Ben Derrick and Jordan Jones discuss the importance of their podcast, which highlights the lives and missions of National Guard Special Forces. They welcome Jeff, a new strength and conditioning coach, who shares his background in kinesiology and his transition to the National Guard. Jeff emphasizes the need for tailored training programs to prevent overuse injuries and improve overall performance. He discusses the benefits of using technology like Garmin and Bridge Athletic to track and adjust training regimens. The conversation also touches on the challenges of changing long-held training habits and the importance of addressing both physical and emotional well-being for soldiers.
Ben Derrick 0:00
Music.
Welcome to the soldier fund podcast, the platform for untold stories from the National Guard Special Forces community join us as we delve into the lives of these elite warriors and the journey of our non profit dedicated to supporting their courageous mission to free the oppressed worldwide. I'm your host. Ben Derrick, let's dive in. Jordan. I think we should keep doing this.
Jordan Jones 0:37
What exactly, sitting together and hanging out or doing podcasts. That's
Ben Derrick 0:41
right. Doing podcasts, man, I mean, as much as I appreciate our friendship, I just really feel these conversations are doing a lot of good based on the feedback we're receiving from the folks that are listening. Yeah.
Jordan Jones 0:51
And that's not even just internal guys. We even have people outside of the formation commenting, yeah. And so that's really good, positive
Ben Derrick 1:00
feedback. Comments going crazy on YouTube. A little bit like, hey, help me figure this out. Thank God somebody's talking about this. And you know, there's also a lot clamoring for those. And this is related to the last episode we released, but family members actually listening in, just to get some insight on kind of behind the curtain on the SF culture. This is a great way to do that. Yeah,
Jordan Jones 1:19
absolutely. I think my wife would agree that for the majority of my team time, she didn't know a whole lot about what I did, yeah, what that looked like. She knew her side and knew what that felt like, Yeah, but not really sure about my side of things. And this kind of gives us an outlet to discuss it, and I think she even appreciates
Ben Derrick 1:37
it, yeah? And, I mean, that's understandable, right? I mean, you don't, you're not talking about everything that's happened on your team. That's just not the way SF works. But when mediums like this, you can talk about general ideas or just give some information out there to the general public, which may be a wife also may be a potential donor to the nonprofit. We definitely don't ever mind that. But all of these lines of effort are extremely valid. And today we've brought a guy in, actually, new gal on the HP W team, which is exciting to say, Yeah,
Jordan Jones 2:07
man. I'm really curious as to what he has to say. I'm ready to listen to it. And it's a new, new thing for us to have a strength and conditioning coach inside Special Forces National Guard,
Ben Derrick 2:18
yeah, which seems and there's the key there, like a strength and conditioning coach inside of the National Guard, which having these resources kind of trickle down to this level because they're needed, mostly because of the level of utilization of the national guard over G, y, right? We're a little late to this, but we finally arrived.
Jordan Jones 2:37
Yeah. And I mean, he's even got a term, like, tactical athlete is a thing. So treating our guys like the athletes they are, Yeah, makes sense to me. We
Ben Derrick 2:44
make that comparison all the time in that like these guys are professional athletes, you know, and the guys who are professional athletes that are filling up stadiums have a lot of resources at their disposal, sure, not quite that much at the National Guard level, right? But that is changing. And anytime we have a chance to celebrate the National Guard moving around resources to help the dudes, we're absolutely going to do that. More of that, right? And it's and it's happening. So Jeff, we're happy you've joined us. Man, not not only on the podcast, but also as a part of the team. Welcome aboard. Yeah,
Jeff Kahn 3:16
man, I appreciate it. It's good to be here. I think Jordan and I and you we talked about it for like, three years coming on now. Yeah, it's good. It's good to finally be here. Yeah,
Ben Derrick 3:26
being in those hallway conversations, it's like, I really think this could work, man, and here we are. So, yeah, little bit of patience paid off of a lot of patience on your part, right? I'd love for the people who are tuning in today, just to hear a little bit of your back story. The way we talk about it is, you know, why? Why do you give a damn? You know, everybody's got a story, and we'd love to hear that part of yours, how you got close to this population and decided you wanted to spend the majority of your life helping them? Yeah, so, 2014
Jeff Kahn 3:57
I finished my degree in kinesiology, and then I started my career as a strength coach in New Orleans, working sports performance world, training anybody from kids to just general population adults. Had some military guys come through. Wasn't super, super huge. And quite a few professional athletes went on to work at the collegiate level for a little bit. Decided that's not really where I wanted to be. It's a ton of fun, but it's a rough life. And then started my career really took off. I helped open up and start a new strength and conditioning Facility in New Orleans. So did that for a while, and then ended up designed to to join the guard. So I joined the Mississippi guard and 20th group, and then that took me to North Carolina. And then that's where. I went through SFAs, and then after I came off active duty orders, found my contracting gig up in Fort Bragg, and that's where I spent the last four years. Now, I bet
Ben Derrick 5:14
that was an interesting experience. Yeah,
Jeff Kahn 5:17
as a blast. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it a lot. Yeah,
Ben Derrick 5:21
yeah. So, just for the listeners sake, like you're a strength and conditioning guy up at Bragg, what does that look like?
Jeff Kahn 5:31
It's a it's a lot of it's a lot of fun. It's a lot of going out and earning your business just because you're a tactical strength condition coach up there people think, you know, like they're just gonna utilize you all the time. Yeah,
Ben Derrick 5:45
that's the assumption I was making, really what I thought, too. Yeah, it's
Jeff Kahn 5:48
not. They don't take advantage of it as much as, as much as you think. So it's a lot of leg work. It's like going out, you know, shaking hands, kissing babies, telling people what you can do, what you know, and then how much you care, why it's why it's important to you. And so for me, you know, with military background, it was a little bit easier to make those, those connections and then understand why people are hesitant to use anything that the Army, the Army provides on its own. Yeah,
Ben Derrick 6:18
yeah. Boy, that's a key detail, right there, isn't it? Yeah, it's a little bit of skepticism. And so you're out there. Man, I didn't know that. I just kind of figured like you're propped up at Bragg. There's obviously a large concentration of folks there that could utilize your resources, but there's some skepticism and people staying at a distance, so you're having to hustle in and close that gap. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah. Man,
Jordan Jones 6:40
that's with most people, you know, especially working with our population, you got to be vetted, is what we'll say, you know. And so it does not surprise me at all, even with all the credentialing that he had to go through a little vetting process, yeah, yeah.
Ben Derrick 6:54
Well, you have to, I think, you know, this is an underused word, for good reason, I guess. But you have to have a love for the population to even be there in the first place. You know, it's like, Man, I really, really want you guys to succeed. And I can tell you from the first time we talked to you, we were up at Bico having a conversation like, Man, this guy's really passionate about people's fitness, and especially these people's fitness, right? And that's evident from meeting you from day one. So you spent a couple years in that environment really honing your skills. Probably about how to convince guys to utilize your resources, yeah, yeah, which is ended up being a really vital thing to learn, but it was probably the hard way, right?
Jeff Kahn 7:36
Yeah. So in the tactical sphere, most, most people are just, you know, if you don't look the part, you can't walk the walk and talk to talk. They don't. They don't care that you're the smartest guy in the room. It just, it doesn't matter, especially in the SF community, when guys are already fit and they did it on their own, why do I need you? Yeah, I've already, I've made it here, like I'm doing okay. I'm hurt. Sometimes I'm not hurt sometimes, like, Why? Why do, why do I need professional help? I did it on my own. Yeah,
Ben Derrick 8:09
sound familiar? Doesn't absolutely sometimes I'm not hurt.
Jordan Jones 8:14
Sometimes, I mean, I would, I would change that to I hurt most, like, sometimes I feel great. So there's, it's a pendulum swing for me, you know,
Ben Derrick 8:22
yeah, yeah. So you get figured out, and then start putting your, you know, setting your face to the work. And, you know, based on you sitting in this chair here today, it only reaffirmed this is what you're looking to do. You're helping these elite warriors stay elite, become more elite over the long haul. That, to me, feels like kind of summarizes your passion for your work.
Jeff Kahn 8:43
Yeah, I love it. So being a strength coach is cool. It's a it's a fun job, but getting to do it for your own battalion, for your guys, the guys that you know you're gonna work with, you're gonna go to war with, that's like, it's huge. It's huge for me personally, yeah, yeah,
Jordan Jones 9:01
I was huge for us. We stole it. So
Ben Derrick 9:03
it's awesome. Is that how that went? Yeah, that's exactly how it went. I didn't know that. Maybe we should tell that story off. Mike, okay. Deal, yeah, deal. So for you, there's a lot of personal investment there, and you know, not to spend too long on this, but I think it's important, because I experienced a little bit of the same process when I first started coming around. You know, there was a couple of questions that people asked me, and we didn't get any further than that in about a year. Who the hell are you and why are you here? You know, and you answer that question consistently over time, you start producing results. And then the community, I think this is a great part of this community that they're slow to trust even resources that are being brought their way, because it's a real vetting process, and it sifts, you know, and if you survive that process, then you're actually bringing something good to the community. I don't mind it at all. And and here you sit. So the conversation we'd like to have today kind of breaking it down into a couple of phases, because. The part of the formation is going to click on this episode is looking for some practical guidance and help, and that's what you love to give. So as we're talking about training, I think the number one question that Jordan, I have been fielding over the years is, how do I train effectively? Because there's kind of like an army way to train, which is max effort at all times, every day, every day, yeah, exactly heavy as possible, far as possible, that sort of stuff. And then there's this other information coming out of the fitness community that feels a little bit contrary to that. So there's just some confusion. Rightfully so. I'd love to have a couple minute conversation from your perspective. How should SF soldiers be training? That's a broad question, but, yeah, that's
Jeff Kahn 10:47
a million dollar question. And so that's the fun part, right? Is you take a group of guys, and they're, they're generally, especially when they're young in their career, they're high performers, right? So whether they came in straight off the streets or they came in from the 82nd they've, you know, everybody's got to Been there, done that kind of attitude. Some guys have come in with some professional help. Most of them haven't. So we talk about, like, what's the best way to train? How do I be effective? Why should I not? You know, go out and run, you know, five miles every day, you know, at the same pace, stuff like that. And so that's when we get into, like, well, what are you doing? What are you training for? Like, you just, are you trained just not to die? Like, are you are we gonna go run an ultra? Are we going to take the long walk, stuff like that, like, what, what's our what's our main goal, and then how? How can we take that training, that goal, whatever you have, and then, you know, back date it. How do we work backwards, like we want to do this by by this time next year? Do you
Ben Derrick 11:57
find that the guys, when you ask that question, actually have an answer for you what they're training for?
Jeff Kahn 12:01
Yeah, no,
Ben Derrick 12:02
no, no. I mean, I
Jeff Kahn 12:04
mean the majority of the time, unless they have some kind of school coming up, it's yeah, it's just, I'm doing what I've always done, yeah,
Ben Derrick 12:12
I'm training to continue to be a Green Beret, yeah, yeah, or to be in the unit, right? So you're asking for something a little more specific from that soldier, yeah, and
Jeff Kahn 12:21
within the community, how you train up for SFAs is monumentally different than how you continue to train once you've made it through your career. But the problem is, and we see this, you know, with with our older guys that have been doing this for a long time, they just continue with that same, you know, I got a hit 40 miles a week running, and then another 20 a week and rocking, or whatever it is, and you just go, you just go till you can, and that's generally what happens, is that's when we start to see those overuse injuries. We have no intention, you know, like purposeful intention behind that training, yeah,
Ben Derrick 13:01
the overuse injury, yeah, that's a pretty large bucket.
Jordan Jones 13:05
That's just the physical side. We're not even talking about the nervous system being overloaded, you know, sympathetic overload of fight or flight. And then we're also training in that manner where we're staying in fight or flight,
Ben Derrick 13:19
yeah, yeah. Cortisol levels just maxed out crazy high. Yeah. And then you just extrapolate that over 1112, years, then you know, we're getting into some big problems. So part of what you're doing, it feels to me, is moving in and trying to intercept or a little earlier, instead of like, oh, well, now that I can't move my right shoulder and I'm experiencing problems doing pull ups. I'll talk to a guy you're trying to get in there sooner and say, Okay, what? Let's train smarter and harder, but let's not forget the smarter part. Yeah, so
Jordan Jones 13:51
you're saying there's a smarter way. Yeah,
Jeff Kahn 13:53
there's there. We can be way more effective with all this. Right? So coming in, especially if you came from the conventional side of stuff, up every morning. You know, 0606, 30. You're out there. You're running four days a week, three days a week, whatever it is now, especially on the guard side, talking SF like we don't have to go out and work out at six in the morning. We can, but that's not always the best time for every single individual, you know. So hormone levels, talking about cortisol, stuff like that. So it's different in everybody. You might have higher cortisol, cortisol levels in the morning. You might have another guy might be higher in the evening, and that's going to dictate like, Hey, I don't work out super well at seven o'clock at night, or I don't work out really well at eight o'clock in the morning, whatever it is. So and that's the that's the good thing is coming in and being like, well, when do you work out? Why do you work out at that time? It's just what I've always done. Is there a better way to do it? Probably, yeah.
Ben Derrick 14:54
So what do you bring to bear to form a guy? Because look, I mean patterns. Important for people. You know, if you were to tell me, Hey, you the best time, the optimum time for you to train at 6am I'd be like, Get out of my office. But you're, you're obviously bringing some information to this, and you've seen over time what's best and what's worst for people, right? So what I hear you saying is, you're, you're willing to dive in and individualize these recommendations for soldiers,
Jeff Kahn 15:24
right? Yeah, absolutely. And that's, that's Jordan eyes. Big goal with coming in is, you know, get these guys some programs that you know they can jump on and just do. But then look at that individual aspect, like, how broken are, or are you not, you know, like, but what can we do within your limitations? Like, how do we go about doing that? But the big question is, and I think you use this professionally a lot, is why? Yeah, and a lot of guys don't even know, and it's my favorite, one of my favorite quotes is, you don't know what you don't know. And a lot of guys, you know, they work out at six, and they've been doing it so long professionally that now, you know, on the guard side, if you don't have to work out so early, you know, they still do it. And you ask them, why not that it's big. There's no wrong answer, yeah. But a lot of them would be like, that's just what I've always done. That's, you know, the status quo. Now,
Jordan Jones 16:16
you got me super curious, though, when you're talking about cortisol levels. And how do you how do I know that about myself? And now I want to know this. How do I know what is the best time for me? Because I generally, personally work out in the mornings, but I have time. I could, I could move that around. How do I know that?
Jeff Kahn 16:33
Yeah, so the easiest way to go about that is, I mean, take a week. Take two weeks. Generally, if you've been working out in the morning, you already know how you feel. You know, during those workouts during the morning, take two weeks and go work out at, you know, noon, or, you know, five o'clock in the afternoon, whatever, you know, whatever your schedule dictates, do that for two three weeks and compare, especially if you have something like the whoop, the aura ring, Garmin watch, then you can take that data, and especially if you're in second battalion, you can bring it to me. You can sit down and look at it, yeah, okay, well, you're a better runner in the morning, but you're a better lifter in the evening, or vice versa, or maybe you're both, you know, better runner and and lifter in the morning. So
Ben Derrick 17:16
a lot of it does come down to trial and error curiosity, yeah, yeah. And some of this, you know, biofeedback that we can get from these basic devices, yeah, man, yeah, dude, the other night my sleep, I was orange all night. I was wrong. I don't know, I don't know some, I had some, something in my mind was bothering me, that's for sure. But I mean, the fact that I knew that and I felt like crap the next day, obviously, no alcohol consumption the day before, but I'm in high stress. And so you can take that sort of information and say, Look, pull up your Garmin app. Let's see what's going on. Yeah, absolutely. And even down to calorie burn, your heart rate variability, we can grab all of this stuff if you've got a Garmin watch, which I think that's probably 80% of the population, we can just start there. I mean, so much of our the physical side, what HP W has been doing has been based on Garmin feedback. Can you explain
Jordan Jones 18:09
what HRV is? Because I get a lot of questions. They're like, same, oh my. HRV says it's balanced. And they're like, Oh no, it's really not balanced. All I know is, I drank a lot of alcohol and it messed it up. But I don't know what this means. Supposedly, it means I'm fit or not fit, but alcohol throws it also, what is it? Yeah,
Jeff Kahn 18:28
so it's just a variability in your heart rate, right? And so we all have a set, a set number between those beats, the milliseconds, between your beats that are in your heart rate per minute. And so you had that set time, set time frame, I think like 30 to 75 milliseconds. I think that sounds right, okay. But so if you're high or low, that's generally when you're taking in too much stress. You know, alcohol will
Ben Derrick 18:55
have that checking right now, as he's described, yeah,
Jordan Jones 18:57
let me see what this thing says right this second. So what either
Ben Derrick 19:02
on one side of the other is an indicator something's going on somewhere in the middle, yeah? That's why it says balance.
Jordan Jones 19:07
Yeah, I'm balanced right now in here, are you, yeah, feeling comfortable doing my podcast, mine says 41 ms, yeah? What is milliseconds? Yeah, I believe that's what it is, beats per millisecond, maybe, or something. So it's the milliseconds
Jeff Kahn 19:21
between, between your heart Okay,
Jordan Jones 19:23
okay. And do you want that number higher or lower? Or is it different for every it's gonna be
Jeff Kahn 19:28
different for everybody, but you want it generally you'll have, and it's not so it's not gonna be the same for everybody. You'll have. It's like heart rate zones, right? Like somebody that's, we say zone two a lot. Now, I'll try not to get off in a on a rabbit trail here. No, we don't mind those at all. So we say zone two, right? So if you look at a treadmill, Stairmaster, whatever zone two on that treadmill is gonna be, like, 120 to 140 Sure. Well, you're super fit. So like, personally, my zone two when I go run. Ben, it's up to like, 150 Okay, so I can be in zone two with a heart rate of 150 beats per minute. So my zone two is not the same as yours. It's not the same as Ben, somebody that's never run before their zone two is gonna be like, super low, okay, and it goes on for every step. So heart rate variabilities can be kind of the same, and that's the beauty and the garments and the whoops, the auras, is they can take, they can take your information and dictate it specifically to where you're at,
Jordan Jones 20:29
yeah, I know it does. I remember mine, when I first put it on, did a calibration of like, two weeks. And then once it had that, I guess it had an average of what mine is, and it bases my stress level off of that, yeah,
Ben Derrick 20:40
okay, my seven day average is at 18 milliseconds. It says it's balanced. But on the low end,
Jordan Jones 20:47
way above that, as a Green Beret, I'm better, right?
Ben Derrick 20:50
41 Yeah, well, my we don't need to talk about health stats like, let me just say, behind Mike, I'm a super fit guy, but Garmin hadn't figured that out yet. That's how that works. So, but when we dig into stats, this gives you a lot of ability to be able to see what's going on. And I think the larger point we're making here is, if you're just doing what you've always done, and you're eight years into your career, probably time to do an assessment, yeah, you know, and you've been down range a lot, you've been through gy for all these years, and you're just do you're trying to hang on to whatever is working for you back in the early days. There's a better way to do this, and it doesn't mean that you're sun setting on your career. It just means you're taking advantage of all of this technology and all the attention that a strength and conditioning coach can give you to help figure out the data to help you train in a more effective manner, yeah? I mean, it's, this is kind of easy day, but it's very hard to get people to change their patterns, especially soldiers,
Jeff Kahn 21:49
yeah? So what? What I my, my favorite thing about training guys up pre selection is a lot of them will actually come to me already having a program, a 12 week pre SFAs program, and I'm like, hell yeah, that's awesome, good. And then I'll be like, where are you on it? And sometimes they're like, Well, this is my third time, and they'll just continue recycling that program. I'm like, well, when are you going to SFAs? And they're like, Well, next year. And then so they've already completed the same program for 12 iterations. It's only a 12 week program, so it's made to make you peak, and then that, that guy is generally what, who we're going to see start to injure themselves, overuse injuries. And we don't. We're not talking about just shin splints, but injuries that are going to build up and build up pre selection. And then when you get there, and then you're under that load, especially during team week, and you can't perform because you're just crushed, because you've been crushing yourself for a peak performance program. So what we say is general population, or general population, general physical preparedness, so general movements. We're getting stronger. We're getting faster. We're not getting super we'll call sports specific selection specific. And so that's how we stay healthy. We develop movement patterns, we develop strength, we develop all three, you know, energy systems. And then as we go on, we get closer. We get three months out, four months out from selection, and then that's when you want to take it specific. Now, guys that we're talking like eight years in eight years on the teams, you know, and then they're training especially active duty side. And you train every day. You train with same dudes, and you're not utilizing, you know, those, you know, eight, the Thor three guys, the HP, W programs over there. And then that's when we start to see burnout. We see guys fall off. And it's just, it's a disaster, you know, waiting, waiting to happen. The big problem is when you get to that 20 year mark, that 15 year mark, you know, you're 35 you're 45 and you're still, you're still trying to run with all the 25 year olds coming out doing their run programs like that's not necessarily, and it can be. It could be where you're at, but it's not. It's more times than not, not where you're at. Hormonally, physically, you don't sleep the same. You don't recover the same. Your central nervous system takes longer to come back down than it did when you were 25 and you were fresh to the teams and stuff like that. Yeah,
Jordan Jones 24:27
physical injuries, yeah. On top of that, yeah,
Ben Derrick 24:29
yeah. Jordan, this is kind of the, I think probably real close to the core motivator for you, because you've been very open about this experiencing over the course of your career like same stimulus, different response, physiologically. What's happening here? Yeah, you've kind of gone on your own journey to get this figured out.
Jordan Jones 24:47
Oh man, yeah. And what, what I've seen, too, just listening to you talk, is what, what I did, and a lot of team guys around my age and their career, did you get injured? And. You're like, well, I just want dead lift anymore. And then next thing you know, I'm like, I just want back squat anymore. I'll just stay away from that. And next thing you know, it's like, it all hurts. What? What do I do? And now, you know, now I don't have my outlet that I had to release stress and to look a certain way and feel a certain way. And I'm not sleeping good. Now we have this, like, layer effect of physical injuries, TBI, now I'm not working out the way I wanted to. My diet sucks. Like compounding effect, yeah. And I'm just doing it on my own, and the only way I know to do it is to rinse and repeat what I've always done. But I can't really do that to the level I used to kid, which is also an emotional thing, then it's like, I'm not where I used to be. Yeah? That's a crappy that's
Jeff Kahn 25:47
a hard spot, yeah, man,
Jordan Jones 25:48
especially for a Taipei dude who wants to be a top performer, and he's like, I'm not anymore, but maybe he can be right, yeah? Okay, so
Ben Derrick 25:58
there's hope. Well, I think, of course, yeah, we would definitely say that. But what's coming to bear on this conversation, I appreciate so much, is there's a couple of different angles here that we can approach. And since we can be so public about this on this podcast, I mean, HPW is open to all of those angles, I don't want anybody to be able to box this program. And if you need to talk to somebody about the emotional impacts of limited physical ability due to longevity of career. Great. Let's talk about that. I'm your guy. If you want somebody to program you to make you the most badass in 14 weeks, I'm not your guy. We have a guy, right? We can have that conversation first. We can have that conversation only you know, if someone wants to get into the intricacies of Team life and family life and all the experiences you've had as an 18 Delta there, you're the person they need to be talking to, right? So it's not, we're not just a one trick pony, as as many would think, as HP, W like, Oh, it's just an emotional thing. You know? It's just no man. I mean, if you're looking as part of HPW to figure out, how do I rehabilitate an injury without having to take it all the way to where it's career ending, or just ignore it to where it's not career ending, but it leads to substance abuse, then probably the first person they need to be talking to is you. And I would imagine we all have very similar conversations. I'm pretty sure that you have, you have a lot of emotionally based conversations, absolutely, at the squat rack, right? Yeah,
Jeff Kahn 27:28
all the time. And that's why, you know, now, now there's three of us, and that's, that's the upside, not just, you know, when Jordan was just doing it by himself, you know, that's a lot of roles to take on as an individual. And then I've said this on, you know, the last team I was on as a strength coach, I have the fun job, I have the cool stuff. I get to be in the gym. I get to see the progression, you know, the healing stuff like that. And then a lot of the other jobs, kind of performance, you know, talking to people about recovery and stuff like that, that's not as fun, but it's a lot of times those conversations will start in the gym, and then, you know, I get to ask these dudes, like, you know, if I'm working with you one on one, I'm like, Well, how do you feel? How'd you sleep last night? Like, what's going on? Like, oh, you're going through a divorce, yeah. How do you feel about that. And then when those conversations kind of start, I'm like, Well, hey, have you ever seen Ben? Yeah. Like, okay, yeah. And then we talk about hormones, stuff like that, and they start asking questions. I'm like, Well, hey, have you ever seen Jordan? And so bring in, that's when. And same thing with y'all, you know you're in office, you're talking to somebody, or you're on the street, and they're like, yeah, do this and this, and then my shoulder or whatever, and they're like, Okay, well, let's get you lined up with Jeff. Like, that's, that's the beauty of having, you know, multi pronged team where, right? Where those conversations you don't, you know, and it's the guys Jordan connects with, I might not connect with, the guys you connect with, you know, it might be better and, and then that's, you know, you develop that relationship with this guy and then bring me in. Whereas maybe if I and him had started talking, we wouldn't have hit it off so much. Yeah, right, because it's all about connections. How do we connect with all these guys agree and, and with all the personality types out there. We're not going to be everybody's cup of tea, so to speak. You know, that's a great way to pour a little bit of our own selves in it, and bring that connection in and and make it stronger to get get everybody what exactly it is they need. Yeah, I
Ben Derrick 29:33
couldn't agree more. I think part of the strength of what we got going on right now, no pun intended, is that the main thing that's driving the three of us is to help the soldier. Absolutely, that's it. Like we don't have to get real complicated about this, like if you're one of the SF guys, and then I would even expand it out to 19th, like we have big dreams for this, that HP w would be just a powerhouse program inside of both groups, where a soldier knows. I'm always supported in at least these three or four ways this team can bring and if they can't figure it out, they'll find the I mean, this is, I'll watch Jordan do this on a weekly basis, like I don't have a solution sitting on my desk, but by the end of the day, I'll find one for you. And he does repeatedly, you know, something we don't talk about enough on this podcast. But getting back to kind of some intricacies of training. I think a lot of guys like, Okay, well, I have to do things differently. And the how is kind of answered. We talked a little bit about the when, one thing that I'm very curious about for us to talk about behind Mike is, you know, when you have conversations where you're telling a guy, look, we either need to address this or you need to take a knee. How do you handle those, those tough conversations with guys?
Jeff Kahn 30:46
Rarely do I say, take a knee. So,
Ben Derrick 30:49
man, everybody's gonna love that. Yeah,
Jeff Kahn 30:52
there's almost always a walk workaround, right? So, but that's not it's not always the case sometimes, like, it's, how do we dial it back? And personally, I've dealt with that since July. You know, I had a lower leg injury. Did? I didn't take a knee for right? So I ran on it for a year, and then it just it exacerbated so bad, and then I had to have that conversation with myself. I was like, What am I doing? Am I gonna continue on like hurt, and literally, my response to one of my co workers a few months ago was, well, I'm gonna go and it's gonna heal or it's gonna break, and so we'll find out, right? And so some of those conversations, you know, you have with yourself, you have with other guys, but there's always, there's generally a workaround, you know, it's like, how do we not deadlift forever? Okay, well, maybe we don't deadlift. Do we need to? Like, how much longer are we going to be in is there, you know, are we going to go on profile for a little bit, whatever that might may be, yeah, but generally, it's, how do we, how do we improve that movement? So, you know, if we want, we don't want to do squats at the moment, but we can still do some lower body movements and stuff like that. So it's all about, what can I do with you? What kind of can we work around? How do we not say no, we just find an alternate route.
Ben Derrick 32:15
Yeah, that sounds very SF to me. It does. Yeah, we'll find a way around this. But I think the trust that guys can have in you is we may be, you know, to use a very negative word, we may be scaling this particular movement to these other things. It's with the design to get back to this other deal, right?
Jeff Kahn 32:34
Yeah. So, I mean, you have to look at it in the case of years, right? So, and that's, that's the hardest thing, honestly, to do, because we're so focused on our immediate performance, right? Or I have a PT test coming up in three months, like, I can't afford to not do this right now. It's like, well, you can't afford to not not do that right now, right? So it's, it's, how do we how do we dial it back? How do we take a step back? You know how we retrograde and then find that work around to to get back to wherever it may be. So for me, it was the hardest thing was not running and rucking, which is hilarious, because I hate it, but so I had to take a step back. I had to quit running and rucking for like, two and a half months. And then so it was okay, well, I'll hop on the Stairmaster for an hour, whatever. And then it became, maybe I shouldn't be doing that, you know, loading it so much. So then it was just stationary bike, right? Super fun for a little bit. And then I hated it. And then, so some of those things is just, it's, it's accepting that you're gonna take a hiatus for those two to three months, or, you know, shorter or longer, whatever it may be, because in the grand scheme of things, it's going to extend out for years, right? We're going to start running. We'll be able to run for a few more years. Yeah, so to speak, yeah,
Ben Derrick 33:53
short term. I don't like this, but it's got a lot of long term benefits. Part of my question for you, Jordan is hearing this conversation today, how beneficial would this have been for your career to this point?
Jordan Jones 34:06
Oh, man, extremely. If I could back up and I was thinking that too as you were talking, let's just go back even further. Okay, if this was early on in my career, and I would have stayed healthier early on and not just powered through maybe, maybe, maybe not. I don't know how I would feel today, but as far as implementing that now, yeah, we have the guys that are at that age group and that health genre of dudes we that need to, like, take a knee or turn it back or whatever, but also implementing this to our new team guys and saying, Hey, be smarter earlier, so that you don't end up like these guys. And that's a really hard thing to convey, because they don't feel it, you know, if you don't feel it, if your body's not there, you're like, Man, I don't know what you're talking about, right? However, you're supposed to be the subject matter expert, and our guys need to listen to that, right? Sure.
Ben Derrick 34:59
Yeah. Yeah, there's a difference between cumulative effect and acute injury, correct? Yeah. I mean, like you're on an operation at night, something happens and you bust your ankle, right? Like you had said earlier, that's a little different than I've just been training. And this is the tough truth. I think we should say you are injured right now because you've been training incorrectly for nine years, right? Like so let's change that. Let's get you better, and then let's change the way that you train, even dialing into the time of day that you train, which lights off a lot of other things. We've talked about many episodes with operator syndrome, and just this cluster of physical effects that come in your efforts can limit in a lot of ways, the physical side of that cluster and operator syndrome just by changing the way that a soldier trains. Yeah, I think it's important that we say today, though, because you said this in the office a couple days ago. You You don't want to make them lesser of a soldier. You want to make them even better. SF guy, right? It's not, we're not trying to dial you back so you're just less intense. There's a there's a goal of making sure that they can soldier better for longer, right? And you've got a track record of doing that, yeah,
Jeff Kahn 36:07
yeah. So, I mean, when you're on a team, the goals stay on the team, right? Like you don't ever want to get off of that team, and you want to be there for as many years as you're in. And so it's taking those younger guys and being like, hey, you have awesome work ethic. You train seven days a week and you're fine, and that's great. But can we do the same? Can we get the same results out of five days a week and then take two of those days and go do something different, maybe not, go for a run, go for a paddle board for two hours or whatever, and then bring that central nervous system down, because it's already, you're already super high, if we're working out at 6am that CNS spiked, and then you go to work, you know, if you're training all day, and then it stays up, you know, and you might come down for a little bit. But so it's like, how do we how do we take advantage? And this is what you do a lot of it's like, those, those minutes that you get in between, you know, phases of training and stuff, how do we bring it down? Bring our central nervous system down a little bit? Yeah,
Ben Derrick 37:14
yeah. Let's admit, though, even in this conversation to certain guys, that's going to sound like a really soft skill. That's bullshit, yeah, but, I mean, you know that's just pardon language. I guess. I don't know if I have to say that on this podcast, but it is, it is scientific that if we were switched on and we were in a conversation group over two years ago where they're having studies that are showing that some guys are switched on in the course and they haven't switched off in two and a half years. Oh, yeah, absolutely, you know. So if we're talking to you about, hey, can you get the same effects from five days of training as you would from seven? That's real, because you're allowing your body to experience that reset, as you're referencing, coming back back down into a window where you're not in fight or flight, you know, and you're not having to have that second and third bourbon just to go to sleep because you're so keyed up, right? What we're saying is sometimes the soldiers doing that to themselves absolutely and you're willing to turn the dials on a couple of things with them, because you know them enough about them to make these calls, even through reaching into their lives and their training through an app, which is pretty exciting that we're able to use that these days. You've been working pretty hard on that since boots on the ground, but I think that that medium will be there for the long term. Right now, it's an app called Bridge athletic that you're you're putting this stuff in. So for the guys that are inside the community that are like, how do I get in touch with this guy? You know, that's going to be a big part of this moving forward, that you're on the back end of that system and can really tailor a lot of this stuff based on their objective. Yeah, so,
Jeff Kahn 38:53
so I have a good bit to learn about bridge, but the cool thing for me, and the cool thing for all of our guys, is I can push programs and adjust them immediately, right? So I give, I give you a program, and you're running three days a week, and you're like, hey, I don't want to run three days a week anymore for whatever reason it's down. We're like, Okay, that's a good idea. I can immediately go in there and change, change that, and I can also get a lot of feedback from it, right? So you can go in, and we can start off with with the pre, pre session questionnaire through the app. You know, How'd you sleep last night? How do you feel? Do you feel sore? Do you feel recovered? Do you how's your stress level? And it's all like one to 10 kind of answers that you get to fill out. So you do that for several weeks, and then I get to sit there and look at it. And then I get to look at, you know, your run times, when you record them, your lifts, your weights, all that good stuff. So I can see the back end, like, how's our performance doing? Okay, we've been at this program for six weeks, you know, we're starting to peak. And then week seven, you start dying. Off a little bit, those runs are getting a little lower, heart rates getting a lot higher for the same work effort, stuff like that. And then I can sit down and be like, All right, we were taking it up a notch a little too aggressive. We're gonna we're gonna dial it back a little bit, and then on week eight, we're gonna come back and, or week nine, come back and crush it again. Man,
Ben Derrick 40:18
that is very specific attention. Yeah, I can't wait for this, but I do want to be devil's advocate. If we can, just for the past couple minutes, or the last couple of minutes, you know, what are the objections? What would be the objections I'd like to address those, I think we talked about them a little bit like just, I don't know that. I trust it surely over the past 40 minutes, we've debunked that. But what are some objections of soldiers using this resource? Me
Jeff Kahn 40:45
or bridge, athletic, yeah, you, you, yeah,
Ben Derrick 40:49
yeah. I mean, everybody's gonna fight about apps till the end of time, right? Yeah. So
Jeff Kahn 40:54
I think number one is, and this, you know, being inside the military. I know you've heard it now, military grade. So anything that the Army gives you, yeah, you really don't want, like, you want to go out and get your own off the shelf. That's right, yeah. The other big thing is shiny object syndrome. And this kind of goes back to, you know, being intentional with your training is, hey, my battalions got this new strength coach, but he doesn't have any followers on Instagram, or, like, his family, serious, like, is that real? Oh, yeah. Do you not
Jordan Jones 41:29
have an Instagram? Are you telling us you don't have any
Ben Derrick 41:33
followers? What you're trying to say,
Jeff Kahn 41:35
I don't have 5000 followers or 100,000 followers, yeah? But
Ben Derrick 41:38
so it's we could probably make that happen? Yeah,
Jeff Kahn 41:40
so then that's, that's the big thing with social media now, right? Is, is, I don't, I don't do that kind of stuff. And then you go on social media, especially with the younger guys that grew up, you know, grew up with Snapchat or Instagram and Facebook and all that stuff. And so they see all these influencers, and some of them, there's some guys out there doing really legitimate work and really good stuff, but there's just, there's more garbage than anything, even in the tactical space. Oh, especially in the tactical space, wow. Anybody that's had a tab ever, you know, comes out, and some of these guys have great programs, but some are just like, balls to the wall seven days a week. And that's, you know, that's what some of these dudes want to do.
Ben Derrick 42:26
That's a genre, isn't it? Now that you're bringing it up, like, without mentioning names there, there are a couple guys out there that are, like, unless your toenails are falling off, you're not running enough, you know, it's like, that chapter one kind of thing. Yeah, there you go. So there's a little bit of combating that that's interesting. You brought that up because I never would have thought about it. But I
Jeff Kahn 42:47
think the biggest obstacle for me personally coming in to an unfilled slot, which is also good, so it's a pro anacon, is guys don't know me. They don't trust my background. But then I get to go out, you know, to our out stations, and build those relationships, yeah? And then I get to see them. They get to spend time with me in the gym, unfortunately, not as much time as I think everybody would like, but it'll happen, right? Yeah? And so that's, that's kind of like a challenge slash opportunity, to show them like, Hey, this is this is what I do. This is why I do it. This is how I do it. And then to take the feedback I get from all of them, and then to be like, Okay, how can I change myself? And then so now, like you as a soldier, like you as one of my guys, get to see not only am I not full of BS, like, you get to watch myself change as a strength coach, as I watch you change, you know, as one of my guys,
Ben Derrick 43:46
yeah, nice. Yeah, that sounds awesome, man. Well, we're this conversation is maybe even more fired up that you're here, because it's gonna meet such a huge need. Absolutely, you know, feels like pretty soon you may need to replicate yourself. Yeah, that may be the
Jeff Kahn 44:00
problem. Get it taking this
Ben Derrick 44:05
thing to scale? Well, I mean, it just answers so many things at the heart of you know, and you mentioned it earlier, Jordan, I think I'd like to loop back to it before we close out today, when a top performer is struggling, performing that causes a whole bunch of issues, and those issues understandable, right?
Jordan Jones 44:23
I agree, man, and I think, I think we have the team for it now. You know, we can, we can work with it cognitively. We can reach out and work with injuries, and we can say, hey, you're not. You don't have to just quit doing those movements. We'll just find a smarter way to do those movements and keep you engaged, keep you in the fight until you're back 100%
Ben Derrick 44:41
Yeah, yeah. Well, Jeff, we're glad you're here, man, glad to
Jeff Kahn 44:45
have you. It's good to be here.
Ben Derrick 44:48
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