Kim Fox, MSIC & former World Record holder (Part 1)

Welcome to the platform podcast where we talk to coaches, athletes, experts, and real people to learn about their approaches to training, nutrition, mindset, and much more. I am your host, Jordan Kundeerite, founder and head coach of the Twin Cities Kettlebell Club, and I'm on a mission to help others build sustainable healthy lifestyles. Before we jump into the episode, I want to remind you that registration is live for the Twin Cities Kettlebell Open on October 22nd in Little Canada, Minnesota, hosted by our friends at the Athlete Lab. And just as we did last year, we will be including an option for video submissions for participants who are unable to make the trip in person, and you'll be eligible for all of the same prizes as our in-person competitors. Just go to our website, Twin Cities Kettlebell Club dot com for details. This week, I am incredibly excited to be welcoming in Kim Fox, Master's Sport International Class World Record Holder, and just a absolute legend in the world of Kettlebell Sport. And not gonna lie, I had so much fun with this conversation. This is one of my favorite conversations I have had on this podcast, and that is no slight to anyone else that I've had on the podcast, but Kim and I talked for well over 90 minutes. And a bunch of stuff I cut out, and we just had a great time. My face hurt from laughing and smiling. It was just a joy to talk to her. So I really hope that comes through and you guys really enjoy it. Because it's such a long conversation, I am gonna break it into two parts. So this first part, we really get into a little bit about her background, but we try and keep that fairly light because most people know that part of her story, if you've heard her on any podcast. But we really nerd out on heart rate training as it applies to Kettlebell Sport. So I hope you really enjoy this conversation. If you do, I would very much appreciate it. If you would share it on social media, leave us a five star rating and review on Apple podcasts, tell a friend about it. Or, you know, of course, the best way you could support me is to register for the Twin Cities Kettlebell Open and come lift with us and maybe tell a friend or two. But I'm just glad that you're here. And if you want to step onto the platform and compete in Kettlebell Sport, please reach out to me. I help athletes of all levels reach their goals without wasting time using my integrated coaching approach. And if you're interested in coaching, fill out the coaching interest sheet linked in the show notes. Of course, you can follow me on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube at Twin Cities Kettlebell Club or email me at TwinsidysKettlebellClub at gmail.com. Now, without further ado, let's step onto the platform with the legend, Kettlebell Kim Fox. Right, welcome into this week's episode of the platform podcast. I am incredibly excited to welcome in my guest this week. She is a legend in the sport of Kettlebell Sport, particularly in the USA. So she really doesn't even introduce him, but I'm going to give her one anyways because she deserves it. This is Kim Fox. She is a master of sport international class. She is a coach. She is a first sergeant with the Kansas National Guard. And she is just a general badass woman. And I am incredibly honored to have her on Kim. Thank you so much for taking the time to come on the platform podcast. You are very welcome. So I got to start with the the obvious question that I ask almost everyone, which is, how the hell did you get into this craziness? Oh, my God. He will ask that question like all the time. I was actually going to ask you to not ask that question. Oh, well, we can skip it. I can go through real quick. No, I mean, everybody always asked me that question. I feel like it's like the main part of like every interview that I start. But we're already laughing a lot. So that's good. We can keep this part brief, but I want people to know that I haven't heard you on other. Basically, that show I was deployed to Iraq. I was trying to get into boxing. I started learning how to box there. I came home. I went to a Moitai gym where there was a boxing coach. The boxing coach there said, fuck you. I don't train girls. And so then I started doing Moitai. And that is where I met my husband. And so my husband was going through his excite. Sorry, what? Shout out to Jake. We gotta give Jake a shout out. So my husband was going through his exercise physiology degree. And I had started doing just some things with kettlebells, like just hardstyle swings, push presses, just like the standard. I really didn't know a ton about kettlebells at that point. I mean, like I understood the ballistics part of it. And so during that time period, he was going through his internship, which this will be the first time during interview I remembered his name, but Matt, it was the guy he interned with. He was doing kettlebell sport. And he saw that I was interested in kettlebells. And he was like, hey, like I see that you like this. Like, do you know that this is a sport. And I, of course, it's like absolutely not. I don't know that this is a sport because nobody knows that. So, you know, and I grew up playing sport. So I played softball soccer basketball. I was very competitive when I was younger. And like you probably know, when you get older, unless you just want to play like slow pitch softball or you got to get drunk. There really isn't a whole lot that you can go do as an older adult. That is competitive. I mean, I guess now there's like CrossFit, but CrossFit still wasn't huge. Really at that point, right? Well, this is like 2006. Okay. So it's just coming up. So it's like probably just coming on board at this time. But it still wasn't like huge. So yeah, so that's how I got started. And at the time he was a snatcher. And I saw Senya snatch or he showed me a video of her. And I was like, oh my gosh, she's so hot. Like, I was like, I want to look like her, you know, and so. I'm still trying to be like the silly is, but I don't think I think it's largely so. I don't know if you've seen me or seen me snatch, but I don't look anything like her. So I'm also not very fluid. I can't dance for to yeah, maybe the macarena like but I can't dance. And so snatched isn't does not come easy to me. And I'd be like a really good coach would have been like, mm-hmm. This is not for you. But I don't think that's true because I can say I've seen you I've seen you move in what you lack in fluidity. Your words not mine. You make up for in being what I would describe as, let's see, how do I put this strong as fuck. You are incredibly strong and incredibly powerful as well like explosively powerful. You move weight quickly in a way that very, very few women do and most men are jealous of. So, I mean, I think most coaches probably would have steered you the direction that you that you went down, which is long cycle and. But that's the thing is that originally I spent the first two years working on snatch before I ever got into long cycle. Now, I will say, so Ken Blackburn, I went to a seminar with him and our city who is now my coach. And during that seminar, I'm going to have to get a blanket because I'm already getting cold. Anyways, during that seminar, I'm in my basement. So, some of dogs don't bother me. But during that seminar, he would not certify me because basically he was like, dude, your jerk sucks. He didn't say that because he's very polite and very nice. But that's what definitely what I heard. And so he basically sent me how and he's like work on it. And so, I mean, I could potentially credit him to making my jerks so good. I mean, that's awesome. I mean, that's, you know, that is a credit, honestly, that is a credit to Ken because it would have just been easier to take your money, certify you and send you on your way as a happy customer, right? And just be like, oh, I got my certification. But that's not who he is, right? And you're a better lifter because of that. So, like, you know, it's a harder road and a longer road. But like kudos to him for having the credibility to be like, sorry, you're not up to snuff and you didn't meet the standard. So, I'm not going to certify you. You know, I gotta give him credit for that. He does there's some props for that. So, yeah, yeah. That's interesting. Okay, so that's the brief history of how you got into it. Now, your master sport international class and long cycle. And also, and also in jerk, I can't remember if you're old MSIC and jerk to, okay. You've crushed a bunch of world records. I think you're still the current world record holder in double 24 kilo long cycle for women, right? I am not. I am not. I was beat last year or not beat because I, well, I guess I did compete, but last year I did all three lifts at worlds. I did biathlon. So jerk snatch and long cycle which sucked. Oh my gosh. That's awesome. By the third day, I was just, I wanted to die. When it came time for me to do my long cycle set, I was just like, I don't want to do this at all. Yeah. The end is hard in triathlon. Like, that's the thing that I think that people don't, that if you've never done triathlon where it's where it's jerk snatch and then long cycle, like there are some places you can do it in whatever order you want. There are some events where it's long cycle. First, when you put long cycle at the end, you have already taxed your central nervous system to levels that most people will never touch. And then you put the most taxing engine requirement, like the conditioning requirement of long cycle is the hardest of the three lifts. And it's at the end. So unless you paste yourself on the other two lifts, like not uncommon to bonk. And even if you finish the time, a lot of times, your, your output is much lower than what you're expecting or used to. And even if you hit the output, you expect it isn't blocking kick in the teeth. Like there is no other way to put it. Like it is a kick in the teeth. Yeah, this is where I always feel like an asshole because I always forget people's names. This is why I usually have Jake here because Jake always remembers everybody's name, but being in the army, like everybody's name is on their shirt. And so I don't have to remember anybody's name. You just look down. And so Anyways, very nice girl. I think she beat my record last year by one. Fox two reps. We'll put it in the show. I still will look it up. I mean, I kept it for five years. I feel like that's pretty decent. I mean, you, you, you were a world record holder. It's not like you didn't do that. Somebody beat that happens. That's what world records are for. Right. Like that's, that's cool. Like good on them. No, I, I'm really glad she did. I mean, I'm glad she did it. I'm glad to know that there are women coming up behind me that are best in their asses and they're doing some shit. You know, and so I'm super happy for and she's very nice. So one time I'm kind of not be a dick and remember her name. Hopefully she doesn't listen to this, but, you know, I will tell you because once we figure it out. Yeah. And then, oh, yeah, great tagger. And then she'll be like, oh, yeah, for sure. You didn't remember my name. Anyways, so yeah, I'm really glad we just got those with names can, can identify. I want 100% identify like Yeah, it's, it's fine. It's not a big deal. It's all good. Anybody who knows would be like, oh, yeah, she didn't remember your name. She's like, I've been training at her gym for like five years. She prevents my name all the time. Like, see, it's not you. It's me. I know. I know when next time I see you in person, I'm going to put, I'm going to put a velcro. I'm going to put it right on it just just so that you know, honestly, I would severely appreciate that because it is a real problem. Now, I do still hold the world record for Biathlon. I'm the first woman to hit 200 points, even with my terrible, terrible snatch. Um, but I'm the first person, first woman to hit 200 points. Uh, having a, having a jerk more than one is, is useful for that right having the jerk be worth one is very, is very useful because you, you know, when you can jerk more reps than you can snatch. Um, the shame, the utter shame. You know when I switch. When I switched from long cycle to biathlon, so I had, I was having some real knee problems. Um, while I was doing long cycle. And, uh, you know, just because I'm getting older, I have Auschwitz slaughters in my knee because I was a catcher when I was, uh, when I was growing up through high school and younger. I was a catcher and, um, so I just have bad knees from squatting down for hours and hours. Yeah, so, um, yeah, so my one knee is like not great at all and my other knee is probably not great either. So, uh, you know, I had been training for, I've been doing kettlebell for like 10 years. And so, um, I did long cycle for about, uh, I'd say five. And, um, I just started having some seriously bad knee pain. Like, and it was just like the initial part of flexion that I would get the pain. I wouldn't really have pain on full squats. Just like, you know, like when you go to get underneath the bar and you have to flex your knees to get underneath the bar to squat. Um, that is the part, which is also like your initial part of the dip in jerk. Or when you're. Oh, man, it was bad. In fact, I went and had an MRI done thinking like, oh, man, I've got to have like a torn meniscus or something. And I went in there and they were like, look, lady, basically you're getting old. I hate to tell you this, but tissues degrade over time and you're moving this way on the time continuum. You could just not do that anymore. And I was like, yeah, no, that's silly. So I switched over to jerks to kind of like, just to relieve some of the multiple bends that you have during long cycle. And then, you know, originally my whole goal was like, I want to hit 200 points, which was very hard for me because I'm basically doing it all with jerks. So I can do my world record for jerks is 134. And the best I've done on snatch, which it snatches so up and down for me. And the best I've done, I did 160 reps for the kettlebell sport hangout competition, but that was snatch only. I just got these little hands like, I mean, first hall as I am, you would think I would have bigger hands, but I've got these carmy hands. I wear like a size six glove. It's so small. And that, and that limits that limits the ability to manipulate. So I taught, I taught with Kenya in Scotland. And I was super excited because I was like, oh, I got to get to actually like meet her and kind of get to see what she does, because I did when I first got into kettlebell, I really did really. I just still really love watching snatch because the fluidity of it. I'm pretty glad it, it's awesome. Like the people that are. Yeah, you're just. I could watch learn a climate snatch for days. Like it's just it's smooth and powerful. And yeah, I love, I love watching the greats like snatch and I am not that. So I mean, I do still really love that part of it. And so I sat through a snatch after I taught my, my session. And then I went and sat in on hers. And so we were kind of going around and then she had come and talked to me and I was like, kind of, I basically asked her like, you know, I was like, I wanted to see how big her hands were compared to mine. Now I have, I do really, I do have small hands. Like when I grab around kettlebell, my husband must be so happy. But when I grab around the kettlebell, my fingers barely touch. This is a good thing. This isn't on public television. That is one of my all time favorite comments. That aside. Oh, you know, anyway, so and she put her hands up to mine and dude, she could curl her fingers around the top of my fingers. And I was like, this is why I suck. One of the first things I remember, like one of the things are the first things I remember from meeting the Larry Feder ankle for the first time in person was when I went to shake his hand was that same kind of thing. Now I don't have small hands, but I have like what I call center block hands where they're like as there's why does they are long. You know, so like I got the the record Ralph hands. And he's got like meat hooks that are just like super and like I shook his hand and it like rat his fingers like wrapped all the way around my center block hands and like into my palm. Holy shit, like helping these guys hands. And there were also like there was like calluses that had their own names, you know, they were like, George George George and George. This is sort of gay. You know, like just like you could just tell the guy had like been lifting weights his entire life, but like I just I couldn't get over how long his fingers were and like just the grip he had. I was like, oh, this is why he is a world champion. Because well, you know, just like any for. Yeah, there are definite like advantages, you know, to anatomical benefits, you know, for the guys whose arms like lock out like slightly concave so they just get that perfect lock out which I don't. Yep. Long fingers, you know, in it proportion, like the length of your femur to I mean there's all just. Yeah, that's right. Because it's like, you know, like people on Instagram are like, oh my god, do you see that girl's ass and like cat about sport people are like, oh my god, she's got such long femurs. Oh my god, almost so long her elbows actually touch her hips. I'm so jealous. We're jealous of like the weirdest shit when it comes to when it comes to anatomy like, like, oh, they have such long legs and such high hip bones like, oh, that must be, that must be glory. You know, oh, look, she's got she's got. Some cartoonist needs to draw that. Oh, that's fantastic. I'm curious now when you know, you've been working with our city's earnacoff for for many years and and he's and he's really, really good at the application of heart rate specific training to kettlebell sport like that's a big part of his. Big part of his certification and his education process. I know that's a he's really big on that. Can you can you. So actually, we work together, we work together on lot on that. So when when I first started working with our city, our city is amazing at coming up with different protocols like his mind just for developing. So here's the things that when for kettlebell sport. You honestly could just do minute minute sets and then some longer sets and as long as you work and you continually making them harder. You could do that every day right or not every day, but you know, that could be your work out every time. But most people are pretty much everybody would get really bored with that, you know. So you have to create new ways to basically accomplish the exact same thing of, you know, elevating your heart rate so that you're developing more mitochondria and, you know, all this stuff, you know, to push your systems. So he is really great at that. Just to think outside the box to develop a new protocol. And then when we started working together, I was going through my master's degree for extra science. And I was kind of trying to do like a lot of research on heart rate programming and looking at growers and runners and how they were using heart rate training. To basically help balance out the high intensity endurance part or the high intensity part that they were building up to develop this additional mitochondria. But we don't just want to be sprinters because we're not sprinters, you know, it's still it's still an it's still an anaerobic. A lactic sport, but you have to have the ability of the aerobic system to flush things out because the duration is over 10 minutes. This is not a, this is not a 10 second sprint like where you can be completely a lactic week. We can't we have to we have to be able to process out lactic acid and really and really be able to to reconvert it back into energy. So like there's a. Correct. Yes. There's a really tricky balance there. And so, you know, the really great thing with working with Arsenie is that he is very willing to take in additional information adapted. And I guess I'm just trying he's not so like big headed that he's not willing to take input from his student and integrate that in to build something better, you know. Collaboration. Yeah, and so we started working with the heart rate training and and saw a lot of benefits from it. And you know, it's one of the reasons why I really love working with him is that I can, you know, talking with them about different things that I'm trying to do and actually discuss it out. It's not just like a one way. It doesn't just work one way with us. So, yeah. Yeah, he's not just dictating your program and you just follow it, you know, wrote and if you don't follow it, he's like, no, just follow the protocol. You give him feedback on what he's prescribed to you and you let him know what's working well for you. What's not what you're thinking what adjustments you're thinking about making to the program and how that might and how that might affect it and then you guys go back and forth. I think he figured out early on that I probably wasn't going to listen a whole lot was a gate piece to give me a ton of running and I absolutely hate running. It's, I mean, that's the devil's work for real. Do you like, do you like rocking? No, no, I don't like rocking either. I mean, I like, I think I like, I think I like it. And that if you don't like running as your cardio, you need to get into working because he said, rucking is so much more fun than running. You need to just get into rucking and I was like, okay, cool. Calling all kettlebell dringer, you honorable warriors and wielders of the steel. The time has come to raid. Join us and fight for honor, glory and the spoils of battle. Sign up today for the Twin Cities kettlebell open on October 22nd in person in little Canada, Minnesota or by video submission from anywhere in the world. Come fight for your clan or for glory all your own to be told in your saga. Claim your spoils and make your name ring out forever in the hall of champions. Sign up today at Twin Cities kettlebell club dot com. No, that's why I do kettlebell so I don't have to run. Like I have to run twice a year, you know, for the army. So I got to run twice a year. And literally that is all I run twice a year, which my members for running are pretty good considering that I don't run at all. Other than disregard this advice. Don't, yeah, disregard it. Don't, don't do it. I do. I actually, I prescribe, I prescribe my cardio as your choice. And I tell them the heart rate zones that they want that I want them to hit and I tell them the duration that I want them to hit. And I said it can be running, it can be rowing, it can be biking, it can be shadow boxing or dancing or whatever I don't care what them with the methodology as long as you hit the stimulus that we need right because I'm the same way like I I fucking hate running, I hate it with the passion, you know, I've always, I've always hated it. So like if you told me I had to run five times a week to be good at this sport, I'd be like, I'm going to go do strong banner powerlifting or something that is not a, not a requirement for me. So how do you get, so how do you guys tactically apply because here's here's the word this question comes from I can tell you like I've been, I've been experimenting with the heart rate specific training with kettlebell. And one of the things that's really hard is like you'll pick up two bells and put them in rack position and you'll already go past the target heart rate zones sometimes like how do you get, how do you guys accommodate like getting enough training time in the lower intensity zones to develop aerobic capacity before you go before you go a lactic and go in aerobic and like how do you, how do you work with that. If you're doing, we'll talk about heart rate specific training for kettlebell. So let's say, you know, the whole goal like you're, you know, your body's really just a machine and it repeats what you make it do. So if every time you go to pick up kettlebells, you're doing a high intensity set, it's going to jump automatically because you've, it knows the stimulus you're giving it automatically to that 171, you know, right. And which is why every time when you step into the platform, it's like boom, it steps right, you're like, I haven't even done anything yet, the bells are still on the ground, I just looked at them, I just looked at them, I'm in zone one. So, so the goal here is to retrain your heart to instead of pumping faster to achieve the goal that you want, which is getting more oxygen to your body to pump more fully right so a slower rate. So when we do heart rate training, we'll say this can be in various different methods, but I'll just do a general one. We'll say, if I'm competing with 24's, I might start with a 20 kilogram bell and I'm going to do 15, I'm going to set my timer for 15 minutes. And, you know, my goal, this is all based on what your happy heart rate is while you're competing. Okay, so usually I'm in the happy range about that 170 to 175. When I start getting over that 175 is when I'm starting to get pretty intense. Is that an anaerobic threshold for you or is that lactic threshold, like what is that for you from? That is about my lactic threshold is about that 175 range where I'm starting to build up where I'm building up lactate, but it's not so quickly that I can't still clear it or I'm clearing it. We're talking about how quickly can your body pre process lactic acid and convert it back to peruvic acid for use in the body that requires aerobic cycling and cycling, not like on a bike, but in within your mitochondria, we're going super nerdy. It's called the Krebs cycle if you want to Google it, but it's really it's really interesting and basically the if you're too high over your lactate threshold more lactic acid builds up than your body can process and then that's when you get the super heavy burn the throw up the I can't literally do another rep, etc. She's talking about like there is a there is a sweet spot where you're producing you're still producing lactic acid, but you're doing it at a rate where your body can still process it and reconvert it back to peruvic acid and actually use it. And that's a very smallish window, but you can make it bigger and that's kind of what she's what we're talking about here and you know, sorry, I'm just this this really excites me because I'm a nerd. So you know if you're talking about runners right so if you've got an ultra marathoner you know like their lactate threshold is going to be lower because they're going to want to keep it where they're in a state where the amount of lactate they produce is what they're recycling back in right. So we're talking about head of olifters you know we're not a marathoner but we're also not you know a sprinter so we're in this odd like 10 minute cycle where it's longer than a normal run would be. And so we want to get to where we're producing you know lactic acid. A little bit more than what we can clear, but enough that we're able to still regenerate that is energy so we can operate at the highest tempo possible for that you know basically. Yeah so you know basically once you hit that four to seven eight minutes time brain right it that time period in there is where i'm looking at I want to stay at that 170 mark. You know i'm i'm slowly starting to climb when i'm hitting one minute two minute three minutes four minutes i'm starting to hit 170 and then i'm kind of tapering off where i'm staying at 170 but maybe slowly slowly climbing like one beat them you know at a time up to that eight seven eight minute time frame. Starting to hit you know the 175 there and yeah and then continually getting to that and where i'm like okay i got this last little bit i got a sprint yeah okay so the the the heart rate programming. One you want to make sure that you're going to start out with obviously a lighter weight than what you would be doing for your competition weight so i'm doing 24 now the first time I do a heart rate set if i'm not if I if i'm just started doing them I might start with a 16 because I want to pick a weight that I can I can keep my competition pace or faster okay. Okay um for a couple minutes so when you're when I do this will say my first round will be at 20 kilograms and i'm working my heart rate up to 165 okay so I got a 15 minute timer set i'm supposed to be going we'll say for a long cycle i'm supposed to be going. Eight reps a minute with the 20s and so i'm going to do eight reps a minute until my heart rate hits 165 and then i'll put the bells down and rest until my heart rate hits 120 and i'm going to pick the bells back up again and go until I hit 165 again and so i'll do that for the whole 15 minutes and so the goal is to look at over time one that my initial round is starting to extend out where the first time I did this I maybe last. Two minutes now i'm lasting two and a half minutes and i'm lasting three minutes and then once I hit four minutes I know it's time for me to either in this case it would be up my pace or it would be time to up the weight. Increasing something in some in some fashion either through pacing or through the weight selection. And it's also a great time to kind of make a connection with. How your body reacts and your heart rate reacts to what you're doing right so this could be relaxing your face relaxing your next muscles. figuring out a different breathing pattern to help keep that heart rate low so you're not. stimulating your nervous system to get the heart rate to beat faster so there's all these like little things that tie into your heart rate. that i don't be like our mental but are kind of like a mental thing that that stimulate your heart rate to go faster i would say and i'm not maybe not mental but like some things that we're not necessarily aware of until you think about it like. Like when you see your heart rate get to 165 and you're like and you're like wait a minute you're in rack position i'm that you know i'm literally putting myself in rack position on the camera for for those of you. But like you know and then you're like wait a minute i'm clenching my jaw or i'm clenching my butt or i'm what like you're squeezing muscles that don't need to be squeezed my butt. Well i mean because i find myself like i will i will do right in rack position like you're like okay i got to get my hips forward something you squeeze your butt to roll your hips forward a little bit more. And you get that elbow connection then you're like wait okay now relax my butt my hips are where that i need them to be let's how can I relax my butt or you'll feel like. Oh my my low back is tight right now maybe because i'm leaning back too much or like all of these things that as you become a more experienced lifter you can you can kind of check in on these things but they're subconscious is wouldn't until you. Until you actually like do kind of like the head to toe check like am i clenching my jaw am i making stupid faces and my you know like all the do i have my shoulders shrugged or you know there's all sorts of shit that you go through as you get. You get more experience and you realize like i'm carrying tension in so many places i don't realize i am and all of those things affect heart rate and all of those things affect muscle fatigue and those are all those like those are all those things that you have to. Go to those deep waters of of discomfort to find and then find ways how to. relax while in the suck really i mean there's no other there's no kind way of putting it. No for sure and and that's where like when you take that next step into trying to just gain one rep you know. If you talk to lifters i've been lifting a long time they like i've been waiting like two years to break 80 you know and. Their body goes through these cycles where you know it's lagging because it's trying to get that that switch to switch over before it takes that net step forward and then all of a sudden you're like you go from 80 and then you're like oh shit I just got 84. I got 85 was that two years ago exactly what I was thinking like it's that that that jump that doesn't make any sense or somebody is like something click or whatever the body just like responds it. I have I went two years trying to break 80 two years and I kept getting the same numbers over and over I would get like you know I get 76 77 78 74 like I just kept I was like in my numbers and training we're going up. And i'm like how why why is this happening to me no so I was just like what did I do what did I do. You know you see your training numbers getting better and you're like how is this not correlating but if you think about what's really happening in your body. When you're trying to create this growth right you know you're when you're talking about. Having more endurance right what does that actually mean well more endurance means that you. created more mitochondria your body is becoming more efficient at converting energy and all that shit takes time yeah i was just I was just thinking like the thing that you can't see. Easily and tell you unless you're a data nerd like me and even even it's not easy I just I know that these things correlate like. You can't see that you hit 79 reps again but your heart rate was sick you know it was was true per minute lower and then you hit it again four months later you hit 79 again but your heart rate was another two beats per minute later so now it's four per you know now it's four beats per minute lower which is actually 10% right and you're like you don't see those efficiency metrics easily all you see as the competitors like. Mother I hit 79 again like that's that's all walk away from it but you're your body is getting more efficient more efficient more efficient and then suddenly all that efficiency translates to what should I hit 84. So and I talked about this before but what what drove this home to me is that so I had been competing you know doing long cycle and. They had asked me to come compete in Zenmark like right after I had just competed at worlds for Dennis at the Ikea world and it was like one month after the Ikea world. And i'm like shit well i'm just going to go there and do the exact same number I just did here because I didn't have any time to train for it to get better you know because I usually. Normally I try and compete every four months three to four months you know which is enough time to try and have some actual like systemic changes um and so I said well you know i'm just going to go to the same thing i'm like well what if I um. What if I go and I do a 28 kilogram set a 10 minute set you know that'll be kind of cool you know to watch right and he's like okay that sounds great and so for the next month I trained with. 28 or 2020 yeah 28 kilograms so I trained with 28 kilograms now obviously like. Somebody might say oh well it's just four more kilograms but that's a considerable amount more weight when your increase in love. So i went from doing at the time I think I was doing. Between six and seven reps a minute I was like in the 60 to 70 rep per minute range for a long cycle this is just many many years ago. And so for the next month I trained with the 28 and but I was only doing like four to five reps a minute. So I went and I competed in Denmark and I hit 40 reps I did the whole 10 minutes and I did 40 reps. Um and when I came home from that competition my numbers and long cycle for 24 were terrible my training numbers were terrible like I was like what the heck happened what's going on here. And basically what I had done was I had gone from training this you know endurance set these endurance sets are with my. My lactic threshold being very high to doing these really short explosive sets more like Olympic lifting would be and I had basically trained down my whole system in one month. Yeah, and it took me six months to recover from that yeah my dog's back and he said it so you go let him in if you need to that's cool i'm like where's your father at. That's a whole other podcast he's not barking yet so we're good I think he's looking for his brother can see just terrorizes him. So um but yeah that trained down my whole system and that for sure approved to me like the the internal function of you know like what we were training yeah. Yeah and and it's a valuable experiment and I can completely understand where it came from where it's like him going to go up by this much i'm going up by 20% so I need to cut my pacing like this is what I can sustain and you feel like well i'm getting stronger well yeah you're getting stronger at max strength. And at how are output but not endurance output at you know it's it's one of those like it's the multi-faceted nature of this sport and it's I can completely understand it it's a it's a simple it's a simple mistake to make but it's one of those you're like oh shit yeah of course like after you do it you're like. I don't fucked up and so when you know when people ask me they're they're like well which what pace should I train and i was like well whatever pace you're training at you always need to train. At your competition pace or higher it never no matter what the way it is so you should not be going up and wait in in a training set unless you're doing at least your competition pace. And that way you still keep that that high intensity that you achieve in your competition pace without having like I did with doing that super low you know four or five reps for a minute pace. And so I think that is predominantly the key when you're training that that the pace that you're trying to train no matter what the way it is i'll just challenge you a little bit on that and just on a nuance and you can you can you can tell me if i'm fucking up with my with my clients but one of the things that I will do is I will take people heavier and and lower pace but with the intention and so this is when we're when we're doing like technique work like we're doing. We're doing slow jerk we're doing slow long cycle we're working on positions where we're going to hold we're going to hold first dip for six seconds hold second dip for six seconds we're doing that at at higher look but then immediately following that we are going to competition weight and competition pace right or or or so or you know some competition weight above competition pace right like so that we're not we're not ingraining that that systemically from an energy system standpoint but there I think there is benefit to you know joint integrity chain. You know stabilization training strength training like in some of those in some of those fashions in small doses but not not writ large for the whole program. I think why you are not wrong is because you're welcome you says I just you're wrong. I think why you are not wrong is in the difference in and what you're talking about then to just doing a traditional slow pace is that when you're doing those slow. Like when you're doing a five second dip or a five second hold over top your body is intention that whole time so I don't know it quite equates to a traditional slow set where you're getting in as a relaxed state of pop as possible during the set and so. And also you're not doing that every training correct right you're doing that like once every two weeks once every three weeks and and it has a specific focus for for strength right and you're also probably not doing it for just for reps it's very slow but it's not you know like when I do those same type of sets. You know I'm doing eight or 10 reps in a set now it might take me a minute and half to do those eight or 10 reps and I'm still under a lot more tension than I would be in a traditional set. We are we're do I actually call those tempo lifts because we are doing time under tension training in the same way that when you do a four second down zero second in the in the hole and then four seconds on the way up squat. That is that is an intentional tempo manipulation to create specific adaptation in the squat movement as an example right like it is it is a tempo approach to to we have an intention behind it malice of four thought is what I always call it with my clients like I would say. None of your clients to include none of mine would be like or myself all up myself either would be like oh yeah that's way less work because when I get down with those my calls are completely finished yeah they're crying yeah so so I think that's where there's the variance of you know like what you're specifically trying to train versus what I was doing during that training set where I'm trying to focus I was trying to focus on you know doing these I was basically doing the same training I was doing before. But with this slower tempo yeah not like I would do like a 28 or 32 kilogram set now where I would do a five second overhead lockout you know or you know five seconds in the first step or five seconds the second step you know yeah I think those are integrally different than just a four or five rep permanent standards set where you're standard speed. Yeah for sure for sure I yeah I don't think you challenged me I think we probably agree on that. I was just making sure I was like I wanted to make sure I was you know I was adding context that I thought made sense so. You know Jordan you're doing a good job you're doing a great job. I try to give for I try to always accept the I accept the assumption that I am not right I'm like there is a possibility that I am wrong which that is personal growth for me which anybody that knew me in high school can tell you. That is large large personal growth for me. I want to thank you for tuning into this episode of the platform podcast we will be back with part two of the interview with Kim Fox next week. I hope that you enjoyed this episode and as always please be sure to leave us a five star reading interview and support my work by supporting my sponsors who's affiliate links you'll find in the episode notes. And if you have any questions or need help please reach out to me until next time.