The Primal Swoledier recently gave an interview to Onnit Chief Fitness Officer John Wolf (who also happens to be one of Leija’s earliest mentors) for our Onnit Stories series, where we talk to people on camera about how they changed their lives with Onnit’s help. See Leija’s interview below, along with an edited transcript of the highlights, time-stamped so you can find those moments in the video. You can stay up to date with Onnit Stories by following Onnit’s Instagram TV (IGTV).

Eric Leija Show Notes

3:45 – How Eric Got Onnit

My older brother [Juan Leija] was good friends with the former CEO of Onnit, Aubrey Marcus, going back 10 or 12 years now. We all trained MMA together in what we called El Garaje—Aubrey’s old garage gym. We would all go in there, beat each other up, and that’s where I first met Aubrey. He actually gave me a bloody nose. I was only 12 years old at the time, and he beat me up [laughs].

No, just kidding, I was in high school at the time, and I had it coming. I was like, “I’ll take this guy,” but then he gave me a bloody nose. Aubrey’s got reach! [Laughs]

We all connected originally through our mutual friend, Roger Huerta, who was a UFC fighter back in the day. He got us into all the unconventional training methods, like using kettlebells. We all gravitated toward the strength and conditioning that was a little bit more unconventional at the time, and maybe still is.

8:05 – On Being Internet Famous

I’m grateful for the attention and the eyes that I’ve been able to get. A lot of people say I’ve helped them get back into movement, back into working out, when they had previously gotten injured or just fell off the rails. They appreciate the content and the videos that I put out, and it motivates them to work out and get back in shape. When people recognize me on the streets and they tell me stuff like, “Oh, you helped me get through COVID; you helped me stay sane with your workouts,” it’s super humbling. I want to keep that up. I want to keep trying to inspire people while also being the best that I can be. The more I focus on myself, staying healthy, and doing good things, the more people see that and do similar things, and we all get better together.

At Onnit, we have such a huge platform. I try to make the most of it, because our community is amazing. One of my goals, personally, is to start traveling more and teaching more workshops and connecting with even more people. So, people out there, let me know where you want me to go!

10:35 – John and Eric Discuss Eric’s Early Days at Onnit

John Wolf: What some people may not realize about you is that you maintain humility. You’ve always been willing to help everybody at any time. You’ve never tried to act as if you’re above doing the hard work. I remember when I came to Onnit. I interviewed with Aubrey and he said, “All right, show us what you know.” So I started leading a kettlebell workout, and you were in it. You busted out set after set, and then you said, “I gotta go back and pack more kettlebells,” because at that time you were working in our warehouse. 

Eric: Yeah, dude. Aubrey was my friend back in the day, and when I graduated high school, I went to college but I needed help paying the bills. I asked Aubrey, “Is there any opportunity for me at Onnit?” He said, “Yeah. Come work in the warehouse. We need your help. We need your muscles.”

So, I started off in the warehouse, taping up boxes and sending off kettlebells to people. I’m grateful for that opportunity because it’s led to all this. Now I’m all about trying to make sure that I keep giving back. I feel like, in general, that’s how life should be—you should always give more than you’re receiving. Eventually, the tides will turn and you’ll end up getting things that you never even dreamed of to come your way. I always try to say yes to opportunities and do what I can to help, and I’ve found that it always comes back to me when I do.

17:10 – How Onnit Certs Helped

The most important phase of my life was all those weekends I spent learning from you, John, at the Onnit certs we put on. For a while, it felt like we were doing a certification or a workshop every other weekend, and it was awesome. I got to see movement practiced from different perspectives, and I expanded my knowledge on training and so many other things. To this day, I’m still incorporating those things that I learned, and expanding on them. The goal going forward, especially after the pandemic, is to continue teaching my own workshops, but also get more education. For me, the most enriching part of being a trainer is connecting with other coaches and also regular Joes who just want to learn how to move. We learn so much from each other because everybody’s got their own way of looking at things.

Through my role as a coach, I’ve gotten to connect with leaders in our industry—people like Dr. Mark Cheng, the FRC crew [Functional Range Conditioning certification], and Dr. Andreo Spina. Ken Blackburn put me through my first kettlebell certification, the IKFF one. I took Dr. John Rusin’s PPSC course. Then, of course, you, John, and Shane Heins [Onnit’s Director of Community Engagement], have been huge influences. Without you guys, I wouldn’t be here. You showed me the way. I’m so grateful to have met you, trained with you, and had you both as mentors. 

Before you guys, I used to be scared to ask for help. I had the fake-it-till-you-make-it attitude. But when I heard you and Shane speak at these certifications, you’d say, “Empty your cup, so you can fill it and have more to share.” That made me not afraid to ask questions and get help. All fitness coaches should combine forces and work together. Apart from all the movement skills I learned at the certs, the underlying message was always to be open and non-dogmatic in your thinking. 

24:47 – How Primal Swoledier Eats

Right now I eat a lot of white rice. I’ve been training really hard and I make this garlic rice to help me recover—it’s so delicious. For protein, I eat a lot of chicken, steak, and fish. I try not to eat a lot of processed carbs. I’ll eat white rice, especially post-workout, and then tons of veggies. Every now and then I’ll have a cheeseburger if I’m in New York City and I’m like, “You know what? I’m just going to eat this burger or eat this pizza.” But, 90% of the time, I like to do home-cooked meals.

30:55 – Eric’s Favorite Unconventional Equipment

Definitely the kettlebell. OK, also the slush ropes [a hybrid jump rope and battle rope that can be used in flows to work mobility and conditioning]. They’re fun, man. I’m connecting with AJ Londono, who’s @flowwithaj on Instagram, to learn more about slush ropes. He’s coming with me to New York this weekend to help me coach a workout at the Adidas store. We’re also going to be in the Dominican Republic in September, teaching people how to rope flow. We’re going to have some fun out there in the DR.

34:05 – Erics’s Favorite Supplements

It’s a toss up between the Total Nitric Oxide^® and Shroom Tech^® SPORT. I can really feel my endurance when I take Shroom Tech SPORT and I ride my bike around the neighborhood, or when I’m doing boxing on the punching bag. When I don’t take it, I feel like I’m moving through cement. So I take four capsules in the morning before I do my cardio. And I like to take the nitric oxide before my weight training, because it gives me some sick pumps, and I like looking vascular when I’m working out [laughs]. I also love Onnit’s protein powders—the grass-fed whey is super high quality. The new Protein Bites too. The Cookies N’ Cream flavor… the white coating around the chocolate is delicious. I didn’t know I needed that in my life until now. 

38:25 – Bike Recommendations

I’m not a bike expert. I just got into riding about a year ago and I have a gravel bike—but I don’t even know what that means. It was a gift, and I ended up getting another one for my mother recently. A gravel bike can be a little bit pricier than a road bike because it’s supposed to be able to go onto the road and on the trails. I got my mom the gravel bike because I want to take her on the trails with me. She’s pushing 56, and I’m trying to get her back in the gym, but also riding with me. She says that riding a bicycle for her is a little bit more fun than picking up kettlebells. She likes to ride around at sunset and we’ve been trying to hit it at least two or three times a week in the evenings.

40:30 – The Last Movie Eric Liked

Cyrano. It has the guy who plays Tyrion Lannister on Game of Thrones in it [Peter Dinklage]. It was so good. I hadn’t read that story before, so it caught me by surprise how good it was.

42:00 – Does Eric Take Caffeine?

I love caffeine. But I go through phases. I’ll go really hard taking it for a few weeks and then I’m like, “OK, I’m starting to burn out a little bit. I’m consuming way too much caffeine. Let me take a little bit of a break.” I’ll take a week or two off from it to let my adrenals reset. Then I’ll do only Shroom Tech SPORT, since it doesn’t have a lot of caffeine, but it still helps me get that energy that I need. I hate having to drinking 1,000 milligrams or more of caffeine just to feel something. You got to cut back and try to take it easy when it gets to that point.

I make sure to stop taking caffeine no later than two o’clock. Before bed, I’ll take some New MOOD^® or some magnesium. That always helps me unwind and relax before bed, and it gives me some cool dreams too.

44:00 – How Eric Does Kettlebell Flows

When I was starting out, I was just having fun and putting together movements that felt natural. I’m really into superheroes and comic books, so I was like, “Oh it would look so cool, and I bet it would feel badass, if I did this with the kettlebell, and then landed in a kneeling position, and then cleaned it over here, and then snatched it.” I was just trying to be creative like that. Now I’ve nailed down the movements that I like, but I want to add more to the arsenal and expand it. And so that’s where I’m at right now—I’m trying to be even more creative again and step it up.

46:15 – His Workout Playlist

You don’t want to listen to what I’m listening to [laughs]. I have a whole lot of Taylor Swift, Selena Gomez. No, I’m just kidding. Honestly, my friends send me playlists. I listen to my friends’ playlist because I’m so bad at creating my own. If I make one, I’ll listen to the same stuff for years. That’s why I just ask my friends, “Hey, send me the dope stuff you’re listening to now.” Go look at @flowwithaj. Just go through his reels and look at all his tracks. 

47:35 – Surviving COVID-19

It was rough. If you’re coming back from COVID, I would suggest not worrying about working out. Make sure you’re eating, drinking plenty of fluids. I’m no doctor, but you don’t want to stress your body out more than it’s already being stressed out when it’s sick. So talk to your doctor and see when it’s OK to start working out again. I listened to my doctor and she said, “If you can breathe, if you’re not coughing, then it’s OK to start doing some body weight movements and just make sure you’re not pushing yourself too hard, too fast.” 

50:10 – Kettlebell Weight Recommendations

John: We have a viewer who asks, “I’m 5’6″ and weigh 150 pounds. What size kettlebell should I use?”

Eric: For most males I recommend starting off with a 12 kilogram bell, which is about 25 pounds. That’s pretty standard. The 16kg can get heavy with overhead pressing, but you may want to get a 12 and a 16kg, because eventually you want to be able to do some swings with a heavier weight.

52:10 – What He Eats On Cheat Days

There’s no crappy food, in my opinion. It’s all amazing and delicious [laughs]. But if I cave in, I’ll order an Italian sandwich with tons of cheese. I’ll get three different cheeses, all the meats, and just eat that all day—this huge sandwich. I love sandwiches and burgers and pizzas.

Oh, man, there’s this pizza that I had recently in New York. It was a tie-dye pizza at this place called Ruby Rosa. It’s New York style pizza, thin crust, but it had three different sauces. And I added pepperonis, which apparently you’re not supposed to do, but I love pepperoni, so I don’t care. It had pesto, vodka sauce, and tomato sauce. Oh, dude, it was amazing. Best pizza I ever had.

But I don’t really have cheat days. I feel like having a cheat day makes me look at food as punishment, or a reward, when it should just be looked at as nutrition. Healthy foods can taste good, so when I cook at home, I try to make things taste good. A cheat meal for me is not necessarily something that’s fast food. When I cheat, I’m usually just indulging in a little bit extra of what I’d normally have. I’ll have an extra helping of some rib eye with some avocado. Just eating more than I usually would is like a cheat for me. I still try to make sure I’m eating high quality foods.

You pay a price for eating processed foods like junk food, fast food, and drinking alcohol… I feel like crap for a long time afterward. Especially as I as get older. When I was 21, 22, 23, I could eat whatever I wanted and feel fine. Now, I’m like, “Whoa, this is what the older guys were talking about. This sucks.” So be more mindful of what you eat, but you also have to level up your cooking game. There’s this funny reel that I shared the other day of this big Mexican guy cooking some fish. The narrator says, “Marry somebody who can cook, because beauty fades, but hunger doesn’t.” [Laughs]

56:10 – How He Trained Before Kettlebells

I grew up doing barbell training and dumbbells, but it wasn’t until I started using kettlebells that I really learned the proper mechanics of how to move. Kettlebells allowed me to condition my body using lighter weights. Then, when I went back to training with barbells, I was stronger than ever. Now, I like to combine both kinds of training so that I can keep maximizing my gains in all areas—mobility, strength, and conditioning. That comes from using all the tools at your disposal.

57:30 – Does Eric Ever Get Off Track with His Training?

I used to when I would train solo. But now that I’ve created a training group where we hold each other accountable, it’s a lot harder to fall off track. You have to find a team and surround yourself with them, even if it’s virtually. Connecting with people online can be just as powerful. You can check in with each other on Facebook and support each other [Editor’s note: the Onnit Tribe exists for this reason]. Check in, like, “I did the workout today. How did you do? How was it? How’d you feel?” It’s so much easier to stay on track when your peers are also there with you because you’re like, “Damn, I can’t give up because I’ll let down my team.”

59:10 – How You Can Train with Eric In Person

Stay tuned to my social media channels. I’ll be pumping out events that I have coming up. I’m currently planning workshops for the rest of the year, and you’re totally welcome to come to any one of them. You can also come and work out with me and we can hang after and have a Q&A. Sign up for my email list [at ericleija.com].

1:00:50 – One Training Tip for Everybody

Keep showing up. Even if you’re not feeling it, just show up. Obviously, if you’re hurting, don’t injure yourself further, but show up and be consistent with your training, because you’re not always going to feel motivated. You’re not always going to have all this energy to crush it, and you don’t need to. You can go hard some days, and focus on mobility other days, but do something. That’ll keep you on track.

When I used to think, “Go hard every single day,” I used to get hurt a lot. I used to burn myself out. Now that I’ve balanced it out, I’ll go hard some days and then I’ll do an active recovery day where I just go cycle around the neighborhood. As long as you’re doing a little something every day, that’s enough.

See our profile on Eric Leija, chronicling how he went from a chubby kid to the beast he is today.

The post “Give More Than You Receive”: Eric Leija’s Onnit Story appeared first on Onnit Academy.

Wren sat down with Shane Heins, Onnit’s Director of Education, to discuss his humanitarian efforts, struggle with substance abuse, and return to the MMA ring in this edition of Onnit Stories—an ongoing series of live interviews with people who have made inspiring life changes with Onnit’s support. See the video of Wren’s interview below, along with an edited transcript of the highlights, time-stamped so you can find those moments in the video, and stay up to date with Onnit Stories by following Onnit’s Instagram TV (IGTV), where a new one appears every other week. 

Justin Wren Show Notes

4:10 – The Big Pygmy

The first time I’d heard of Onnit was when I tried Alpha BRAIN^® on Joe Rogan’s podcast. I felt the effects right away while I was on the show. Then I went to live in Congo for a year, and Onnit sent me a care package, and it had so much good stuff in it. I think that was probably 2014. I was so nutrient-deprived from living in the rainforest—the dirt was my bed; the fire was my blanket—and Onnit helped get me through it. I lived in a four or five-foot tall hut made of twigs and leaves, and I’m 6’3”.

My name on Instagram, “The Big Pygmy,” comes from my second family—the Congo tribe that adopted me. The name they gave me is Efeosa Mbuti MangBO. The first part, Efeosa, translates to “The man who loves us,” which I cherish. The rest of it, which won’t make sense in their language without the emphasized “BO,” means, “The big Pygmy.”

Last September, I was brought on to the Onnit Pro Team, and I love being a part of it with Juan Leija, Eric Leija, and Coach John Wolf. I always have to surround myself with the best. The missing link in my MMA training was always my strength and conditioning, but now that Onnit is supporting that, I feel ready to make a comeback to MMA this year. I need to be totally optimized to get in there, and a lot of times, strength and conditioning coaches see a fighter and they think they’ve got to beat this guy down with workouts so that he can withstand the stress of a fight. But that can lead to injuries. Poor technique, high load volume, and everything else is a bad idea when I’m already beating myself down with wrestling and jiu-jitsu and boxing. I need to build myself back up. Until I got into Onnit Gym, I didn’t have that watchful eye. 

8:45 – On Alpha BRAIN^®

Joe Rogan has said he thinks Alpha BRAIN^® helps you get into that flow of conversation faster, and I think it helps you stay there longer. I think it’s a pretty good hack for him and his guests. When I take it, I’m more engaged in any podcasts or conversation I’m in. I think it’s a no-brainer to take Alpha BRAIN^® before you go into a podcast. When I started my own show, it became part of my routine, my regimen.

11:25 – Facing his Demons with Onnit

There’s a Swahili proverb that the Pygmy people taught me that I think sums up the Onnit community well. “If you want to go fast, go alone. But if you want to go far, go together.” I’m a pro athlete, and I’ve done that for 15 years, but I get just as much if not more out of training with regular people in the so-called regular classes that Onnit offers in their gym, because they give to me, and I’m able to give to them. It’s a reciprocal thing that means a lot to me. And looking at what we’ve gone through the last couple of years, it’s like, man, we need each other. We all need a community.

I moved here to Austin in November of 2020. I partnered with Onnit a year later, and shortly after that, I needed to go to treatment for substance abuse. I had a big relapse. I’m a founder of a nonprofit, and I was worried that I would lose it. I was worried I’d lose the partnership with Onnit. But I was so encouraged when I realized I could go to the regular classes at Onnit and tell my coaches what was happening. Here I was, a few months into a business relationship with Onnit, and I was telling them about a serious personal problem. I was like, “Oh, man, this is not a good look,” but I came in and I was just loved. I was told, “We’re behind you, man. And if we were only behind you as an athlete, then we’re in the wrong business.” That’s what [Chief Fitness Officer] John Wolf told me, as well as the Chief Marketing Officer, and other company leaders. 

They all said, “Go get what you need. Take some time, and come back better than ever.” When Onnit says Total Human Optimization, they mean it. They didn’t just want me as a fighter or a podcaster. They wanted me as a complete human. What was a dark time became a shining bright light, and it showed me how this amazing community operates. Onnit wasn’t behind me because of what I do, but because of who I am—and who they are. 

20:50 – Fighting Against People… and For Them

I got into MMA because I grew up getting incredibly, heavily bullied. When I saw mixed martial arts, the first thing I thought was, “These guys don’t get bullied.” Secondly, I loved the human chess match of it. I love the strategy. So I started pursuing MMA at 15 years old.

I started with wrestling, but I wasn’t very good. I lost every match my first year but one. The match I won, I won because the guy basically slipped and I fell on top of him and I beat him by one point. But I had two of the greatest coaches of all time—two Olympic gold medalists—and I eventually won a national championship in high school. I didn’t drink until after I won that title, and then, right away, I could see that I had addictive tendencies.

When you win the national championship trophy, it’s a big cup, and what do you do with a cup? You drink out of it. We started passing that thing around. It was my first time ever drinking, and I think I had about 15 shots. But I went on to be a Greco-Roman wrestling national champion, and then I went to the Olympic training center. Out of there, I got recruited by Iowa State University. Then, the UFC was interested in me, because I was going around helping their fighters with their wrestling.

For my first fight, I was a last-minute replacement for a guy who had gotten a staph infection and couldn’t fight. I took the fight on one day’s notice. I jumped in, threw the guy, and finished the fight. My third fight, I actually started in the audience, watching the fights. I was wearing dress shoes, jeans, and a button-down shirt. A fighter didn’t show up, and they needed a heavyweight to fill in for him. The promoter came out and apologized to the fans. He said, “If there’s anyone here who happens to be a pro fighter, a heavyweight, and wants to… let’s do it.” I was 19, had a fake ID, and was chugging my third beer, so I stood up and raised my hand. I ended up being the co-main event. I had to borrow another fighter’s sweaty jockstrap.

But fighting didn’t necessarily do it for me. I was excited to challenge myself in that way, but what I discovered was that I was fighting against people, and I really wanted to be fighting for people. I wanted to have purpose. So, I found my way to the Congo, living with the Pygmy people. I was 23 years old and had only focused on me, and I started to change that.

The Pygmies have a water crisis, which I didn’t even know about, and it was killing people. I held a baby’s hand when he took his last breath. I thought, “What is going on in the world?” It would have cost one dollar for the pills needed to cure that baby, but the local hospital had denied him treatment. They told his mom, “You’re too dirty to come in here. We won’t waste our medicine on a Pygmy animal.” My heart was crushed.

At one point, the chief pulled me aside and said, “Everyone else calls us the Forest People, but we call ourselves The Forgotten.” That’s where the name for my nonprofit, Fight for the Forgotten, comes from. We’ve had more than 10,000 donors from all 50 states and 60 different countries. Joe Rogan, Aubrey Marcus [co-founder of Onnit], and Onnit have been huge advocates for us.

At first, I thought it was going to be like emptying the ocean with an eyedropper. Would anybody ever notice the impact we’re trying to make? But that’s turned into 80 water wells serving over 30,000 people over 3,000 acres of land. We’ve built 28 homes for people that were kicked out of the rainforest. Now we’re building a health center there, and a school. 

I recently had a call with Bellator MMA, and I’m making a comeback to fighting. I hope that helps me rally some support around these projects.

43:40 – How You Can Help Your Community

You are more capable than you know. We limit ourselves. I thought I could never do anything for these Africans; their problems seemed insurmountable. But now we’re making a dent, and it’s well worth it. For the human heart to come alive, you need an adventure to live in and a battle to fight. Just start small.

I’ll give you another Swahili proverb: “If you think you’re too small to make a difference, try to sleep in a closed room with a mosquito.” It’s a little tongue in cheek, but I’ll admit that I’ve gotten my ass kicked worse than anything by a mosquito that weighed less than a gram. I got bitten and it made me sick. A mosquito made me lose 33 pounds in five days. I was vomiting red and green, blood and bile. So if a mosquito can make that much of a difference in my life, how much difference can anyone listening to this make in the lives of others, right?

If I’ve learned anything, it’s that you can’t do everything you want for everyone, but you can do everything for one person. You can make a meaningful impact on someone’s life by doing something small.

I saw a homeless guy one time, and everybody was walking across the street to get away from him. I walked right up to him, and even though I didn’t have any money on me, I said, “What do you need?” He said, “I need a hug.” I said, “I got you a hug.” I hugged him and he cried on my shoulder. I looked into his eyes and said, “I see you, man.” It doesn’t take as much effort as people think.

I started small. I started volunteering at the Denver children’s hospital before I ever thought about Fight for the Forgotten. I volunteered for the oncology unit, and then, all of a sudden, Rashad Evans was there, and Brendan Schaub, and Justin Gaethje, and Duane “Bang” Ludwig came in. We were all visiting these kids and playing video games with them, and sometimes holding their hands before they went into surgery. That’s where it started for me. After that, I was looking to make a difference anywhere I could—head on a swivel. What can I do next? Who can I help?

The more you help others, the more it helps you. That’s not my main motivation, but what I’ve learned through recovery is that, when all else fails, when the meditation isn’t working, or exercise isn’t working, or whatever you’re trying to do to feel better isn’t working, help somebody. When you get outside of yourself and help somebody else, you start to reconnect with a purpose.

49:50 – What Justin Got Back from the Pygmies

I told them so many times that I’m so grateful for them saving my life. I’ve learned so much from them about how to love, how to spend time with people. They like to say, “You Westerners, you have all the watches, but we’re the ones with the time.” They taught me how to value time. They remind you to slow down and enjoy things. Slow down and be here.

I’m not fluent in their language, but I know the language of the heart. You can tune into that without speaking someone’s language, and you will be in tears laughing, cheeks hurting from smiling so much. Some of the best nights of my life were spent drenched in my own sweat from laughing and dancing with these people. ​​I think it was Seneca, the Stoic philosopher, that said, “Life is long, if you know how to use it.”

The post “Total Humanitarian Optimization”: Justin Wren’s Onnit Story appeared first on Onnit Academy.

Waterson met with Onnit’s Director of Fitness Education, Shane Heins, for this week’s Onnit Story—part of our ongoing series of live interviews with people who have made inspiring life changes with Onnit in their corner. Watch the interview below, or see the edited transcript of the highlights, time-stamped so you can find these moments in the video.

You can stay up to date with Onnit Stories by following Onnit’s Instagram TV (IGTV), where a new one appears every other week. 

Michelle Waterson Onnit Story Show Notes

6:15 – Onnit and Michelle: The match is made

Michelle Waterson: “Onnit has been my longest standing sponsor. It’s become family to me. Aubrey [Marcus, founder of Onnit] decided to sponsor me before I had really become anything. It was 2011, and I had just had my daughter and was looking for support. I went out to see Onnit’s headquarters, and I felt like it was Disneyland for adults who want to optimize their humanness, their health, in every way.

“So Aubrey and Onnit have been with me the whole way. I went on to become the 105-pound champ in Invicta, an all-female MMA organization, and then I signed with the UFC, and I’ve been there for eight years now.”

9:30 – The time having Onnit in her corner helped the most

“Onnit had my back when I won the Invicta belt, and Onnit had my back when I lost the belt. It’s nerve-racking to have sponsors when you’re an athlete, because when you lose, you never know if they’re still going to support you. Some companies just want to ride with you when you’re high, but Onnit was willing to stay with me when I was low.

“Aubrey brought me out to Onnit and we made a cool video about what it’s like to lose something—to have that fire in your belly, to keep pushing forward, and to know that your goal isn’t lost just because the fight was. We tried to show that losing should drive you forward to be even more passionate about what you’re trying to achieve.”

12:15 – On being a lover and a fighter

“As a fighter, I sign on the dotted line and then try to inflict as much damage on the other person as possible. I want to make you give up. That’s my career, but anybody who knows me knows that I’m a very compassionate, loving person. For a long time, I really struggled with owning the idea that I was a fighter.

“Then I talked to Aubrey, and he was like, ‘Fighting is your job. You might feel like you have to shy away from the aggression because you’re a good person, but this is what you and your opponent decided to do. It’s a mutual understanding. So if you don’t go in there and try your best to take your opponent out, you are doing yourself and your opponent a disservice.’

“The way Aubrey explained it, it really stuck with me. At the end of the day, mixed martial arts is still a kind of art. If I hold back from trying to create beautiful violence, then I’m doing everybody who’s watching me an injustice. So I owe it to my opponent to bring it!

“And after every fight you always walk away a better person. A smarter person. When the fight’s over, you’ve given that person a part of yourself and you’ve also taken a part of them, and made it a part of who you are. So there has to be mutual respect.”

15:15 – Michelle’s most memorable fight

“I had a fight with one girl whose claim to fame—her superpower—was never, ever giving up. She had never been submitted or finished in over 30 fights. So it was my goal to be the first one to finish her. I got on top of her and I was ground and pounding her, and she wasn’t protecting herself, so the ref stopped the fight. When it was over, I picked her up from the ground and she looked at me and she hugged me. And when she hugged me, she buried her face in my chest, and I could feel her trembling like she was crying, almost as if she was embarrassed. But she chose me to be the one to comfort her.

“I was the one that caused her that pain, but I was also the one that was there to console her. We weren’t fighting anymore, and I was just there because I understood the pain of loss. So I was there for her, to cover her tears so that nobody else could see, to keep that between the two of us. It was a very intimate moment and something that I will never forget.”

21:20 – Balancing being an athlete and a mother

“I try to explain it like this: You’re on a plane and the flight attendant tells you, ‘In case of emergency, these masks will drop down. Put the mask over your face first before you help your children.’ There’s no way you can help your child if you’re not taking care of yourself first. 

“When I first had my daughter, I didn’t have a desire to do anything else but be with her. I wanted to just stare into her eyes, watch her sleep, make sure that she was breathing, and enjoy this little bundle that came out of me. But as time went on, I started to feel that fire in my heart again, and I wanted to continue to compete. Incorporate your family into what you’re doing, and let them know what your dreams and goals are. I let my daughter know that being a champion is my goal, and she understands that in order to reach it, sacrifices have to be made.

“I was gone the last four months filming a movie. It’s the longest I’ve ever been away from my family, but they understood that that was something that would help my career. I don’t think that your children will fully understand what goals are until you show them the sacrifices that are made for them. I think it’s our job as parents to show them what it is to be accountable. One of the ways that I know how to do that is through sports. They let you see what it is that you have to do in order to accomplish a goal.

“You have to put in time, work, effort. You can’t just want it. That’s what I always tell my daughter. Of course, we all want to be a superstar. Of course, you want to be a gold-medal Olympian. Of course, I want to win the UFC belt. But how am I going to get it? My daughter’s been doing gymnastics for four years now. She’s struggling, and she’s seeing the other girls get on the podium, and she’s not understanding why she hasn’t been able to. I said, ‘We have to put in the time. Put in the work. It’s not just the time that you go to gymnastics. It’s what you do on top of that. It’s the extra effort that you put in.’

“Outside of her gymnastics, we’re doing fun stuff that is still geared toward her goals. It’s silly things like, ‘Once you get 100 pullups, we’ll go to your favorite restaurant.’ I come up with fun challenges, but the results from doing them compounds over time. We have this huge calendar in our house where we’ve written down all our own individual goals as well as family goals. When you get your family involved, it’s not such a huge shock to anybody when a member of the family has to make sacrifices. We all understand why you’re sacrificing.”

26:40 – Shane and Michelle talk about how to make family understand your goals

Shane Heins: “I’ve heard people say their family makes them feel supported when they’re chasing their goals, and I’ve heard people say that their family makes them feel more alone. People are sometimes uncertain about whether they can share what they want to do, because they’re worried it might change the family dynamic.”

Michelle says: “I think people are scared of change. One of the things that allows you to be comfortable with your family, or in your relationship, is routine. So, when you’re trying to shake things up, it can make other people around you uncomfortable. They’re like, ‘Whoa! Wait, are you going to change on me? Is this going to make you want to do different things? Because that’s not what I signed up for.’

“I can talk to my husband and I can talk to my daughter, but it’s ultimately up to them to decide what they want to do in their lives. I always encourage change and growth and evolution. It’s important to want to grow, and I think that a relationship will begin to have troubles if you just try to keep it the same. You should want to grow with each other. [My husband] Josh and I have been together for almost 13 years, but we’re not the same people that we were when we first met. I think the best way to grow is to work on yourself and allow the people around you to see the positive impact that it’s had on you. When they are ready, share it with them.”

32:00 – Michelle’s advice for setting goals

“When you set a goal, you want to create habits that help you chip away at it. You take it one step at a time, versus trying to scale a mountain in one bound. And you have to cut yourself some slack when you fall short. If you forget to do what you said you were going to do for one day, you don’t give up on it altogether. I always give myself one day to mess up. If I create a goal to run every other day and I skip one of those days, I tell myself, “All right, just don’t skip another day.” If you miss more than that, you have to start the habit over again.

36:45 – Does Michelle let her daughter watch her fights?

“She’s been to pretty much all of my fights. People always ask me, ‘Why do you take her? Isn’t that scary?’ But I’m like, ‘Why?’ She needs to see the good, the bad, the ugly. Seeing me fight is actually the reward. She gets to deal with cranky Mom who’s dieting and working out four times a day and still has to cook dinner for months, so she should be able to see Mom in action. Then she can see what all that hard work was for. 

“When my daughter was really young, she saw me get really, really hurt. I lost my belt. My eye was swollen shut, and she just kept staring at me. I was crying, so she was crying. She was touching my face, and I could see she was thinking, ‘Is this going to stay on, Mommy?’

“It was weird, because I had just lost, so I wanted to be selfish. I wanted to be pissed. I wanted to just crawl into a corner and cry. But mommy duties never end, and I realized that it was a really good teaching moment. Through my tears, I said, ‘Mommy’s OK. My eye doesn’t hurt as much as my heart hurts. I’m just sad because I lost.’ And then she understood.

“It was funny because she knows the movie Wreck-It Ralph, and [the character] Fix-It Felix. Felix has that hammer that he just hits things with and it fixes them. My daughter said, ‘We could go get Fix-It Felix’s hammer,’ and hammer my face to make it better. I mean, it made me smile, and it just kind of put things into perspective. Every time I try to give my daughter a teaching moment, I end up learning something for myself. I realized then, ‘It’s not the end of the world. You lost your belt, but look what you have in your hands right now.’”

41:25 – Michelle’s favorite Onnit supplements

“I love Alpha BRAIN ^®, especially the little Instant packets you can take to go. I have them in my car, in my purse. They’re all over so that if I need them at any point in time, they’re there. Also, if I see somebody else who needs it, I’ll say, ‘Here, take some of this. You’ll thank me later.’

“I train four times a day, so I need to focus all those times. I’ll have coffee in the morning, but I don’t want to have coffee at three or four in the afternoon. So Alpha BRAIN ^® comes in handy for helping me focus without caffeine.

“I also like New MOOD^®, and I give that away to people like crazy. I have nurse friends that have trouble sleeping because their sleep schedules are so off, and I’m like, ‘Take some New MOOD^® before you go to sleep.’ Everybody that I’ve given it to swears by it. For me, it’s really helpful because when you get into fight camp, your mind is just going nonstop. New MOOD^® helps me relax and not think about anything and get a restful night’s sleep.”

45:10 – Michelle’s favorite training equipment

“I love kettlebells. I think they’re just so versatile. You can have a single kettlebell and get a complete full-body workout with it. I also like the sandbag, because sandbags are more realistic when you’re trying to simulate carrying another person’s body in your training. Lifting a body isn’t like lifting a bar or a ball. Bodies move, and the sandbag kind of mimics that movement. You can travel with a sandbag—empty it out, pack it up in your suitcase, get to wherever you’re going, and then fill it up with some dirty clothes or some sand from the beach.”

46:30 – Michelle’s favorite Onnit digital workout programs

“The Onnit 6 instructors are very inviting. They’re not intimidating. I think a lot of people look at some of Onnit’s athletes and they think they’re superhuman. ‘Yeah, right. I can’t do that.’ But anyone can do Onnit 6 Bodyweight. You don’t need any equipment, and you’d be surprised by all the things you can do with your body.

47:40 – Michelle’s favorite UFC fighter

“I’ve always looked up to Holly Holm. She’s one of my best friends and a huge mentor of mine. She walks the walk, and I’m a huge fan of someone who puts in the work.”

49:30 – Michelle’s workouts

“My workouts are more high-intensity, short spurts. So, in the morning, I’ll go for a run, and then I’ll go to an MMA class that’s an hour and a half. Then I’ll do a 30-minute mitt session, and an hour of strength and conditioning. Some of my workouts are 30 minutes; some of them are two hours. Some are really intense, and others are more technique-focused.”

51:00 – Michelle’s plans after fighting

“I would love to get more into acting in action movies. I’m such a movie buff. The reason why I love movies is because they inspire, they tell stories, and you get to play a character who’s outside of who you really are. I would also love to coach MMA.”

53:20 – How she stays motivated

Shane: “Is there a quote you think of when you feel like you’re close to giving up?”

Michelle: “I don’t know about a quote, but what I tell myself is, ‘Bring it on.’ You have to kind of bite down on your mouthpiece and swing for the fences. That’s what life is.”

See Michelle Waterson in action on Saturday, March 26, at UFC Fight Night: Blachowicz vs. Rakic.

The post “My Daughter Needs To See The Good, Bad, and Ugly”: Michelle Waterson’s Onnit Story appeared first on Onnit Academy.

Here, she opens up to Shane Heins, Onnit’s Director of Fitness Education, as part of our ongoing Onnit Stories series, in which we feature a live video interview with a person who’s made an inspiring life change with Onnit’s help. See below for the full video, as well as an edited written transcript of some of the highlights. You can stay up to date with Onnit Stories by following Onnit’s Instagram TV (IGTV), where a new one appears every Wednesday.

Shane Heins: Where did Hannah Eden Fitness and Onnit first intersect?

Hannah Eden: I had worked with supplement companies in the past, but I never wanted to push a fat-burning product or promote something I didn’t believe in. So when I found out about Onnit, I was just blown away by the fact that it’s not all about the supplements. Onnit is about a lifestyle, and finding a way to support all of us as we try to pursue our truest potential, which is Total Human Optimization. That’s something that I’ve always been really interested in, but I didn’t think I’d ever find a company to partner with to explore it.

When the opportunity to partner with Onnit came up, it was a no-brainer. It was such an organic relationship from the beginning, because we truly aligned on so many things. I loved the idea that we all have so much untapped potential—that there’s so much more that we can test and try as human beings.

What elements from Onnit have served you on your own personal journey in a positive way?

I work pretty hard. I try to stretch the bandwidth as much as I can, physically, but also mentally with running my business. There are a lot of Onnit supplements that support my daily lifestyle, in both the physical and mental. I take Shroom Tech® SPORT, Whey Protein… but the Alpha BRAIN® was like “bum bum bing” to me. When I discovered Alpha BRAIN®, it was everything my brain needed. 

I move so fast, and I find it hard to slow down. I have to try to find a new gear and just slow the F down and dial it back now and then. So New MOOD® is also something that helps me out, and it helped me especially during the hard time last year when we were all home in lockdown. That was the time when I realized that it’s a serious thing when you like to move fast but you can’t and you have no other gear. My thoughts are always racing.

So I tried out New MOOD® and was just blown away. I don’t feel anything when I take it, but I can sit on the couch or sit at the dinner table calmly without turning my phone over to look again and again. This is what a supplement should be—something that literally will supplement your lifestyle without you feeling like you’re taking something.

Again, I want to make the point that, at the beginning of my career, I think I could have escalated things a lot quicker if I had taken certain deals. There were offers on the table that may have made me a lot of money or may have helped my following grow. But I remember asking myself, “What’s the longevity in that?” It’s not who I am. If this is going to be a lifestyle and a career, it better be pretty authentic—because you can’t fake this shit forever.

There’s so much exposure with social media. There’s so much recognition. I don’t want for someone to meet me and find out that the person that I am behind the screen is someone totally different from what I am in real life.

So being able to feel genuinely comfortable in my relationship with Onnit and not feel forced means a lot to me. I’m always asking the Onnit marketing guys, “Are there any rules I need to follow as a spokesperson? Anything that I shouldn’t say?” Or, “Do you want me to do X, Y, or Z to promote something?” But they’re always like, “No, dude, just be you.” So I’m not here to try and sell or promote the products. I’m here to support the lifestyle that Onnit and I believe in.

You made a point about longevity, and we like that word. That’s actually Onnit’s theme on the fitness side of things. We promote the idea of longevity along with performance. Between the two concepts, the one people are usually more willing to sacrifice is longevity. Taking care of yourself and thinking ahead is not sexy, flashy stuff, like performance is. But we try to teach that building a foundation of quality for the long-term will feed into ongoing performance as well.

Totally. Look, what I do is a business. Onnit is a business. But they’re businesses with real, authentic people that stand behind them and that care about the quality of what we put out. It’s easy to put a supplement out: get shitty ingredients—it’s going to cost you a lot less money. But going back to longevity, how long will a company like that last for? I want to treat my team the same way I would treat my family. I want to be able to recommend the same products that I produce.

That’s the first thing that comes to my mind when I design my apparel. I’m not going to have anything in a store that I wouldn’t wear myself. I want to give it the sweat test, and I want to be able to, one day, say that my whole wardrobe is what’s in my line. But you can’t cut corners. You can’t make these things happen quickly. And if you do… all it takes is one bad egg and you’re done. No one’s ever going to pay attention to you or ever want anything to do with you again. But if you’re generally operating from your heart and from the way that you would like someone to treat you, I think that you’ll stand out. 

I’ll tell you a quick story. I came out with an app, and when I was shooting the videos for it, I thought, “I have to have my hair done. I have to have my makeup on. I need matching outfits. That’s the way it’s got to be done.” But I was forgetting that I built my business on Instagram, and in those videos, I don’t have any makeup on, I have snot coming out of my nose, and sweat all over the place. I have no idea half the time that anyone’s even watching.

Someone called me out about that on my app. Someone commented on the app, saying, “We really appreciate the effort that you’re putting in to make this a production, but drop the fancy outfits and just give us workouts.” It became so obvious that people were just craving authenticity.

You may not believe me, but the truth is I don’t look on Instagram. My whole world is on this device, and it’s an incredible tool, but as soon as I start looking at who’s out there, I’ll start comparing myself to what other people are doing. I start to second-guess myself. I sympathize with the younger generation because this is a part of normal life now—seeing what other people are doing all the time and thinking, “that must be the right way to do it.” But if you’re truly doing what you want to do, what you love and feel passionately about, then you don’t need to look at what anyone else is doing.

I think your followers look and go, “Here’s Hannah Eden of Hannah Eden Fitness. She rocks this scene. She doesn’t care and she’s just herself…” And yet you have had your challenges along the way. I think that’s so important for everybody to know that you don’t have to feel like you have it all figured out in order to be pursuing your best life.

Back in Year One, I had no idea what I was doing. All I knew then was that I was really interested in fitness and I enjoyed it and I was willing to do my darnedest to try and make it into something. And I’ve done a lot of things in fitness that a lot of times failed. But the ones that hit, hit. You can’t go through life wondering if you’re going to hit it. You just got to keep swinging and just see what happens.

I think that it’s really important to know that the person I was before I got into this industry was not anyone that you would have thought would be able to transform into this person that sits here now. I was the most negative, angry, blame-everyone-else-for-my-lack-of-success person. I was a very dark, angry little girl.

But I realized that you get to a point where no one’s going to tell you to stop. When you’re an adult, no one’s going to call you out for doing something that was really not cool. They’ll just know that that’s the kind of person you are and they won’t let you get close to them. 

That was my epiphany. I kept pushing the envelope, and I think I was waiting for someone to slap me and tell me to stop, but they didn’t. Until I finally realized for myself that if I keep going, I’m going to die. So I had to be the person who told me “stop.” You have to stop looking outward for the world to fix your problems, and start looking inward. Just work on your own shit and then ask for help once you’ve done what you can. 

When you find what you want to do, do it over and over and over again until you get better at it. There are no secrets. It’s just consistency and refusing to quit. You could do what I’m doing with fitness with something else. I didn’t go to school. I don’t have a bachelor’s degree in X, Y, and Z. I took it upon myself to try and make this happen. But I don’t think I would have been able to do that if I was doing it in the wrong area. I genuinely believe that everyone has a version of Hannah Eden Fitness in their world if they’re willing to tap into spaces that they’ve never tried before and find it—what they’re truly passionate about.

To me, it’s like the idea of nutrition and supplements. Figuring out your reason why you do something is your main meal—the real food. You can add supplements to it, but you’ll never survive on them alone. They can only supplement the good food and make it more powerful.

That’s a hard concept to understand, because everyone wants the quick pill. Which reminds me that I’ve experimented with a lot of different types of food choices. Now I’ve settled in this space where I’d rather eat good 80% of the time for the rest of my life and eat like an asshole the other 20% of the time than eat 100% clean for a year. I’ve done that. If you’re trying to achieve a specific goal, that’s important, but I think the 80:20 balance, while it comes with more body fat, it also comes with a lot more happiness. I can do it forever, because it’s genuine and I enjoy it.

And the fact that you’re doing right 80% of the time means that you’re just 20% away from 100%—and there may be times you want to go 100% for a while and that’s OK.

Yeah, and I will from time to time. But I won’t stay there for long because that means no drinking, and picking pieces of grains off my plate to make sure I hit my macros exactly. That will get you to a goal, but I think we have to experience more out of life if we want to stay in it for the long run.

The same goes for workouts. Just because someone looks a certain way because of the workout that they’re doing doesn’t mean that if you do that workout, you’re going to look like that. That’s a big misconception. No, you’ve got to find what you love to do. Something that you’re going to like doing on a good day and a bad day. If it’s not high-intensity interval training with a kettlebell, then why are you on my page? I don’t want to set you up for failure. You have to tap into what you want and where you’re at.

We often see in our certifications, the Onnit fitness education system, that people come in initially with the thought that they’re getting this magic pill. “This is going to be the new thing that’s going to light up my world, and this will be the new route that I go in fitness.” But we tell them that everything we’re going to show you is meant to serve your journey so that you can continue to do what you love better—whatever that may be. And I hear that in what you’re saying. There are certain things that you offer, and if one thing is not aligning for someone, why should they force it for a particular outcome? You have to find what works for you and stay consistent with that.

I think a mistake we all make is trying to hone in on one thing that will fix all our problems for the rest of our lives. And the reality is that we have different life situations that come up. We have people who come into our lives, people who leave our lives. We move to different places, get different jobs, and we age. No one thing can make all of that OK, and we have to remain open to exploring what we need to handle our problems now, and know that that may change next year.

That makes me think of another story. I remember having a really uncomfortable conversation with a close friend at the beginning of my career. I dove into fitness head first, and pretty intensely. I made choices that took me away from social settings, and away from home. My friend said to me, “I just want to let you know as your friend that you’re really changing.” He made it sound like it was something bad. I was like, “Yeah, I’m not present at the bar on a Friday night for happy hour anymore. I’m out there now trying to better my life. Yes, I’m changing.”

The people that are supposed to be in your life will support the fact that you’re out there grinding, trying to improve and better yourself.

It’s really hard to change your life but you have to know that you are so worth it. Self-compassion plays a big part. I used to be very mean and angry. It was a defense mechanism. And I think once I started to love myself, then I was able to love other people. And that was all through fitness. I built confidence, strength—physical strength that made me feel internally strong. 

That’s great. I grew up with the belief that we are never tested beyond our capacity. As far as hard work and discomfort goes, the question you have to ask yourself is, “Do I deal with the discomfort that comes with making progress, or the discomfort that comes from NOT making any progress?”

Yes. Ryan Holiday is the author of The Obstacle Is The Way, and hosts a podcast called The Daily Stoic. He basically argues that when the shit hits the fan, it was meant to do that. When you’re tested, it’s so you can learn and grow. It’s just hard to see the lesson when you’re going through something hard. But there are lessons in losing people, in what you do after that person’s gone. Maybe you look at life differently.

I lost one of my really good friends to cancer. It was a really hard time because, due to my business, everything in my life is so public and exposed. That was the first time and the last time in my career I was ready to walk away from the spotlight because I was so concerned about how I was going to deal with it. I wondered if I’m really an imposter, because I’ve been talking about being strong but now I’m in a situation that I feel I can’t handle. Maybe that makes me a fake. But that ended up being a big turning point for me because I didn’t just feel sorry for myself. I got through it. I think that we can all use the bumps in life to make us better people if we let ourselves.

I think it’s too easy for us to tell ourselves that “When I do this, or when I overcome this obstacle, I’ll be happy. I’ll be happy when all this settles down.” The truth is that it’s the opposite. When you prove to yourself that you have the capacity to take on more than you think, you become happier with yourself.

Let’s take some questions from the viewers… What keeps you grounded? Do you have any spiritual practices?

I do a lot of mindfulness work and I do a lot of reading. But I think, first of all, my workouts are a form of meditation, where I’m not thinking about anything and I can’t hear anything other than my own breathing or what rep I’m on. I also do a lot of journaling. I do morning walks. I leave my phone alone—I refuse to look at it in bed.

I also try to list things that I’m grateful for, because gratitude is the biggest changer in my life. When you lack gratitude, you start to lack joy. And so I close my eyes every morning and I start listing things that I’m grateful for that are not material.

What books are you reading right now?

Relentless, by Tim S. Grover, who was Michael Jordan’s and Kobe Bryant’s basketball coach. Fantastic book.

How often do you work out?

When I had a gym and was at the gym every day, I would train one time with my big classes and then often supplement with strength training three to four days a week. But now that I’m on the road, I train less than an hour, five to six days a week.

Any last thoughts that you’d like to share before we close this out?

I hope that this conversation made me a little bit more human to the audience. If I was able to change my life, I honestly think that you can too, whoever you are. And the only thing that’s in the way is you. That’s a really hard truth, but it’s the truth. Thank you, and I appreciate you all!

See a previous interview we did with Eden HERE.

And click here for more Onnit Stories.

The post “People Crave Authenticity”: Hannah Eden’s Onnit Story appeared first on Onnit Academy.

Remember the skateboarders on your street when you were growing up? They were probably the first kind of stuntmen you ever saw outside of a TV screen, turning your block into an obstacle course and landing death-defying tricks until the sky got dark—and even then they didn’t stop. They may have also been the first people your mom told you to stay away from, as drinking, drugs, and tattoos tend to be a part of the lifestyle. But Neen Williams, a pro skater and entrepreneur, has been changing that “skater punk” stereotype ever since an ACL injury caused him to prioritize his health and career longevity.

Williams, 34, is now a bonafide fitness influencer as well as a boarder, getting as much attention online for posts on how he’s working out and what he’s eating for dinner as he is for his heel flip catches and handrail grinds. Williams visited Onnit to discuss how he changed his habits, and how he can help other aspiring skaters do the same, improve their tricks, and make a living doing what they love.

Life before skateboarding – 0:13

Advice to sk8er bois – 1:50

Breaking the skateboarder stereotype – 3:30

The skater party scene – 4:30

The pro skater lifestyle – 8:15

Tearing his ACL – 9:30

Leaving the party – 12:10

“Fitness is my new vice” – 13:55

How he started working out – 16:30

Getting known for fitness as much as skating – 20:45

Eating to help lower injury risk – 23:20

Life after skateboarding – 25:25

Why he doesn’t wear a helmet – 26: 20

What to look for in a skateboard – 29:25

Tips for safer falls – 31:00

His toughest trick – 32:30

The secret to a great heel flip catch – 35:40

Neen’s new shoe – 37:00

If he weren’t a skateboarder… – 39:00

The origin of “Not a damn chance” – 41:30

Follow Neen on Instagram, @neenwilliams

The post “Not A Damn Chance” – Interview with Pro Skater Neen Williams appeared first on Onnit Academy.

Nowadays, the fitness industry defines cardio more broadly, and while you’re still welcome to do long jogs if that’s your thing, you have another option as well: high-intensity interval training—often called HIIT. Interval workouts can use any type of exercise, from cardio machines to bodyweight to free weights, so you can customize your workout to your own needs.

Burn Belly Fat With These 3 Great HIIT Workouts For Women

Here’s how HIIT works: you alternate fast, intense periods of exercise with bouts of light activity or complete rest. While it takes a fraction of the time a traditional aerobic workout does, HIIT can be just as effective for reshaping your body—and many people (including yours truly) think it’s a lot more fun and challenging.

HIIT may be the perfect kind of cardio for busy moms or women who can’t (or won’t) run anymore, as well as those who don’t have access to a gym. In fact, low-impact HIIT workouts are the number-one request I get from my clients and female Instagram followers. HIIT can be tailored to your experience level and the equipment you have available, including if you work out at home.

What Are HIIT Workouts?

There are many ways to do high-intensity interval training, but the concept is always the same: work hard for a few seconds to get your heart rate up, and then take it easy to recover. Repeat for rounds. Unlike traditional cardio (jogging, swimming, cycling, etc.), where you work at a moderate and steady pace for long periods (usually 30 minutes or more), HIIT workouts are anaerobic—they don’t use oxygen as their primary energy source. Instead, they rely on creatine phosphate to provide the power for explosive, rapid-fire activity, which means HIIT has more in common with weight training than it does jogging. So if you love to lift as much as I do, chances are you’ll enjoy HIIT more than steady-state cardio!

Because HIIT workouts are so intense, you simply can’t perform them for long (just as you can’t lift weights steadily for minutes on end). Work intervals are usually much less than 60 seconds (rest intervals may be longer or shorter, depending on how hard the work bouts are), and the whole workout typically lasts 20 minutes or less.

How Females Can Benefit From HIIT Workouts

HIIT workouts may not last long, but they can provide just as good a workout as sessions that take much more time. According to the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), HIIT workouts can burn more calories per minute of exercise than aerobic training does, making it the better cardio option when you’re short on time.

The other big benefit of HIIT is the effect it has on your metabolism. Like weight training, HIIT increases post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC). Says the ACSM: “This is generally a two-hour period after an exercise bout where the body is restoring itself to pre-exercise levels, and thus using more energy. Because of the vigorous contractile nature of HIIT workouts, the EPOC generally tends to be modestly greater, adding about six to 15% more calories to the overall workout energy expenditure.” In other words, HIIT has you burning more calories—including more fat—when you’re recovering after the workout. That means you’ll actually be getting leaner when you’re hanging out around the house, watching TV, and sleeping! You don’t get this same effect with aerobic training.

Since HIIT has the muscles working hard, it also has the potential to boost muscle growth. Look at power athletes such as sprinters and sprint cyclists—their workouts are variations of HIIT, and they typically have ripped bodies to show for it.

How Many Times Per Week Should You Do HIIT Workouts?

As with lifting weights, HIIT is stressful to the body and requires recovery time. You can’t do it every day. I generally recommend that my clients do two or three HIIT sessions per week, done either on the same day that you lift (preferably right afterward or several hours apart) or on days in between.

For as many advantages as HIIT has over steady-state cardio, it’s still important to fit some long-duration aerobic training into your week if you can. I’ll jog or jump rope at a light pace at least one day per week, and for a minimum of 15 minutes. Steady-state cardio builds an aerobic base that your body can use to fuel all its other activities, and it’s good for your heart, as well as burning extra calories.

Beginner HIIT Workout For Women

If you’re new to HIIT, or working out in general, this routine is a perfect place to start. You’ll use only your bodyweight, and every move is low impact—so if you’re overweight, or have back, knee, or shoulder problems, these exercises shouldn’t aggravate them.

Directions: Perform reps of each exercise in turn for 30 seconds, resting 15 seconds between sets. After you complete one round, rest about a minute (more if you need to), and then repeat for 3 to 5 rounds.

Workout duration: 20–30 min.

1. Squat Twist

Step 1. Stand with feet between hip and shoulder-width apart and cross your arms in front of your chest to help you balance. Twist your feet outward and into to the floor (as if you were standing on turf and trying to twist it up beneath your feet), but without moving their position—you just want to create tension and feel your hips and glutes fire up. You should feel the arches in your feet rise.

Step 2. Begin to lower your body, pushing your knees apart and sitting back as if into a chair. Go as low as you can while keeping your head, spine, and pelvis in a long line. If you feel your tailbone is about to tuck under, stop there.

Step 3. Come up out of the squat and twist your torso to the left, raising your left knee into the air 90 degrees. Squeeze your abs. Reverse the motion and repeat the squat, twisting to the opposite side.

2. Reach and Crunch

Step 1. From standing, pull your ribs down and tuck your tailbone slightly so that your core is braced. Raise your arms straight overhead—keep your core tight so that your ribs don’t flare out and your back doesn’t hyperextend.

Step 2. Twist your torso to the left as you bring your left knee up and pull your arms down, as if delivering a knee strike. Crunch your abs, trying to bring your ribs and hips together.

3. Shuffle Punch

Step 1. Stand with feet together and your arms chambered at your sides, ready to throw straight punches.

Step 2. Shuffle your feet to your left and land in a deep squat with feet outside shoulder width. As you drop into the squat, punch your right arm straight out, and then shuffle to the right and punch with your left arm.

4. Squat and Reach

Step 1. Perform a squat as you did in the squat twist above, but start with your arms bent in front of you, as if you had just curled a barbell. Squat until your elbows touch your knees.

Step 2. Come out of the squat quickly so the momentum makes you come up on the balls of your feet. Reach your arms overhead while keeping your ribs pulled down and core engaged.

5. Side-To-Side Knee Drivers

Step 1. Stand with feet outside shoulder width and reach your arms overhead and slightly to the left.

Step 2. Draw your arms down while driving your right knee up and to the left, as if delivering a knee strike. Repeat on the opposite side.

6. Mountain Climber

Step 1. Get into the top of a pushup and then drive your right knee to your chest while keeping your hips level with the floor.

Step 2. Replace your right foot and raise your left knee to your chest. Continue alternating sides at a brisk pace.

7. Table Top Reach and Lift

Step 1. Sit on the floor with feet planted in front of you and hands underneath your shoulders. Brace your core.

Step 2. Push through your heels to raise your hips off the floor. Raise your left leg straight out in front of you and reach for it with your right arm. Lower your hips and repeat on the other side.

Step 3. Raise your hips into a full table-top position, tucking your pelvis under slightly and bracing your core so that your lower back doesn’t hyperextend in the top position.

Advanced HIIT Workout For Women

When you’re ready to take it up a notch, try this HIIT routine, which employs some light plyometric exercises—jumping moves that train explosive power. Not only do they get your heart rate up and challenge your muscles, but they’re fun to do. You’ll feel like an athlete again (or, if you didn’t play sports in school, for the first time—it’s never too late!)

Directions: You’ll need a small box, step, or other platform. Perform reps of each exercise in turn for 20 seconds, resting 10 seconds between sets. After you complete one round, rest about a minute (more if you need to) and then repeat for 3 to 5 rounds.

Workout duration: 12–20 min.

1. Toe Tap

Step 1. Set a box or step that’s about a foot high in front of you. Quickly raise one leg and tap the top of the box with your foot.

Step 2. Return your foot to the floor and repeat on the opposite leg. Get into a rhythm that’s like you’re running, tapping the box quickly with each foot and staying light on your feet.

2. Explosive Hop Up

Step 1. Sit on the box with feet on the floor at hip width. Raise your arms up in front of you.

Step 2. Swing your arms back as you jump off the box as high as you can. Land with soft knees and lower yourself back onto the box. Reset before you begin the next rep.

3. Hop Over

Step 1. Stand to the right side of the box and place your left foot on top of it.

Step 2. Push off the box to hop over it laterally, landing with your right foot on the box and your left foot on the floor. Immediately repeat to the right side and continue performing reps in a rhythm.

4. Quad Hop

Step 1. Stand behind the box and place your left foot on it.

Step 2. Press through your foot to hop up into the air. Swing your left arm forward as you come up to increase the height of your hop. Land softly and repeat immediately. After you’ve spent 20 seconds on your left side, rest, then switch sides, and repeat.

5. Hands-On Climber

Step 1. Place your hands on the box and get into a pushup position.

Step 2. Perform mountain climbers as described in the beginner’s workout above.

6. Feet-On Climber

Step 1. Rest your feet on the box and get into pushup position.

Step 2. Perform mountain climbers as you have above, alternating each knee to your chest, but move more methodically, being careful to replace each foot on the box before you lift the other one.

7. Single-Leg Switch

Step 1. Sit on the box and extend your right leg straight out in front of you. Reach your arms forward to help you balance.

Step 2. Stand up from the box using only your left leg and then quickly hop onto the right foot and sit back down. Now stand up on the right leg. Get into a rhythm.

HIIT Workout You Can Do At Home

HIIT doesn’t need to be done in a gym. All you need is some light dumbbells (even a pair of three-pounders will do) and a few feet of open floor space.

Directions: Perform reps of each exercise in turn for 30 seconds, resting 15 seconds between sets. After you complete one round, rest about a minute (more if you need to), and then repeat for 3 to 5 rounds. To make your glutes work harder, wrap an elastic exercise band just above your knees so that it resists your legs (optional).

Workout duration: 20–30 min.

1. In/Out Squat Jump Press

Step 1. Stand with feet close together, holding a pair of light dumbbells at your sides with elbows bent 90 degrees.

Step 2. Jump and spread your legs, landing in a deep squat at the same time you press both weights out in front of you at arm’s length. Jump back to the starting position.

2. Alternating Kickback Press

Step 1. Stand holding dumbbells at shoulder level with feet closer together.

Step 2. Extend your left leg behind you with knee straight as you press the dumbbells overhead. Return to the starting position and repeat on the opposite leg.

3. Jumping Jack Press

Step 1. Hold dumbbells at shoulder level and stand with feet close together.

Step 2. Dip your knees quickly to gather momentum, and then jump your legs to outside shoulder width as you press the weights overhead. Land with soft knees.

4. Squat Press

Step 1. Hold dumbbells at shoulder level and squat.

Step 2. As you come up, press the weights overhead.

5. Lunge Press (right leg)

Step 1. Hold dumbbells at shoulder level and step back into a staggered stance so your right leg is front. Lower your body so that your left knee nearly touches the floor and your right knee is bent 90 degrees.

Step 2. Stand straight up from the lunge position and press the weights overhead.

6. Side-To-Side Squat Front Raise

Step 1. Stand with feet together and dumbbells at your sides.

Step 2. Step out to your left side and squat as you raise the dumbbells up to shoulder level in front of you. Step back to the starting position and then repeat to the right side.

7. Lunge Press (left leg)

Perform the lunge press again but with the left leg in front.

8. No-Jump Jack

Step 1. Hold dumbbells at your sides with palms facing forward, and stand with feet together.

Step 2. Step to your right side as you raise the weights overhead in an arcing motion, as if doing a jumping jack. Repeat to the opposite side.

How To Create Your Own HIIT Workout

Once you’ve gotten the hang of HIIT, feel free to make up your own HIIT workouts to keep your training fun and challenging. Here are some guidelines to remember.

1. Choose exercises you can do in one place (more or less). Because the work and rest intervals tend to be brief, you don’t want to create a workout that has you running around your gym from station to station. Keep your equipment and setups simple.

2. Alternate really hard exercises with easier ones. If you squat with weights in one interval, you probably shouldn’t do burpees in the next one. The point of HIIT is too work hard, but not so hard that you burn yourself out early and can’t finish the workout with intensity. Another tip: play with your work-to-rest ratios. You may want to use shorter work intervals and longer rests when you’re just getting started, and add work and subtract rest as you get fitter.

3. You can make HIIT workouts with mobility exercises. If you want to spend more time opening your tight hips or stretching your hamstrings, use mobility drills like the hip-opening mountain climber and twist and sit-knee in your HIIT sessions. You can alternate them with tougher bodyweight or weight-training moves, or use mobility exercises exclusively. You may be surprised how fast mobility moves done with focus and precision can raise your heart rate.

The post Burn Belly Fat With These 3 Great HIIT Workouts For Women appeared first on Onnit Academy.

Cerrone, who’s been fighting pro for 14 years, is 36. He has a wife and child now. And he’s struggled to stay in title contention in both the lightweight and welterweight classes the past few years. But with the same damn-the-torpedoes, devil-may-care attitude he’s always had, Cowboy might just be more dangerous than ever. Time hasn’t mellowed him, and family life hasn’t softened him. (He still wakeboards and races snowmobiles and dirt bikes days before big fights.)

On the eve of his bout with McGregor, Cowboy talked to us about why nothing Conor says can rattle him, why his heart is bigger than the Irishman’s, and why, win or lose, this ain’t his last showdown.

Onnit: Conor has to be your most famous opponent yet, and this is your most high-profile fight. How is that motivating you to train for it?

Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone: [Laughs] Nooo, I AM CONOR’s most famous opponent, buddy. He’s fighting Cowboy. Lucky him. I’m preparing the same as always. Making sure I’m having a lot of fun, enjoying fight camp. I’ve got great energy around me and a great team. I’m not doing anything secret, extra, or different. Same old song and dance, baby.

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Good luck to our favorite Cowboy fighting this weekend in Vegas. #UFC246⁠ -⁠ Help us wish @cowboycerrone good luck in the comments below! #CowboyUp⁠ -⁠ #onnit #getonnit #ufc #cerronevsmcgregor #cowboycerrone

A post shared by Onnit (@onnit) on Jan 14, 2020 at 12:15pm PST

You’ve always walked the line of training hard to win and doing things you enjoy to be happy. Does happiness have to take a back seat for this fight so you can perform at your best?

Hell no. I’m not laying off the extreme sports. It’s snowing up here and it’s snowmobile season, baby. But don’t let that fool you. Everybody thinks all we do is have fun at the ranch, but we train just as hard. We get it in.

Critics call you a “wild man,” but it’s McGregor who’s had a number of legal problems in the past year. Does that make you the good guy in this fight?

Oh man, I’m just as wild as him. I’m just wild in a different way. The thing that sucks is that there’s so many eyes on that guy. If he does something stupid that probably anybody else would get away with, he gets in trouble for it. It’s hard to live under a microscope all the time. I kind of feel for the guy, you know? But I’m just like him. I give my address to the ranch out all the time so people who talk shit can find me. Someday, someone’s going to show up [laughs].

But you’re a family man now. You have a wife and a kid. It would seem that he’s still out there getting in trouble in bar fights.

That’s just because I don’t go to the bars anymore. My wife won’t really let me go out. But seriously, my fun has always been extreme sports. I’d rather shoot guns, ride dirt bikes, than go out.

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Just autographing posters with danger! He put his mark on a few today. @dangeranddad

A post shared by Donald Cerrone (@cowboycerrone) on Jan 14, 2020 at 6:05pm PST

How can you get the American fans to support you the way the Irish fans have McGregor?

That’s what I want to know! I’m the all-American cowboy, baby. Jump on board. Let’s do this. Support your local cowboy. People have been asking me if I feel any extra pressure for this fight because I have America behind me. That is the only added pressure I feel going into this fight. I have an entire nation to support.

Conor has won in the past by making opponents lose control of their emotions so they make mistakes. What would it take for him to rattle you?

He couldn’t. He’d have to cross the line and say something about my kid, and he’s got a kid himself, so I don’t think he’d go that route. I’ve been down this road so many times [with trash talk], so it would take a lot. If he tries to bring up something I’ve done to make me look bad, and it’s true, I’ll be like, “Yeah, that’s true. I did do that.” But there’s not much shit he can talk about me because I’m pretty much a straight shooter and a good, all-American dude. There’s not much he can come at me with.

He’s questioned your heart in the past. He said that if you were willing to die in the Octagon you wouldn’t be able to fight as frequently as you do. You’ve got the most wins in UFC history, so what’s your reaction to that?

I go in there willing to die every time, man. Unfortunately, the refs stop it sometimes. I’ve got no control when a ref stops it. I’ve never once turned and given up. Im not sure what heart he’s speaking of, but hey, I’ve seen him tap several times.

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A post shared by Donald Cerrone (@cowboycerrone) on Oct 23, 2019 at 12:48pm PDT

What do you think is going to determine victory in this fight? Is it going to be his power, your cardio? Heart?

For sure, heart. For sure, conditioning. I’m excited. I hope he’s training hard because we’re coming. I’m going to unleash an all-American ass whipping.

You’ve always put entertaining the fans ahead of strategy. Do you think your most loyal fans would be happy to see you put on a great fight and lose, or fight more conservatively and win? At this point in your career, wouldn’t the latter be the smart choice?

No, I think the entire world would rather see me have a great fight and lose than fight conservative and win. That’s shit. I’d way rather fight my ass off and end up with a loss than go out there and touch and play and bullshit around and try to get a victory.

Win or lose, at age 36, it seems like you’re nearing the end of your career….

I’m in my prime, baby!

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Yup!!!!

A post shared by Donald Cerrone (@cowboycerrone) on Dec 13, 2019 at 5:42pm PST

But will every fight now take on a little more meaning, as there are fewer ahead of you than there are behind?

No, they all mean the same thing: nothing. It’s fun. That’s all it is to me, man. There’s no other place in the world I’d rather be than in a fight. I’m going to fight until they tell me, “Cowboy, you can’t come down here on that walker. It’s dangerous. You’re clipping people with your walker walking down the  aisle.”

You’ve said that letting people down was the hardest part of being in this sport. If you lose again, who would you be letting down now?

Nobody on this one. This one’s just for me. We got a solid camp, America will be behind me. It’s going to be unreal.

At this point, do you even need to fight to support your family?

No, it’s just for me. I’ve got money in the bank.

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Well I guess it’s about that time agin!! 🤠

A post shared by Donald Cerrone (@cowboycerrone) on Oct 8, 2019 at 2:09pm PDT

How do you feel about some critics saying that you’re just a gatekeeper now? That you’re a test for younger talent.

When you’re winning, people talk good about you. When you lose, they talk bad. But if we just step back and look at all the people I’ve fought, every one was either for a title or in line for a title. I’ve been top 5 my entire career. If I was just a gatekeeper, I’d be fighting guys way down the chain. I’m happy where I’m at in my career and I just want to fight my ass off and have fun. That’s all I can ask.

When you eventually retire, what are you going to do?

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Just me wishing “AMotherFuckerWoods” . . . . . Great moment caught by @thefoxidentity 📸 . O ya and my new @onnit shit is available soon It’s the one with BMF on the sleeve

A post shared by Donald Cerrone (@cowboycerrone) on Aug 31, 2019 at 8:21am PDT

Your wife is a doctor and you’ve joked that she’ll have to take care of you one day. Do you ever imagine taking a step back and letting her be the bread-winner in the family?

She’s the bread-winner already. So, hell yeah, make that money. You mean I could just play all day and not have to worry about nothing? Go get it, mama.

You’ve said that you’ll never let your kids play video games. What kind of life do you want your son to live, and how are you going to prepare him for that?

He’s going to learn how to build. How to play. How to fix things. How to ride and how to jump. Everything I did and more.

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I like to chug my alpha brain bc I’m healthy but still like to party. 25% off of Alpha Brain Instant until August 26th @onnit

A post shared by Donald Cerrone (@cowboycerrone) on Aug 23, 2019 at 9:56am PDT

What if he’s as rebellious and wild as you were as a teenager. How are you going to handle that?

Oh, he’s going to be. He’s going to be worse, for sure. He’s already smarter than me, so he’s going to be smart and wild and it’s going to be hard to question him because he’s going to have better answers than I did. I’ll be asking about what he did wrong and probably end up like, “Damn, he got me again.”

How do you picture yourself as an old man?

I’m going to be sitting on a porch talking about all the good old times with all my buddies.

You’re a man who’s had a million adventures already. What’s left on your bucket list?

I need to go to the moon. And I don’t mean on mushrooms. That’s all that’s left.

Watch UFC246: McGregor vs. Cowboy, this Saturday, January 18, on pay-per-view. Follow Cowboy on Instagram, @cowboycerrone.

The post Cowboy Vs. Conor: Interview with Donald Cerrone appeared first on Onnit Academy.

Front man Jared “Dirty J” Watson and guitarist Dustin “Duddy B” Bushnell sat down with Onnit Editor-in-Chief Sean Hyson to discuss how to make it in the music business (exact number of years included), how they survived rockstar indulgence and excess, and how they make a newfound commitment to health and fitness work with life on the road.

The rules of the tour bus (1:35)

The time it takes to become successful in music (4:50)

Life on the road (7:00)

How the band knew it was time to clean up (9:00)

The songwriting process (13:05)

Do drugs help creativity? (16:00)

How Jared overcame substance problems (17:40)

The band’s daily routine now (22:15)

Why the band is having more fun than ever (25:22)

How can a band make money today? (29:30)

The Dirty Heads empire (31:20)

Advice for up and coming bands (32:00)

What makes a great live show (33:45)

What they learned from playing with Slash, 311, and other legends (35:05)

The new album, Super Moon (35:55)

Follow Dirty Heads on Instagram, @dirtyheads.

The post Interview with Alt Rock Band Dirty Heads appeared first on Onnit Academy.

So… how was your day?

Clements, from Austin, TX, may have been well on his way to becoming another obituary on the 10 o’clock news, but he fought back to build a successful career, a healthy romantic relationship, and a clean life. That was comeback number one. Now, at age 35, he’s returning to professional MMA competition after a two-year layoff to fulfill the athletic potential he knew he always had, and nearly wasted.

Here’s how Clements went from “Wildman” (as he’s known in MMA) to a changed man.

An Unhappy Home

“My mom felt she couldn’t take care of my brother and me,” says Clements. Her departure left the boys at the mercy of their father who, though he worked hard to support the children, was “a hard ass” with an axe to grind. Feeling he had never lived up to his own potential as an athlete, Clements’ dad tried to live through his sons’ success on the baseball and football fields. “In his eyes, if we didn’t win, we didn’t do good enough,” says Clements. “And if we did win, he had a list of things we could have done better. He was always critiquing.”

The boys were brought up in a roach-infested apartment while their dad worked a series of odd jobs. When he wasn’t watching their games like a hawk from the bleachers, he tended to not be around at all. “One time, he left us with a friend of his and was gone for a week,” says Clements. “He never told us where he went, and we didn’t ask.”

Other family members chipped in. Clements’ grandparents were responsible guardians, but an older cousin he was left with was not. “I found out later that she had been abused,” says Clements, “so I figure she did those things to me because she didn’t know any better.”

Clements turned increasingly inward, and talking about it now makes him tear up. “There’s a family photo of us all taken around that time, and you can see that I’m not happy,” he says. “I’m the only one that’s not smiling, because I didn’t have anything to be happy about. I was learning to get harder. To not let people into my life easily.”

When he was in the fourth grade, Clements’ father got together with Terry, a woman who became Sean’s stepmom. She cheered him at all his games, never missing a performance. By high school, Clements had become a standout wrestler. He made it to regionals, but lost to a kid who had been the state champion the year before.

“My dad was pissed at me,” says Clements. “But Terry was proud.” In his sophomore year, Terry passed away from cancer, but the love she had shown Clements had taken root.

“I don’t want to lose what I have,” he says. “So I try very hard to keep friendships and stay loyal to the people around me. I don’t want people I care about to ever think that I won’t be there when they need me.” He adds that even when people disappoint or hurt him, he isn’t angry about it long.

“Growing up the way I did, I learned to forgive quickly.”

Fighting For Life

Clements went to Howard Payne University for college, earning a spot on the football team, but when he discovered how much he would owe in student loans if he completed his degree there, he decided it wasn’t worth it, and left campus in the middle of the night. His dad told him not to come home. As far as he was concerned, if Sean wasn’t going to play college ball, he wasn’t going to do anything.

Clements got by. He bounced around Texas, trying to find another way to play football. He tried out for the Laredo Rattlers, an Arena Football team, and impressed the coaches enough that they offered to help him go back to college. “My grandfather had just broken his hip,” says Clements, “so I wanted to stay close to him.” He got into Texas Lutheran University in nearby Seguin, and majored in exercise science.

Though he had been a straight-edged high schooler, Clements found alcohol in college. He had the same taste for it that his father had, often downing 15–20 drinks on a typical night out with friends. He brawled at house parties, and sometimes took his clothes off for a thrill, earning the nickname “Wildman” from his buddies.

One night he was partying in a bar in downtown Austin. He saw an argument get out of hand, and a man trying to hit a woman. Clements jumped in to slug it out with the guy when he felt himself grabbed from behind. “I turned around and hit the guy who was holding me,” he says. “Then I found out it was a cop.” Clements spent three days in jail.

Though estranged from his mother, Clements had nowhere else to turn. “My lawyers wanted five grand just to take my case, and another five if it went to trial,” he says. “My mom coughed up the whole 10 grand right away. I think that was her way of making amends for leaving when I was a kid.” Clements got away with four years’ probation.

He was off the hook legally, but the criminal charge made Clements, only 26 at the time, radioactive to potential employers. “Any job I applied for, they saw my record,” he says. It read: “Assault with intent to do harm.” Clements took what work he could get, as a bouncer and then a go-go cage dancer in gay bars ($200 just to show up, plus tips), and his drinking worsened.

At the same time, Clements reconnected with a friend he’d made from his days as a high school wrestler. Roger Huerta, another Austin native, was a fast-rising fighter in the UFC. Through Huerta and other friends, he met Aubrey Marcus, the soon-to-be founder of Onnit. The group trained MMA out of Aubrey’s garage, and it was there that Clements felt he’d found his calling.

“I believed I had the athletic ability to fight professionally,” he says. “I just needed to learn the striking game, which [his drunken scraps aside] I had no background in.” Clements began competing in amateur MMA shows, scoring a knockout in his first bout, and winning in five of seven contests.

And Then There Was Ashley

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Happy Birthday to the woman of my dreams @ash.nutrition ! This day is yours to do whatever you would like do feel free to take a break from the normal day to day responsibilities 💋. Thank you for be born this day 31 years ago!

A post shared by Sean B Onnit Clements (@seanbonnit) on Oct 19, 2019 at 6:24am PDT

By 2012, Marcus had started Onnit. He gave Clements a job in the warehouse, handling inventory to help him pay his bills while he moonlighted as an MMA fighter.

Two years later, Ashley Ortega, an Austin-based event coordinator and nutrition counselor, was working a promotional event for Onnit products. Since Clements was fighting that night nearby, some Onnit staffers convinced her to come along to the arena afterward.

“He won the fight, and I was surrounded by people who were calling his name and asking to take pictures with him,” says Ortega. “He seemed to be all about it. Like, ‘Yeah, I’m the Wildman!’ I’m not interested in anybody who has a huge ego, so I was outta there right after.”

A few months later Clements and Ortega reconnected—via the Tinder dating app. He recognized her from the night of his fight, and she saw from his profile that they had mutual friends. “His profile said something about the value of connecting with people, and that attracted me,” says Ortega. “He seemed down to earth and sensitive.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever gone on a first date where I drank so much,” she says. Clements kept ordering more booze, and while Ortega had a good time, she saw it as a red flag. “Drinking that much was super unusual for me, so I didn’t know if it could go anywhere with him.” She was so wary that she kept physical distance for a bit, communicating only by phone calls for several weeks.

“I got to know him as a person, and I started to really like him,” says Ortega. “But then I started getting phone calls at three in the morning. He was saying he was in such and such place and could I come and pick him up. I had to take care of him a lot because he was drunk and lost or stuck somewhere.”

“Sometimes she would actually come out and find me and stay overnight with me in my car,” says Clements, with visible emotion. “I started thinking about all the other girls I’ve dated and how many of them never actually put the effort in to be with me. Other girls didn’t take the time to stay with me or try to see the better side of me. They just moved on to the next person. But she didn’t do that.”

Ortega couldn’t deny her attraction to Clements’ sensitivity, which included an almost extreme reverence for life—even of the insect variety. When wasps and cockroaches wandered into his home, Clements spared them. “He’d just catch them and put them outside,” says Ortetga. “He really believes in karma, and he had this nice calm about him when he was sober. He was thoughtful and considerate. I thought that aspect was the biggest part of him, and that the drinking was just a bad habit.”

It was, in fact, a habit that completely changed Clements’ personality. When he got drunk, he’d become angry. He cursed at people, including Ortega, especially if they suggested he’d had enough to drink. He drove drunk, flipping his car over three times one night (although, miraculously, escaped with only minor injuries). When one of Clements’ best friends was stabbed to death at a house party turned melee, Clements mourned by drinking himself crazy and driving recklessly. Police pulled him over and arrested him.

“I had to rescue him again and I thought, ‘This is the last time I’m going to do this,’” says Ortega. “But when he talked to me about Hugo he cried, saying how he felt he could have done so much more to help him and prevent his death. Sean’s drinking was to deal with the pain that he had pushed down inside himself. It was a coping mechanism.”

The last straw came at Ortega’s sister’s wedding. She warned Clements not to get carried away, but he kept ordering drinks. When she confronted him about it, he lost his temper and punched through her car window. Ortega told him she’d had enough.

“She was going to leave me,” says Clements. “I had to make a decision about what was more important—someone who was going to be there for me, even when I screwed up, or continuing to drink and probably never finding a good path in life.”

Clements made Ortega watch as he poured out all the bottles of booze he had saved in his house. “When I tell somebody I’m going to do something, I stick to it,” he says. He hasn’t had a drink in two years.

In May of this year, the couple married.

Comeback #2

Clements became a trainer at Onnit Gym when it opened in 2014. Today, he works with a range of clientele, including women, day traders, and weekend warriors. Included in that last category is Brad Marcus, a sales director for Experian Partner Solutions. As Marcus neared his 49^th birthday this past summer, he decided to mark the event by competing in a strict barbell curl contest in Venice, CA.

“I invited him to come along,” says Marcus, “but I didn’t take it that seriously.” Clements did. Not only did he design a program that helped Marcus peak his biceps power in only four weeks, he accompanied his client to Venice and cornered him throughout the contest. “He brought a bar and bands out there for me to warm up with,” says Marcus. “He acted like he was coaching me for an MMA fight. He went above and beyond.” Marcus curled 150 pounds, finishing second to a competitive strongman who outweighed him by 60 pounds. “Now we have to figure out what I’m going to do to celebrate age 50,” he says with a laugh.

Clements turned pro as a fighter in 2016, debuting with a win in the Bellator promotion and running up a 3–1 record in the lightweight division over the next year. He trained with UFC veterans, including Urijah Faber, Danny Castillo, and Justin Buchholz. But a 2017 car accident herniated discs in his neck and lower back, leaving his fight career uncertain. He trained clients for the next two years and rehabbed his injuries, but planned to ease back into competitive athletics with a sprint triathlon, and, if that went OK, return to the cage in 2020. But this fall, a representative from Bellator called Onnit Gym’s front desk, offering Clements a fight on its November 8 card in Thackerville, OK. He accepted.

Clements will face Aaron McKenzie, a strong grappler fighting out of Rafael Lovato Jr.’s academy in Oklahoma City. Clements, who walks around at 185 and 8.5% body fat, will cut to 155 for the bout. “He’s a good matchup for me,” says Clements, “because he’s a grappler and I’m a wrestler. I’ve been out for a while, and he’s the hometown boy, so I’m definitely the underdog, but I don’t mind that at all. I feel better than ever. I’m recovering from workouts better than ever. And this will be my first fight where drinking is not a part of my life at all.”

At 35, Clements doesn’t have ambitions of being a world champion. He just wants to test his skills in another fight or two, and see where it leads him. “This may be his last fight, unless he gets offered a contract,” says Ortega. “I completely support him fighting, but I would like a family one day. He’s in tune with his body and what he can do, so I trust him to do what’s right for him and make the right decision when it’s time.”

Clements says his main priority is still training clients at Onnit. “Fighting is just a bucket-list thing for me,” he says. “If I have kids, I want them to know what I’ve been through, and I want to be able to say that I realized my potential before it was too late.”

If you’re thinking that Clements seems too nice to be dangerous, you may have a point. “Once the cage closes and the ref asks if you’re ready to go, the first thing that goes through my mind is that I don’t want to hurt this guy, because he’s never done anything to me. But then I shift into a mindset that says this is what I’ve trained for. This guy’s trying to hurt me, so if I don’t hurt him… But I don’t try to hate my opponent. I get amped up by thinking about my childhood. Things I did to myself, and things that were done to me.”

Because the traumas of his youth are never far from his mind, Clements is particularly motivated to help Austin’s underprivileged kids get more advantages than he and his late friend Hugo had. Every summer, he hosts what he calls “character-building” workshops at Onnit, where he takes middle- and high school kids through basic workouts and talks to them about getting an outlet through sports.

“I want to be someone these young men and women can talk to outside of school and their parents,” says Clements. “So they have a safe place.”

To discourage bullying, Clements reminds them that a kid they’re picking on now could one day become the CEO of a company they want to work for. “If you’re applying for a job, whether you get it or not may depend on how you’re treating that person now,” says Clements. “Because no matter how good you are at something, or how much knowledge you have, who you are as a person is more important.”

“The fact that I’ve survived everything I’ve been through makes me think I’m here for a purpose,” says Clements. “Maybe fighting is a way to get my message across. Maybe somebody will see me fight, or training somebody in the gym, and be inspired to do something positive.”

See Clements in action at Bellator 233: Salter vs. Van Steenis, on November 8. (Prelims begin at 6:45 ET, and are available on the DAZN streaming app.) Follow Clements on Instagram, @seanbonnit.

The post Wildman: How MMA Fighter Sean Clements Made His Comeback(s) appeared first on Onnit Academy.

“Traveling,” to many people, means “vacation.” Whether you’re on the road for business or pleasure, there’s a tendency to leave the healthy habits you normally keep at home, skip workouts, and eat like the calories don’t matter. But Matt Vincent isn’t “many people.”

He’s a two-time Highland Games champion who’s gone on to found an apparel company—HVIII Brand Goods (pronounced “hate”)—that makes fitness wear for people who don’t want to advertise their fitness, and a podcast (UMSO) about… pretty much whatever the hell he feels like at the moment. While he travels the world for work and for fun, he maintains a strict training regimen and disciplined eating, continually posting tips for both on his Instagram. When he stopped in Austin, TX, this summer, he shared some with Onnit, along with his philosophies on strength training, competition, and the chainsaw-wielding Leatherface.

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Crushing stones was my all time favorite feeling in the games and with track. # When you hit it right and have the patience you feel that 16lb implement load into the fingers and hand. When the hip leads the right way you feel like you get to put all your bench or pushpress into that little thing and send it soaring.. # Rush it and it’s gone to fast to do anything with. Patience for the right moment to strike. # Damn i love throwing. #throwers

A post shared by Matthew Vincent (@ihviiimattvincent) on Feb 5, 2019 at 6:11pm PST

Onnit: You made your name competing in various strength competitions—Highland Games, strongman. Can you tell us about the differences between them?

Vincent: Highland Games is based on Scottish heavy athletics. The history behind that is that when the English took over Scotland and took away their weapons and didn’t let them train for battle, the Scottish clans started having competitions as a way to train for war that didn’t seem like training for war. Throwing rocks… manhood test kind of stuff. So we do stone throwing in the competitions. You’ll have a 56-pound weight and a 28-pound weight and you throw them for distance. The stones were used on farm scales as a counterbalance for when they weighed grain. You have two hammers that you throw that were used to hammer stakes into the ground. It’s just a ball on the end of a stick. You’ve got the caber throw. There are rumors as to what the caber represented, but essentially you’re taking a telephone pole, picking it up, and running with it, and trying to flip it end over end.

While World’s Strongest Man and Highland Games are both strength tests, with World’s Strongest Man, the weights keep increasing. Whereas with the Scottish Highland Games, the weights are set, so the implements are the same; you’ve got to throw them further. Max strength isn’t the only answer. You’ve got to be quick and athletic, and technique is a bigger part of it than in strongman where more raw power is going to be necessary.

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LOOK HERE!!! I’m the captain now. # Turning a tricky caber in Livonia MI. Lot of great times competing. While for sure I was a serious competitor I was always out to have a damn good time and out on a show. Don’t remember exactly how I acquired this Captains hat but I for sure threw in it half the day. May have pulled of the W as well. # ALWAYS PARTY

A post shared by Matthew Vincent (@ihviiimattvincent) on Feb 6, 2019 at 8:24am PST

It seems like Highland Games is more a test of brute strength—short events. Whereas World’s Strongest man has more events for distance and endurance-focused stuff.

Yeah, everything we throw happens in about half a second. It is brute strength, but you also have to be really fast and explosive. The heaviest thing we throw is 56 pounds. So if I’ve got a 400-pound clean, I need to figure out how to translate 400 pounds of clean force into a 56-pound item. You can’t do it slowly. You’ve got to be able to hit the accelerator and push force into the implement to get it out.

What were the events that you excelled at?

I was really good in stones. I tied a world record, 63 feet, with a 16-pound stone. I threw the weights well, 94 feet with the light weight. I broke the American record at the time. I was really good in those four events of the nine. The other ones I was pretty solid.

What were some of your best lifts in general—be it powerlifting, in the gym, Highland Games, or anything else you’ve done?

I’ve snatched 335 pounds, clean and jerked over 400. I’ve push pressed 200 kilos [440 pounds]; bench press was 440 pounds. I deadlifted 700 pounds and squatted 685.

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Remember it’s still fucking fun to pick up heavy things. Did some weird stuff with a 500+lbs tire. # Thanks @juannit_247 and @cjmcfarland17 for making the day fun. # What’s your way to play with strength?

A post shared by Matthew Vincent (@ihviiimattvincent) on Mar 25, 2019 at 12:47pm PDT

You wrote about your training in the book Training Lab. You’re a big advocate of submaximal training. Can you describe how that goes?

A big part of that, going back to the Highland Games, is using lighter weights and moving them quickly. I need horsepower. I need explosive power. If I can have max strength, like a 700-pound squat, but it takes me three seconds to complete that lift, that’s not really beneficial for me to accelerate a submaximal weight. I like submaximal training because I don’t believe those really heavy singles are going to improve your strength. At the end of the day, what’s making you stronger is the accumulation of work done over a long time. Being able to squat 600 for 3 yields more total poundage than, say, 700 for 1.

What do the sets and reps look like with that kind of training?

I broke it down into three blocks. I had a high volume block that I started my off-season with. It was 10 weeks of 10×10. I’d stay around 50–60% [of my maxes]. This was a time for me to rebuild and fix a lot of stuff that throughout the season gets busted, and the body needs some time to heal up. I fix the imbalances that happen from being a one-sided athlete and throwing. So 10 weeks of that is just me setting a foundation. At the end of that I would always test and see what a max 10 looks like. I’ve squatted 515 for 10.

Then I’d go into a speed block, which is like 12 sets of 3, and nothing got over 75%. What I cared about was how fast I was moving the barbell. I trained with a Tendo unit, or some kind of velocity tracker. So it was, “What’s the heaviest set of 3 today where I can still move the barbell at a meter a second?” That translates more into what my sport was than just max output. Then I got into strength work that was 5 sets of 5, 5 sets of 3, 5 sets of 1, but nothing over 90%. I felt the reward ratio of going over 90% got outweighed by the risk. The more work I could do without getting hurt, the better I’d perform when I compete. It didn’t make any sense for me to be the strongest in the gym and then do really bad in a competition setting.

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Giving more belt squats a go. I think something like this is great for rehab and recovery from knee surgery or hips. # Love the option to use like a Hatfield squat by having your hands working to maintain stability and control.

A post shared by Matthew Vincent (@ihviiimattvincent) on Mar 25, 2019 at 6:09pm PDT

That’s interesting, because a lot of athletes, especially powerlifters, really like the max-effort method, going over 90%. And the criticism against that is the injury potential. Have you been able to avoid injuries with this kind of training?

Let’s talk about what happened to your knee.

I had nine knee surgeries that wrapped up the end of my career, and finished in 2016. It’s not like I had a moment where the knee busted. Nothing exploded. I had torn a meniscus training, and at the end of that season I got it fixed, took a month off, and got back to competing. The plan was to repair an ACL that I had gone 10 years without. I wore out that knee with all the spinning and turning on grass. So when the meniscus gave I tried to fix the ACL… apparently my body doesn’t care for cadaver tissue very much. It rejected four ACLs. And you don’t figure out that it’s rejected until you’ve done three months of rehab and realize it’s not there. And then you just start over again.

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Little aggravated with leg pain today. Looking at this disaster and stoked to have this much progress. #spreadhviii #alwaysparty #fukyoknee

A post shared by Matthew Vincent (@ihviiimattvincent) on Oct 4, 2017 at 6:22pm PDT

So you’ve had a total knee replacement now?

Yeah. I’ve got full robot parts in there, and it seems to be better.

What’s the rehab been with that?

You’ve got to be smart with it. What are the big goals? They’re to get out of pain, add range of motion, and reduce inflammation. After we cross that threshold, we can start working on strength again. Because strength is what’s going to stabilize the joint. Now, I don’t ever need to pursue max strength again, but there’s still some level of strength I care to have, and I’ll always push strength, but I can do it through repetition and more hypertrophy work.

How long ago did you have the knee replaced?

Eleven weeks. Right now I’ve just gotten back into my second week of following the strength work in Strength Lab and Training Lab, the books I’ve written. Strength Lab is like Training Lab, but not throwing-based. I started doing volume again—so it’s 10 sets of 10 on the main lifts, not going over 60%. Yesterday was 10 sets of 10 with 240 on the back squat.

I do trap-bar deadlift too. My range of motion is still not all the way back. I squat with a safety-squat bar, and usually to a box that’s just above parallel. It would be better for Instagram if I squatted all the way to the ground, but there’s a higher risk of injury to the knee. I’m trying to make this thing work for the next 30 years instead of having to get another one.

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Training, rehab, work, and relationships. It’s all the same consistent effort applied toward a specific intention. Keep making progress to be the best you possible. Find your HVIII never settle for good enough. -FATOWL- #spreadhviii #alwaysparty Joggers live at THEHVIII.COM @hviiibrandgoods

A post shared by Matthew Vincent (@ihviiimattvincent) on Oct 5, 2017 at 8:43pm PDT

But are you ultimately trying to get back to the conventional versions of all these classic lifts?

Yeah, as much as I can and as long as it’s pain-free. Because I can still grow muscle and get stronger without using a squat bar on my back. As long as I’m creating enough stimulus that my body has to adapt to, I’m going to create strength.

Have you had any mindset goals through all this? Ways of staying positive or things you’ve tried to remind yourself of?

That’s a big part of it. It’s about not comparing to where I was. It’s realizing that it was really cool that I got to do those things, and that pushing to be one of the best in the world came with risk. These are some of the consequences of me pursuing that. Other people get out [injury] free, and that’s cool. But that’s not my journey. I’m just trying to do better than yesterday. That’s really the mindset I try to have now.

I pay attention to how my body feels, and more so than anything else, I want to feel good again. I want to be able to run. I want to be able to jump again. I’m trying to steal back things that, over the last three years of being in chronic pain, I wrote off as impossible. It used to be, “I can’t go for a hike because it’s just too much walking.” Now that I can walk, I want to go walk. I want to do what I can and not focus on the things that I can’t do anymore. Not focus on the fact that my deadlift doesn’t look as good as it could because my hips are a little jacked up. But I can pull with a trap bar. I can give a shit about my diet.

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Thanksgiving and holiday parties and feast stress people out from a food standpoint. I have been on the road for the last three weeks essentially and eating out every meal. I’m up a few pounds but I’m sticking with my plan. Most meals I eat the right things. •• For me that is green veggies and food that had a face. Sorry vegans. I am also training in some capacity everyday. Spending 20 min in the am with some stretching and movement. But when it’s time to let my hair down and relax with incredible people and family I EAT! I don’t panic. Remember it is the consistency that makes a difference. If you eat correctly 90% of the time and fuck off every now and then it’s no big deal. It’s called being human. ••• Enjoy the holidays. #alwaysparty #alwaysparty #hviiifulholidays

A post shared by Matthew Vincent (@ihviiimattvincent) on Nov 21, 2017 at 6:50am PST

Is there anything you’ve discovered recently, nutritionally, that’s helped you get out of pain?

At the end of 2016, I started looking at anti-inflammatory diets, including ketogenic and carnivore. I spent two-and-a-half years doing a ketogenic diet. That made as much progress for me to get out of pain and inflammation as a lot of things did. I think it also repaired a lot of gut health damage I had done eating as much of whatever I wanted for a long time as an athlete.

Did you cut out certain carb foods gradually, or was it overnight?

I don’t do well with loopholes. I tried for a long time to do a macros-style [diet] thing, but I don’t do well with that level of moderation. I’d rather just say to myself, “You don’t get this [food].” I’d rather have a steak and savory foods anyway, so ketogenic worked really well for me. As soon as I got to where I was really ketogenic and fasting regularly, about a month in, I really liked the way I felt. I didn’t have an energy crash; I didn’t have inflammation. From there, I experimented with carnivore, and gave about eight months to that, but didn’t really notice a big difference as far as body composition change or how I felt. So I added back the foods I was eating on the ketogenic diet.

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Step one to becoming an absolute fucking unit. . . Don’t eat garbage. Fuel your body with quality products. @stayclassymeats has been a big contributor in changing body composition and reducing inflammation with better food choices for my body. . . Carnivore, keto, paleo, or vertical diet. This is the protein I am using.

A post shared by Matthew Vincent (@ihviiimattvincent) on Jul 31, 2019 at 11:46am PDT

What does a daily menu look like for you now, and what kind of supplements are you taking?

I’ve started incorporating carbohydrates back in on training days. White rice is the carbohydrate I’m choosing. I don’t get an insulin response from it. If it’s not causing that spike, then we’re good to go.

Really? Have you checked your blood?

I don’t get a spike from [white rice]. I don’t get a crash. I don’t get any of the markers. I eat it before and after training. My body digests it well. I don’t get bloating. Bread I definitely get a big response from. But I’m also tracking calories now and staying in a deficit. You can gain weight eating keto or carnivore—if you eat more calories, you will gain weight. Right now I’m eating ground beef and rice damn near every meal.

I do intermittent fasting so I usually don’t eat till 1:00 x[p.m.]. In the morning, it’s coffee with butter. I take fish oil and use the Total Human pack, and I add more Alpha BRAIN® to it. I’m a morning guy, so I like getting up at 5 a.m. and getting the ball rolling before people bother me. Lunch is a cup of rice and usually eight to 10 ounces of ground meat. I usually put mustard on it because it’s a condiment that doesn’t have calories. Post-training I eat about the same.  Dinner is a little looser. I usually want a steak and potatoes.

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Everyone ready for the GOAT 🐐 training shorts to drop? 3pm CST. . . I’m 6’ 240 and in a large for snug fit. Pockets, draw string, 4 way stretch, 7” inseam to show of those quads. . . Here to help you be a leg guy in an arm guy world. Let’s take it back fellas. Always leg day.

A post shared by Matthew Vincent (@ihviiimattvincent) on Jul 25, 2019 at 10:37am PDT

Going back to your training, you did most of it, in your competitive days, from your own garage?

Yeah, I did it in a two-car garage. I trained by myself the entire time I competed in Highland Games. I threw in a field by my house.

Most people would think that’s impossible. You didn’t feel a need to have other good athletes around you? To motivate you?

Well, because I’m doing sub-maximal training I’m not missing weights in training. I’ve also been training long enough to know when I have one more in me or not. And I know how to bail safely on a lift. As far as the motivation side of it goes, I did it because I loved it. I wasn’t doing it for someone else’s validation. I’m not the biggest guy who competed. Even though I was 290 at the time, most of the other guys were 6’3”, 310. So at six-foot, 290, I don’t have enough sand in my pockets. [My attitude was] I can’t choose to be bigger, but I’ll be damned if I let them outwork me. That’s a choice. That’s why I put the gym in my garage. So I had one less excuse. If I don’t want to drive to a place to train, I don’t have to. I also didn’t want the excuse of, “My training partner is 30 minutes late.”

So you didn’t need three guys screaming in your ear to get you hyped up.

Most days I didn’t even listen to music. That’s where I wanted to be. There’s some level of mindfulness that came from it. I’ve lifted for so long that I don’t need all the cues for setting up on a bench press. I know how to bench so my brain can work through other bullshit while I’m doing that work. I liked being by myself and having that solitude. But I did train on the road with other people.

What are some pieces of equipment that you consider indispensable?

Spend money on a quality barbell, whether that’s from Sorinex, Kabuki Strength, or a Texas Squat Bar. For an Olympic barbell, I want something that’s a 28mm diameter. They fit your hand a little better than most powerlifting bars that are 28.4. You can hook grip it a little easier. There’s no center knurling so you won’t rip your chest up doing cleans. You should also have a bar with good knurling so it will dig into your hands the way you want it to. That, and a good rack, and a decent bench.

Outside of that, I started adding more things that really helped. You beat your shoulders up so much throwing, so adding stuff like mace work helped a lot over the years. I used it to warm up and cool down post-throwing. Most of what I’m doing with a hammer is essentially winding a mace around my body anyway.

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All good things that are fun start with explosive hip thrust. #deadcember @sorinex @onnitacademy @brandonlilly3 @bertsorin

A post shared by Matthew Vincent (@ihviiimattvincent) on Dec 14, 2017 at 6:12am PST

What do you like about the Onnit steel mace?

It’s stoutly built. It’s got a solid handle on it. The knurling on it is really solid so you don’t have to worry about the grip. My garage was in south Louisiana, and when it got hot the chalk on your hands just turns to paste. It’s like living in a mouth [laughs]. You need some solid knurling that’s going to hold so you don’t have to worry about it slipping down your hand. Mobility tools are always really good to have as well, whether that’s rollers or kettlebells to use for smashing tissue.

Any tips on how to build a world-class home gym on the cheap?

My first gym I built on Craigslist. For $185 I got the sketchiest squat rack I’ve ever seen. Somebody had to have made it in their garage. It was really sharp in a bunch of places, but it held a barbell. You don’t have to make it a $10,000 investment on Day 1. On Day 1, get a barbell, any barbell. Then add things you need depending on your goals. Buy a shitty piece of cardio equipment—because you can get your heart rate up on it, that makes it valuable. Cheap, shitty steel plates are still 45 pounds. If you can’t get the job done with a barbell and squat stands, you’ve lost the point somewhere. People have done it with buckets full of sand. Your body doesn’t know—it’s just resistance it has to accommodate.

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Big poster of @timkennedymma hanging behind me and I always see that dude smashing shit. @onnit had some fun toys today. . . Now to happy birthday America. Thanks to all those who have fought to provide the freedom I get to enjoy everyday. . Having a ballast training right now. Crushing my main lifts, staying out of pain, and playing more.

A post shared by Matthew Vincent (@ihviiimattvincent) on Jul 4, 2019 at 9:57am PDT

Did you do any haggling on Craigslist? When powerlifter/strength coach Jesse Burdick was here, he told us his system. He said he always offers about half of what the guy wants.

Typically with weight equipment, most guys just want to get rid of it. They’ll be like, “If you just come pick it up, that’s fine. As long as it’s not in my garage anymore and I don’t have to move these 400 pounds of plates to another house.” For steel plates, I would offer 10 cents on the pound. You still have to drive to their house, pick it up, and carry it back to your place.

Have you experimented with any other unconventional equipment?

I’ve done sandbag work, which I like. I’ve done some Bulgarian bag work. I keep it in my routine if I want to use it, not if I feel I have to force myself to use it. The mace is one I keep going back to because I like the way it treats my shoulders. With the mace, I do rotations around the back, up in front, squats. Nothing crazy. I use it for warmups and assistance work.

Can you describe how HVIII came about, and the motto “Spread HVIII, always party?”

I wrote the book Training Lab in 2011. I talked about how to properly train for the Highland Games. It’s not like track and field, which was my background. You don’t peak for just four competitions a year. You have 20, and you can’t peak for 20 competitions. So you need to be able to use periodization so you peak when it matters. So you build up and taper off. But some of those competitions you’ve got to treat like practice. You don’t have to be really good in May when World’s are in August. So take some second and third places in May, and be really ready to go on the gas pedal in August.

The hate is just a mentality. I’d always admired athletes like Jerry Rice. This guy was the best of all time as far as wide receivers go. You’d hear stories about him toward the end of his career getting up at 4 a.m. doing drills, hill sprints, and still trying to perfect his craft. That level of work ethic… when he gets up in the morning and looks in the mirror, he’s not OK. He hates himself more than you do. To push himself like that, that ain’t fun. That’s work.

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Working on my tan and making most of this Louisiana HEAT!!! Tan lines are for cowards. # Suns out buns out. #asstattoos

A post shared by Matthew Vincent (@ihviiimattvincent) on Jun 6, 2018 at 5:24pm PDT

So you see that sort of hunger as a form of self-loathing.

A little bit. In a good way. It’s not letting yourself off the hook. It’s not thinking you’re entitled to success. You have to work for it. The only recipe for success is hard work done for a really long time, focused. So hate yourself enough not to have that dessert tonight if you want to lose weight. Do it for you. Do it because you need to do it to feel some way about yourself. Everyone’s tired. Everyone’s busy. What are you doing to accomplish your goals?

Is there a downside to that mentality? Can it be self-destructive? If it’s based in self-hate rather than self-love?

I think taking care of your body is a level of self-love. It’s self-motivation through self-loathing. I’m not down on myself. I’m not depressed. I’m building confidence because I know I can perform when it counts. I don’t need training partners to say, “Come on, man, do one more rep.” I do that for myself. I’m going to hold myself to a higher standard than you’re going to hold me.

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Lookin like I have been stung by bees. 🐝 . . Amazes me what this meat machine we drive around is capable of doing. Being able to look like a totally different person. Learn new skills. Adapt to stress. . . Whatever stimulus you give that body the most is the direction it will lean into. Give too much food it will follow you there. Stress with weights it will adapt to get stronger. Cut calories and still lift it will get leaner and strong. . . This body was shaped like grimace but boy could it drop bombs. However functional this wasn’t healthy long term. At some point the change has to happen. Whichever goal you have lean in with it. Your body will get the message and adapt.

A post shared by Matthew Vincent (@ihviiimattvincent) on Jul 30, 2019 at 4:05pm PDT

What about the “always party” part?

That comes from being a competitor. Because I was out in a field, throwing by myself, I perform when it counts. When I’m tired, when it’s raining. There is just no better feeling than a third attempt, your last chance. Both the world championships I won, it came down to single throws. In 2014 in Canada, it was an open stone throw. I’m sitting in third place. The guy who’s chasing me is fourth. I need to win this event to put points between us to where he can’t catch me. I had confidence because I had performed every day in training when it wasn’t ideal. We’ve already done the work, so now we party. The competition is a party because you know you can get it done. All you have to do on competition day is stand on the gas pedal and know your body is going to show up.

I was never panicked. If we’re out there competing and I’m laughing and telling jokes, you’re in trouble. When you’re a thrower, it’s a long day. You can’t stay locked into a mean mug all day. You’ve got to be able to turn it on and turn it off. I need three seconds and then everything switches and it’s ready to go.

It seems like that would help your conditioning too. If you’re not carrying a lot of negative energy around, you’re going to have a lot more to work.

You can’t hold that level of intensity like it’s a war. It’s like, we’re throwing rocks in a field—have that perspective too. That’s how I managed competition anxiety. While it’s a world championship, and I give a shit about this and I know this throw matters, zoom out 10,000 feet. No one fucking cares. How far I throw a rock today isn’t going to make the world news. Do your job because this is what you love and you’ve trained for it. That’s why you show up and do well. Be a professional and don’t make excuses.

That’s the philosophy. What about the clothing?

The clothing stemmed from that. I really didn’t plan on starting a clothing line. Enough people read my book and they asked me to make T-shirts. I did and sold some, and then rolled that into more inventory, and five years later, I’m running an apparel business—and I really like it.

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Out here in Miami soaking up the heat. Ton of fun this week with the @hybridperformancemethod crew. Eating snacks, paddle boarding, kayaking, training, working, and talking about life progress with friends. . . Surround yourself with friends who want to see you succeed as much as they want to succeed themselves. . . Scarcity and success are not a scarcity commodity. We can all have it. But no one is entitled to it. Make your path and get to work. It’s not always fun and success isn’t guaranteed, but it’s your days and minutes to spend however you want.

A post shared by Matthew Vincent (@ihviiimattvincent) on Jul 27, 2019 at 8:07am PDT

Where did the inspiration for the styles come from?

It’s just stuff I’m into. I wanted to make clothes that were somewhat lifting apparel because I don’t want to wear skulls and bullshit in the gym, and I don’t need a shirt with a clever pun on it, of something to do with your snatch. That’s not my style. I wanted something I wanted to wear that wasn’t smashing me in the face with something that made everyone know I lift weights.

You did an interview where you implied you wanted to dress well so you could avoid the stereotype of being a jock meathead who dresses in bad taste. What are you communicating with these styles?

I want stuff that I can wear in and out of the gym. I want my body to be a sign that I maybe take care of myself, and it’s not my shirt letting you know first. My style of dress has always been skinny jeans, Vans, and a shirt. So that’s the type of stuff I wanted to make.

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Hey @skiergirljones @officialdurkin am I looking official or total look? . . Honestly i rode this trail at Wilson lake state park in Kansas and got my ass kicked. . . New trails are rough especially without a Sherpa. No clue what’s coming and hard to keep momentum since also self preservation is strong to not die. Enjoying some XC riding and getting some handling back.

A post shared by Matthew Vincent (@ihviiimattvincent) on Aug 6, 2019 at 3:14pm PDT

You can fit into skinny jeans?

Yeah, for the most part, as long as I get enough stretch in them [laughs].

Through CrossFit, more and more people are getting into hardcore lifting in general. Do you think we’re going to see the perception of guys who lift being dumb and arrogant start to fade away?

I think we have a lot. Years ago, if you had seen a guy who was in relatively good shape, you would ask if he was a bodybuilder. Now the first question is, “Do you do CrossFit?” That’s a huge shift for a brand to accomplish.  But those who don’t get it, are never gonna get it. I wish they would, and they’re welcome to it. Because nothing has been better in my life than putting a barbell in my hands. That is the most powerful thing I’ve ever done and accomplished. That will always be my home base. Any time I’ve wandered away from it, there’s been some sense of loss. Now whether the masses jump on board…

I think things are changing. It’s becoming harder to be ignorant of it. Of what health and good food is. It matters that good information is getting out there but because there’s so much out there now, the good stuff still has to cut through the fuckery. When people ask, “what do you recommend for getting strong?” I say I recommend you bench, squat, deadlift, and overhead press moderately heavy for the next 10 years. What about losing weight? I think you should live in a caloric deficit and eat foods that are a single ingredient. Gaining weight? Live in a caloric surplus and eat foods that are a single ingredient.

You’re becoming known now as a guy who hits it hard while traveling. What has you on the road?

I love traveling. I always have. It started when I was doing outside sales in the petrochemical industry—oil and gas stuff. Most of my day was driving to a place and then have a meeting for an hour and drive back. It made for maybe five hours of driving, and then I would just find a gym in the area. I would try to plan it so that if I had meetings in Cincinnati, Toledo, and other places in a five-hour radius in Ohio, I would set up home base in Columbus. Then I could train with Jim Wendler at Elite FTS, because that’s the guy I want to learn from. Just show up there and do what he does.

I’m lucky in that I’m 36, I don’t have kids, and I can travel a ton. If I’m home for more than two weeks, I get really anxious. Somehow, that’s become a job.

I don’t have a real job anymore. I have the HVIII brand and I help companies develop content. I travel for that and traveling for that creates better content than staying in one place.

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Casual…

A post shared by Matthew Vincent (@ihviiimattvincent) on Aug 8, 2019 at 8:25pm PDT

You’re making a lot of videos now about how to stay in shape on the road. What’s some of the advice you’re giving?

It’s food all the way across the board when it comes to staying in shape. When people say “stay in shape,” they mean “don’t get fat.” They don’t mean strong. They just mean don’t get fat. And that’s 100% diet. People have abs because they gave a shit about their food. If you’re traveling, especially if it’s a lot, like I have, you can’t look at travel as vacation. If I land in a place like Austin, I get a place to stay that has a kitchen. I immediately go to the store and buy meat and I cook my meals.

Now there are going to be times when I want to go out and enjoy the city and food. But there are things I have to cut back on if I have goals I want to accomplish. I find that most of the time I get back from a trip, I don’t remember the meal but I remember the conversation. I remember the people. I remember the interaction, and the gym I was in. So if I don’t remember the food, why am I eating shitty calories, wasting them on food I don’t remember? Just have a steak and potatoes. I can go to Bob Evans and have their steak and eggs, and it still fits what I’m trying to accomplish. It isn’t the highest quality; it isn’t grass-fed. But it’s mitigating the damage. Or have some coffee and skip a meal. You’ll probably be OK. Most of us have never really been hungry.

Do you have any advice for finding a good gym on the road? One that will accommodate what you want to do?

I’m lucky enough now through Instagram that I have a big enough network that, if I ask and I’m in a place, I’m going to get a ton of responses. So reach out to people. Say that you’re going to be in Ohio. What gyms are in the area? Google the area before you head to a place. I’ve always found something. And when I was driving all the time, I had a full set of implements that never left my trunk, [so I always had equipment to train on my own.]

I threw in the back of a Quality Inn parking lot. I found a grass field or a park and got the job done. You can always put in effort. It may not be ideal but it’s the effort that matters. Be willing to at least invest that hour of effort into whatever your goal is.

What equipment do you bring on the road with you now?

I bring stretch bands. I bring a lacrosse ball, a bigger mobility ball, a hip circle, wrist wraps, and sometimes a belt. Most of the time if I’m squatting I’ll just go lighter and do more reps. But I like the idea that I can get the job done with less. If I’ve got a barbell and weights, I can lift.

Workouts don’t need to be complicated. Go for a long walk, and every mile add in 10 bodyweight squats. Or every five minutes that you’re doing something, do some pullups. You just need to give your body enough stimulus that is has to adapt. It’s not some magical set and rep combination or program that works. Everything works if you do it long enough.

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I’m basically @reallesstroud out here. Roughing it. . . Love this rig, love mods I have made, love this tent, love my bikes, love being healthy enough to enjoy adventure. . . Thanks to @searchers_4wd for building this dream machine. @tepuitents @dometic @thewaterport @overlandbound

A post shared by Matthew Vincent (@ihviiimattvincent) on Aug 7, 2019 at 2:27pm PDT

Is it true that when you were younger you were a tour manager for a buddy’s band?

Yeah, I know what living in a van with seven of my closest friends feels like. I had finished doing track and field and was poorly running a bicycle shop in Baton Rouge. I started the managing to make some extra cash, as well as hang out with my buddies and drink a lot. I can’t play any instruments, so the next best thing to being in a band is to tour manage.

Did you get a taste of that rock n’ roll lifestyle?

A little bit. I was ready to get out when it was done. It wasn’t sustainable for me. I’m a morning person, so I was good at getting us to places. If you needed someone to drive all night and get us some place, great, I’m not going to watch the show.

Have you applied anything you learned doing that to what you’re doing now?

Show up on time. It doesn’t matter what the gig is, if you show up an hour late, you’re an asshole. There’s not an excuse that’s acceptable. If most people just showed up on time to the things they said they would show up to, and then do what you said you’d do, things tend to work out.

Did a club owner ever try to stiff the band, and then you stepped in?

Yeah, yeah. We were somewhere in New Jersey, and the house did not promote the show at all, so nobody came. They offered us a thousand bucks to play, and the manager came out and said our bar tab was about 1,100 bucks, “so I think we’re just going to call it even.” I said, “I got an email that says we were guaranteed for a thousand bucks and you guys would promote the gig, so I’m going to tell the band everything’s cool and come back here and get paid.” I said, “Otherwise, our lawyer will contact you. So let’s just make this easy. Pay us our thousand bucks.” And they did. It was nice having some size and being able to play that card.

Tell us about your Leatherface [from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie] tattoo.

I like horror movies, and I like Leatherface and Frankenstein. The joke I make about Leatherface to people is, “Look, it’s not really his fault. He was protecting his property. At the end of the day, you came to him. It’s not like he sought you out.”

You could argue that he’s the hero of the movie

Yeah, stand your ground! He’s basically a good guy. He just has weird taste in clothes.

Visit Vincent and shop HVIII HERE.

The post Spreading HVIII: Interview with Highland Games Champ Matt Vincent appeared first on Onnit Academy.