338: Kyle Waugh on Building Robust Athleticism, Managing Training Complexity, and Going from “Broken to Beast”

Today’s episode features Kyle Waugh. Kyle is the owner of Waugh Personal Training and hosts the podcast “Waughfit Radio”. He started in fitness and rehab as a track and cross-country athlete and transitioned in his early 20s to a gym rat riddled with injuries. Kyle worked through his injuries, and after being told to never lift again and get surgery, he is now robust and pain free through the process of good training and movement. Kyle is a holistic movement and fitness specialist focused on optimizing the human experience. He looks to bridge the worlds of physical therapy and fitness together and get people living their best life, and is certified in both strength and conditioning and as a physical therapy assistant. We live in a world that is absolutely loaded with information. If you have an athletic performance need, or a pain/injury issue, you can instantly get hundreds of articles and many experts telling you what you should or shouldn’t do to improve. Based on the nature of information and marketing, most of us tend to be presented with more bells, whistles, and overall complexity than what we truly need to reach our next level in training or rehab. Wisdom is gained through personal experience, and Kyle has achieved that in spades, overcoming physical pain that would wake him up throughout the night, to becoming strong healthy and robust, while learning from some of the greatest minds and systems in the industry. On today’s podcast, Kyle goes through his athletic background, and how he got into, and out of pain in his own training. He’ll go through his own common-sense approach to overcoming movement limitations and how we need to “earn our complexity” in training and exercise. He’ll also cover the important idea of being “nocebo’ed”, or being told things are wrong with us may not be true, or matter in the grand scheme of our recovery, but if we believe it, can limit our progress. Later in the show Kyle gets into his favorite progressions and exercises in the scope of getting strong, while limiting negative adaptations, and how he moves through the ranks of movement intensity without getting overly complex. Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, Lost Empire Herbs, and the Elastic Essentials online course. For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly. To try Pine Pollen for FREE (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points: 3:52 – Kyle’s athletic background where he competed in both cross country on a decent level, and track and field sprints and hurdles 7:45 – Unique, task-oriented workouts that Kyle’s old track coach used to have him do for his running work 16:07 – Kyle’s history of injury and pain, and being “nocebo’ed” by professionals in terms of what was wrong with him 23:29 – Kyle’s take on how he approaches exercises as perceived “silver bullets” in relation to the entire process of becoming a better athlete, or getting out of pain and being injury free 34:56 – How to take on an injury or athletic issue when the simplest solution doesn’t seem to be working for them 42:25 – How Kyle approaches heavily loading people who have a history of pain and injury, and how he sets goals for individuals in rudimentary strength exercises to set up for higher level strength exercises 51:06 – Kyle’s thoughts on heavier loading movements that have a high reward with a lower amount of risk from an injury and pain perspective “My coach would have you pick up a frisbee and throw it while running distance, time you, and have a reward for who did the best (a Gatorade)” “When you are moving, you are able to learn better” “As my (bro lifting) progressed, I thought that was going to make me faster, and as a year and a half progressed, that made me extremely slow” “I kind of had to say, “I don’t care about the pain”… your body learns how to be in pain after a while, so a lot of this pain, I had no actual tissue issues 5 years later, but my body was expecting pain, so that realization was game-changing.. am I actually hurting anything? Is it a tissue being hurt or damaged, or just my brain being concerned” “You shouldn’t chase after silver bullets; (David Grey said) these little things do exist, they can improve your performance a good amount, but they are just a foothold… make sure everything around it is moving with it” “When you are in pain, you are in debt; you need to build up your strength to break even, when you have enough money built up, you are a more robust resilient human” “Earn your complexity” “I’m trying to make someone a more resilient human, that’s the end goal. Anything we do that’s more complex should supplement that process, to become a more resilient human. Humans can run far, run fast, lift heavy stuff, and handle stressful events” “I’ll use a visual component to a breathing drill if someone really needs that, but you better believe I am going to load them up” “I don’t like to demonize an exercise, it’s more about “what type of body are you bringing to that exercise”” “Starting someone with a floor press, that works really well (when someone has pressing limitations)” “(In rehab based lifting) I start people with super high reps; doing higher volume is more expansive versus more compressive. Bloodflow is a huge aspect” “I like zone 2 conditioning because it is systemic bloodflow, non-stop” “Arnold press is facilitating more of a scapular protraction, getting that serratus to kick in” “If you have someone who is more de-conditioned, they may present that same anterior tilt, but they can’t shift gears… that’s all they have is that movement strategy, they don’t have any other movement strategies that can help them” “Home base for the lower extremity is split squats” “I am using my accessory movements to maintain what I have while I specialize” Show Notes Alternating Arnold Press https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgvvMUtGUG8 About Kyle Waugh Kyle Waugh is the owner of Waugh Personal Training and hosts the podcast “Waughfit Radio”. He started in fitness and rehab as a track and cross-country athlete and transitioned in his early 20s to a gym rat riddled with injuries. Kyle worked through his injuries, and after being told to never lift again and get surgery, he is now robust and pain free through the process of good training and movement. Kyle is a holistic movement and fitness specialist focused on optimizing the human experience. He looks to bridge the worlds of physical therapy and fitness together and get people living their best life. Kyle is accredited as: Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (C.S.C.S) Licensed Physical Therapist Assistant (L/PTA) ACE Certified Personal Trainer (CPT)