The Athletes Podcast
The Athletes Podcast is a leading source of information, inspiration, and education for anyone interested in optimizing physical performance, maintaining good health, and living an active lifestyle. Join David Stark as he interviews some of the world's biggest athletes and fitness professionals, The Athletes Podcast provides practical advice, expert insights, and real-world strategies to help listeners achieve their health and fitness goals.The goal is to entertain, educate & inspire the next generation of athletes!
The Athletes Podcast
Navigating Fitness, Culture, and Well-Being with Coach Lee Boyce - #226
When it comes to the fitness industry, it's not all about the numbers on the weights or the treadmill. Lee Boyce and David Stark discuss the power of creating strong client relationships, the role of a well-rounded knowledge base, and the critical balance between professional demands and personal well-being. This episode isn't just about how to stay in shape; it's a blueprint for living a fulfilled, healthy life. Prepare to redefine what being 'in shape' means to you, as we challenge fitness norms and advocate for a diverse and inclusive approach to health and longevity.
Venture beyond fitness as Lee and Dave reflect on the cultural impact of iconic films, share their current favourite reads, and even draft an NBA dream team fit for the playoffs. Wrapping up, we tackle the art of onboarding new clients with personalized strategies that champion both mental and physical growth. Join us for a deep dive into the interconnected worlds of sports, culture, and wellness—a conversation that's as dynamic and varied as your fitness journey.
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Other episodes you might enjoy:
World Strongest Man Mitchell Hooper, Taylor Learmont (Little "T" Fitness), Bruce Boudreau (Vancouver Canucks), Rhonda Rajsich (Most Decorated US Racquetball player), Zach Bitter (Ultra Marathon Runner), Zion Clark (Netflix docuseries), Jana Webb (Founder of JOGA), Ben Johns (#1 Pickleball Player in
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That's a testament to also giving away that free workout Now. That client's still worth it, true, true, but just pay the man. It's worth it. Hey, how are you?
Speaker 1:Welcome back to the 226th episode of the Athlete's Podcast. My name is David Stark. Today we have the fortune of chatting with Lee Boyce. Thank you for tuning in. Hopefully this is the best decision that you make all day and you learn a thing or two from this conversation. Lee has previously been on the show where we talked all about training, nutrition, health, his book. Today we're talking basketball, we're talking ballistics training and we're talking frankly how to live a healthier, active lifestyle as general population, non-athletic, regular people, as we might call ourselves.
Speaker 1:I want to thank you folks for tuning in to this episode in particular, because we're powered also by Perfect Sports and they continue to push us with their perfect protein powder diesel protein, that is, that you folks have the ability to save money on if you use the code AP20 at checkout on all Perfect Sports products. This way we fuel the Athletes Podcast and this is how I stay excited for every single conversation that we get to have on the show and it's part of our athlete agreement. So, if you don't know, as you tune in. All you have to do is hit that subscribe button and then that way, you are a part of the community, the team, the Athletes Podcast team, and when you are a part of that, you get to learn, listen, be educated, inspired and even sometimes entertained, as we try and have some fun here on the show.
Speaker 1:That being said, this is the 226th episode of the Athletes Podcast featuring Lee Boyce. Thank you, folks, for tuning in. Hopefully you enjoy this episode. You're the most decorated racquetball player in US history, world's strongest man, from childhood passion to professional athlete, eight-time Ironman champion. So what was it like making your debut in the NHL? What is your biggest piece of advice for the next generation of athletes, from underdogs to national champions? This is the.
Speaker 1:Athletes Podcast, where high-performance individuals share their triumphs, defeats and life lessons to educate, entertain and inspire the next generation of athletes.
Speaker 2:Here we go, who might be saying that you should completely ban yourself from eating this or from having that or whatnot like. When it comes to like supplementation, but, more importantly, whole foods, I'm a guy who thinks, okay, you know, fruits and vegetables are very essential, they're the essence. Uh, when it comes to your meats and your meat, all that stuff, yes, food groups are important to all have right. I'm never gonna say, okay, I'm gonna censor an entire food group from my nutrition or from my diet because, you know this, three sets of research right here say something about in favor of doing so. When there's 300,000 sets of research that say the opposite, right. And when food that comes from the ground on earth, like I, just I can't subscribe to the idea, you know.
Speaker 1:How? How should people balance this, like in the social media age that we're in, where, if you scroll open TikTok or Instagram, oatmeal is the worst thing in the world, and then oatmeal also could be the best pre-workout nutrition. How do you manage it?
Speaker 2:Well, I think that the the, the, the point blank answer would be to close your scrolls, scrolls your feed for a while, right? Because the longer you scroll, the more you're going to find something that is rubbing against the grain, something that is the incendiary comment, something that is going to be meant for clicks, for views, something that might not even be substantiated. That well, right, and it's very hard to even filter amongst it all and determine what's legit and what's not legit. And, um, people can get down rabbit holes with that sort of stuff and start thinking that they need to do everything that they see, and I don't. It's just not good for you, it's not good for your mind, it's not good for your attention span, it's not good for your health.
Speaker 2:A lot of times, can't? We can't be like that, we can't do that, and when we become prisoners to that, it can drive us crazy. There's a reason why you know steroids and stuff aside there's a reason why great bodies were still being built and great healthy bodies and lifestyles are still being achieved in the 70s, right? Or in the 80s, 40 years before any of this stuff was even like being researched or in existence or any of these products were available, and so on and so forth. So there's something to be said for the fact that keeping things just, you know, the good old college style, the old natural way, it works too right.
Speaker 1:Lee Boyce, it's been almost a year since we last had you on the pod. I think we touched on it before. Fortunately, as mo saved the day here to record one of very few people who we bring on for a second, probably third time in the future, we're going to get a lift in after this. I wish I got it before so I had a little swole going so I could size up next year. But either way, uh, we get to learn a bit more about what's happened this past year. I mean, wembin Yana has been an absolute beast on the boards. We've established that. We still know social media is not great for us. What else has changed in life over the past year for Lee?
Speaker 2:Hmm, I just got busier. I don't know what else to really say on that regard. Instead, I don't know what else to really say on that regard Instead of just I've just been plugging away with. After I saw you last, which would have been last July, I think, had some travel that I had to do. I would have probably just come back from Germany to speak and then after that I had to go out to Edmonton to speak, and my friend Andrew Coates is Andrew Coates is a really good friend of mine in the industry, probably my closest friend in the industry and so we've done. I've done his event twice now the inaugural season in 2019, pandemic came then 2023. I'm going back this September as well. So there's that.
Speaker 1:We hit him up right after our pod and we had him on like two, three weeks later. There you go. We brought you up. Clearly you didn't listen, but that's okay. That's okay. That's okay, we'll make up for it next time. That's all right, mo, he'll look back at this one because the cinematography is good, right? No, coates is the man. He's a beast. We recorded up at his house in Edmonton, right on Met his cat. Yeah, no, he's the real deal, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:So I got his event coming up and I got Luca as well. I got Luca as well. Luca's event is coming up as well this later in the fall, and there's some potential for a few more things. Me and Mel, we're with our book that we've got out for now, going on two years, soon going on two years. So we have some stuff that we're going to try to do with that speaking overseas. Hopefully there's some things, the wheels in motion for that, so we're going to be happy to announce it. Got a couple things going on in toronto too. As far as some local talks I'm doing can fit pro in august I'm doing, um, the strive conference next month as well. So it's a busy time and that's just the speaking side of things. So if you want to talk about teaching, we talk about writing, talk about, uh, trading clients, which I'm sure is going to occupy a lot of this conversation as well. That's, uh, it's going to be a good one. It's going to be a good one.
Speaker 2:It's going to be a busy one.
Speaker 1:I was listening back to that conversation. I'm still of the opinion that is probably one of our best to date as far as Gen Pop actionable insights that you can apply immediately to your lifestyle training habits. Highly recommend people. Go back and listen to that. But today I do think we should talk more about client relationships, maybe some more intricate details around how you've been able to establish yourself locally here in toronto as the thought leader that's now traveling worldwide. No big deal, um, where's? Let's start with ballistics training, actually, because that's what you kicked off this and you're like we need to talk ballistics.
Speaker 2:So let's, let's start there, and then I'll ask more questions as I, as I am on the heels of failing recording this video that is driving me crazy with lighting and with words to choose for and everything like that. But, yeah, no, this, uh, this should actually be helpful, for it is a ballistics training. It's kind of a. It's a dark horse of power training. That's what I'll say.
Speaker 2:Um, a lot of people get preoccupied with power training either by conflating it with power lifting that's number one which that's its own set of problems in and of itself, because power training is not necessarily power lifting. They're a Venn diagram. They have a little bit of carryover, but it's not the true essence of what power is. Power intersects strength with speed, so it's about applying velocity to something that you can have the capacity to move fast enough. That means that using something that's 95% of your max effort, you won't be exploiting the most of your power. That way, You're going to exploit your max strength and it's too heavy, because that bar will never move quickly at 95% RM. So power training needs to be involving lighter weight.
Speaker 2:Now, the thing that makes ballistics different than power training is that, even though, yes, you're doing an explosive squat now, or now you're doing a clean or you're doing a push press or something like that powerful movements. But there's a decelerated phase to each of those movements, right? Classic power exercises like those mean that you still have to stop the bar, you still have to finish the repetition and lock it out, or whatever have you. And don't get me wrong, you can still get more powerful from that. That's the way to train for power. But at the same time especially with the loads being proper but at the same time, when you still have a deceleration phase, it makes the lifts or the exploiting of power get a little bit contained, right.
Speaker 2:So it's not the true expression of as much power as possible. So where a ballistic falls into picture is like if I was to take a medicine ball and squat and launch it as far as I could over my head or in front of me or behind me, right and so when you get to project that implement as far as you can there's no, there's it the implement gets to leave you. It's free, freeing from you and from that, that's like the most complete circle of, like direct of, of application of power that you can have. So med ball to me is the most accessible version of this and probably the safest version of it as well. People will do things like barbell throws or Smith machine barbell throws and whatnot, which is a thing I don't practice it myself. I don't have clients do it either.
Speaker 1:so if I want to get into the ballistic style training with people, I'll usually go a combination of uh, you know, combining some plyometrics with those ballistics, which is with a medicine ball, and that's what I'll use and it's great one of the things that I appreciate with your approach is the long game, the emphasis on the long game, exact example there being hey, I'm going to use a med ball instead of a barbell throw because something happens with that barbell throw incorrectly. I'm not training tomorrow med ball, I can recover from right. Sure, and it's hey, I want to make sure that every other day I'm in the gym so that I don't miss those sessions that I continually progress was that always the case?
Speaker 2:no, it wasn't. It's not that it wasn, but there was less mindfulness toward it. Right, because recovery was something that came very easy when you're 22 or 24. What?
Speaker 1:are you talking about?
Speaker 2:If you're younger, then your rate of recovery is going to be faster. It's just as simple as that. The aging process isn't something that you have to say that you're down and out as soon as you're 30 or something, but it is something to start rethinking. Okay, how am I going to approach this in a bigger picture? I can't train super heavy every single day of the week anymore. There's not a chance being smart with my decisions in terms of, okay, I went hard two days in a row, my decisions in terms of, okay, I went hard two days in a row, today's going to be a much lighter day. That's going to be focused more on I don't know, body weight oriented stuff or calisthenic work or mobility stuff or core training or whatever have you, whereas yesterday I squatted three something and the day before I deadlifted four something and so like I can't go back to now going heavy bench the next day. Like it's just not smart. Yeah, right, and it depends client to client as well, person to person as well, because I'm somebody who's an injury prone guy, even if I think about university track and field and so on, like I was the guy who did not have that durability to have high volume training weeks and go really, really hard every single time and be able to recover and do it all over again the next week.
Speaker 2:If I had a high volume week and so on, then I'd be feeling it and what sucked about track was that it was a little more standard, like where you have practice these days and you have to just do it right.
Speaker 2:There wasn't too much choice that was involved and I don't think that I was of the the um, the maturation, I guess, is the best word to use to actually realize what was happening, to tell tell my coach you know what.
Speaker 2:I think I've been a little bit over the top for me, for my own durability, for my own, whatever. Now we could talk about nutrition and all kinds of other stuff that factors in big time to that, and studies and sleep and all that sort of thing. But just in general, different people are going to have different levels of durability, what they can tolerate, different work capacity, right, and that's evident in the adult client training world as well right, doing what I do for work. So all that to say that today is there a difference in terms of how I train and how much volume I apply and how hard. I go on a regular basis compared to before. Absolutely, and I do believe there should be if you want to last the long game and make that long haul thing actually work out for you and keep on yielding gains, right. If somebody ignores that, it's going to either result in a plateau or an injury, or both.
Speaker 1:I'm always fascinated because I get to have these conversations on a weekly basis. So I feel like I've been able to speed up my maturation process and like I'll have your Instagram open as I'm doing those big lifts and be like, okay, I don't need to do another heavy day. Right, there's importance in doing the mobility and making sure that your body is working well and fueling properly, getting your protein in a diesel, especially using AP 20. But either way it's like for me, I need to make sure I prioritize not only the strength but the physical, mental, emotional pieces of the puzzle, because if I'm not doing that, I'm not practicing what I preached, and then this stuff doesn't work right because on a weekly basis, I'm also being graded by the people that I work out with, hopefully doing stuff like this more frequently.
Speaker 1:Um, where do you see the biggest gaps from gen pop, because that's the typical organization individuals you work with. This is the athletes podcast, but everyone's an athlete, not just the people we see on tv. It's your grandmother, your grandson and everyone in between. Yeah, those big rocks that we talked about sleep, nutrition and then weight lifting every other day. What programs do you suggest people? Do you drive them to your website, where you have 1200 articles published on t nation, amongst other places I mean, it's a source for sure.
Speaker 2:You know it's not something that I'm gonna say like everybody's gotta read all this and do that. No, like I'm not going to give people homework they don't necessarily want to do every single time, right. But if it's there, if they need it, basically usually falls prisoner to a work-life balance being askew, right. And so if you know you have to travel a lot for work, or if you are working a lot, even locally and so on, and then you're trying to get your workouts in, you're on three hours of sleep, you know things happen, right, and the one non-negotiable for most people is going to be how much they have to work to support themselves and their families or whatnot. So then it has to be a question of okay, where does the training fit into this? And not only that, but when you are training, how is it going to enhance your day, enhance your work week, enhance your week in general, versus detract from it and take away from it and make things worse? You never want. You want training to ameliorate the situation. You don't want to do the opposite, right, you want training to ameliorate the situation, you don't want it to do the opposite.
Speaker 2:And if training becomes another stressor. If training becomes something that works against you, why are we even doing this? So it's about looking at things from the big picture, the work side of things, and being very, very busy and having super long days and all that stuff is probably not going to go away, especially with I mean, you know where I'm living, so it's expensive here, right? So having a bunch of clients who are living in this city, they've got to work a lot to pay the bills, right, and it's not going to go anywhere. So how do we sort of navigate that, with that being a fixed entity, its own fixed entity? How are we going to navigate that in order for the training to benefit these clients? And I think that that work-life balance is definitely the biggest area of concern or the area of focus that I've tried to zero in on so I talked it's interesting randy hetrick, who's the founder of trx.
Speaker 1:Um, yeah, we talked about it on the previous podcast and it's like how do you actually balance? Is balance actually a thing? I brought it up probably the past 20, 30 episodes. It's like there's seasons in life maybe, but that stress from work is every single day, non-stop. For most people. You don't have the ability to clock in and out. Um, it's always around email, work, life. Now like so how do you manage that stress or how do you recommend to clients manage that stress?
Speaker 2:I mean, setting up some kind of boundaries has to be step number one, right? So whether it's whether it's setting up a boundary by the way of saying, okay, after this hour I do not take any more emails or take any more calls, or on the weekends my phone is off, or I have a separate phone that I'm going to use for personal and you know that's my work phone and that's it right. Something along those lines has to be step number one. Yeah, creating some kind of boundary so that that work-life balance can be respected and it can work for your health once again. So, off the top, that's the first thing I think of.
Speaker 1:Well, that's important because you are in this space, right, and one of the things we wanted to touch on is client relationships, and that 60% no, 60% is client relationship. 40% is the content you provide. You provided those stats. Where do they come from?
Speaker 2:They come from my head Arbitrarily chosen numbers Totally arbitrary numbers.
Speaker 2:But to be real about this, I will say this was actually part of the subject of the last talk that I gave, either in Edmonton or Dallas I can't remember where it was last year. But why I say that is because everybody this is the point that I raised there was that everybody in this room knows a trainer who has clients who love them, who are. They will give them the shirt off their back and train for years and years and years. But the trainer is terrible at what they do. They're not a good trainer. They have poor recognition of good technique. They have bad programming. They have, you know, not even the greatest professionalism, sometimes in terms of being on the phone or something like that while stuff's going on. And so the question is why does that client continue to pay for these kinds of services? Part of it they might not know any better in terms of what actually constitutes good technique or programming but a massive chunk of it is the fact that the relationship that that client and trainer have built, the bond that they've forged, that counts for something. It counts for a whole bunch of somethings right and rapport that you can build, the fact that you are a good communicator, the fact that you can be relied upon in some regard. All those things count for a whole lot, and that's what's going to keep clients coming back. You can be the most brilliant trainer in the game, but if you don't have people skills and you're not good with people, you're not going to last, your clients aren't going to last and they're not going to find anything that actually they get along with right.
Speaker 2:Uh, one to get tangential about this, one thing that I think is very important for trainers is to take up hobbies or interests that are not having anything to do with training, and I've said this a lot too. Most people who are very familiar with me know about me. In movies, for example, that's one of my biggest hobbies, and I have many other things that I'm interested in these days. You know movies, I'm into music, I'm into a lot of stuff. Sports you want to start talking about sports. I follow a lot of different sports. So it's not like. It's just like okay, basketball, and that's it right. So if you don't talk basketball, then we can't talk at all about what you saw on TV yesterday. No, I love baseball, I love basketball. Hockey I'm into. The playoffs are on. I got football, I got whatever right.
Speaker 2:So it just helps to have a broader breadth of general knowledge. Right, have a broader breadth of general knowledge, right. It's like somebody who's a phd in one subject and so they can go deep into that subject, right. And but then if you put them on a trivia contest, they don't do well in that trivia contest, right, there might be a couple questions regarding to their phd studies, right, but then there's stuff about entertainment and pop culture and this, and music and film and whatever else you want to talk about, and they can't answer those questions, right. So to to summarize it in a very concise nutshell, I'll say it's a trainer's dream, and it's probably a client's dream as well. For a trainer who knows a little about a lot, not a lot about a little. When a trainer knows a little bit about a lot of things, they're going to have clients hand over fist, right, and that's the way that I try to operate myself. I try to be like that guy too, yeah.
Speaker 1:I've tried to emulate that even recently just shout out to Nate Hayes, who reached out and wanted to do some work. But it's like I've learned that from you, right? And 226 of these other conversations around like, hey, if I can have a little piece of this little piece of that, I don't want to try and be an exactly like jordan shallow. I don't want to be exactly like jordan syatt. Maybe I want to try and be a little bit more like matt nickel, who I'm still trying to get on the podcast and maybe he'll come on eventually after we give him a shout out here. But like there's pieces to those puzzles that you can add in and it's like you know a thousand pieces, right, and then maybe you're the most well-rounded potential trainer in the gta. But even then, there's still things to learn. Sure, 10 years ago people weren't doing ice baths and sauna as frequently as they are now. What are some things that have changed over the years for you that are like completely head over heels, what you saw 20 years ago in the space?
Speaker 2:I mean cardio, is definitely an easy topic to bring up because, first of all, something that now I do, that I didn't used to do, steady state, lower intensity, or zone two, or whatever you want to call it, peter and Tia.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like all that, that um, and then including that with my clients too, because before it was all about metabolic demand and metabolic finishers and being explosive for fat loss and all sorts of stuff like that. If somebody wanted those goals and composition-based goals, but now it's like, well, no, there's a lot of different ways you can do it. Um, and there are a lot of benefits excluding body composition that cardio, lower intensity cardio, can provide, right, and so are we talking about training just for body comp? Are we talking about training for general health? Yeah, general population clients should be most invested with their general health. Right, there's already been a whole bunch of stigmas that have been dropped with regards to what someone's body should look like and what what in shape means and all sorts of stuff like that. And you know, then you have people who are proselytes of really really going down rabbit holes of that sort of subject matter, which we won't talk about right, but you don't like going into this.
Speaker 2:I'm just your favorite subject I don't want to get canceled here, so I'm staying, I'm staying, I'm staying out of that one. But when it comes to that sort of thing um, body composition versus performance or body composition versus general health and all that stuff we start realizing how important every piece of the pie becomes Nutrition, strength, training, mobility and flexibility, work and all the 11 aspects or components of fitness. So cardiorespiratory capacity, strength, power, agility, coordination, balance, reaction time, and I'll go on with the rest of them later on, all of those different components of fitness, health and skill-related fitness. They require different approaches and different phases and different areas of focus for your own self. So involved in that would be cardi, you know, cardio, respiratory capacity and muscular endurance. Well, that's literally getting out and being able to run a mile. Getting out and being able to go on the rowing machine for 20 minutes, 30 minutes, whatever it is. If that poses a problem for you, you could either look down your nose at that kind of training or you can acknowledge that there's a weak link in your chain that's going to hold back your longevity most likely. So why not try to get pretty good at that? It's a reason why I'm not so big. I shouldn't say it this way.
Speaker 2:As a trained individual, as somebody who has now been under the iron for a very long time, I don't necessarily care to follow programming for extended periods myself. Right, if somebody's looking for newbie gains or somebody's looking for to get to a certain level of baseline, foundational strength, they need programming and progressive overload and all that stuff, especially if their goals are involving strength or muscular development. But if you've been training for 10, 15, 20 years and whatnot, and you've been doing the right things and you've got development to show for it, you've got strong lifts, you've got muscular development, whatever it is that you're after, then it's worth questioning whether or not you need to be married and ensconced to a set program throughout, right, and there are a lot of people who they can get caught up with that. And then you start asking what's the end goal here? What's the purpose here? Well, to get stronger, get stronger. Well, aren't you strong already? Who defines what strength is beyond a certain point? Okay, well, I can do 10 pull-ups. Okay, well, isn't that fantastic, I can pick up twice my body weight off the ground. That's really strong.
Speaker 2:You know, there are people I made a post the other day that said, um, what did I say again. I said something along the lines of if you are concerned that you have not gotten strong enough or that you haven't made a certain strength standard or whatnot, and you think that you're not strong enough, the good question to ask is compared to who? Right? Compared to who or what? What aren't you strong enough compared to? And if you can squat with your body weight equivalent on your back, you're probably stronger than, like 95% of the earth's population, because most people can't do that.
Speaker 2:So when we start confining ourselves into these restricted sort of confines of the fitness community and that's it, the fitness community, which actually comprises a very small percentage of the earth's population, and I don't mean people who just like arbitrarily work out once in a blue moon or go to a yoga class or a fitness class or whatnot, I'm talking about like the serious strength and conditioning community, which is like one percent of people and then we compare our 300 pound deadlift to this person's 700 pound deadlift, or our 500 pound squat to this person's you know, thousand pound squat or whatnot. It's like we can easily say, okay, well, we've got more work to do. What is the cost benefit of doing that or going after that? Right, and I'm going to a sidebar as well and talk about the fact that, um, you know, this is a little bit of a of a spoiler into probably some future talk that I give somewhere I don't know where yet but the concept of what reaching one's potential even means, right? People will say, oh yeah, I just, I want to get as strong as possible, I want to reach my potential in this, lifts and so on. What does that even mean? What does reaching your potential even mean and what are the collateral damages that will come along the way for you to reach your potential? We've seen people squat 1100 pounds. Okay, so that's someone's potential out there.
Speaker 2:Maybe it's, maybe it's mine, maybe it's yours, right, but you talk to a person who can do that and you think that they're just fine. Like you think that they're just, they've never felt healthier. Well, probably not, right. You talk to a guy who could bench press 800 or 700 or whatever, and I guarantee you he'll tell you about the time where he tore his pec or something like that. Or he'll tell you about the time where his tricep ruptured or whatever it is that was incidental to being so powerful, exposed to such heavy loading and so neglecting other elements of fitness in the name of getting those big lifts.
Speaker 2:Something's got to give. So what does reaching your potential even mean, and is it something that we should actually be striving for? Shouldn't reach our potential be in the name or in the vein of health, like what's the healthiest we can get? That should be reaching our potential, not necessarily choosing or cherry picking one aspect of fitness and health and saying that's what we want to reach. That's going to encompass reaching potential. So a lot of people think about it in just terms of strength. Right, I'm going to reach my potential and get as strong as I can. Good luck with that. That's going to yield positive and many negative benefits as well to your health yield positive and many negative benefits as well to your health.
Speaker 1:A story that is just perfectly fitting for that is when we traveled up to Barry to chat with Mitchell Hooper, world's strongest man. We're setting up for the podcast and you know we're sitting across the table. He's like do you mind if I sit on this side? I'm like, yeah, no problems out here, good side. He's like, no, I just can't hear out of this ear right now. I'm like, oh, okay, that's good. I'm like you getting that checked out. He's like ah, maybe I'm like him, noah olsen, we're both dealing with the same thing same time, I guess. A couple days later I checked in on him. He was all good, but like, these are the kind of things that you have to be comfortable with if you are trying to become the world's strongest man. Yeah, right, and you know pros and cons right and to actually to mitch's point.
Speaker 1:He does feel as healthy as he claims he's ever felt, which is like hey, maybe a testament to some of the extra work he's doing, but like I don't know, there there's risks involved. And uh, he's also the guy that pump faked me as I was spotting him with four plates on the bench press right. So like you get humbled pretty quickly and and you realize there's levels to the game and some people are playing an entirely different game and have different goals. But health should be at the priority for 99% of the population.
Speaker 2:Well, there you go. Exactly Like what did you preface all that stuff by saying, well, this is a competitor, right? So we're talking about an entirely different demographic of people. When we're talking about people who are competing in the sport of X, Y or Z weightlifting, whatever it is, powerlifting, whatever it is right. If you're talking to an athlete, they have a whole different set of priorities that they have to be responsible for.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was an athlete, I am athletic, but I am not an athlete. I don't compete for anything. I'm not doing what I do in order to prepare for a certain day or an event or a series of them. I'm training to train. I'm training for life. That's it right, and I am a member of the general population. That's what people have to understand and be comfortable with is that you could be athletic, but it doesn't mean you're an athlete. You can train like an athlete, but it doesn't mean that you're competing. You're not competitive. So if this is the training that you like to do, just ask yourself whether or not it's going to contribute to a healthy life and lifestyle going forward, and if the answer is yes, great. If the answer is no, maybe reconsider, Reformulate, Check out your programming, Check out what you need to do to make the adjustments so that you can have a really really healthy life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you mentioned playoffs. We're here in Toronto. They just suffered a nice loss last night. I love getting a laugh from you, but what are your thoughts on actually just sports in general? You brought it up Leafs fans. You've got to have an appreciation for their passion, maybe are you.
Speaker 2:Uh, tell me more about your fandom, okay, so my fandom truthfully reached its end in 2013. I don't even want to say that it reached its end, like I've still watched the games and stuff like that. The Leafs are in the playoffs. I'll give support I. I hope that they can go as far as possible. I always say that, but after the 2013 season, when they lost to Boston in game seven and it was they were up, I believe, four to one in the third period with minutes to go.
Speaker 1:Ten minutes left. Ten minutes left, or so yeah, I love it.
Speaker 2:And then that second goal came through and I love it, declared I'm done with, I'm just done with being like a serious fan of, like the leafs and stuff like that. Hockey has definitely gone by the wayside for me in terms of how much I actually pay attention to it. I still watch it, but just not nearly as much as other sports these days. And, yeah, come playoffs, like I've always seen. I've seen all the decisions the leafs have made, all the players they've added, all the different records they've set as a team, coaching changes and whatnot. We got a lot of different changes that happened and, um, just some. For some reason we can't put it together to make a long, deep playoff run. It just can't happen, um, last year being the year that we finally escaped the first round, but before that it was such a long stretch where we're a playoff team, but just everything changes.
Speaker 2:My suspicion, if you want me to be honest, is because when I was a massive fan of hockey was also when I was playing hockey too, and that was, um, you know, 2001-2003, that kind of time right. And um 2000, 1999-2000, we made the conference finals, and then 01-02, I believe, we got to the second round a couple times and, uh, that team from Philly, the Philadelphia Flyers, that Broad Street Bullies team, that's exactly what I think we need in order to make a good run, because if you watch the game even if you watch yesterday's game, which I did there's a prettiness to their style. It's too clean, it's not playoff hockey. It's not playoff hockey. And even as a non-hockey guy, I see that. Right, there's a grit that's not there. All the players individually are great players. We have some solid guys, but there's just something missing. There's not enough. There's not enough Brad Marchand's on our team. There's not enough disturbers on our team. There's not enough people who the other team is just they can't stand playing against. Right, there's only one Brad.
Speaker 1:Marchand Right and, like Zach Rinaldo, who I'll mention his name we met up in Hamilton years ago, recorded a podcast that never aired because we didn't hit record. But he trains with Brad and, like he said, said he's like just the best human being and he is able to flip that switch on the ice dude that no one else can touch.
Speaker 2:It's crazy, you see it yeah, yeah, he's, uh, he's the most annoying hockey player that exists, and I think that's exactly what he's going for and it works. And uh, there's only been a handful of players that I can sort of label that way over the last couple of decades, but he was one of them. I remember on that Bullies team, keith Jones was a guy that I did not like watching play because of how much he'd be like an antagonist to the other team, sergey Gonchar. Back in the day as well, there were certain players that were just like that right and Marchand 100%. That 100% fits that right. And uh, marchand, a hundred percent.
Speaker 1:That, that, that hundred percent fits the category too you hate to play against him, but you love to have him on your team exactly, exactly, yeah, and it was the other, you know.
Speaker 1:To circle back on your original point there around, like I think it was talking about lifts, comparing yourself, and it's like comparison is the thief of all joy, right, and even as a professional athlete, a hockey player, for example, comparing yourself to brad marchand, now you're not gonna be able to do it because he's got that extra grit, yeah, and you need to find what makes you unique and what separates you yourself. You've been able to do that. How do you see others in the space doing that? Because one of the people that we brought up, matt nickel. You looked at him as a legend growing up, obviously least strength and conditioning coach for over a decade. What sets him apart? Like, what are separating those individuals that are the top 1%?
Speaker 2:I think that a staying true to what you think, that you're the best at, number one, right. So I think that what brings somebody like me in common with someone like Matt Nickel, who's a good dude friend of mine as well the fact that we're still on the gym floor working with physical clients right, and we're often sold this idea in the fitness space, especially now in the 2020s that after, say, eight or 10 years of being a trainer, you should have graduated on to doing something else, like some kind of business development guy or something like that in the fitness space and some kind of guru-ship, instead of being a trainer, right? And I want to emphasize how important all the things that are on my resume, or all the things that I've done, are because I'm a pretty good trainer, right. Things that I've done are because I'm a pretty good trainer, right.
Speaker 2:The opportunities that came along came from, in some way, shape or form, me being good at what my craft is, and that's where people came knocking.
Speaker 2:That's where opportunities arose, that's where I was asked to speak or to teach or whatever. It is because I've been following your training content, because of your training knowledge, and that's where I that's why I'm interested in doing this with you or doing that with you, right, and I? Just it speaks a lot to that, and being in the trenches for many years, like a Matt Nichol would be 20 something years and so on. Like the amount of experience, the amount of knowledge, the amount of just insights that you're going to amass over all that periods of time, it's unmatched. You can't duplicate that. And so with someone to leave the industry or to leave that pocket of the industry, after only 10 years doing it, or eight years doing it or whatnot, and now you're trying to, maybe it'll earn you more money but at the same time, it's not going to give you the same depth, in my opinion, of insights that you'll have on the subject of personal training and working with clients and so on.
Speaker 1:What are those aspirations? If you're still on the gym floor, you will be for the next 10, 20 years. We've talked about your passion for it. Aspirations currently over 1,200 articles published. Do you have a number?
Speaker 2:you're trying to get to? Do you have a goal of like those overarching kind of pillars that you're trying to achieve? Check off the list At this point. No, I mean, I'll always continue to write and stuff like that as well. If people have been paying attention, they'll see that that frequency has slowed way down because I'm just busy with a lot of other stuff too, right, so I'm still pumping out articles, but I remember call it 2015,.
Speaker 2:I was getting published a couple times a week, right, it was all the time something was coming out somewhere, some website, or I'm in print in this magazine and that magazine or two at the same time for a month, and so on. It just it was always happening, and now I just don't have the bandwidth to continuously be working on deadlines like that. So I have a few different magazines and publications that I am working with fairly regularly, but it's just a few, it's not a lot, and if I had more time then I'd be able to do a little bit more in that department. Is there a number that I'm going for at this point? No, you know, like there's, it's been, there's been a lot, there've been a lot so far as. Uh, as you see, and so, uh, I'm just I'm good with that, and as long as I could just at least keep the slow trickle going, I'm good with that as well.
Speaker 1:I, uh I'm good with also being called six four. You did that on our last episode. It doesn't happen often, but I'll take it. Uh, you, you also made a point of reaching back out, wanting to come back on the show. I think you even mentioned that your mom enjoyed the episode. I know my mom did. What was the reason for wanting to come back on? I think I always want to make sure that I prioritize people learning. Obviously, our goal is to educate, entertain and inspire, but it means a lot to have someone like yourself paid compliments last time you were on, and it's like I want to know why you really wanted to come back on.
Speaker 2:It's a rounded discussion. Each time, right, it's a rounded discussion. It's not just focusing on one aspect or one area of training or the same generic questions that I might get on a lot of other different interviews that I've done or podcasts that I've done, so it's just the nature of the discussion. Where it goes goes, how tangential it can get as well and how all-encompassing the subject matter can become. And it's good and uh. You know you come from far as well, so that's we travel.
Speaker 1:We travel just like mo coming from miami. We were just frig, I was just an indie and uh, we were chatting with 35 000 different firefighters and we talk about first responders. We talk about athletes using and needing to perform at their best. First responders are like general pop, but they need to perform like professional athletes when they're called upon in duty, sure? So one of the things we're trying to do at expert vr is highlight hey, you should be using the best technology, using the best training methods available and I get very passionate about this subject because my dad was a firefighter for 28 years, grandfather RCMP for 32. And they all should be treating their health as a priority as well, but they don't, and they have to cope with alcohol and other substances because of what they see. And I think you've probably got experience training first responders and other people in the space that see difficult things and have to deal with those additional stresses, thoughts.
Speaker 2:I mean, I've dealt with a fair share of first responders in terms of the training that, in terms of training them and so on, and it's a couple of things. First of all, their sleep schedule is often out of whack, right. So even just from a general rest and recovery perspective, they do need anything that they can get in terms of just like restoring or creating some kind of equilibrium there. So that's in itself kind of its own struggle. But as far as, like mental health and the things that could compromise it, or the mental side of things to be able to just relax, whether it is, you know, a meditative kind of act or whether it is something that just allows you to free your mind from the stresses of work and the stresses of your job and whatnot, it's something that I endorse, right.
Speaker 2:So, you know, hit up the movies or read some fiction or something like that, go out on that nature walk if you can. Um, you know just anything that just takes your mind away from that sort of thing. Uh, can only do well, because those people should be paying, paid a lot more than they get, that's for sure, right, especially based on the things they see and people they save, and you know situations that they might avert and so on. It's a real shame that there's not enough money that goes into that, but you know you can be on TikTok and be making.
Speaker 1:Priorities in this day and age. Right, right, what is your podium for top three movies?
Speaker 2:Right now, yeah, like this year, yeah, I mean whatever.
Speaker 1:You said you're a movie guy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm brutal this year, though, because I've been busy and so I haven't watched much All time. All time Top three. I think the best movie ever made was the Shawshank Redemption.
Speaker 1:I would probably agree with that how many times have you watched it?
Speaker 2:can't count. That's too many like I've seen a lot of times right um, so, right off the top, the shawshank redemption. So that's a 1994 film. So if I was to think about other movies that are more recent, that are really a plus caliber, ones that stand out to me, that I talked about in the scene a lot of times in the last call it 10 years birdman that's the one that I think is really really well done for a lot of reasons. Um, the one shot cinematography, or at least edited to appear like it's one continuous take. Um, the whole style of how each character was kind of playing a version of their real selves. Um, just the drum only score that they used in that movie. Um, lots of great stuff going on. It was wicked. Uh, and most recently I'd say is 2019, joker. I thought that movie was incredible and one of the best acting performances by anyone ever in a leading role. You know that was. It was epic.
Speaker 1:So those would be three that come to mind right off the top okay, since we're going with lists, top three books huh, can be fiction, non-fiction, maybe some, maybe one relevance to athletes in particular, because of the podcast huh see, admittedly I'm not a huge book guy, but okay, three books that I can think of that I really liked reading to kill a mockingbird.
Speaker 2:Honestly, I know that's like going back to high school times and stuff like that, but great movie, great book, sorry, and movie A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest Gaines is a really good one, and I also like and they've made a show out of this or a movie or something like that, which I never watched but Blindness by Jose Saramago, that was a good one as well. Okay, um, really good one. That is kind of insightful. I know I'm missing something that I'll probably remember after this podcast or whatnot.
Speaker 1:But uh, those are three that stand out to me. I love it. I appreciate those three, I appreciate the three movies. I have to watch and read all of those, um, because I got a lot of work to do. I also don't do a whole lot of watching or reading as much as I should, but starting five nba right now, given the current circumstances we're entering into the playoffs if you were building that starting five lineup, who would you put?
Speaker 2:together, okay. Um so at the one. It's curry. That's my favorite player in the league. Um, so curry is at the one. I'm gonna go healthy versions of each player as though there's nothing, no problems here. Okay, then I'm going to get I'm going to get Zion in there somewhere. I'm going to put him in the four. Wow, this is a guy who, at his best, uh, is more of a problem, position-based problem. He's as much of a position-based problem as Shaq was in his prime right. Think about any smaller power forward who can stop Zion Williamson when he's not getting injured or something like that. He's body, whoever. So Zion Williamson will be in there as well. Maybe Julius Randle? No, no.
Speaker 2:No, julius Randle kudos to him. But no, okay, zion Williamson will take out anybody where that's concerned, right? Especially, he led the league in paint points or point shooting, whatever it was. He had a stat in the paint that was not touched by anyone in the league this year, right? So that's my four. I'll put them into the four. At the two I would have to choose. I mean Jalen Brown. He's the hot one right now in terms of what everyone's talking about because of that contract, so I might choose him and he's got some great philanthropic work too.
Speaker 1:I love that.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, he's a good guy PA you know Sure, so I might go Jalen Brown at the two. I like Donovan Mitchell a lot too, so he might be somebody that I might slide in there instead At the three. It's taking everything of my soul to not say LeBron James, but I might have to say LeBron James, so I'll put him at the three, that comeback that they almost made.
Speaker 1:I know, dude, we would be talking about that for an hour straight if that had happened.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was a crazy game. That was a crazy, crazy game.
Speaker 1:And now all they talk about is the fact that he missed and that what was the ad quote oh, jamal murray hit a shot, yeah.
Speaker 2:So, um, that game was one of my favorite games the last three years of just games period, basketball games, finals included last year, all that, right. So at the five, I mean it's got's gotta be Jokic, right, it's gotta be Jokic. And there are a lot of other centers that I like. But I mean there's no comparison, right, he's just, he's that guy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think, if we have this conversation five years from now, we keep doing this annually, when Mignogna might be in a combo but right now you can't do anything about the Joker.
Speaker 2:Right, joker is just he's. He's too good and he makes everyone around him contribute. And he's even look what happened to that buzzer beater game, like he wasn't having his best game and he heated up a little bit in the fourth quarter, but he was enabling Porter to show out, he was enabling Murray to show out, he was enabling everybody to just step up their game and they, they mounted they enabling everybody to just step up their game.
Speaker 1:And they, they mounted, they, they mounted the win, they mounted, uh, they, they held on for the win. I should say so it was a huge. It was huge. I think there's something to be said about the way joker like goes into these games too, and like I think he cares more about his horse racing. Like imagine that one of the best, arguably, if not the best ball player in the world having it as a passion project.
Speaker 2:He strikes me as somebody who's seen a lot. That's what I gather. I don't know his whole backstory or anything like that, but uh, you know, coming from overseas first and foremost, I feel like there's probably a a lot that he's seen before the nba and as a child and growing up and all that stuff, some khabib shit in there.
Speaker 2:So yeah, exactly, and so like, from that perspective, I think that there's not much that can phase him. I just keep on thinking back to the time when Markeith Morris was, he body checked him and then you saw Joker just take that running start and just take him out right, and Morris was on the ground for like another 10 seconds after that. So, yeah, he's not somebody who you could not mess with and I don't think that there's too much that phases him. And the game of basketball, like you said, it might be a passion project for him that he's really, really good at and uh, he's got crazy court iq as well and it just works to everyone's advantage. He's he's unstoppable and it's not even like he's the best athlete or anything either.
Speaker 1:That's the crazy part.
Speaker 1:He's just he's something else, yeah, and if you do go after him, his brothers will come at you too. They're punching people in the stands to this day. And, uh yo, he's got jamal murray, who's one of the best canadian ball players, right next to him being like man, this guy doesn't touch a ball for six months out of the year in the offseason like that's insane. Yeah, anyway, I could talk about that for a while too. Um, what have we not brought up here? Is there anything else you want to cover before we chop this up?
Speaker 2:get into a workout.
Speaker 1:I'm fired up. This rain's got me buzzing. I'm not gonna lie I haven't even opened my, you're down left there, you, you got it by the foot. I'm uh, dude, I'm ready to go. I know last time we worked out I had just spent like a year and a half traveling on the road, so my mobility was atrocious and strength was not where it's at today. But how do you go about? Like new clients, we'll say, and maybe just the first couple sessions with them?
Speaker 2:This is a subject that's going to extend this podcast by another hour right here, right? So when we're talking about new clients, there are a few different things that I like to not do. I'll start with that. I don't do some kind of a standardized full-scale assessment where I'm trying to get as much information in the first time that we visit. No, you know what it's going to be a session but it's going to be a very different investigative kind of approach for myself. For me, I want to talk to you first of all. I want to get a feel, get a pulse on what training kind of represents for you, and I'm going to not have to ask that question directly to get a feeling of what it is, how you reply. I had one client Currently I'm still training this client and this person treats training like it's an occupation, like it's a job. It's all serious, it's all data and computing and taking in information and listening to podcasts, and all that in free time and just gathering, gathering.
Speaker 1:So many athletes' podcast downloads from him.
Speaker 2:It's too much, right, it's a little bit too much, and most of what I'm doing with this client is involving scaling it back. Now you've hired a coach, trust that coach. That coach knows things that will help you, and the one thing that's even better is that coach now is working with you personally, so that coach has a leg up on what all these other sources of information have to offer you, because they don't know you right. So that is it's its own unique challenge, and it's something that gives me a good idea. Even the first assessment, um, before we even had the first assessment, the reason why we had the first assessment was because I said because this client asked me um, I want you to give me a sample of a year's worth of periodization that you're going to go through with me if I was to work with you. I was like I've never done that in my life first of all like and I question never will right.
Speaker 2:But in this situation I said you know what. I'm gonna do you one better and invite you to come in. I'll pay for it. It's on me. I want you to come in and just I want to see how you move. I want to talk to you face to face about your goals. I want to just see you.
Speaker 2:So the client came in and we spoke and that's when I learned exactly sort of where they were at as far as their mentality towards fitness and training. And in my head I'm saying, okay, we've got some work to do, not on the gym floor, we have some work to do in terms of just like, between the years, between the years exactly getting the right mindset toward this and applying things correctly. Um, so, over the course of time, it's been much improved. First and foremost, it's been much improved. There's been a lot of uh gains that have been made as far as um like, okay, in one sense it was like, like I can train very properly, I can create all the correct geometry for a bench press or for a deadlift or for a squat or for whatever, but I'm dealing with these joint pains and I'm not really feeling my muscles at all and me not being able to feel my muscles must mean that I'm not strong in it yet, which means that I should go heavier and challenge them more. It's like that's a backward to think, but it's an interesting way to think. Here's what I want to do instead. We're going to try to get the channel in on how to activate those quadriceps, how to activate those glutes and whatever else that you're struggling with. We're going to start making you a better functioning machine and then we could approach these goals that you had for this year-long kind of like periodization, all that stuff. We're going to approach things from a ground-up perspective where you can feel things first. It was all you know.
Speaker 2:It's almost like taking somebody who has and I'm not using this as an example anymore, but I'm saying it's like talking to somebody who has a high IQ but a low EQ, emotional quotient right, where, from an analytical and logical perspective, oh, they can tell you everything. But when it comes to, okay, read the room for this situation here or you get the tone of this email I'm sending, or whatever can't do it right, and so, uh, take that idea and now apply it to like training principles and that's what we had, sort of what I was dealing with and so, uh, in this case, you know how does? How do you feel doing this exercise? What are you noticing when you're doing this? You know, I'm looking for any sort of tells that are happening during the lift, and there's no facial tells, it's just a blank throughout the lift, right, and that's when I start sort of digging in a little bit deeper and finding out, okay, what is creating these sort of patterns of behavior here? Right, and it's been an interesting journey, for sure.
Speaker 2:That client is still with me right now as well, and it's been many months now. It's probably closing in on a year now that I think about it, and there's something to be spoken for that you know, and part of it is being able to communicate effectively, to be able to actually reach a person like that and understand that sometimes less can be more. Reach a person like that and understand that sometimes less can be more. Sometimes it's important to trust scaling back being the right way or the right course of action. So I know that I just deep dove onto one small section of what you asked me, but that working with clients and dealing with a first-time client and whatnot, it changes from person to person.
Speaker 2:It varies from individual to individual, and when you can be dynamic or be, I guess, flexible in your approach, in that regard, it can work really really well. And I'll tell you, the approach that I take with this particular client is very different than the approach that I take with someone else. The job somebody has can dictate so much about how they even perceive training and what it's all about. I found that I can spot an engineer training client, an engineer client like that every time, right, um, versus somebody who might be call it an investment banker training client, two entirely different, generally speaking I'm generalizing, painting with broad strokes here two entirely different personalities. Beget the career choice right and um, it's uh, it's as clear as day for me now. I couldn't have said that sort of thing 10 or 12 years ago, but these days, yeah, it's uh. And so that approach that changes your approach in terms of even how you coach them, how you cue them, how you motivate them, what you're going to say and so on, right.
Speaker 1:So it's a testament to your eq and iq. I think the way jordan shallow described it well the analogy was like you're playing the man, you're not playing zone d right. Um, hey, I appreciate your time so much. Uh, that's a testament to also giving away that free workout now. That client's still worth it true, um, but just pay the man, it's worth it uh there's your plug. I don't know anything else you want to cover before we wrap up and get after it here in the gym.
Speaker 2:I mean we covered a lot, so I think that was pretty good.
Speaker 1:Where should people be sourcing out your content? Your book's been out for a while now. Where do you want to drive people for those listening and watching?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so go on, go on. You can get on Amazon, you can get it on Amazon. You can get it on Human Kinetics US and Canadian website as well. It's available on basically any platform. It's available everywhere barnesandnoblecom, and yeah, I'm trying to think of what else. My website's leeboycecom, and my Instagram is Coach Lee Boyce. Facebook, twitter Coach Lee Boyce. They're all the same handle. That's where you're going to find articles. You're going to find shares. I put a video on instagram every day, some kind of training content.
Speaker 2:Uh, check out my tall guy stuff as well, talking about taller lifters and bigger lifters too and different things that they might struggle with, which is part and parcel of the book, which is, uh, first of all, co-authored by melody schoenfeld shout out to her, um, but part and parcel of the book it's. It's all encompassing all kinds of different body types, but a lot of stuff on tall lifters in that book too, and that was kind of one of the nexuses of the book's inception in the first place. I've been doing Tall Guy Tuesdays every week for four years now, something like that, and yeah, that was sort of like that was the crescendo right there. That was that summit.
Speaker 1:We got a couple of tall guys. We're going to put it to the test too, right now that's it, that's what's up.
Speaker 1:Appreciate you, man, you too. Thank you, folks for tuning in to the 226th episode of the athletes podcast. Again, lee boyce one of the best who we've been able to feature on the show. Over 1200 articles published on t muscle, fitness, t testosterone magazine, bodybuildingcom basically anywhere that you've seen articles published or written, lee Boyce has likely got one on there, so you could probably learn a thing or two from him. Thank you, folks for tuning in. Go follow his Instagram Twitter. He puts out a ton of content every single day and I benefit from it. You too can as well. That's it. That's the show. Thank you, folks, for tuning in. We'll see you next week. Hope you have a great rest of your day. Bye.
