#071 - What I’m Reading, Watching, Buying, Doing, and Listening To
In this episode of the Decoding Excellence Show, I'm sharing a handful of the things that have been grabbing my attention lately—from what I'm reading to what I'm watching, buying, doing, and listening to.
In this episode of the Decoding Excellence Show, I'm sharing a handful of the things that have been grabbing my attention lately,from what I'm reading to what I'm watching, buying, doing, and listening to.
We’re talking about Dan John’s new book The ABCs (and Fs) of Strength Training and how Easy Strength changed my approach early in my coaching career. I’ll break down a recent Flagrant podcast episode with Pete Buttigieg, some new health tech I'm using to stay ahead of cardiovascular risk, my endless battle to perfect air-fried chicken for meal prepping (spoiler: it’s harder than it looks), and why I am running back through the entire Run the Jewels discography right now.
It’s casual. It’s personal. It’s a quick window into the stuff that's fueling the fire behind the scenes.
As a reminder, our Random Shows shows are a quick 15-30 minute episode where I typically discuss current industry trends, research reads, current events, and occasionally offer my insights into the training process that we're undertaking each week.
If you haven't already, you can head over to AdamRingler.com/Newsletter and sign-up for my weekly newsletter. This is a newsletter for the curious. It's chalked full of interesting articles I've read through the week, things I'm exploring and finding fascinating through my week, and a collections of thought experiences and resources I've cultivated.
If any of the material resonates with you, I'd love for you engage with me at @AdamRingler
Thanks again for listening to the Decoding Excellence Show! I appreciate all the support growing this Sport Science, Strength & Conditioning, and High-Performance Coaching resource. If you have taken anything away from the show, please login to iTunes and navigate to Decoding Excellence page and leave us a FIVE STAR ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review.
Key Takeaways
- Dan John's Easy Strength changed his approach early in his coaching career, a reminder that simple, repeatable training ideas often outlast complex ones.
- New health tech for staying ahead of cardiovascular risk is worth paying attention to, even for coaches who spend all day thinking about other people's health.
- Consistency beats perfection in the kitchen too: the ongoing battle to perfect air-fried chicken for meal prep is really about building a sustainable nutrition routine.
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Episode Transcript
This transcript was automatically generated. While we strive for accuracy, some words or phrases may be misheard.
[00:00:00] Sport Science, Strength and Conditioning, High Performance Coaching, Welcome to the Decoding Excellence Show. Hey everybody, welcome to the Decoding Excellence Show. As always I'm your host Adam Ringler and by nature I'm a strength conditioning coach and sports scientist. Every single episode I'm trying to deliver some information, some resources, something that brings a little bit of value to your ears. This episode is no different so thanks for tuning in, there's a lot of
[00:00:52] Podcasts that you can listen to and you decided to tune into this one so I thank you. Without further ado, let's get into the episode. Hey everybody, I am Adam Ringler and something I do quite common is I send out a weekly newsletter. I try to do it at the end of the week. The whole idea of this newsletter is to just kind of share some of the things that I'm finding interesting whether it's books I'm reading, if it's videos I'm watching, if it's something I'm listening to, if it's something I'm doing or something I bought that's under $100 or so and that's delivering some
[00:01:30] Feedback or some value or something I'm getting out of it. I want to share that with you guys. I want to give you sort of what I'm finding interesting in this world, the little things that I find amusing and then share those things with you. I'm going to try to do it on a weekly or sometimes twice a month or so because quite frankly, I don't do everything. There's some weeks that's just kind of boring for us. This is the monotony of professional work life is that sometimes there's not things that change from week one to week two. That's how it goes in the month but nonetheless,
[00:02:04] I want to share a couple of things. I just found out a newsletter this morning right now to everybody that's on our newsletter list and you can go to AdamRingler.com forward slash newsletter. You can sign up for it. That way you don't miss any of the cool stuff that we're doing, any of the information I sometimes share articles in there and sort of exclusive things for just the newsletter community, but none the less. I kind of want to share what I did. I know I don't do this often. I don't record a video for the things I share in the newsletter. That just seems a little redundant but
[00:02:37] Today I kind of want to do that because I think there's some really cool stuff in here that I am excited to share with you guys. I can always kind of break it down in this fashion. What I'm reading, what I'm watching, what I bought. If I did it end up buying something, what I'm doing, what am I sort of focused on right now in my life, if you will, and then ultimately what I'm listening to. So those sort of are my newsletter categories for our monthly musings or weekly musings. So the first thing I want to lead off with is a book I'm reading. Now you
[00:03:13] Will be if you're in sort of my vocation of what we do, you will be familiar with this author. He is Dan John. He's a legendary strength conditioning coach. He's an author. He's a seminar lecturer. He's just an all round good dude, right? If you've ever met Dan, a great quality coach, awesome thrower, but just a really humble and simple dude when it comes to strength conditioning. And he wrote a book, the ABCs and Fs of strength training. Now I am not that far into this book. I'm just starting them like one to two chapters and now it's a small book.
[00:03:52] So like you could read it like that. It's super quick. Nonetheless, he's one of these coaches that in my experiences of all the books that I've read from Dan John, he's just one of these coaches that you don't just you just just don't read his words. You actually absorb it like it hits you in your core as far as you know that what he's wrote carries the wisdom and experience of all the years that he's been a coach. So his new book really just simplifies assessment and strength training down to the essentials, right? And I love that, right? We don't have to get overly
[00:04:28] Complicated. Now there's a there's a point and a purpose for complexity, but boy, if you can take the complex and make it simple and then really digest that, that's that's awesome. And that Dan does just an amazing job of that. I would say when I was very early in my career, I mean there's a number of different Dan John books that we could all reference, but easy strength was a book that was so pivotal in my young strength ditching career. It kind of totally shifted how I thought about programming and adaptation and sort of this easy strength methodology. It was probably the
[00:05:07] First place for me that I felt things broke down to push pull him squat and weighted carries the idea of saying staying under 10 reps, right? 2 by 5, 1 by 10, 3 by 3, you know, 5 by single, like there's just so many great things about easy strength that Dan has an exceptional way of making complicated ideas feel really obvious, but that's because he explains it so well, right? So I just think if you're somebody that loves strength conditioning, if you're somebody that loves the iron game, if you are a coach like me, this book is great, right? So maybe check that out.
[00:05:47] That's something I'm getting a lot of satisfaction reading and exploring and I think if you identify with those things, you'll get a lot of value out of that. Now moving from what I'm reading to what I'm watching, right? And I listen, I try to keep my beliefs, maybe this makes me whatever. I don't know. I don't really try to like be super political. It's, boy, it's really easy to do that in these times, but what I'm watching lately, so I stumbled upon this podcast, right? And it's a video podcast and let me explain why, right? I love stand-up comedy. This is just like as a coach, I love
[00:06:32] Comedy. I love because there's that tension building and then there's the release of that tension and that's, you know, in the way of the punchline. And so there's something relatable about stand-up comedy and sort of coaching and the relationships and what you say and how people hang off words. And so there's something I really like about comedy and big fan of watching stand-up comedy and comedians. And if it really doesn't matter, the comedian, now there's some that are better than others absolutely with their delivery and style of whatever. But I started to watch on Netflix
[00:07:09] This particular comedian stand-up. And I was floored, I thought I was hilarious. Nonetheless, then I go on YouTube and I'm checking out different materials, what they, the algorithm, if you will, recommends to me. And I came across this podcast called the Flagrant Podcast. And boy, did it like it had like a political essence to it, right? It's several different people. Andrew Shortz is probably the most wide-known person that's in it, but it's also a lot of his friends and they've been in inviting a lot of different guests, right? Some on the right, some on the left,
[00:07:49] Some that are businessmen and business women and just but they take sort of a political approach to the conversation. And these are long-form conversations. They're like two hours or so. And then they're check full of comedy and they're check full of real-world like concerns of the American citizens. But they brought on person that I particularly like, right? Mayor Pete from our, you know, I'm from the South Bend, Southwest corner of Michigan, so around that South Bend area. And they brought on Pete Buttigieg. And this was not your typical political interview, right? It was super casual,
[00:08:28] Super real. It was also kind of really interesting hearing what a future with Mayor Pete would look like, right? And now he didn't come out and announce that he's running for president or anything. I mean, I think he's taking some time off of the, he says it in the two-hour podcast, but being in the political spotlight from the last administration when he was secretary of transportation. But they talk about, you know, like future political strategies. They talk about economic moves. They talk about personal stuff, like his family life and raising children. But I think what stood
[00:09:09] Out for me was just simply the the candor in which the conversation was about. It wasn't polished. It was real. It wasn't it didn't feel scripted. It was just honest conversation about what the Democratic Party needs to do to move forward post this last election. And we're seeing things right all across the country with AOC and Bernie Sanders and, you know, rally in the American people and they're sort of a political protest, but political speeches that they're doing across the country. So galvanizing a movement, if you will. Nonetheless, I just think it's whether you're left
[00:09:47] Or right doesn't really matter. I think it's worth a watch. If you're into comedy and current events, this is sort of fusing the two of them together and it's it's actually a pretty funny show. So nonetheless, third thing, right, as we go through these categories, what I've bought. Now, this, I'm I'm almost ashamed to admit this to be honest, right? So I just purchased the weatherings BPM vision. Okay, add what what what is this weatherings BPM vision thing BPM. So this is your blood pressure monitor. This is their newest device through weatherings, which is
[00:10:32] A really cool sort of health company, if you will. We used to have their thermo. It was a digital thermometer when our children were really little. And that thing was super sleek super. I think we ended up breaking it within the move from Kansas to Colorado, but super awesome, right? But nonetheless, I bought their blood pressure cut. Now, here's a couple of different reasons, right? I am 39 years of age. Not young, man, I'm not young, right? So getting older means for caring just about stuff that, you know, might seem boring, might seem dull, but I'll tell you why. And maybe some
[00:11:18] Of this is like a hyperchondriac nature of maybe who I am. And I think I generally am pretty level headed and pretty clear and cool calm collected, et cetera. However, I went and donated blood for the CU Boulder University. I work at CU Boulder Blood Drive. And so I sit in there and they're going through the checklist of everything. And I end up getting they got to take your blood pressure before hand, right? And I'm sitting in there and my blood pressure was like I don't quote me exactly on this, but I would say it's like 140, 139. And I was that was really
[00:11:57] Alarmed. It was like 140 over 80 or 140 over 85. Now, what did I do that morning? I had a lot of I had a lot of coffee. That's for sure. Deathwish coffee. So super highly caffeinated. I coached all morning. I worked out. I did conditioning. I sat in the sauna. So there was a lot of like stress inducing things. But I was and then I had a I booked it over there for my appointment. So I almost like dang near ran over there. So I'm thinking like, well, maybe it's the combination of being nervous, everything environmentally I did before in the workouts,
[00:12:34] My actions, and behaviors that elevated my heart rate. So then I go and have two weeks later. I have another like medical appointment, just simple medical follow up. I did like a physical if you will. And I'm sitting in there and I'm having another blood pressure reading. And it was like 139 or whatever again. And I'm like two weeks and that morning, maybe I had some again, I had some coffee, but I didn't work out. I didn't sauna. I didn't coach all morning. It was my first point. So long story short, it made me a little bit nervous, right? Like, you know,
[00:13:15] It made me think, Oh, shoot, like my pre hypertension. Do I? Is that doing blood pressure issues? I don't know. I don't really monitor this. I monitor everything else with my Apple Watch and my whoop and my biometric data and my HRV. But the one thing, cardiovascular risk, right? I think of like Peter Atiyah and his book. I always mess it up. I always want to say it's longevity. It's not I can't think of his latest book, lifespan, health span, longevity. I got nothing, but Peter Atiyah talks about the four horsemen, right? He talks about neurodegenerative disease of like I'm trying to
[00:14:02] Think of like things that will ultimately write on a life. All of us cancer neurodegenerative disease. Metabolic disease and then cardiovascular disease. So I'm thinking like, okay, of all the levers nutritionally and lifting and exercise behaviors and all of the things that we could do. One thing is I'm getting a little bit older. I'm like maybe cardiovascular disease. Maybe I need to get a better check of what my blood pressure is. Monitor that maybe every week. So nonetheless, this is a really cool device. I went and started looking for like cheap alternatives online.
[00:14:47] And I like this one. It tracks heart rate to text for a fib shows real-time data. It's super sleek, it's super clean. Sinks with Apple health. So I kind of like that. It's like the Apple Watch of blood pressure monitors, super clean, super simple, super sleek looking. But you know, again, I'm just trying to take my cardiovascular health seriously, even if it feels fine. I do a bunch of zone two conditioning. I'm fit. You know, I exercise, I eat clean. I don't drink. I, you know, like all of these things. But, you know, like we're all getting older. It's a little bit
[00:15:23] Different out there. So just trying to be healthier. That's what I'm doing. So I bought that. That's kind of cool. That's that's on its way. No. Next thing I wanted to talk about. What am I doing? What am I doing? And this is so boring. It's so pedestrian. I hate to admit it. I thought about this when I was writing out this newsletter, like Adam, what are you doing right now? What's what's something cool that you could kind of talk about that you're doing? And I'm not really doing much. I'm coaching. I'm recruiting. I'm, you know, in the weight room trying to be a father,
[00:15:59] Trying to be a husband, all these things. Like, so there's not anything like, oh, I'm rock climbing again. I'm doing fly fish. Like I don't not doing any of those things. So I'm very stupid. What am I doing? I am perfecting my air fried chicken. So I'm taking my protein seriously. I'm locked in on my macros, right? If you've listened to things, if you've seen Instagram stories, like I'm always about macro factor, that's the app that I use. I'm trying to hit literally everything, my carbs, my fats, my proteins, trying to hit exact numbers, right? Monitoring my weight. So weight fluctuations,
[00:16:40] Calories inverse calories out, all of those things. And quite frankly, like meal prepping is monotonous. And my air fryer is so clutch, so clutch, right? But getting that sort of like perfect, like crispy texture on the outside of that chicken without drying out the chicken breast, that's an art form, right? That takes a little like, you gotta, you gotta, you just gotta really dial in what you're doing with the air fryer, the exact sort of heat, how long you preheat it, how long do you allow the chicken? Do you tenderize it all those things? So for me, I'm just trying to
[00:17:18] Stay focused on higher protein intake. In an effort for me to lean out and preserve some muscle mass. But if you're watching this video, right, hence the whole what we're doing here, I recorded a, then this is kind of a shameless plug how I'll be, I'll be transparent, right? I just dropped a new video in the school community group, the one that I run, right? You can see the logos everywhere, on why most people actually under eat protein, right? And it's not for any bad reasons. It's just that that's the way the food industry kind of works like we, it's way easier to manufacture foods
[00:17:59] That are higher in sugars and carbs and fats than it is to have like shelf stable, long shelf life proteins. It's just what it is unless it's like jerky or anything like that. So if you're really trying to maximize for fat loss and maximize for muscle mass gain or maintenance, then hitting that protein is absolutely essential. I did a whole video on this and you could probably check it out on the links below or recommendations or it's probably my second video to this one. So maybe give that one a check, right? But nonetheless, I'm dialing in that chicken. And when I get it perfect,
[00:18:37] Y'all, when I get that chicken, absolutely perfect. Maybe I'll record like a meal prep video for everybody that's that's interested. Turn this thing into a cooking channel. Last one, what am I listening to? Now listen, I love podcasts. That's my favorite thing on doing all my zone two work. I love listening to podcasts. Video podcasts lately because I've been watching a lot of that. If I'm not doing that, listening to an audio book or a podcast like narrative. But one of the things I've been listening to a lot as far as when it comes to audio and
[00:19:17] Spotify, things like that. And this one's so it's fun, right? This is probably like when it comes to for me, like the Mount Rushmore. Oh, this is going to controversial take of rappers. I'm not going to this is tough. I'll break it out. The Mount Rushmore of politically tense rappers. Who would you have on it, right? So you could think of a number of different people. And maybe not even like rappers, let's just go like politically tension is not the right word I'm looking for. But um, political musicians, if you will, I think of like Tom Morello, I think of rage against the
[00:20:08] Machine. That's a phenomenal band. Um, but that's not what I'm mentioning. I've been just going ham listening to run the jewels. This is probably my favorite group. So you got killer Mike. You got LP. Those two guys run the jewels. And their music is, it's like I listen to it. Whenever we go and we travel from the hotel to the arena for away games, I have nothing but run the jewels in my headphones. That's what I'm listening to. It just gets me like angst gets me fired up. But for me, I'm like when life feels chaotic and feels uncertain and it feels like you're watching injustices,
[00:20:59] Run the jewels. Just hits differently for me, right? And I think their music's raw. I think killer mics and the LPs lyrics are raw. It's full of energy. It's kind of stuff that kind of fuels for me. Like, it gets me in the zone. Um, and I've just been going through all of their albums lately. And it's it's somewhat it's a mixture of like being cathartic in one aspect and then motivating in another. Um, when I was in college, like my walk out song when it came to wrestling was uh, slipknot. It's just like metal. It's what I grew up in Midwest. So of course,
[00:21:38] And I would listen to the same song every single time. And then eventually we got to a point where they would actually play your songs on your walkouts for the entire um, field house. And that was really cool. But nonetheless, slipknot was always my favorite band to kind of like shift me. It was my power song. You guys remember um, you probably don't because I got to imagine this population is pretty uh, young. But back in the day, right? Back in the day, you had these Apple iPads, right? With the little jog wheel that you could go, I remember having
[00:22:16] My first white one little screen. I was a freshman in college at Michigan State. Had an iPod held like 2000 songs, right? We would probably like download them from the T1 internet, uh, in the dorms, which was so fast, right? We had Napster and all that stuff. So it was like, nonetheless. Um, and then then it was kind of revolutionary. And the Steve Jobs still alive, he has to had to be the iPod shuffle. Now the iPod shuffle had a mode on it, especially if you're like running. I think it was like, then was it Nike? No.
[00:22:56] I don't know. I think it was just the iPod shuffle and you could play your power song. And the power song, like you would hard long press down on the whatever. And it would be, it would just skip to your power song. And you could like, it's almost like your favorite. You could set your favorite song when you were doing the running app or whatever. And it would go to it and slip. Now it was always my power song. Uh, wait to bleed. However, run the jewels. That would be my power song, right? Any song by them would be my power song.
[00:23:31] All right. So I've taken enough of you guys this time. Uh, and hopefully those that stuck around to the end of this, I appreciate you. This is a, again, it's like this is a long form. It's a conversation we're having fun with this thing. We're mixing it up. But I wanted to give you guys a quick rundown of, uh, of the newsletter, right? And kind of talk through some of the things and wear my minds at with the things that I'm doing. And then as always, like, if you find this interesting, the stuff that I mentioned, right, the books, the tech, the music,
[00:23:59] Most of the links are probably down below. If not, you could go to the adamringo.com, sign up for the newsletter. There's, uh, there's links at the top and bottom of the whole website, right? Make it super easy. And but what I will say is, hey, if you're not focusing on your protein intake yet, uh, now, now is the time to start. So check out the other video where I talk all about that. This is kind of like a shameless plug for that video as well. And, um, yeah. So I appreciate you. And I hope you guys have a great weekend. I hope you guys get after it. Be strong. Be safe.
[00:24:35] But, uh, prioritize your health. Don't, don't backslide. Like, let's not make five steps forward Monday through Friday. And then two steps back. Let's keep moving this thing going. You got the momentum. You got the motivation. You got the discipline. You got the habits. Let's keep rocking and, uh, really dominate the weekend. Set up another strong thing. Hey, everybody, that's going to be it for this podcast. As always, if you missed any of the episodes here in the Decoding Excellence Show, you can go and explore the back catalog. I host all of our episodes,
[00:25:09] Not only aren't every sort of podcast hosting site, whether it's Spotify or whether it's a YouTube or anywhere else, but you can go to my website. It is AdamRingler.com forward slash podcasts. From there, you can listen to all of the interviews, whether it's other sport professionals, whether it's the monologues, whether it's the basketball discussions, or the sports science and tech. Go to the website. Check it out. Listen to the podcast. I'm telling you you will take something away from the back catalog of the Decoding Excellence Show. Now, one of the ways that you can
[00:25:44] Support this show. Now, there's two really. You could go to AdamRingler.com forward slash newsletter. You can sign up for my newsletter. And in this, you're going to get access to everything, the cool things that I discover from a monthly basis, new books I'm reading, things I'm discovering, articles that I found related to sports science. That's really cool and coaching. So pop in your email there. And that is just an easy way of supporting the show. And you'll get free behind the scenes access to all the cool things I'm discovering. There's a second way that you can
[00:26:21] Support the show. If you are a former college athlete, I invite you to my school community page, SKOOL. And it's called the former athlete society. You can sign up. It's perfect for former college athletes who want that same structure, that same accountability, the same coaching. You can head over to AdamRingler.com forward slash school SKOOL. And you can sign up. And the first 10 people that sign up, you'll get it absolutely for free. After that, it's going to end up being $30 a month subscription fee. So join us now. Spots are filling up. If you took anything away from this
[00:27:00] Episode, I would encourage you. No, I would beg to share it with any of your friends, your co-workers, your family members, share it with somebody that could get a little bit of value from hearing what we discussed today. And as always, I appreciate you. I thank you. Until next time, stay strong, stay healthy. Keep pushing on.