop a well-rounded athlete.
And if I want to do that I need to know a lot about a lot of different disciplines. So that’s what I try to do in the program is say, look, this is kind of where I’m at now. This is reflective of how I would design a program you know, things have already changed. That’s the thing about writing a program, you can write the best program ever and two days later you read that thing and you’re like, oh I’d change that. I would change that, I can make it better.
But that’s a good thing at the same time. It’s a complete athletic development program and it’s going to give you a foundation not only for movement but for strength training and for energy systems as well. That was the goal. So I’ll take the compliment Howie, I appreciate it, but it’s just incredibly hard to balance all the different physical characteristics that go into athletic development.
Howie: There’s no doubt about it, yeah. I couldn’t do it, that’s for sure.
Joel: I mean just out of curiosity, just to give people an idea. I think people don’t often understand how many hours and how much work actually goes into creating some of the products that certainly I’ve put out, and that you’ve put out there. Do you have any idea of a rough hour, of how many hours you logistically spent developing, and writing and everything else, be cause it’s massive.
Mike: I would say at least hundreds if not thousands. And that’s not even an exaggeration because you think about the program has basically been through three different levels. I wrote the original for myself, I wrote the beta for the couple hundred people that bought that version and then I cleaned it up again for the actual release. Then you figure in writing up all the scripts, because there’s a hundred and sixty some videos that you get with this.
Mike: So there’s scripts for all the exercises that you’re going to use, so like a front and side camera view. So me coaching how to squat, how to bench, how to dead lift how to push up. Every exercise that’s in the program is coached on camera from two different angles.
There’s all the nutritional goals, so sixteen weeks of nutrition stuff I want you to work on. Sixteen weeks of recovery stuff I want you to work on. I mean, when you think about just all the time. And that’s not even factoring all the time it takes you to shoot all those videos and edit them.
There’s literally, no doubt about it hundreds of hours in this project if not closing in on the thousands. I mean it’s a massive project, it’s taken me like a year and a half but I think the end result is going to be well worth it.
Joel: Yeah I mean, just the fact that, I just appreciate the fact you took the time to beta test it and get some real world results rather than just slapping things together. Unfortunately a lot of the internet markers, that will remain nameless do. The fact that you took the time to test it, get feedback, make changes I mean I think that speaks a lot about the hours and the word that you put into creating a quality product.
Mike: Absolutely. And part of it is just logistics right? Because one of the things that I did when I did the beta version, I had my forum up and running and I had a specific forum just for the program. I did my best to interact with all the people on there. So they could constantly give me feedback, I like this or I don’t like that. Or this is tough given the gym that I’m at, they don’t have that piece of equipment. So that allowed me to sort of refine and tweak the program so that just about anybody can use it, anybody can follow it.
Obviously it’s never going to be perfect right? Because you’ve got guys that have been coming to your gym or my gym, and they’ve got access to everything and then you’ve got the guy who goes to LA Fitness and you’re lucky if they have one squat rack and a good set of dumbbells. So I think I worked out a lot of the kinks early on, and I think the people that look at the program now are going to see a much more cohesive and uniform program.
Joel: That’s awesome. And I know you mentioned HRV a little bit in there, and to me giving kind of a set program utilizing HRV within that program to manage it is kind of the ideal way to go about things. So if you could just talk about, you know maybe how to use the HRV in there. I know you’ve been playing around with bio force more lately and you’ve got a couple of athletes you’ve been working with. You’ve really started to dial things in, so maybe you can just talk about that a little bit for us.
Mike: Absolutely. And I’m not even saying this just because it’s your podcast, but I’m a huge believer in HRV. And I really think that’s the next level. We talk a lot about training on the interwebs and everybody is an internet expert on training and now we’ve got a bevy of internet nutrition gurus.
Mike: But very few people talk about recovery. And I think it’s just such an untapped group. And I think it really hit home for me sitting in at the Seattle Sounders conference the day Kenny put on. When we were talking about the fact that good monitoring of your athletes almost removes the need to periodize the program, right? Because you have constant feedback as to the preparedness or the readiness of your athletes.
So this is what I’ve been trying to do with all of my athletes at my gym. Is every day we can kind of scale up the workout, we can scale it down, we can keep it the same. All based on what we know their HRV score to be. So it’s been a huge game changer for me personally, but I think once you get into the program, I believe it’s week five the recovery goal for the week is to either start tracking your resting heart rate or start tracking your HRV score. Whatever you have access to.
But the whole goal is to get the person that’s following the program to get in tune with their body. So hey you have a great training session but the next day you’re amber, you’re red. That tells you something about how your recovery is. I think the most illuminating thing for me and a lot of my athletes that I work with is, they’ll start taking their HRV scores with is they’re taking their HRV score right?
And they’re doing great, it’s green, green, green, they’re killing it in training, they feel awesome. And then they have a great training session but then that night maybe they go out, or they stay out late, and they only get four or five hours of sleep. And then they see that huge red score and they see their HRV drop ten or fifteen points or whatever it is.
That’s like a huge awakening I think for a lot of the athletes and clients that I work with. Because they start to realize just how important recovery is, just how important sleep is, and it’s not just about going into the gym and killing it every day. It’s what you do outside of the gym to kind of set the table for your next training session that’s important as well.
Joel: Yeah, absolutely. I think as crazy as it sounds to me, at the time, a lot of the people in the team realm said hey can we do a system where it doesn’t show the athlete the score. We don’t want them worrying about it. And I kind of get what they’re saying but I think that at the same time, to show the athletes the impact of sleep, and diet and stress and drinking and all of these other things.
To show them that it’s as valuable as anything else. And if you take that away from it you kind of devalue what the HRV is giving you. So I think just like you said, showing people just how much those none-training related stressors affect their ability to train. And in fact, what they should be doing for training. I think that’s a huge, huge value and it can add a lot to a program like yours where you’re giving people loads. There’s no way to necessarily know how those factors are affecting them unless you measure it.
Mike: Right, and we’ve all been… obviously I’m a bit older, being almost 35 ;now but when you get into this it’s like you have those days when you feel awesome and you think, I’m probably ready to go, but then your HRV tells you something. And you have your days when you’re off or maybe you don’t feel as good and hey maybe your HRV isn’t as bad. So I think it just helps you sync kind of how your body feels with how prepared you are to train. It just gives you access to feedback that you wouldn’t have access to, or that we didn’t have five or ten years ago.
Joel: Yeah, absolutely. We were talking about it before the show, I think there’s more devices, more cool stuff on the way. I think over the next two, three, four, five years you’re going to see some rally cool devices. You’re going to see a lot of crap on the market too. Don’t get me wrong.
Joel: Don’t get me wrong. And you already have, there’s already a lot of crap out there. But I think we’re going to see more of this really cool stuff coming out, there’s some exciting stuff that companies at least that I’ve been talking to and I’ll have more information, but I think the more data we start to get the more we’re really going to start to make use of it and get people practical ways to utilize data instead rather than just numbers and colors.
I think we can give people actual recommendations of what they should and shouldn’t do. And that’s where we’re going to start to see really what, I would call training 2.0, or whatever you want to call it, we’re going to start to see some really cool stuff. Possible in the next few years.
Mike: I think it’s going to come down to what we could call mass individualization.
Mike: Like you said, I get where a coach is coming from if they don’t want them to see the score. But from my perspective as a coach I would want my athlete to see that score because that gives them feedback on how their body is, how its recovered and I think it’s just going to allow us to individualize the program for these individual athletes that much better because if you’ve got twenty, twenty five, thirty kids on a team every one of those kids is a little bit different. How they respond to the training session, their nutrition, their recovery. So it’s just going to allow you to customize the program as a coach that much better.
Howie: We were talking about that before the call. About whether they would want to know their score or not and I think back to the glory days of when I was playing baseball. And it’s like, I would want to know, you know what I mean?
A good friend of ours, Eric Cressey he wrote my end season stuff and I tried to stick with it the best I could. And some days you were just exhausted, but you were like, today is my day to train. Or you feel like you can’t give up that day, you feel like missing one session is going to set you back.
I wish I had HRV, or of it was on the market then just because if those days where, it would either confirm that yeah you do need a day, or those days where you felt a little foggy or whatever you would just do a little extra warm up and get through it. It holds the athlete or the client accountable because you know, right, Joel or Mike you guys can see what you put your clients through in the training session.
But what are they doing the other twenty three hours. Was it on me or is it on you? So you can see what kind of load you’re giving them. Personally, long story short, I would want to know.
Mike: And it’s great feedback too. For the athletes that I work it gives me feedback as a coach. Is this program that I’m giving this client or this athlete working. And just, for my own personal edification over here, I had a girl almost break your system dude. I was so excited about that.
Because she was like, not even going to go there, she was not in great shape to start. And we’ve got her in rocking now, so it’s just good feedback for me as a coach. Because I have an idea of is this program working, did the gain stop, do we need to change gear, do we need to change our emphasis a little bit. So as a coach it’s just a huge resource and just something that’s incredibly beneficial to me.
Joel: Awesome. Appreciate you guys using it and taking advantage of some of the new stuff I’ve been putting together . And obviously we’ve got a lot of new things coming. So along those lines, just kind of closing out, what can we expect from you moving forward? You’ve got new, secret stuff you’re working on, any exciting anything you’re going to talk about and reveal on the show?
Mike: Well, some pretty sweet athletes that I’m working with right now. Can’t name names, but I will mention those very shortly. I’ve got some cool people that are in the gym right now working with me. I’m excited, I think they’re going to have really big seasons coming up.
So that will be mentioned very shortly. And I’m also working on this really cool project with bodybuilding.com where they do some very cool like feature videos. And the entire premise of our video series is how you can take functional anatomy to improve your actual training, right.
So everybody thinks they know anatomy until they dive in and they start realizing, hey, there’s more to body building that just pumping and curling and whatever time under tension and fourth reps. So I’m really excited about that. They do really high level stuff. I’m going to fly out there in September and shoot all that video. That’s going to be very exciting and again, lots going on but I’m excited. It’s good to be busy.
Howie: Real quick here, you’ve got to admit curling is pretty sweet though.
Mike: Curling…Okay, so I’m just going to put this out there. Every one of my athletes, well except for my one female soccer player, all of my athletes curl. Just, I’m throwing that out there because people think it’s just corrective, whatever, you got to curl. I get it. I mean, hell, I had one of my kids, he’s fifteen, he curled because he was going to the pool after he left the gym. We blasted the guns, sent him on his way, he was happy as could be.
Joel: Okay, Howie and I did have a protocol that we’re going to reveal for the first time on this show.
Joel: Okay. It’s, how many sets are we doing Howie? One or two sets, Howie?
Howie: It’s one set, every hour on the hour.
Joel: I wanted to do two sets. Howie said scale it back to one set. Every hour on the hour you do one set of ten to four pull-ups and ten to twelve curls. Every hour on the hour.
Howie: And push-ups, You forgot the push-ups.
Mike: Is that why you guys always look jacked? You guys always look jacked.
Joel: I’m not going to lie.
Howie: Wear smaller shirts. That’s the-
Joel: We may or we may not have stolen this workout from CT Fletcher If you don’t know who CT Fletcher is you may want to look him up. Because he may or may have not originated the all arms, all day training session.
Howie: It’s a must look up exercise for everybody.
Joel: Look up CT Fletcher, arms or –
Joel: Biceps. You’re going to get the training advice of your life if you want to get some big guns.
Mike: I’m going to call that up as soon as we get off here so.
Joel: Yeah. Trust me, it’s worth looking up. Anyway, just to wrap things up here Mike where can we people find this new product exactly?
Mike: Yep. Best place to go is bulletproofathlete.com I try to keep it as simple as possible so bulletproofathlete.com
Joel: And I just wanted to throw out there for anybody who does order the system within, oh let’s say the first five days, I’m going to give them a 20 percent off coupon to order HRV cause I do think it’ll compliment what you guys are doing and what the bullet proof athlete offers them so.
If they can just, I think if you send them out something that confirms the order you can get them a code to use to get a discount in the HRV system cause I think that’ll be a good combination for people that do order the order from you.
Mike: I love it man, we’ll definitely get that hooked up.
Joel: Yeah, so thanks again for meeting us on the show. I haven’t done a podcast in a couple of years but I thought it would be a nice change of pace from the videos. Our video guys is coming out here this weekend so we’ll have some more videos coming but it’s nice to just chat and shoot the shit for a while too.
Mike: Absolutely. I’ll be on for the bi-annual version of the eight weeks out podcast hopefully.
Joel: Next when are we coming in 2014, maybe 2015..
Mike: Perfect. You don’t want to give them too much of the good stuff, right?
Joel: No, exactly so. Anyway, you can stay tuned for that next podcast coming next year to 8weeksout.com. In the meantime, I know, Robertson you’ve got- Is your friends list on Facebook full now, are you completely filled up?
Mike: Well I got rid of all the friend that didn’t have like a Facebook profile picture.
Mike: So I think I’ve got like ten openings. But I reserve those for people I actually know in real life.
Joel: So if Howie ever gets a Facebook profile he’ll get a friend invite and you will actually accept it right?
Mike: I will absolutely. I’m still waiting on my Howie Clark official autographed bat. So once I get that, then the Facebook profile, then maybe we can talk.
Howie: The bat will happen, the Facebook will not happen. Ever. So, yeah.
Joel: Sooner or later I will convince him to do it but until that happens there is no Facebook for Howie, so. Anyway, thanks again for coming on and of course everyone knows they can find more of your stuff at just robertsontrainingsystems.com right?
Mike: Yep. Thanks for having me guys, I appreciate it.
Joel: No problem. Great talking to you and best of luck with Bulletproof Athlete, everything else and in next year too on the next podcast.
Mike: Sounds good, thanks guys. See ya.
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