Coach Bob Takano - Why You Should Care About Olympic Weightlifting

Hey Fitness fans, welcome back. It's Eric Malzone with the Future of Fitness Podcast and the Fitness Marketing Alliance, and this is episode number 21. I get to talk to coach Bob Tacano. So he is a big deal in the world of Olympic weightlifting here in the United States. And he was inducted into the weightlifting hall of fame in 2007. And his list of accomplishments as a coach are long and distinguished. And I would suggest looking up in this episode. What you can look forward to is his insight into how Olympic weightlifting can be used for the general population, why it's so valuable. He gives us insights into what it's like to be a coach at a meet and that type of environment and the stress and the uh firing up and down of athletes to get them ready for lifts and then calming after. It's really, really interesting, and I I find it fascinating. And uh he's just an all-around, super nice guy, and he knows so much. And he's also uh he was a teacher and he um started tocano weightlifting, uh Tacano Athletics, I apologize, uh in near Pasadena, California. So a lot of great stuff in here. Uh if you love the sport um or even if you just want to learn more about it, this is the episode for you. So before we get into it, let's just talk about our sponsor, which is the Machine Fit Pro Edition. So this is uh digital marketing agency service is now available to you, the everyday fitness professional. So it's a periodized marketing system, right? Uh it's based on decades of fitness industry experience and predictive analytics. It's a 13-month program where at the end every client of the machine will have an automated and evergreen marketing system that choreographs and works with all aspects of digital and traditional marketing. So you name it email funnels, social media, content marketing, co-branding, uh sales, procedures. It's got everything. Search engine optimization. Uh yeah, so get off the crash diet marketing. It's killing me. Get off it. Try to learn how to do your marketing and lead generation the right way. We'll help you. We'll even do some of it for you. So if you're interested, let me know. You can email Eric, Eri C at fitnessmarketingalliance.com and with a subject line, machine me, and uh I'll get back in touch and we'll have a nice little conversation about it and see if you're the right fit. So now on to the show, episode number 21, Coach Bob Tacano of Tacano Athletics. Hey everybody, this is Eric with the Fitness Marketing Alliance, and I have the extreme pleasure today of talking to a Hall of Fame weightlifting coach, uh Coach Bob Tacano. Thank you for coming on. I'm really excited to chat with you, Coach.

Well, thank you very much. Great talking to you. It's been a while since we've talked, so uh we'll use this as an opportunity to kind of catch up on things and topics of the day, et cetera.

Yeah, I look forward to it. I um to give a little background too, I think I first met Coach about seven years ago when I did my CrossFit weightlifting certification. Um, and then since then, uh I've probably uh stalked him quite a bit to get him into my gym when I owned it and and uh had him come and do uh seminars and uh coerced him to do that. And I've learned a lot from you. And uh your book, um uh Weightlifting Programming, A Winning Coach's Guide, has been a desktop reference for me uh for a long time. So if if you're listening out there and uh get it, it's a great reference. And uh if you ever want to start programming for Olympic weightlifting, but I know who you are, coach. Um maybe give some background on your story and uh we'll start with that.

Okay, well, it's been kind of a long road. I started out uh lifting weights so I could get bigger and stronger because I was I was always the shortest guy in my class and uh got picked on a little bit. So I needed to do something to uh raise my status within the community where I was at. So I started lifting weights, and then after I got into working out with weights a little bit on an old Sears Robux 100-pound barbell set, uh at one point I decided I wanted to make it official so that people could actually see what I had done. So I decided to enter competition. And uh I became a competitive weightlifter, uh, did that for quite a while, didn't get to be real good, but I think I got to be among the very best of the untalented people in Southeast California, and uh then after that I got more involved in coaching, and uh now I've I've kind of done all of the things that I'd like to do in coaching, and I'm moving to the point where coaching education is what's occupying me right now. So I'm I've got an internship at my gym. I've had uh over 40 people come in and do a 100-hour internship there. And uh I'm I'm developing a course, and I'm gonna be coming out with a continuity website that's gonna have uh one webinar a month plus uh a QA session every month, and uh hopefully it'll be a way of getting good coaching information and training information out to people that are interested in uh improving their abilities, both as lifters and coaches.

You know, that leads me to a question because it's I think for a lot of uh I've talked to a lot of personal trainers, and a lot of people do not incorporate Olympic weightlifting into their program, right? Uh and for whatever reason that is, maybe they feel that general population doesn't need it, um, or that maybe it's too complicated, they don't want to take the time learning it to teach it. What are what are some of the benefits that you see if you know, for a personal trainer to learn um or just an athletic trainer to learn Olympic lifting, and then how how valuable do you think it is for a general population?

Well, I I think it's a very versatile tool and it does more than uh a lot of people think it does. It actually helps people develop their nervous system, which nervous system training is not really focused on by a lot of personal trainers, but it's something that's going to help people become more coordinated and uh able to respond to situations. For instance, if somebody's been lifting, their nervous system gets developed. Uh if they're in a situation where they suddenly might trip and fall, they'd be able to recover much faster if their nervous system has developed, or if they're just playing a you know a pickup soccer game, they're going to be able to move more effectively and adjust to the situations a lot quicker. But but more important than that, you can if you know how to coach the lifts, uh they can be a benefit whether it's in general fitness or uh anaerobic endurance or weight loss or uh getting stronger. There's there's so many ways that you can use it just by varying the set and rep schemes and the frequency of training. But the important thing is people need to take the time to learn how to coach the technique. And once you can teach that to somebody, then you can go in a wide variety of directions.

Yeah, and I 100% agree because you know, and coming from a CrossFit background, obviously CrossFit is is tightly um you know uh intertwined with with weightlifting, but just seeing, you know, and there's definitely certain things like you know, you shouldn't have people of poor mobility trying to snatch overhead, right? They need to fix that first. Right. There's the there's the obvious pieces, but I've also seen, you know, um incredible improvements in balance, mobility, just from nothing else but but practicing the lift, you know. And uh Dan John has a great analogy who um he says, you know, I think I think it's his uh prisoner's dilemma, right? It's his own version of the prisoner's dilemma. Where he says, if you only had, you know, three 15 minute times every week to to do exercise, which you know would happen in some prison, what would you do? And I always thought about that. I'm like, you know what? I think I'm pretty sure I would snatch, clean, and jerk all three sessions, right? Just because of the overall the the capacity and and the the development that you get in all aspects of central nervous system um as well. I uh for for people who may not be as familiar with weightlifting, um, and maybe they just watch it on the Olympics. And I I can't wait for the Summer Olympics to come around because you get to see it on TV. And okay. There's I I'm curious, can you walk us through because you've been through so many, walk us through what a weightlifting meet feels like and the gamesmanship and the strategy that happens on the fly. Uh it's so cool to watch. I'm really I'm curious.

It's very specific. Uh when you get to when you get to the competition, uh, we're hoping that the that the conditions of the competition will actually transform you. So uh you're in a different state both psychologically and physiologically as you enter the as you enter the competition. And it's actually addictive. You're secreting chemicals in your brain and in your body, and athletes actually get addicted to that. And that's why people keep competing long after they they probably should know better a little bit. But uh, but the the fact is that uh they like to be in that altered state. If you are the coach, you are concerned with eliciting the best performance out of that athlete. And your job then becomes getting that that person to focus on just the performance of the movement. If they're thinking about how much weight there is, whether or not they can hit a qualifying total for another meet, whether or not uh they're gonna set a record, uh, or they even think uh think back on things like how much work they put in to get there, all of those things are distractions. So, what you want to do as a coach is eliminate the distractions, get the athlete to just focus on how they have to move their body in order to do the snatch and clean and jerk and how to do it at the right time. And um uh you actually have to, uh, when you're in the warm-up room and then you go up onto the platform, there is a transformation that takes place, and it takes a lot of energy to stay in that altered state. So the best performers are able to go from that the warm-up room up onto the stage, get altered, perform the movement, and then come down and save some energy. Now, if you talk to people that are in their their first meet, they'll say they're just exhausted at the end. It's because they went into the altered state and couldn't figure out how to get back out. So they stayed in it for all three snatches and all three clean and jures. And experienced competitors can go into it and then come out and save energy that way. So uh it's an experience, it's something that you have to go through to really understand. And people that have not been through it can't really understand it. So when I I have people come to me and they say, I want to be a weightlifting coach, uh the first thing I ask is, Have you competed? Because if you haven't undergone that experience, you can't really get your athletes to focus on it because you don't know what they have to go through. So they didn't have to be a great lifter, but they had to understand that transformation that takes place. So uh, and and if you're the coach, you have to make decisions on the spot based on what you see. If you see an athlete, even if they make their first natch is is good, but you see a particularly weak point in their technique, and you know that if we add weight, that weak point is going to be magnified. Then you have to be able to identify that, tell the lifter, whatever cue, keep your back straight or or tighten up as you go under the bar or push more on the bar as you go under, because you have to be able to figure out what's the difference between this first attempt and what's the second attempt going to be like. And you have to call that increment between first and second attempt so that it is a makeable lift, keeping in mind that if he makes, if your athlete makes the second, then they're gonna have to add weight to go to the third. And you also have to keep in mind what goals you've set for the competition, and at the same time also keep in mind that you're competing against somebody else, so you have to keep in track of where your athlete is going to place if they make or don't make a particular lift. So uh as a coach, you're playing a chess game as well as providing immediate monitoring of what's going on on the competition platform.

Yeah, it's it's fascinating. I I I've never coached Olympic meet, right? Um watching some of them on TV, you'll see like you'll see an athlete fail lift, right?

Right.

And then they'll start walking back, and then the you know, someone else in the competition will declare a different weight, which means this person has to go back out again almost immediately. And now it's not like what a total mind screw if if you know you just missed your lift and all of a sudden you think you have some time, and then next thing you got to go back out, you know, minutes later and try it again, or at a higher weight. And it's just uh yeah, I I so is there do you have tips or or things that you do for athletes to get them to calm down for a second and then get them fired back up again?

And how do you it's a it's a matter of practicing it over and over and being in as many meets as you can and being comfortable with your coach? But what an athlete has to do is meet immediately after they step down off the platform, whether it was a good lift, mediocre lift, great lift, complete failure, they've got to completely erase it and begin focusing on the next attempt. So if they if they linger too much, if they're too elated because it was a great lift, or if they're relieved because they didn't think they could make it and they made it, uh, if they've got another attempt left, then you as the coach, you have to refocus their mind on the next lift. So there is no uh there is no memory, so to speak. There's only a looking forward to what's going on. And the only time you can completely rest is after the last clean and jerk. So it after every lift in the meet, you're looking at the next lift. And uh the athletes that have been with me for a while and through several meets, they understand that they get into that mindset.

One of the uh one of the favorite things that I always take away from any uh personal interaction with you, whether I'm doing one of your you know courses, or if you come to my gym and you're coaching people, or any of that was I always get some insight, which I think is rare, into the global scheme of things, right? Because you've done so much um, you know, on the the world competition, uh being in different countries and seeing how different um, you know, especially the Eastern Bloc or China. Where do you think that in the broad scope of coaching, where do you think the US excels? And then where do you think we fall short? And what yeah, and I I think you even wrote an article recently called Bridging the Gap, that it's on a similar topic. Um, but where yeah, tell us more, give us some insight on that.

Well, I I think that um because the barriers to getting into coaching are rather low, uh you don't have to have an extensive educational background to get into coaching. Um, but because of that, the US manages to attract those people that are very passionate about doing it. And those are the ones that eventually stick with it long enough and emerge as being your top coaches. So um we've made it possible to get really passionate coaches involved. Now, uh the the problem that we have, and this goes back to the bridging the gap uh thing, is we all don't have the same education preparing us for that. So we don't all have the common experience and the common terminology. So uh we need to we need to work on that. Um uh it it's and also because it's a volunteer organization, because USA weightlifting is almost entirely a volunteer organization, uh we're rather hesitant about making evaluations about somebody's coaching ability. Uh, we have a system by which we rank coaches, but it's a pretty cut-and-dry objective process. Uh at some point, especially the higher you go, you need to say, this guy is really good at getting a great performance out of an athlete at a rural competition, especially one that he has never worked with before, or she has never worked with before. And uh we need we need to have a place where we can um perhaps make some uh some uh more subjective evaluations of how people are doing at that level. I I think we're we try to solve a lot of problems uh uh that that crop up in the process. Uh, you know, somebody's somebody's been a good loyal coach for a long time. They may not be especially effective at doing certain things, but we might try to reward them by moving them into a position, and they may be doing some things that they're really not very capable of doing, uh, not necessarily their own fault, but uh I think we need to at certain point say, okay, we need to put our best coaches up there, and determining who's best is not something that that can always be objectively determined.

So, how does that differ? Like, how is the situation? And let's use let's use China as an example. Um, how how is the coaching development different there than than what we have here?

I'm not real familiar with it, but I'm sure there's a formal education process that they have to go through. Okay. And then the big difference, of course, is that they're employees, they're paid by the weightlifting federation and hence by the government. So uh they are subject to uh employee evaluations like we have here in many jobs. And uh somebody that's in charge of the administration of the program is gonna have to make a call as to whether or not this is the guy that we want to trust our fortunes to in the Olympics. And I'm I'm sure there's human factors in politics that get involved, but uh they probably are making those decisions about a pool of people that have gotten there on a on some fairly objective standards.

Would you would you like to see something like that in the United States, something more similar to that? Or how would you, in your mind's eye, what would what would be the ideal coaching development program?

Well, what we've done is we've come up with a coaching development and education system that's supposed to be one size fits all, starting with beginning coaches all the way up to elite level coaches. And I think that the criteria for moving up from level to level has got to change depending on what level we're talking about. So you don't take all the beginning coaches and decide who's moving up with the same criteria that you would use when you get up to say international, who do we move up to senior international level? That's a different set of criteria. And I I don't know that uh uh we want to we want to get into that area, and there's probably some attorneys that don't want us to get into that area either. But um I'm I'm now a member of the coaching education committee, so I may have some input on that, but uh I I think that um we we tend not to value uh good coaching as much as we should, uh kind of in the same way that in the country as a whole, we don't we don't value teaching the way that we should. So uh I I think there's a there's a cultural bias against you know the the efficacy of what a good coach is worth or a good teacher is worth.

Yeah. And it's uh I like to say that I'm starting to see a swing in that as far as the you know making um I'm sure if this is the right word, the professionalization of coaching. You know, I know um the guys at OPEX and and Jim's James Fitzgerald, they're very much into really having a concrete educational program for coaches that takes time and work and and you know that they come out of it polished. And I think it sounds like you're doing the same thing, and it's it's exciting because I I feel like it's the the coach is starting to be recognized a little bit more, you know, tiny, tiny bit more.

Yeah, well it it's hard, it's hard to tell somebody that you've got to go through all this training uh to get a volunteer position. You know, that that's but but optimally that's what we'd like to do. We do it a little bit, but I I think that would be a hard sell for a lot of people. Yeah. You know, we have so many people that that uh are grandfathered into the system that don't have that background. So uh I I think we have to we have to think about it and uh see see what we can do. We we might end up Tending to favor those people that have had more of the appropriate background in those areas.

So, Coach, you were a teacher for a long time, right? What what uh what subject did you teach?

Uh I taught eight years of middle school science and then uh 32 years teaching um high school biology and physiology.

Okay. Um I would have loved to have had you as a teacher. How how is now you you've retired from that, right? And now you're pretty much full-time to Kano Athletics, is that correct? Right, yes. How's that transition been for you?

Um it was kind of uh smooth because I I had already been coaching weightlifting for a long time after school. And so I I just uh at a certain point decided to go pro, so to speak. And uh it's it's working out. I'm using using some of the skills that I I developed as a teacher. And my last actually, my last uh, I think four years as a teacher, I moved up uh into a coordinator position where I was coordinating a magnet uh program. And so I learned some uh managerial skills there. And so I used those, I use those in my in running the gym right now. So it actually is uh the transition has been manageable, let's put it that way.

Cool. So tell us about your your gym and and what you're doing now. And I actually I regret uh now that I'm not living in California, not having stopped by uh your location. Uh okay.

Well well, next time you're in town, you need to drop by.

I will, absolutely. You have my word. Uh how uh how do you how do you run things there? Because there's I know there's very few designated weightlifting gyms like yours. You know, I I don't know how many there are in California, but I believe you're the only one in Southern California. Um how does it work? You know, if someone's walking in off the street um and they're interested in what you do, are they generally like people who are looking for general health and fitness? Are they competitors? Are they people, I mean, people who want to compete? Like what does the average client look like for you?

Uh the average client right now, uh, there are people that have been uh largely they've been in CrossFit or they've been in some sort of a program where they needed to do snatches and cleaner jerks, but they weren't given enough instruction. So a lot of people come in and they want they want instruction. And we have two sessions a day, uh Monday through Friday, one at 12 and one at five o'clock, during which there is coaching. And either I or my assistant, who's becoming a very, very good coach, or and or the interns are there, and so there's always somebody to instruct. And and pretty much what we do when people come in is we take a look at what they can do uh as far as snatches and cleaning jerks go, and then we make an evaluation and then figure out what things we need to fix. So um we have a standard training program for those that are pretty good technicians or on their way to being good technicians, and before a newcomer can get into that, we do a lot of remedial work. So it's it's very much personalized initially. And I think I think there's two points in an athlete's career where they need to be uh they need some some very solid oversight. One is when they're beginning, and one is when they get up to the limits of their talent, because then little things are going to make a difference.

Uh how has how has the the CrossFit movement affected weightlifting?

Well, it it's provided us with an audience, that's one thing. It's provided us with an audience in a market, and um, it's provided us with a lot of people that want to learn how to lift so that there are prospective weightlifting coaches who can actually make a living doing coaching. But um, as far as providing us with with talent, not so much just because the CrossFit uh clientele are usually 20s and 30 year olds. And so they're they're most of them are past the point where they could have a substantial weightlifting career, and they're not they're not selected at all. Uh they're self-selecting. So uh it's helped, but uh and it's also lowered the price of equipment.

Oh, that's great.

Okay, and the availability of equipment and uh and weightlifting shoes, but um so it's helped us in in that way. Uh, but as far as providing weightlifting talent, we're still looking.

Okay. Uh yeah, you know, it's interesting just on a personal anecdote. I started, I think I first touched a barbell, and when I say touch barbell in the sense of Olympic weightlifting, right? You know, I played sports my whole life, and we just basically did bench bys and maybe some leg press and things like that for the sport of water pool. But I my first uh touch on a barbell was with Jim Schmidt, and it was who uh up in Northern California, and I remember I grabbed the bar and I was gonna, you know, attempt something that resembled a snatch, and he just looks at me and he's like, Have you ever weightlifted before? I was like, No. He's like, Yeah, it shows. I was like, oh great, okay, I have a lot to learn in this. And uh yeah, so where do you think, you know, when we talk about general sports training, uh, you know, whether it be you know football to football, obviously it's a little bit more popular, it has more traction there. What what sports do you think um would really benefit from from doing Olympic lifting?

Well, I I think uh any ground-based sport is gonna benefit from weightlifting. Uh, the extent to which it's going to benefit you is is gonna vary depending on the nature of the sport. I have athletes coming to me and they say, I want to do lifting, it's I I want to get to be better at my sport. And I need to find out what sport it is. There are some things that I can't help you with very much. For instance, with with swimmers, you know, I can help them with a start and I can help them with the turn, but I can't make them too dense or they're gonna sit lower in the water. So I have to be honest with them and say, this is what I can help you with. Um but it's not gonna be, it's not gonna make the difference between you being average and being great. Uh, it may make the difference between you being great and greater, just because we may cut cut a few seconds because you're you're doing the turn faster or you get a better start. Um, we might make you uh a little bit more durable so you don't get injured as much, which means you can train more consistently, and that might help you along. So um I I try to be honest with my athletes and let them know that in those sports where they're pushing off the ground with their legs, that weightlifting is going to help them quite a bit. And it depends on how the workouts are set up and what kind of training load they have outside of the gym. And I think the the big challenge for a lot of uh people in strength and conditioning and athletics in general is how do you measure the workload outside of the weight room? Inside the weight room, it's easy to do, but how do you measure workload, you know, in a sport like volleyball or basketball? Uh and all of that needs to be coordinated if you're going to have a good strength and conditioning program.

Yeah, I I I mean, I imagine volleyball, basketball, football, obviously, um anything that you're doing a lot of um, you know, ballistic movement is is is really highly valuable. Uh we did a lot with high school uh volleyball teams, and I know you do too. And we that that showed dramatic improvement in testing. You know, it was it was undeniable when we added that in. Uh Coach, I'm really curious because you know, with the the title of this podcast is The Future of Fitness. Um well, first of all, do you when I asked you, I think six years ago, you said you did not do remote coaching, right? You did not do I don't, you still don't.

Yeah.

Um well okay, why not? Why because I remember your answer was well. Yeah, okay.

I need to have the athlete in front of me. So uh, you know, it's it's like um it's like telling uh a chef I want you to prepare this great meal, but all you've got is this uh this stone oven and that's it. Yeah, so you're kind of limited in what you can do. So so uh I I don't like sitting there, you know, I'm not gonna sit there and watch video of an entire workout of somebody. And I I need the input of actually seeing that person and watching how they're walking in between sets. And uh I need to get to know them and I need to get to know a little bit about how they live their lives if I'm gonna do an effective job. So uh I'm I'm sorry, but I'm just gonna stay and do it on a personal. That's great. Um you know, I I don't think anybody says, you know, can I can you coach me to be a football player, you know, online? Right. They know they've got to show up there and and do it.

So yeah. So what do you learn from uh watching people walk between sets? What do you pick up?

I can tell how tired they are, I can tell how aggressive they are, I can tell whether or not they're focused on what they're doing, and uh you know that adds up, especially if you're watching them walk, you know, be if you're doing 20 or 30 sets during a workout, you you get a pretty good idea of how the workout is progressing as far as their fatigue levels go. And and uh and uh if it's Thursday, how does the accumulation of work during the week, how is that affecting how they move around?

Awesome. Yeah, that's great insight. I think once told you told me to uh to to use the force when I was lifting.

Well, the the thing is you you have to use the force periodically when all of the all of the objective criteria don't give you the information that you need. But it's like anything else, is is like if you've been doing something long enough, you develop instincts for that. And if you're a professional coach, you're really being you're being hired for your instincts and your insights. Okay, the actual information that can be found on a book, it can be found online, it can be found out by talking to a lesser level coach. But uh those three three media are not going to provide you with insight or instincts, and that's that's really what uh what you have to market if you've been a coach for a long time.

And I think that uh that point exactly is why you know, as remote coaching and technology kind of gets into to coaching, that really at the end of the day, the best coaches are the ones that you can spend that have a ton of experience and that you can spend one-on-one time with in the same space, right? And you can feel the energy, you can see what's going on, um, you can talk to them about how their you know how their sleep was, what's going on in their personal relationships, all that stuff plays into factor of of coaching. That's that's amazing.

Right. And then the other thing, you know, uh just because the technology works at educating people in a certain discipline doesn't mean that it applies to all disciplines. So there are things where online coaching is gonna work perfectly well. It's just in sports, when you get past a very, very basic level, it's not gonna happen.

So, how do you see technology changing, if at all, the sport of weightlifting? Um, and then how how are you using it now with your new venture? Um, not new, new ish, um, into condo athletics. And yeah, so expand how how do you see it? What do you see the future looking like for you and the sport?

Um, I I really haven't put too much thought into this because there's so much that that has to go into developing the these abilities to see what's going on and to interpret what's going on, and then to um to actually be able to communicate with the athlete. Um so uh if I I think there's probably some value in keeping track of the data about training. Um where the most in what intensity zones are the most successful lifts being made? Um keeping track of the load and the volume and the relative intensity and absolute intensity, all of those are helpful. They provide uh coaches with the opportunity to to evaluate what the athlete has been doing. But uh having said that again, we've got one of those bridging the gap problems. The people that understand the technology are not talking to the coaches. All right, so they're they're saying, Here, I've got this gadget, I've got this technology, here, use it. And they never talk to anybody that say, What do you need help with? What can we do? Uh, what kind of tools can we develop? So the question that you asked is what the technology people need to be asking the people that are, you know, actually have their boots on the ground.

Yeah, oh that's fascinating. So I just my mind just started thinking of who what people I need to introduce to you in the technology world. So I'll think of some names.

I I get a I get a surprising number of people uh uh they've got new software, they've got a new new gadget, and they say, here, this is gonna help you. It's like not really.

Yeah. Well, you know, I mean, I'm sure you know there's been a plant from like force plates and and and real, you know, and biometrics and you know, measuring cortisol levels and things like that, and HRV. There's a ton of stuff that they can be used, but I feel like people are just um they're you're right, they're not quite applying it at the right level. It'll come, it'll come. I mean, it's it's it's undeniable that you know we're gonna be at some point having a chip in us that's gonna tell us exactly where our blood sugar levels are and cortisol and you know when we should be training, when we should be sleeping. Uh it's probably crazy.

But then you're gonna get people that are obsessed with that. Right. And they're gonna make modifications that don't need to be modified. Right. So uh somewhere along the way, we need to find a way for the technicians to uh to be able to communicate with the the people that are actually doing the work. So I I don't know. I don't know who wants to put that together. I don't know right now, but yeah, I don't know if it's me either.

Um so coach, tell me if if uh if I'm a fitness professional listening to this right now, you know what what can uh Tecano Athletics offer me and then how do they how do they get a hold of you and and and try it out?

Well, um I I think probably the best thing that I can help uh people in the fitness uh universe with is uh teaching methodologies for weightlifting. So if they want to, if they want to use snatches and cleaner jerks with their clients, they they can come to me and uh we can probably put together some sort of problem of uh how do we diagnose what this person needs and then how do we go about teaching it to them to a point where it's effective. Like for instance, with most of my athletes that I work with, I don't teach full snatches and full cleanagers. We do power snatches and power cleans. And there are ways to do that, and there's a way to cut the amount of time and effort that's spent doing that so that they're they learn it to the point where it's effective for them. And I also incorporate split snatches and split cleans. Uh, we could also we could also probably do a segment on how do you modify it for different sports. And some uh there's probably some uh fitness folks that don't understand everything that's going on with the musculature of the body when you perform uh these lifts. Uh they don't understand that some of the time they're gonna they're coming from a world of concentric contraction. Okay, they need to learn about eccentric contraction, they need to learn about how to not contract the muscle, and when you only want to do an isometric contraction, which muscles are doing that? And so there's there's uh several different ways that the muscles can be involved, and it's not just contraction. And so they need they need to understand those concepts and also that the muscles are doing work when they're not necessarily contracting or shortening, they're also doing work if they're lengthening slowly, they're also doing work if they're not lengthening at all. And uh, you know, that's that's one of the benefits of of lifting weights overhead, is your core has to perform these isometric contractions and it's doing a lot of work and you develop a lot of musculature, and more importantly, you develop the nerves that are going to that musculature. You know, there are there are muscles between your ribs. Do you know how to contract those? Do you know how to tighten those up? You know, and most people don't think about that, and they can get they can get bigger and stronger. We know that because we all like to eat ribs, or most of us like to eat ribs and that muscle in between ribs. Okay. So uh if you've got an athlete that's gonna have to have good core strength, how do you develop that? How do you teach them to contract those muscles between the ribs?

Awesome. And uh coach, how do how do people get a hold of you? Where do they find you?

Okay, um, they can go to my website, uh www.tacanoweightlifting.com.

Okay.

Or uh Tacano Weightlifting on Facebook.

Okay.

Okay, and and through those channels they can get a hold of me, and uh my phone number's on the uh on the website.

Awesome. Yeah, and I highly recommend it. Uh I've always taken a lot away from every time I've I've worked with you, coach, and uh, you know, a ton of respect for you, obviously. And I hope people um really start to incorporate this tool into their training, um both athletes or general population, because I can tell you it's highly addicting once you once you get into the world of Olympic lifting.

Um well it's gonna save a lot it's gonna save a lot of people a lot of time because if you do a snatch and a clean and jerk and then a squat, if you do those three exercises, let's say you do power snatches, power clean and jerk, squat, back squat, those three exercises are all you need to significantly improve uh uh athletic strength. And uh if you if you want to up the volume on those, you can also uh use them for weight loss or you can use them for anaerobic uh endurance. But uh uh they're they're very effective tools, but they have to be developed and used correctly.

Yeah, awesome. Well, first thing I would say is you know, reach out to coach, um find him. Uh if you're interested in in I would get his book because it's not just about weightlifting either. I learned a lot reading cover to cover just about sports and athletics and and life. And uh yeah, so coach, thank you so much. I really appreciate your time. I know you're a really busy guy, and uh I know you and I will be talking soon.

Okay, well, I enjoyed the conversation and and good luck with your new venture up in you're in Oregon, right?

I'm in Oregon, and then next month I'm in British Columbia, and then I'm in Montana, so we're we're all over the place right now.

Oh, okay. All right, well, good luck with all of that. Do you still have that same dog?

Yeah, River.

Okay, River's still with you, huh?

Yeah, he's uh he's eight and a half years old now. So he's okay.

All right, well, he's he's probably got some gray hairs. Yeah, he does. He's got a few, so do I. So do I.

All right, coach. Thank you so much. All right, take care of yourself. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Future of Fitness podcast and webinar series. Uh, we're working really hard here to keep great content coming out, and we like to express our gratitude by offering you a free seven-day marketing crash course. So here's how you can claim it. If you go to fitnessmarketingalliance.com forward slash free gift f R E E G I F T, and you enter the promo code FitMARK F I T M A R K, you can claim it that way. The other way is you can text us. So you can text the phone number 805 619 5550, and you text the word FitMark F-I-T-M-A-R-K. So thank you. Keep listening, go claim that offer. It's a ton of value. And if you ever want to get a hold of me, or if you have suggestions for guests, topics, or anything else, or if you just want to ask me questions, uh, I always respond. You can reach me at Eric E R I C at fitnessmarketingalliance.com and keep listening. We have a lot more coming down the pipe, and we'll make sure that we're keeping the value great for you guys. And farewell till next time.