Jocko Underground: How Do You Measure Up Against You In Your Prime?
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This is the Jocko Underground Podcast number 163, sitting here with Echo Charles, getting ready to provide some courses of action for various scenarios presented and also answer some questions. So let's get into it. It's true. Yeah, the principles of a lot of these questions, like if you take the principle of it, you can apply it to like your own scenario. Of course. That's kind of the deal. Of course. See what I'm saying? That's what I'm doing. It's a good functional...

Cause let's face a lot of these questions. They don't directly apply one-to-one to me, but kind of the fundamental principle. A lot of time I'm like, you get to hear it from a different angle, little reinforcement check. All right. First question. I'm currently a firefighter turning 30 this year. I'm lucky enough to be in a very physically demanding specialty surrounded by guys who are in great shape. I'm the oldest one in my rank, but have no issue keeping up.

and leading our PT sessions. My question is this, can you compare yourself today to your 20 to 25 year old prime? If you had to do a PST, how would your times and numbers compare then and now? Obviously work output variables are impacted by age, but how have you been able to keep performance high through aging? Thanks for all the lessons you've imparted. You guys impact so many lives.

Well, first, thanks for your service as a firefighter. That's awesome. It sounds like you're getting after it still after a long time. Turning 30 this year. Oh, maybe not that long of a time. So PST, which is a physical screening test, and we used to take PSTs. And I went through a couple of different iterations of PSTs when I first joined the team.

Back in the day, we actually took the Navy, like the regular Navy PST, which was very easy for us. And then they made, then there was a couple different iterations that I did over the years. And they were all, I can't even, it's too many to remember. Let me put it that way. But that being, and to remember what the specifics, the standards were, I definitely can't remember. But,

This much I do know that if I had to take a PST, I would train for it and I would be kind of like in the same ballpark as I was then. My younger self would need less time to prep for it

And the main reason is because running and swimming. Because swimming was part of the PST, it was part of the SEAL PST, it wasn't part of the Navy PST, but the SEAL PST was swimming. You had swimming. And surfing and swimming are not the same thing. They're similar, but it's even more differentiated in the SEAL teams because swimming in the SEAL teams is with fins. So you have fins on. And so it's very different than surfing

because it's more leg muscles and Finning is different than running. You're not like oh, I'm a good runner so I can Finn No, it doesn't work like that So it would take me some time to get back in the game for those two things And the rest of them were like pull-ups push-ups and sit-ups, which no factor So I think it would be somewhat similar and

In jujitsu, just FYI, in case anyone's wondering, I would kick my ass. And when I was 20 to 25 years old, I would just annihilate my 20 to 25 year old self. Total destruction. But for the spirit of the question here, I would say the biggest deficit between being 20, and by the way, 20 to 25, I don't think is prime. Is that prime for you? For what? For like physical strength, agility. I guess, what was the oldest you played college football?

20, 20, 20 or 21. Yeah. So you didn't, you weren't your prime at 21. They say, I mean, prime is, it depends because from what I understand, like if you have like what's called muscle maturity, they say about 30 between 30 and 32 is kind of the prime for muscle, just muscle. Like I think it's like strength and size or whatever, but athleticism,

Don't know but it feels like a 21 22 23 24 years old scenario, maybe even 25 after that from what I understand I don't know but I was doing a lot of different or much different things after the age of 21 yeah, um the biggest deficit I would say like would be the dynamic lifts right like

Big cleans big snatches big cleaning jerks and there's also another deficit which is when I was growing up We didn't do those like what like in high school We didn't do like every kid now does cleans and snatches and cleaning jerks like that's every kid now every kid Olympic lifts now When I was a kid in the 80s and the 70s, we didn't do that. Hmm So I don't have the really good muscle memory, you know how if you did something to your kid You can just do it forever. Yeah

I don't have that. And so then, and as you get older, you're like, well, do I really need to max out? Or do I really even need to go max weight for a clean four? And you start saying, what's the risk versus reward? Now listen, lift heavy for sure. But you're not going to lift as heavy because the risk versus reward is not, doesn't make sense. Yeah.

So that stuff would be the biggest deficit for me. But the running, swimming, pull-up, push-ups, I think I'd be fine. The other thing, so I have, the biggest thing I've noticed about getting older, and we've talked about this before,

I need more warm-up now. Yeah, I used to go to jiu-jitsu and just get on the mat and start training Yeah, slap hands. I wouldn't even jog around the mat one time I would walk out slap hands with Dean Lister and start fighting him. I

You know what I mean? And now I need like one five minute round of movement and rolling. And then halfway through, I'll go live my second round, but I'm still like not still quite there. And then in the middle of my third round, I feel good. And then between three and eight rounds, I'm like, that's where my kind of optimum that I get. Then you're getting tired or whatever. So that's that. I definitely need more warmup.

That my shoulders are less mobile than they used to be and I work on it. You know, I stretch every day I even insert stretches like some very specific shoulder stretches into my workouts So I have one where I put my shoulders up behind my back and I have one where I pull them up over my head And I do that very regularly in my workouts They're part of my workouts to try and keep you know, try and make progress

But but thankfully I will say my shoulders were injured I've had injured shoulders before and right now they're not injured which is you know, knock on wood We'll take it so need some more warm-up. I don't go as heavy as I used to on some of these dynamic type lifts So that's probably where you'd go. Oh, you're you're you're weak. Now. You're getting old but I

I'll kick your ass old self. You know what I mean? So that's kind of where, and, and I go, and, and another, here's another thing is like, I go through, as I've explained many times, I go through various cycles of working out where, you know, at some point I'm on the squat train. Then I go, then I kind of get, you know, kind of reach the, you know, I'm not, I'm not taking it to the peak because the peak takes removes. First of all,

removes other aspects of fitness and it starts increasing risk with very little benefit. I heard John Donahue talking the other day and he's like, I can't tell the difference between someone that can bench 300 pounds on the mat and someone can bench 400 pounds on the mat. Now in the world of weightlifting, the difference between 300 and 400 is huge. They're different people. They're different people.

But and I I'll tell you the same thing. I mean You know very different people that have different, you know, like you can look at one dude and be like this guy can probably bench 185 and this other guy can probably bench probably 350 and Yet the person with the 185 can kick your ass so and feel strong So

I go through like various cycles of fitness where I'm, you know, doing this or I'm doing that. I'm chasing this, I'm chasing that. And usually in the summertime is when I kind of start chasing the,

the endurance type stuff, 'cause I'm getting ready to hunt in the mountains and you'd have good endurance. So if they hit me with this question and I was in, it was like late August, early September, I'd probably be like, "All right, let's go." Although the swimming, again, the swimming, you gotta go rebuild some of those muscles. I have, like you have some, you swim so much in the SEAL teams that I would have some muscle memory that would go, I could get it back.

faster than taking someone that never had 20 years in the pains. But, yeah, that's where I'm at. So the running, you think, pretty solid? Yeah. You know, give you a little bit to get back on the horse a little bit? Give me some time. Yeah. Because I run regularly. Yeah.

But there's a difference between running and actually, let me, I do jogging and I sprint, which is a good combo. Good to go. But if you're going to start doing like a three mile run, which is what the PST was in the seal times, that's like a specific. All right, cool. Got to get in shape for that. Right. So yeah, yeah. Be all, be all good. And that's to meet my old times. Yeah.

- I wonder, I don't know. I mean, it depends on the era. And obviously I didn't have any kind of PST scenario going. But if I remember football numbers, those are way different. That's not real life numbers, you know, 40 time. Like who's gonna run a 40 outside of sports, you know? - But that's actually very recommended.

What's well just sprinting in general? Sprinting in general, dude. Big time. Sprint. But sprinting falls. There's something weird. You heard that thing that most people over the age of, most people never sprint again after the age of like 24 or something like that. That makes sense to me completely. Which is horrible for human beings to not sprint anymore. Well, there's a lot of things that could be. Then again, that's a whole philosophical thing. I mean, there's a lot of things that we don't do anymore.

Which could be looked at as like oh man, that's too bad, but it's kind of like well It's not as useful now. You know what sprinting is not as useful now, okay? But give me one more example when you say sprinting is not as useful because you're not playing football well basketball or whatever well You know how like or you know how they say okay? We're less physical nowadays right because the technology or whatever but it's kind of

it's a two-way street where it's like, yeah, because technology doesn't require us to be as physical anymore. Now that's, I think that that's bad too. But at the end of the day, it's only in regards to health. But as far as like sprinting, if you just consider this approach, I'm not saying it's good, bad, not in between. I'm not making a judgment on it. I am saying, if you look at it like this, where it's like, yeah, isn't that bad that people don't sprint after the age of we'll say 24. It's like, well, good or bad, I guess if you don't need to sprint, does that impact your health? Yes. Yeah.

I guess, I mean, and then in what way you have to think, well, maybe, yeah, when you do have to sprint away from the, you know, coyote chasing, you're going to hurt yourself. No, but sprinting is really good for your health in a bunch of different ways as well. Yeah. You'd have to consider in what specific ways I'm not saying that it is or not. I'm just saying, okay, in what ways? And then I'm saying, okay, so if, if I don't sprint, am I more at risk for what? So I understand. Yeah. Hurting yourself. You've got to run away from something. Yeah. But yeah,

I don't know if, is it reasonable to say, and I don't know the answer to this, so bear with me, but will you say, okay, does lack of sprinting contribute to all cause mortality? A hundred percent. I'm going to, I'm, you said, I'm not going to go up. I'm saying like, it does. We can go look at the facts. Does it contribute to heart disease risk? I bet. Ah, well, I don't know, bro. Well, then again, I don't know. I truly don't know. I'm telling you, I, I, I, I'm saying yes. Mm-hmm.

So you think I'm kind of trying to justify it since I don't really sprint. I'm trying to like make up for it. Oh, you don't sprint? I thought you sprinted in your Metcon sometimes. Yeah, sometimes, but it's not part of the routine. Okay. I do hills. Yeah, hill sprints. Hell yeah. Okay, well, then you're sprinting, bro. What are you talking about? I'm not sprinting. I will say this. I have not sprinted probably for like four months.

Okay, four months. That's like the age. We said 24. Now you're sprinting at how old are you? 47. 46 and five months you've sprinted. That's still pretty good. I'm rarely talking about myself unless I say myself. I'm just saying in general.

But hey, cool, man. I dig it. My numbers would be pretty close to aside from a few things. The running stuff, I'm out. I'm out of that compared to how the number of my running numbers. Well, that's why for you, you were training like you said, a 40. Yeah. Right. That's a very specific thing. And you were doing it very regularly, focused on that thing.

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