Deadly Dozen Workout

Hit the pavement with Tom this week as he shares the final push in training for the Cascade Bicycle Club Seattle to Portland (STP) ride! He'll discuss something he is doing for the first time to tackle a lingering physical issue that has the potential of affecting his preparation.

The episode gets a boost of motivation with Coach Jason Curtis, creator of the "Deadly Dozen" training program and competition. Coach Curtis brings a unique perspective honed through running his own gym, instructing other strength and conditioning coaches and years training soldiers in the British Army. His dynamic personality and innovative fitness challenge provide a test for people who thrive on a good test of their limits.

Tune in for expert advice, Tom's training updates, and a dose of inspiration to get you ready for your next cycling adventure!

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Please send comments, questions and especially content suggestions to me at tom.butler@teleiomedia.com

Show music is "Come On Out" by Dan Lebowitz. Find him here : lebomusic.com

Transcript

Tom Butler: 0:04

This is the Cycling with 60 podcast, season two, episode 48, a deadly dozen workout. I'm your host, tom Butler. Welcome to this week's episode. I interview people here that I think can help me get stronger and stay cycling as I get older. My desire is that you will find the information they share to be helpful in your fitness journey as well. First, here's a brief update. We have 16 days until the Cascade Bicycle Club Seattle to Portland event. In case anyone doesn't know, this event it is a two-day 206-mile ride.

Tom Butler: 0:47

Last year was my first time doing the ride, so of course, I know much more about what to expect this year. I'm starting to watch the weather and I'm hoping that it stays the way I'm seeing it now. Currently it's supposed to be in the upper 70s, and that would be great. The heat last year was just about the biggest challenge for me. As listeners probably know, this year I'm riding it on a different bike. I'm really looking forward to experiencing the difference. I just got the Specialized Roubaix that I will ride tuned up and I believe it is ready to go. In the process, I met a new bike mechanic. You will be meeting him in a future episode.

Tom Butler: 1:23

I hit what I'm hoping to be just a minor snag in my preparation. A few weeks ago I fell off a ladder. I didn't really fall very far, but I landed wrong and bruised my coccyx. Fortunately, the bike position doesn't aggravate it, but almost all sitting does. It seems to be healing very, very slowly. To avoid irritating it, I'm standing a lot and sitting in weird positions that I'm not used to. This is giving me a sore lower back. I don't feel it on the bike, which is good, but I feel it later after the ride. In general, when I wake up or after a long car ride or a lot of other things, my lower back is really stiff. So I'm doing something that I've never done before. I'm having a deep tissue massage tomorrow. I very rarely have gotten a massage, and in the past it's always been a lighter, more relaxing massage. I don't know what to expect from this more quote therapeutic massage but I am really hopeful that it will loosen up my lower back. The other challenge is that I wanted to do a ride tomorrow. I'm concerned that the massage therapist will recommend that I don't.

Tom Butler: 2:34

Here's my strategy for the next 16 days. I really only have 14 days that I can ride before the STP. I'm making the choice to not do any rides longer than 30 miles. For the most part, I will do shorter rides and have four rides that are short and high intensity over the next 12 days, and I will also do four sessions in the gym to push my legs with weights. I have to confess I'm nervous about those sessions and I need to get a little more guidance. It feels like I still need time for my connective tissue to adapt to heavy leg weightlifting. Of course, the last thing I want to do is damage something right before STP.

Tom Butler: 3:13

As has been discussed on the podcast, in addition to my son-in-law riding the STP again this year, my daughter is joining us as well. They've been busy moving lately and I know that they haven't been training as much as they would have liked. I asked my daughter McKenna today how prepared she felt on a scale of 1 to 10, and she said 6. I do think she is hopeful that the next two weeks will get her well prepared. What a difference between being in your mid-20s and being 60 as far as preparing for 206 miles of riding. That being said, I love the fact that at my age I can even do this ride with them.

Tom Butler: 3:50

One thing that is a big need for McKenna is to figure out how to eat. It seems like she just can't consume enough fuel on the bike, so she does need to do a bit of planning about what to eat and how often to eat. While I don't think enough fuel is an issue for me, I do wonder about how much carbohydrates to eat and how often to eat. While I don't think enough fuel is an issue for me, I do wonder about how much carbohydrates to eat. Carbs will raise my blood glucose even when I'm burning energy on the bike. I think that maybe it is okay for my glucose to get a little high when riding, but I have an appointment with someone on July 11th that I think will help me sort this out and I will definitely report on what I learned.

Tom Butler: 4:34

The podcast has been around long enough now that I occasionally get contacted by people who have ideas for potential guests that they represent. My guest this week is an example of this. I'm joined by Jason Curtis, a strength and conditioning coach from the UK. When I saw Coach Curtis's webpage I was really interested in hearing from him. He started a training program and competition event called the Deadly Dozen. I'm so glad he came on and talked about it and I got his perspective on strength training.

Tom Butler: 5:05

Here we go. I am joined today by Jason Curtis, also known as Coach Curtis. Thank you for joining me today, jason. Hi, great to be here. The reason I'm excited to have you here, jason, is that you bring the perspective of someone who is in the trenches every day helping people to make changes to their fitness habits. I'm not only interested in what habits people need to adopt, but also in the mindset it takes to stick with new, healthier habits, and I think anybody that's working one-on-one or working with groups you're dealing with both of those things at the same time, absolutely yeah. So can you start by telling us a bit about your background in fitness and how you came to specialize in strength and conditioning?

Jason Curtis: 5:51

Yeah, so I've always been into sport and fitness. So I competed in combat sports to no high level as a young lad. But then where it really came into its own is when I joined the military. So I was in the British Army and I became a physical training instructor. So I spent six years training the infantry soldiers and training recruits to join the respective battalions. After that I left the army and set up a boot camp and was personal training and eventually I started my own gym about 12 months after leaving the army. That was a strength and conditioning gym.

Jason Curtis: 6:24

Obviously that's built over the last eight years or so and while doing that I published just over 20 training manuals now and have set up an education academy, essentially that upskills personal trainers and strength and conditioning coaches so we can qualify PT instructors and S&C coaches worldwide. We've got around 30,000 students within the academy not all doing the personal training qualifications. Some are just doing our free intro courses and whatnot. And I now run a sort of big fitness race called the Deadly Dozen, which is UK wide. We've currently got over a thousand competitors this year competing and each day I work 40 to 60 hours in the gym training you know, athletes and the general public and then sort of do all the other businesses in between. Another business that I'm working on is combat sports performance coach, where me and my business partner work with combat sports athletes and upskill the coaches and stuff like that, essentially so, yeah, it's a whole mixed bag, but it's definitely like you say, working in the trenches on the ground, work with individuals every day.

Tom Butler: 7:31

You talked about always being competing. Was your family into staying healthy and stuff? When you were younger?

Jason Curtis: 7:38

So they weren't into fitness but they were into staying healthy. So we're all a relatively healthy family. I think there's an element of genetics in terms of we're all a very sort of tall, slim bunch. But no one was really into fitness per se, but we were all into eating relatively healthily, but I wouldn't say it was a massive drive. Naturally, my dad was fit and strong. He did a manual job and he still is fit and strong. But in all honesty, he always thought it bizarre that you'd work hard all day and then go and stress yourself doing something else. He didn't understand the concept of going and working hard in a gym. If you're working hard doing your job every day. Obviously now he knows that you should be going to the gym to build up the muscle. You know the muscle density, the bone density, it's all. That's what's key to health span. And he's he's in his 60s now and he's only just realized that. Obviously, with all the evidence coming around, I mean I've been preaching to him for years but um, he's finally listened. But yeah, as a whole we were. We're all reasonably sporty.

Jason Curtis: 8:38

Me I've got four, three brothers. I was the most sport and I just naturally, from being very, very young was into physical exercise. It was never something. My parents were very liberal in a sense that whatever I wanted to do they would have been happy with. So if I wasn't in sport, that's fine. If I was into Thai boxing and boxing, which I was, they were fine with that. The only worry my dad had was that I was going to end up punch drunk. So, yeah, they always encouraged us to eat healthily, but they were never strict with anything. They were never. I'd never consider us to be a sporting family. We were just naturally quite good when we did do things and worked hard.

Tom Butler: 9:15

It's interesting that you talk about your dad. When I was 59, you know, a couple of years ago, I was having some issues and I thought, if I don't do something now, this is just going to get worse and worse and worse. And I was having a conversation last episode with someone about this concept that it seems like there's this thing when you get older, all of a sudden you start going okay, maybe I have got to do things differently than I've done all my life. Did your dad have some things that paused him to think more about it? Or was it more kind of watching you and what you were doing?

Jason Curtis: 9:47

No, it definitely wasn't watching me, because I've been doing it for years. So what it was was he. I think he literally seen the atrophy and he's seen the weakness and he's seen the injuries from doing the stuff that he was doing, not going away for longer periods. And obviously the media has made it more apparent now. So there's information overload now. We've got the access to information. So you know he's hearing it on the radio, he's seeing it on the television. There's documentaries that are starting to come out in the UK that you know, push this sort of stuff. You know, because often if your son tells you something you might go okay, but when you hear it from 20 other sources you start to give it that credence. But no, I think he genuinely actually just saw his performance diminish.

Jason Curtis: 10:28

I think when he got to 60, it was just a point in which it became really noticeable. You know, he felt skinnier, he felt like he was losing his strength and he felt like he was deteriorating. All of a sudden it seemed that he was like you know what I really am starting to deteriorate physically. No, no health problems whatsoever, but just muscle mass. You know, feeling strong, feeling capable, because he is a very physically capable guy. When he did come back to the gym, I was really surprised. He's naturally very good and he's fit and strong. But you could see, I used to say to him we're quite harsh on each other me, my brothers and my dad, you know we'll. We'll say it how it is and I'll say to him like you're getting really skinny, you're looking like frail, like you need to get a grip. I say to him like and he's realized it now I mean, when it comes to what we see in the gym, is we see trends. So we we don't get, as an independent gym that has very hard, intense fitness classes and strength training and stuff like that get towards all abilities. It ultimately comes down to hard training.

Jason Curtis: 11:31

We don't see as many teenagers and 20 year olds. So we do have them, but not as many. And what we put it down to is the 20 year olds are all going out. They've got it.

Jason Curtis: 11:39

Naturally they're young, they're going out partying and then they get into the 30s and often that's when they start having kids and it's often when they realize that the the regular drinking and eating whatever they want is starting to catch up with them and they start to get the realization of I'm not actually that healthy, I'm not as fit as I was, naturally, when I was in my 20s, and we see a lot of people coming through in their 30s, especially in the 40s and then into the 50s and 60s. We're seeing more and more and more probably our biggest clientele is is in that sort of 50 to 60 bracket and that they all have the same outlook, which is I need to get fitter and healthier. They're all focused on health span. They're all focused on not deteriorating because they know that you know, all being well, they'll probably live a long life and it's about health span, more so than even lifespan, to make sure that they're still capable.

Tom Butler: 12:31

I am curious about your Army experience. You talked about that part of what you did was you were getting enlisted personnel physically prepared for deployment. I think, yeah, and I think that gives you a certain perspective. And I'm wondering you know like you think about your dad and like his work was demanding physically. It sounds like I'm wondering if, in your position in the army, if you would say that younger generations are not as strong as they should be, that maybe the demands of society that there's less physical demands are making it that people in their teens just aren't being challenged physically enough.

Jason Curtis: 13:18

Yeah, absolutely. So. I think there's two sides to this. There's one side of because the gym is more open to young people and there's not a all the old wives tales of oh, it stunts your growth and it's bad for you. So you can strength train at any age as long as it's appropriate, just like running or cycling would be. It wouldn't be appropriate to have have a 12 year old go and cycle 100 miles.

Jason Curtis: 13:38

So on one side, we're getting massive amounts of talent identification in the gym. You know young folk coming through and lifting weights and therefore we're seeing people that are monstrously strong. Also, when you strength train during what we call trainability windows so these areas where you're going to see huge amounts of improvement, you know during puberty. So these youngsters are getting in the gym, they're training, they're ending up completely, you know, overtaking all the adults. They're, they're monstrously strong. So on one side, the ones that are getting in the gym are actually like incredible. You know, you'd scroll through instagram and it's, it's shocking. They're lifting humongous amounts of weight because when you train during puberty, especially for young boys, you know, usually around 12 months after sort of the biggest growth spurt, what we call peak height velocity they generate so much strength with the training. So that's on one side, that is we're seeing. But then the contrast on the other side is that as a whole, people are just less active, as in they're gaming all the time. So they're just not as physically robust and as physically fit. And I think the privilege of our society, which is ultimately a good thing, does ultimately make a softer population and that's what we're seeing. There's less stress tolerance in my eyes. So when we get the young folk through, you know they're not particularly robust. I'm just always cautious of every generation previous is always going to be hard on the next, or I'm always going to have a lower view. So you know, I think I've got to be careful of that. But in general, I think, yes, it'd be quite obvious to sort of look at what's happening and say, well, young people are spending more time indoors, more time on social media, more time gaming and whatnot, especially young boys.

Jason Curtis: 15:22

It was said that they did better in lockdown than girls because they spent all the time gaming with their friends. So a lot of time that would have been spent running and jumping was spent sat on the sofa or in their bedroom. And one of the worst things about this. It's not just about strength training. It's about your tendons will never grow as an adult. They'll grow during puberty and the way that tendons develop is through springy actions running and jumping so they don't really develop as well through lifting weights.

Jason Curtis: 15:51

So it's an absolute shame for any young person to not grow up running and jumping and falling and having this sort of springy, explosive what we call elastical reactive strength training springy, explosive, what we call elastical reactive strength training that's going to develop the tendons and make them far more robust. And, as any older person will tell you, often the biggest bane of any athletes or hobbyist trainers life is overuse injuries to tendons because they're just not resilient. So that's what I would be cautious of. I could go back in time to when I was a teenager. I'd do loads of like running and plyometrics obviously appropriate loading but that's what I'd do a lot more of sort of program jump training with the youths.

Tom Butler: 16:35

That's very interesting and really valuable to have that somehow get that message across and give that perspective. And again, it's down to motivation. When you're young it's hard to have that mindset of when I'm 60, I'm still going to want to do stuff, so I better. I better do stuff at 14, at 13, because I'm still going to want to do stuff at 60. I wish people I think more of people like in their forties, if they could just live in my brain for a bit and see, like my thoughts of if I only would have been doing what I'm doing now in my 40s, it would have been so much better. But you know it goes back. That goes back farther, I should say, to teenage years. When you left the army did you see a need in the civilian fitness industry that you felt was not being met?

Jason Curtis: 17:23

So the main thing was, in all honesty, there was a bit of a misconception, or maybe a little bit of propaganda that the military gave, which was when you joined the infantry and you joined it young they basically told you that everyone else was useless, no other divisions within the military, and they told you that civvies were lazy and they're all useless and they're not hard working. And then you know the military was the be all and end all, and then you left the military and you had this opinion that all these clients are going to be working with, they're going to be hard work, they're going to be lazy. And then I quickly realized well, these are actually individuals that pay me to train them. And what I realized was average is no longer average. So, within my little bubble that I was developing because you don't just adapt a training program towards a client you will, as a coach, will always have you know a style, and that maybe style is not the right word, but your persona will ultimately attract certain clientele and because mine was ex-military S&C coach, it attracted people that wanted to train a little bit harder. So that was my bubble. But what I noticed was what people in you know quotation marks were normal people. They were doing ultras. They were doing you know huge cycling events, triathlons they were doing you know some of them were doing white collar shows, boxing. They were doing Tough Mudders, you know obstacle course events. So I was like, well, actually average is no longer average Normal people. Because of the accessibility of information on YouTube, they had a much higher knowledge of physical training. There was no reason in their mind why they shouldn't be training like a professional athlete with the time that they have, if they're going to be running the London Marathon, for example.

Jason Curtis: 19:05

So I quickly identified that I could essentially just try and offer the what I I mean, you'd argue, any personal trainer's trying to do this but my tagline was bringing strength and conditioning to the masses. So it was going right. Imagine I'm working with world-class athletes. I'm going to apply these principles to normal folks. So we're going to do a needs analysis what are the needs of what are your needs? What are the needs of the activity you want to do? We're going to do a testing battery. We're going to analyze the results of all the testing. We're then going to set smart goals and these are all the things that personal trainers should be doing, but it's done in a way that clearly shows a process.

Jason Curtis: 19:42

It was done at a much higher level and when I actually left the army, everyone was telling me don't call yourself an snc coach. No one knows what strength and conditioning is, and this is around 10 years ago. Call yourself a personal trainer, you know, make sure that you have transformation programs, because you you're targeting middle-aged men and women, especially women that you know that have money. And I I was like no, no, I'm going to it's going to be trained like an athlete. Bring an S&C to the masses. I'm an S&C coach and at first it was really slow, but then it started to really develop.

Jason Curtis: 20:15

So my whole goal leaving the army was essentially to go. You know what? I've developed a certain level of expertise and I'm going to sort of the passionate demonstration of expertise is what's going to draw the clientele in, and that that became my niche. And it took a while, in all honesty, because I think there was a little bit of ego and the naive optimism I thought right, I'm leaving the military. Pti put a few flies out of social media posts and they're all called running and they didn't. And then it took. You took months and months of market myself and really the key to it all was once the first group of clients came in and I provided a good service that allowed it to then snowball. But building that first base of clients was incredibly hard.

Tom Butler: 20:57

I think it's interesting this perspective. Every once in a while I'll look at senior Olympics and I tend to look at the cycling and you see these people, you know, who are in their eighties, but their mindset is as an athlete and I think that that's something that can be really effective at any age to think that I'm not challenged physically by my occupation, let's say. But I can take this mindset whether I'm doing marathons or triathlons or whatever. I can take this mindset that I'm going to treat my free time as if I'm an athlete and try to be at my peak during those times, no matter what age I am, no matter what level of competitive participation I have. There's still a mindset there.

Jason Curtis: 21:48

Yeah, absolutely so. I'm a big believer that you know if you're doing an event, you are an athlete. And one thing I'll say which will hopefully be motivational for people is most of the coaches I know if not all of the coaches I know their favorite clienteles are what we call like hobbyist athletes or what we call professional amateurs, so amateur athletes that take their training seriously, they act like professional athletes and these are the best people to work with, because often when you're working with elite level sport, you're very, very restricted. There's only so much time you're going to get with the athletes. It's all heavily, heavily regulated, time restricted, very much hard work. Yet when you get a hobbyist athlete so someone that's a normal person working a nine to five but they're wanting to do, you know, a cycling event, a sportive, they wanted to do a triathlon and they're really motivated that's the best client you can get because you know they're going to be motivated and you know they're going to listen to you, that they are the number one client out there. So if a listener is someone that goes, you know I want to take my sport seriously and I want to see myself as an athlete you are literally the perfect client for personal trainers because they know they've got someone that's going to be motivated, that's going to be driven, and you're always going to be more driven and more motivated and more accountable if you are working towards an event. No matter how internally motivated you are, there's going to be days when you're not motivated. But if you've got an event in six weeks, 12 weeks, six months, then you've got to put the hours in. So they are by far the best clients that have that external goal. It's not just a body composition goal, it's not just a sort of in the gym goal like I want to lift a certain amount. It's an external goal, an event, a competition, and it doesn't matter what level it is, because it's all you know, that level is equivalent to Olympics to you and that's absolutely fine. So they're the best athletes to work with.

Jason Curtis: 23:45

Yeah, I think that my personal sport is now fitness racing and I believe that I call it one of the true lifelong sports, where you know it's a combination of resistance training, cardiovascular training, and my aim personally is to be competitive in every age group and to carry on for every age group. I think it's really inspirational when age group athletes have the goal to continue to be competitive and to do well within each age group. So I would say right, I want to do well in the 30 to 39 age group or the 40 to 49. I want to do well in the 50s, I want to do well in the 60s, the 70s. My goal is is to be the person will go. I want to do well in the 80s, I want to do well in the 90s, because that's what's going to happen Right now.

Jason Curtis: 24:28

It's not uncommon to see 60 year olds winning ultra events. Then it's going to be 70 year olds. It's not going to be. You know it's not uncommon to see loads of 60 plus year olds doing events. You know they're some of the best athletes. It'll be normal to see 80 year olds. Hopefully it'll be normal to see 90 year olds and I think that's arguably the best goal within the sport, health and fitness industry to be competitive within an age group.

Tom Butler: 24:55

I don't know that I know how to pronounce his name perfectly, but there was a French cyclist by the name of Robert Marchand maybe Marchand, okay. So he set a record at 105 years old. Wow, so there's an over 105 age group. That's what I'm shooting for. That gives me a little bit of cycling time. He covered 22.5 kilometers in an hour.

Tom Butler: 25:23

And so you know, I just think that's like awesome that he stayed with it. He passed away at 109 years old, but cycling when he was 108, he was cycling indoors Again. What you're talking about is that mindset that I'm going to be competitive, I'm going to work towards that. I just think it's a very healthy mindset. I started at 59 years old and I think that it's going to be really interesting to see, 10 years from now, 20 years from now, 30 years from now, how that looks. Oh yeah, when you were in the Army, were you dealing with older officers at all, or was it mostly just younger people?

Jason Curtis: 26:03

No. So it was all age groups. So when you have battalion PT, for example, or company PT, which is, you know, free platoons of soldiers you'd be working with, obviously the majority of the soldiers would be the younger soldiers, so the private soldiers, and then there'd be the corporals. They'd be a few years older than sergeants, sergeant majors that would be in their 40s. But you'd also have the officers. Obviously, the captains and the lieutenants are all younger, but you'd have the officer commanding the OC. That would be often in his 40s, and then in battalion PT you might get the colonel on there, which them guys start getting into the 60s. So, yeah, you'd have the full range. You'd be responsible. So, as a physical training instructor, you actually carry like the highest rank while doing the PT. So even if the, even if a general were to tell you to go faster, you can turn around and say no, because obviously if someone dies because you've overexerted a platoon, then it's not the individuals on the fitness session. You're the person that's subject matter expert. So yeah, you were responsible for all ranks and all ages, but the majority of people in the military, obviously, because you do generally a 22-year career, but obviously the people that achieve much higher ranks extend that time often. So you will get guys that are into the 50s and even into the 60s potentially, that are still doing PT.

Jason Curtis: 27:28

What happens in the military is you have a certain standard for the personal fitness assessment and that tends to. After 30, for example, when I was in it, changes changes these tests. It was a mile and a half run and for the infantry you had to do it in nine minutes, 30, and then after 30 you added 30 seconds. Every five years after 30 they got an extra 30 seconds and I always remember my sergeant major, who was obviously into his 40s then, so he had an extra, you know, minute and a half to to run the mile a half. He always used to say to us that the day I run over a nine minute, 30 mile a half, I'll sign off myself. You know, because he was a very fit, hard man and he was like you know. He used to scream at the platoon and say if anyone finishes behind me, essentially I'll like fill you in a bit. Essentially he used to say but yeah, he was, he was an incredible bloke and you get a lot of guys like that.

Jason Curtis: 28:20

When I was in the infantry there was, there was no females, and they do allow females in um, or I think they've started, but um, oh yeah, there's those all age categories. You tend to find that. What's an interesting concept is you tend to find that those that achieve high rank tend to be very fit and very motivated. I mean, it makes sense. So you rarely find someone that's incredibly successful within the military, that is not physically very fit and has the mentality like my Sergeant Major did, which was, regardless of how much extra time I get, I'll be running at this standard of the young blokes, and that was just the trait of the successful people within the military.

Tom Butler: 28:58

I love that example. I mean that had to say a lot to a lot of younger men. Here's somebody that's keeping himself at this level. That's awesome. So you have this race, this fitness race and training method called the deadly dozen. I think it's interesting that you invite people who want to get stronger to do something deadly. So why do you think, as a coach, that you have seen such a great response to this program? Because there's.

Jason Curtis: 29:29

There's a real demand for it because in the fitness industry. So the fitness industry is growing every year. You know, all the young people are coming into the gyms and people want to go when it comes to fitness. So what they usually do is they'd sign up to a 10K, they'd sign up to a triathlon, they'd sign up to a marathon or they'd do like an obstacle course race like Spartan or Tough Mudder, things like that. And then what came about a few years ago well, over a decade ago was CrossFit, and that was involved anything. It was a type of fitness racing, but it more often than not included things like Olympic weightlifting, gymnastic type movements, often the competition. You know, if you wanted to go to the CrossFit Open, you had to be incredibly strong, incredibly good at gymnastics. You were doing ring muscle ups, you were doing Olympic weightlifting over a hundred kilo, yeah, so these athletes, you know, arguably were the fittest people in the world.

Jason Curtis: 30:22

Then there was a race called High Rocks coming along in about 2017 and it started to grow and it's what I've coined as conventional fitness racing. So it involves racing from A to B and there's a very low strength barrier because, at the end of the day, if there strength barrier is higher, then people that can't lift that weight can't enter the race. Now, if the strength barrier is lower, people can just go faster. If it's lightweight for you, just go faster. So it has a lower strength barrier and there's a low technical barrier, so there's nothing really complex sort of training in a gym. You've got a cyclist, a runner, whoever they are, across all different sports, can go and compete in the High Rocks, which involves eight times 1K runs with stations in between such as like skiing, so the ski erg, the row erg, sled pushes, so sled push, sled pull walking lunges, farmer's carry burpee, broad jumps, stuff like that. And last year in the UK they released 5,000 tickets sells out in minutes. So a hundred pound head. It's just the biggest fitness race in the world. It's absolutely gone crazy. And the reason it's gone crazy is because what they've done is, rather than CrossFit's quiet specialist even though they can do anything in a CrossFit workout, any exercise, it can involve anything They've added a type of fitness racing that is just the gym. So people in the gym have now got a goal. They've turned the general gym training including running, rowing, skiing, cycling into a sport. So it's the literal perfect goal for anyone that enjoys health and fitness, cardiovascular training and resistance training, so it's the perfect goal for them.

Jason Curtis: 31:57

Now what I've done is I obviously wanted to create my own fitness race and I wanted to create what I saw as the ultimate test of fitness. Now what most people do is they go it needs like a strength zone, it needs an endurance zone. So you have something like a work up to a three rep max on a deadlift and then we'll have a 10K row or a 10K ski or a 10K or a you know 50k cycle, you know, and we'll test endurance. And I don't think that's what people wanted. What I saw was they wanted a race like high rocks that works for race to be. Where I saw not a weakness of high rocks, it's just an area where I thought I could make it different was 400 meter runs.

Jason Curtis: 32:35

So athletics tracks are one of the most underutilized thing. In the uk, there's over 600 of them. In north america there's well over 20. So athletics tracks are one of the most underutilized thing. In the UK, there's over 600 of them. In North America, there's well over 20,000 athletics tracks. Every high school has an athletics track.

Jason Curtis: 32:44

So I was thinking we could do 12 times 400, which is an infamous way to develop your 5k time as a runner. And for me, whenever someone's strong and they've also got a 5k, I consider them to be a bit of a powerhouse, a bit of a machine when it comes to fitness. So the park opposite my gym has a 400-meter loop, so originally I just wanted it on the loop but we thought, well, it's perfect for a track. Then I wanted 12 exercises in between that were laborsome, that worked the fundamental movement patterns like hinge, squat, lunge, push and pull. I also wanted it to be the most accessible fitness race in the world that progressively loads the movement, so it's not just body weight. It also has no dumbbell lunges, so it only uses dumbbells, weight plates, kettlebells and obviously body weight exercises. So it's like kettlebell farmers carry, kettlebell deadlift, dumbbell lunge, dumbbell snatch, burpee, broad jump, kettlebell goblet squat, dumbbell push press, bear, crawl plate, cleaner press, weight plate overhead carry and dumbbell devil press and all the weights are relatively moderate but you're doing like 60 reps because it's 12. It works off a geodecimal system, so everything's sort of like 60 reps, 240 meters and whatnot. So it works really well for programming because obviously you can divide 12 by 6, 4, 3, 2, 1, and so it's really good in that respect.

Jason Curtis: 34:06

And I spent six months writing a training manual on this methodology and the race and when we launched the first races and obviously just shared a bit of content and it just went viral, I launched a missile race and it sold out. I thought, right, I'll launch a second race. And it sold out in less than a day. And it's just building and building and building. And I think what people like is the simplicity. They like that it works them incredibly hard, but there's nothing that's a massive barrier to entry. It's just are you fit enough? So our tagline is beat the race. So it's just are you fit enough? So our tagline is beat the race. So it's not necessarily about beating other people, which you can. It's about beating the race.

Jason Curtis: 34:43

And we have timing mats.

Jason Curtis: 34:44

When you run a loop of the 400 meter track, you get your 400 meter time. You cross a timing mat, you do the labor, so it might be 60 goblet squats. You then cross the timing mat again, so you get your labor time. You then do the 400, so you get a race certificate of all your metrics. And the exercises don't change. The race doesn't change and people say, well, that that'd be boring. Surely. I'm like, well, when does a 10K change? When does a marathon change?

Jason Curtis: 35:09

You know people want fitness racing as a sport that they can do time and time again. So just like you'll enter a 10K or a 5k, or like a park run, which we have every sunday, saturday sunday in the uk people want it for fitness. So I just thought why can't there be a functional fitness race where we run hundreds of them every year and people just rock up and do these deadly dozens, so they're doing 12 times 400 meter runs and then they're doing 12 exercises. Essentially it works every muscle in their body. You know your whole body is going to be sore afterwards and also, because I've not got any machines in their labours, I can have a deadly dozen row, deadly dozen ski, deadly dozen cycle.

Jason Curtis: 35:52

So rather than doing a 400-metre run, you could do an 800-metre cycle, because there's that two-to-one ratio between the running and cycling. So it's an incredibly versatile race and I think also I am incredibly lucky that fitness racing because of Hierox basically, is in vogue right now. But I think it will carry on being in vogue for a long time because the gym industry is just growing and this sport of fitness racing turns the gym into a sport which, when you consider that a lot of people do sport as children and then stop as adults, what's the adult leisure time these days, other than going to the pub? It's going to the gym. So what have we created? We've created a sport out of the gym, and that's the aim, essentially.

Tom Butler: 36:32

Well, I love it. You're wearing a t-shirt right now that has a kettlebell that looks like a skull and says deadly dozen on it. Now I could easily get sucked into a conversation about entrepreneurship, because I love that topic. But I want wondering if you could talk a bit about kind of that branding and everything. Thinking at a at it from an entrepreneurial perspective. It seems like people are drawn to that kind of challenge, and I would use the word severe challenge because deadly doesn't sound severe. So it seems like from a marketing perspective or an entrepreneurial perspective, talk a bit about that process or the entrepreneurial perspective.

Jason Curtis: 37:19

Talk a bit about that process. So, basically, is what I realized is is this is what I always say to people is the fitness industry used to market itself like this like how to get abs in six minutes and it's easy. Or this is the ab master 5,000. You only have to do 20 reps a day and you're going to have perfect abs. You know it was all marketing itself is this is an easy way to get fit right. And then CrossFit came along and they went this is horrendous, like your workout is our warmup, and it was basically just encouraged. Like you know, they almost used to promote rhabdomyolysis, which is something that could kill you. You know you train that hard that you start to break down your tissues and you know what happened People absolutely loved it.

Jason Curtis: 38:01

I think we have this view of society, which I think can be applied, unfortunately, to maybe a broad percentage of a population that people inherently are a little bit soft or they're a little bit weak, or actually you've got to sugarcoat everything, you've got to hold everyone's hand. Yet when I open my gym and we do really, really tough circuit sessions, everyone loves it and it's full of 60 year old men and women and and people that are just normal folk like I say what are quote unquote normal people, average people. So I think we have this belief that people are, you know, soft and need things like handheld. But actually they're not. They like being pushed. I think the hardest thing sometimes is getting through the door or that initial drive.

Jason Curtis: 38:50

So when I came up with the race I wanted it to be. The colour scheme is red and black and white, so mainly red and black. The school bell is called Mori, so there's a stoic sub-branding to it. It relates to memento Mori remember you must die, which sounds really morbid, but actually it's to do with remember to live, really, which is you know you're going to die, so make sure you hurry up and live. So I wanted the race branding to look sinister and hard but then have underneath that, have my personal brand behind that. So I wanted to be like the face of the company and be accountable to people and obviously be a friendly face. So when I wrote the manual, I'd published quite a few manuals before that and there were very much, not much, personality in them. It was back, squat, step under the bar. You know, put the bar here. Squat much personality in them. It was back, squat, step under the bar. You know, put the bar here, squat down, stand up. It was all a little bit no personality and in the Deadly Dozen training manual, I tried really hard to put across, you know, the friendly personality that this is absolutely for everyone. However, it's going to be one of the hardest things you've ever done and I actually think people appreciate that. I think it's going to be one of the hardest things you've ever done and I actually think people appreciate that.

Jason Curtis: 39:59

I think it's also key as an entrepreneur to know who your target audience is. So if someone says to me, oh, you need to make it a little bit more approachable, I'd say, well, no, I don't, or you know. So people would say to me about my gym you know, you need to encourage people that are scared to come to come, and this may sound the wrong way, but I'm like well, actually, you know, if I try and make my sort of gym sound too easy, they're going to come and they're going to resent the fact that I've just absolutely worked them hard and they go. Well, I thought you told me this was all really easy and I didn't have to work hard. No, it's almost like false advertising. So I want to promote myself to the people that want to do what I want to do.

Jason Curtis: 40:39

I learned early on that you shouldn't care about the 95% of people that don't, are not interested in what you do, and only care about the 5% of people that really care about what you have to offer, and that's my mentality. So I create a branding that I'm like this is cool, I like it, and I throw myself into that branding and I create a business that I'm like this is cool, I like it and I throw myself into that branding and I create a business that in my opinion, even if I've not got any intention of franchising, could be franchised because every system, every policy is just refined so that, right down to the branding, these are the colours, this is the logo. So the logo is actually very realistic that the medals are. Grab on this one. Here. The medals are also the Maury school bell. You know we create a character around it and we create an e-false and it's. I'm very much into sort of branding and really delving into that branding. But I'll leave it there because I'll keep sort of waffling on.

Tom Butler: 41:36

Well, I like it. And again, there's a lot of things I want to ask you, so I don't want to get too distracted with that, but you know, I just have to say I must be your target because you showed that medal and I'm like man, I'd love to have that medal. Getting into the training side here, which is what we're here to talk about, there is a lot of attention placed on not being overweight and you know there is a global obesity I don't think epidemic is too strong of a word. You know there is a global problem with obesity, but muscle mass is very important and that could be ignored and I think has been ignored in the past, which is to focus on weight loss. Uh, what are the benefits of maintaining muscle mass?

Jason Curtis: 42:27

so the bottom line is is, you know, without, without muscle tissue to exert force, you know to to contract and and move a joint, then you're not going to be able to do anything. So maintaining the muscle mass in your body like, for example, a perfect analogy is people often hate burpees, right, you know young people say, oh, burpees are a pointless exercise. Right, go and tell your 85-year-old Nana to do a burpee and that will show you just how an athletic movement is. So we always talk about squatting and jumping and sprinting. Now you could imagine your nan doing a deadlift or even doing a squat, but tell them to throw their body to the floor and get back up. You know, it just wouldn't happen, you know, unless they were very athletic. Now, that just purely and simply comes down to having the muscle mass to do these tasks. So as a young person, you actually see a burpee as, although it's quite a horrendous movement, it's quite easy. Really, if you say to a young person do a burpee, they're not going to go. That's incredibly technical, incredibly hard. If you'd ask them to do a 200-kilo, 400-pound back squat, they'd go well, I can't do that. But not many people will say they can't do a burpee. But actually, as we age, tell an old person to do a burpee, it's incredibly hard. I'd never expect my 85 year old grandma to be able to throw herself to the floor and get back up.

Jason Curtis: 43:51

So muscle mass is absolutely vital. It's going to reduce as we age and people often talk about, for example, balance and or they'll talk about stability. So balance is not just, um, you know proprioception. So so the the muscles detecting you know where, where the joint is, and when you roll onto the ankle it brings it back and that's an involuntary contraction. It's not just your vestibular system, so your inner ear, it's also muscular strength and muscular endurance. When someone falls over, it's not just balance, it's also having a lack of speed and power in the muscles to correct that. So when an old person starts to fall forwards, that's not just a lack of balance and coordination, it's a lack of speed to put that foot out. So the muscles are incredibly important for us to do activities like you or I might think about, which is we can lift weights, we can pick up objects. So we're just as mark ripito said, it is generally just a more useful human being. If you've got a bit more strength to you now you can carry more shopping bags. However, as you age, if you don't have the muscle tissue, all the normal tasks will start to become harder.

Jason Curtis: 45:03

And one of the problems with thinking about like obesity on the flip side is some people say it's not an issue being as overweight, but imagine being 80, 90 years old with all that excess weight and then not having the strength on top of that you know. So that's where the real problem lies. I understand certain elements of body positivity, but we're not thinking about or what about 70 year olds that have got an extra 10 stone of weight and they've? They've atrophied the muscle because they've gone on all these crash diets and they've never done resistance training. So having the muscle is key for getting up out of the chair, getting out of bed, being able to walk, because it's the muscles that allow us to do that. So it's the atrophy, the loss of the muscle tissue, which is why you start to see people you know walking the way they do, you know taking away.

Jason Curtis: 45:49

Obviously there is arthritis and joint issues and stuff like that, but also having more muscle around the joints, it supports the joints. So if you haven't got got the muscle to deload the joints and you've got more fat that's loading the joints, then you're going to see more wear and tear. Now the bottom line is that we are wearing ourselves out over our lifespan, you know. But we're a living organism that when we work it it repairs tissue. Obviously, eventually we will wear out. I don't know what we've got in us maybe 110, 120 years really, with lucky genetics and medical intervention. But the way that we can maximize health span so the health of our joints and genetics comes into this in injury is making sure that the muscles that surround the joints support the joints adequately. So when we're doing daily tasks we're not loading the joints because our muscles are taking the brunt of the force. So it's important on so many levels.

Tom Butler: 46:48

I do a lot of cycling, you know, and I have been really pleased that, at you know, 61 years old, I'm still getting stronger and I believe I'm beginning to learn some other things. I am fully convinced that I need to do strength training, and one of those things is that if I was only focusing on cycling, it seems like I could create an imbalance. Is that a fair statement?

Jason Curtis: 47:19

Oh yeah, absolutely, Because there's going to be key cycling muscle groups and obviously there's going to be a clear imbalance between upper and lower body where the lower body's getting the strength. One of the problems is, you know, I would say that another area that people are missing out is they're not getting the high impact as a cyclist that I would recommend people get, try and implement some, you know, fast running and some jump training in as well to impact the tendons. But, yeah, there's potential imbalances that are going to occur because there's key muscle groups involved in cycling, just like there is any sport or any occupation, and the aim of the gym is we do all these different movements so we can train all the different movement patterns. So we can all these different movements so we can train all the the different movement patterns, so we can train the different muscles in the body that might not get worked, you know, daily or in different um scenarios. Now it is key to note that it's normal for the body to have asymmetries and imbalances because we have a dominant hand, we have a favored side, we life as a whole is imbalanced. So it's when people say, oh, my left hand's slightly stronger or vice versa. That's normal and more often not. It's not going to cause any issues.

Jason Curtis: 48:25

But obviously, if you're in a certain position and it's same with posture that you can go into any position.

Jason Curtis: 48:33

It depends how long you're in that position.

Jason Curtis: 48:34

Certain positions are more ergonomic than others and if you're cycling for long periods with a flex low back, that's absolutely fine and in the position you are on the saddle, however, it makes sense to then do opposing movements.

Jason Curtis: 48:50

So, for example, if you're flexed for long periods on the bike, it would make absolute sense in the gym to work on extension of the spine and to develop strength in them erectors. So you're not going to be so. You're basically going to provide more support and greater longevity to your back because you're going to have the muscles that surround the spine to the rear. They're going to be strong, they're going to be healthy and that's never a bad thing. So so training the core or training the back muscles is not the the key all back problems, but your strength is never a weakness and working muscles is always going to be beneficial. So if you know that you're working certain muscles on the bike, you want to then go to the gym and not just work that muscles to make them stronger, but also work opposing muscles, muscles that you don't often work on the bike just to make sure everything's getting fair treatment too strenuous or as being something that you could pull, something that would then interfere.

Tom Butler: 49:53

You know that would take you off a bike or take you off your feet or whatever. Can you address those concerns? And maybe emphasize the modifications that can be made for a safe and effective workout.

Jason Curtis: 50:04

Yeah. So the key to training without injury is all about load management more than anything else. So if tissues get injured, it's, yes, technique is important because it distributes load across structures in an optimal way. But at the end of the day, if someone can deadlift 300 kilo you know, 600 pounds they're not going to get injured, deadlifting a 20 kilo kettlebell with a rounded back or poor technique, because the tissues have the strength to accommodate the stress. So actually it's more about load management and it's about how heavy you're going, so your intensity, your volume and your frequency. So most runners get injured because they do too much running. It's less so about you know their running style and stuff like that, even though it can contribute. So the first thing I would say to all those getting into strength training is do less. Less is more to start. Give yourself some sufficient recovery.

Jason Curtis: 50:59

So, doms, delayed onset, muscle service soreness is a byproduct of a lack of exposure to that stress. So that's why, as an athlete, if you're working towards a competition, you would get all of this in the early days. You would. You would get the stress in the general prep phase, further away from the competition, where your training is going to elicit more soreness. So essentially, you're training this out of yourself because, yes, if you introduce strength training this week and you haven't done it for a while, you're going to be a little bit sore. The do strength training this week and you haven't done it for a while, you're going to be a little bit sore. The idea is is that you build the strength in the structures or you just build the condition in which only takes a few sessions. You know, a few times you're sore and then your muscles get used to it. So what you do is you strip it right back. You don't have too much volume so that you don't do too many sets and reps. You do less is more. So you go in and rather than working a single muscle group for an entire session, you work the entire body. So any athlete, really a cyclist you only need to do one to two strength training sessions a week and both of them sessions, in my opinion, should be total body and you can use machines. But free weights are also great and obviously they have various.

Jason Curtis: 52:08

So you want like a bilateral squatting movement where you're using both legs at the same time. You want like a single leg movement, like a lunge or a rear for elevated split squat, potentially, obviously, calf raises to develop the calves and load that movement. You then have upper body pushing movements and upper body pulling movements and when it comes to working the lower body, fundamentally every squat variation works the legs. So people get overly analytical about right, the front squat, the back squat. Should I do the leg press? Do what suits you initially, because at the end of the day, if you're flexing and extending or bending and straightening your knees and hips and you're working your quadriceps, your hamstrings, your glutes, you know they're the muscles that are working.

Jason Curtis: 52:50

So find the movement patterns that don't stress you in a negative way. So if you have a barbell back squat, for example, and you go every time I do this it aggravates my back. Try a goblet squat, you know. Try the leg press. If you find that it aggravates the knees, do a box squat where you sit onto a box and your shins are more vertical at the bottom of the movement.

Jason Curtis: 53:16

There's so many exercise variations that if you find one aggravates you right now, modify it. You know you don't even have to squat within a training program to develop the legs. You could do a deadlift or a hex bar deadlift. You know the trap bar. That's a way of developing leg strength without being very stressful on the knees. A lot of people have knee problems. It doesn't really matter what exercise you choose if it clearly works that muscle group.

Jason Curtis: 53:35

And then what you want to do is start at moderate weights for moderate reps, because it's the eccentric phases, the muscles are lengthening, that cause the soreness.

Jason Curtis: 53:44

So you don't want loads and loads of volume initially.

Jason Curtis: 53:47

We're talking, you know, three or four sets of six to ten reps and don't do too much of more muscle group. Do a couple of lower body exercises, couple of upper body exercises and build it up over time. The key to not getting too sore and the key to not getting injuries is progressive overload and when you start feeling tissues becoming a little bit inflamed what we call niggles, you know little, not really injuries yet just modify it, give yourself an extra day's rest. It auto-regulations are regulating your own training and listening to your body is ultimately the key. I always say to people you know, if you, if you're doing lots of pull-ups and you feel your elbow starts to niggle a little bit, take the pull-ups out for a few days, because most of the time your body well, pretty much all of the time. Your body's the primary worker when it comes to recovering tissues and all it needs is time, and the sooner that you jump in and give it that adequate time to recover, the better. Basically, it recovers faster.

Tom Butler: 54:46

You're talking about some things that bring to my mind, you know, the real benefit of having a personal trainer, because just you know the concept that, okay, this isn't something that feels like my body can handle it. And then having somebody that's experienced enough to say, well, let's try this instead, let's see see how that is, having somebody that really has knowledge about a lot of options about stressing muscle groups in safe and effective ways, I think that's important.

Jason Curtis: 55:19

Yeah. So the key to any when we train personal trainers, one of the key skill sets is regression and progression. So when you take said exercise, how are you going to regress it? So if it was a barbell squat, it would, you know, go to, for example, a box squat, then a goblet squat. It could be a bodyweight squat, it could be a climb-down squat, you know, a squat with a suspension trainer. Are we going to raise the heels? And that's really where the expertise comes in.

Jason Curtis: 55:49

And real expertise comes in when you've worked with enough clients that have had enough niggles and injuries and different backgrounds, and you start to understand. You know, you see the trends in what people might experience when they're bench pressing or when they're doing a lot of cycling, and you know how, how exercise makes them feel. And you start to understand how to manage a training week and how to manage training loads and to ensure that people aren't getting sore and they're not getting fatigued and tired. Because that's the the thing, as an snc coach, that we take into account is it's first, it's almost like do no harm. So it's like do not negatively impact the sport. That person's cycling is first and foremost, so we're wanting to just add to that.

Jason Curtis: 56:29

So when it comes to resistance training, my advice is one to two sessions a week, total body and, yeah, if they can find a coach that really understands, like, how to apply stress, because it's all that bell curve. You want enough stress without falling over the other side. So the the more we can stress you, the better the stress, the tissue stress, is a good thing, so positive adaptive stress. But if we go too far, that's when you start to develop niggles and injuries, you start to feel overtrained and it starts to negatively impact the cycling. And that's often the difference between you know a personal trainer and S&C coach is that, by definition, the S&C coach has more knowledge and expertise of how to work with someone, that's, you know a little bit of a, you know more focused towards the sport.

Tom Butler: 57:16

I could, I think, keep you on here for like three hours. It's a fantastic conversation, but I want to ask you like, looking ahead, what are some of the biggest trends you see in strength training programs and kind of specifically about old training, older adults, strength training older adults so I think that the bottom line is is that we know that we can achieve a lot with fundamental movements.

Jason Curtis: 57:48

So it all comes down to sort of squat, hinge, which is like your deadlifts, squat, push, pull, and what you'll see is that people become dogmatic within some certain methodologies and hopefully, the way I hope it goes is that people gain the expertise to understand right. So we've got the first movement pattern If there's eight movements with brace starting off, so just brace into create tension. Then you've got hinge, squat, lunge, so single leg, push, pull, rotate, and gate, which is walking, running loaded carries, and hopefully people gain the knowledge that we go right. Okay, we've got the squatting movement plan, which is fundamentally just like we say, train the movements. So, rather than thinking about muscle groups, so squat would be like a leg day, push would be chest and tricep the muscles that work when we do upper body push are the chest, the anterior deltoid and the triceps. Pull would be back and biceps. Yeah, it's just semantics really. Yeah, it's just semantics really. So we're thinking about training movements and that trains all the muscles that work their movements. So when it comes to squat, the best way as in the ultimate way that we can work the legs is a barbell back squat. That's the free weight squat that's going to allow us to lift the most amount of weight. So you can get someone that can lift 500 kilos or a thousand pounds on a on a leg press and they'd struggle squatting 100 kilos right, because there's a lot more technique and there's a lot more skill to it. But you take someone that can squat hundreds on a barbell, they're never going to struggle on a leg press. However, there's nothing wrong with machines. They still load the joints and the muscles. So I hope that it just becomes common knowledge that you can do a fundamental movement like a squat and that's all the training you need for your lower body. Or it could be a hex bar deadlift, as long as you're going from A to B and progressively loading them tissues.

Jason Curtis: 59:41

Now people also say what's the perfect rep range? Should I be doing five sets of five, four sets of 10, ten, three sets of one? You should be doing all of it right. So the the key is where I think it should go is less dogma, right, fundamental movements done in whatever way suits you, whether it be a machine, whether it be a barbell back squat, whether it be a kettlebell goblet squat, whether it be a kettlebell deadlift, whether it be a kettlebell goblet squat, whether it be a kettlebell deadlift, whether it be a barbell deadlift, a hex bar deadlift, whether it be some form of cable deadlift. Now, as long as you're working the fundamental movement pattern and as long as you're stimulating the body so not every time it doesn't have to be maximal. Within 90% of your one rep max, it just has to be enough to load you. So some sessions it'll be easier, there'll be more volume. You'll be doing four sets of 15 reps. Other sessions you might be doing three sets of two reps, but at a much heavier weight. So my aim is that it's just education that people go.

Jason Curtis: 1:00:38

Training doesn't have to be complex and ultimately one of the key variables is enjoyment. So understand the fundamental movements that I need to be doing, pushing with my upper body, that I need to be doing pushing with my upper body. I need to be doing pulling with my upper body. So these are the big compound movements that work multiple muscles, multiple joints. And we've got isolation exercises where we just work the muscles involved with that, like a bicep curl or a tricep extension, only working the elbow joint. That's called like an isolation exercise or a single joint exercise.

Jason Curtis: 1:01:08

So to me, I think the trend is just education. The training doesn't have to be complex. It could be in your home and that's all the training that you need. But what weights do is. The people often see weight training or strength trainers like meatheads, and what it is is. It's just the best way to progressively make fundamental movements harder. Yeah, because if you're going to do a bodyweight squat, the best way to make it hard is just add a little bit of external load every week, and so, yeah, it's taking away the dogma understanding the fundamental movements and loading them however suits you best, and that's the best way to do it I love that.

Tom Butler: 1:01:47

Less dogma, I love that, that's great. What about you personally? What are you uh focused on? What are some of your goals for yourself?

Jason Curtis: 1:02:00

so for myself it's. It's basically, I see, the the bit where the fitness industry is going to go. The biggest thing in the fitness industry, in my opinion, will be the fitness racing, and my goal as a business is to make the deadly dozen an internationally renowned fitness race that we're at hundreds of tracks every year in dozens of countries around the world. You know, I want to bring it to the states. I want to go uk wide next year on a personal level, competitor wise, I want to be a competitive fitness racer within the uk and sort of rank internationally and I want to carry that on through every age group. And so I've got my own fitness race and I want to compete in high rocks and I want to be injury free, fit and healthy for as long as I can be. Basically, basically, and I think the way that I can express that in terms of physical fitness is with fitness racing, because it demonstrates all aspects of fitness.

Tom Butler: 1:03:00

I'm wondering how people can get connected to learning more about your programs, learn more about your publications and you know. Theoretically it's like where can they find the deadly dozing coming to a track near them? You talked about all the fitness tracks around and you know where can they get information on what you're up to so on my instagram, you can just search jason curtis on instagram, it'll come up.

Jason Curtis: 1:03:25

And one of the benefits of that Instagram is I give away free eBooks twice a week and some of them as as big as 300 pages, because often I just take snippets from a books and a post was free books and it's developed quite a following as a result of that. We've got over, I think, well over a hundred thousand followers just because we give away loads of free stuff. Because, the way I see it is, information is cheap these days and you may as well give lots of information and you get the attention for it and therefore people hopefully buy into other services. So there's mountains of free content there over 300 free eBooks and you can comment on any post and it automatically sends you the eBook. So, yeah, jason Curtis on Instagram and through there you'll find everything else.

Jason Curtis: 1:04:07

But I have got a few other websites, like jasoncurtisorg, which is my personal website, and deadlydozencouk. We have got com, but it's not attached yet. Basically, when it comes to the Deadly Dozen is, just watch this space, because that's just Deadly Dozen. On Instagram as well, because we're planning to expand as fast as we can. So, yeah, we're going to go UK wide next year and hopefully after that we can start getting to the States and getting to Europe and hopefully we'll be as many tracks as we can and people start to hear about it and hopefully it goes viral. We'll see. I'll be working hard to achieve it, but whether it happens, you don't know I like it and I'll be following it.

Tom Butler: 1:04:49

I'll be looking for it. Be looking for it in the Seattle area. Jason, thank you so much for taking the time to do this. I know that you've got an event that is going on and you pulled away from that to do this. It's just been fantastic. I really appreciate your perspective and I really appreciate what you're doing. I just think anything that could make the fitness journey more fun, more exciting you know, challenge is good for me and I know it is for a lot of people and you're creating that and I just really appreciate you coming on and sharing your perspective.

Jason Curtis: 1:05:26

Brilliant. I've really enjoyed the conversation, so thanks for having me on.

Tom Butler: 1:05:30

Yeah Well, take care now. As I told Coach Curtis, I have become sold on the idea that the only way that I will meet my cycling goals is to do weight training. I believe that my leg muscles need to improve in ways that only the stress of heavy weights can provide. I didn't mention that squats scare me. One thing that I kind of missed until really late in the conversation is that Coach Curtis draws a contrast between personal training and strength and conditioning coaching.

Tom Butler: 1:06:08

I do want to take an approach to training as if I am an athlete. Now, no one that looks at me is going to say, oh, this guy's an athlete. But I think it will take that kind of mindset for me to take the time and put in the effort that I need to improve my cycling over the next how many ever years? To improve my cycling over the next how many ever years? So I think I will try to get a strength and conditioning coach to join me for some gym sessions. Maybe with some guidance I can even get to the point where squats aren't intimidating.

Tom Butler: 1:06:40

A Google search in my area for a senior strength and conditioning coach brought up no options, so it might be a bit of a journey for me to find someone who really understands the issues of someone my age. I don't think I'll be flying to the UK for sessions with Coach Curtis, but that would be really nice. I hope that you have either done a fun group ride this summer or have one coming up. I think large group rides are amazing. One coming up, I think large group rides are amazing. But whether you are out in a big group ride or on a solo ride, may all your cycling be filled with tons of good times. And remember age is just a gear change.