The Grey NATO – 296 – Training Tall With Austin Hendrickson
Published on Thu, 22 Aug 2024 06:00:00 -0400
Synopsis
In this episode of The Graynado, hosts Jason Heaton and James Stacey discuss recent events and interviews. James recaps his trip to Monterey Car Week with Rolex, including attending various car shows and events. They also discuss James' new camera bag from Moment and some dive watch content they recently created.
The main segment features an interview with Austin Hendrickson, known online as "Training Tall". Austin discusses his background as a collegiate rower, his transition into fitness coaching and content creation, and his approach to nutrition and exercise. He shares insights on topics like protein intake, fitness myths, and sustainable approaches to health and fitness goals.
The hosts wrap up by sharing some final notes, including a story about vintage scuba diving gear and a recommendation for a live concert video by Vulfpeck.
Links
Transcript
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| Jason Heaton | Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Graynado, a loose discussion of travel, adventure, diving, driving gear, and most certainly watches. This is episode 296, and it's proudly brought to you by the always growing TGN supporter crew. We thank you all so much for your continued support. And if you'd like to support the show, please visit thegraynado.com for more details. My name is Jason Heaton, and I'm joined as ever by my friend and co-host, James Stacy, who's fresh off a plane back from California and we are fresh back from two weeks away. How are we doing? |
| James Stacey | Hey, man, it's nice to be back. Glad to be on the microphone again. It is, it is an insane thing because we do try and essentially do an episode or, or more every week. So we don't take that much time off. Maybe we take what four or five episodes off a year. And it's weird to have two back to back and not really have it broken up by like Christmas or something like that. It was helpful because just because of how busy the last week has been with the Car Week trip. But a big thank you to everybody for the support. We got a bunch of nice messages. We always do when we take a little break. People just say, you know, enjoy it. And I certainly did. I went to California with Rolex for Monterey Car Week, and it was amazing. I had like a really, really good time. The photos looked great. |
| Jason Heaton | And California weather is usually pretty reliable for that sort of thing, right? I did see a rare Ferrari kind of covered in shrink wrap or something. I'm not sure if it rained. |
| James Stacey | Oh, sure. Yeah. Well, I mean, there, there, there's a very special GTO, um, on, on maybe that's on availability this, uh, this week, one that was just fully restored by Ferrari. Uh, and I, that one was tough to get photos of. There were people around all the time, but I did see it very briefly. I got lucky. I was, um, So basically, I was there for... I had four things to do with Rolex. On the Thursday, it was the Tour d'Elegance, which is they actually drive all the cars that will be in Sunday's event, 35 miles down Highway 1, loop around and come back. It's amazing. The road is lined with people and lots of other cool cars. You just saw immensely cool cars just parked on the side of the road to take pictures of the cars that are gonna be in. Yeah. And so I got to ride along with a fellow who owns the first ever dare embodied Packard. So it's a 1940s Packard, sat five of us, but we got incredible weather, had a really, really nice time. And yeah, just got to see some truly incredible cars. I mean, which you kind of expect, the tour was really cool, because you get to see these cars moving around. And to the point of that GTO, I was just sitting in the car, like taking photos, taking videos, and I was like, Oh, I'll do a little slow mo. as one of these cars, because eventually you turn around, right? Like I said, you go 35 miles or whatever, spin around. So the front of the pack starts to pass you. Oh, sure. Uh, coming back the other way. And so I just happened to be like, Oh, I'll try a little slow-mo on my phone. And I put it into slow motion mode and hit record just as the GTO rolled by. I saw that. That's so great. I'm sure at the speed limit. Um, but the, uh, it was amazing. Some really killer Land Rover stuff. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. I saw there was some like the Royal, um, exhibition and the entire collection. |
| James Stacey | Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Really cool. Really cool. |
| James Stacey | Did they hold everybody up? Super fun to see that. Oh, I mean, they weren't moving quickly. That's fine. Yeah. I mean, it was, it's, I don't think anybody was even like passing. Yeah. Also some of these cars, like, I think like, what do you think that GTO is worth? 90 grand, $90 million, something like that. Yeah. Right. I have to imagine you drive that car kind of a specific way, um, you know, fully clenched. Yeah. And then on Friday we have the quail, which is like the Catalina wine mixer, you know, but for cars in, uh, on, on the Quail property, which is a major event for Rolex. It's very cool. |
| Jason Heaton | What's the origin of that name? What's the Quail? |
| James Stacey | Yeah, it's a lodge and golf club and Rolex has been working with them for quite some time. And they've now also include the tour in their overall presentation, but it's very much feels like sort of a Rolex anchored event. And that's, you know, cars on grass, food, beautiful sunny weather. Some jets did a flyby. It was pretty fun. Good time. I've been to the quail. This is my third time. And I would say like for me, that's, it's kind of the same show every year. Like it's very fun and you have a good time, but, but the, the big one for me is Saturday, which is the Rolex motor sports reunion at Laguna Seca. Uh, so we got to go and you just get to watch cars lap. Uh, we got to do a hot lap in a BMW M three. Um, I'm not a great passenger, but luckily I was at least in the front seat and this guy, you know, hustled an M3 around the track pretty quickly and getting to do the corkscrew, which I've never done, a fairly famous turn on Laguna Seca, that's a very steep uphill climb, you're almost going over horizon, and then it drops, I don't actually remember what it is, several flights down through a sweeping corner, and you just swallow your whole stomach, it's great, really, really good. And then we got to... They hold all these demonstration laps, so it'll be a certain series of racing, and then it'll be Nicky Lauda's F1 cars. And sometimes somebody kind of famous like Zach Brown was racing in some of these seasons. He's the CEO of McLaren Racing and the guy that heads their F1 team. So there's some pretty cool stuff going on. And then we were there with Hurley Haywood, who I did a Talking Watches with earlier this year. Oh, yeah. And one of the things we got to do is go to the top of the corkscrew and actually get into a crow's nest. and watch all the cars go by at the coolest corner during the like Hurley Haywood demonstration. So it's a bunch of cars that he'd either driven or were from his era. Yeah. And, uh, and just some really, really, really special stuff. And to do like, we, we went up to the end of this crow's nest and somebody from the track, like one of the Marshalls was like, nobody gets to go in there, especially without like a vest. We had no photo permits. Like it's just Rolex. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but we got to do that and stand up there with Hurley and hear some stories about the cars and they were running one of my all-time favorites, Mazda 767B prototype. You'll notice like the renowned orange and yellow or orange and green Mazda. And to see that, not only to see it move, but to hear it driven hard is something else because it just nothing sounds like that. It's such an immensely kind of unique thing. I'll see if I can find a video. There's a good one from a Japanese YouTube channel. I really like that includes that car. Wow, I can put it in the show notes, but we did that and then and then Sundays the main event, which is the the main concourse at Pebble Beach on the lawn for the first time. I did Don patrol had my act together got up nice and early and got out there, you know before sunrise to watch the cars kind of roll in and it's great. They come through a whole path like past several hundred people and then they kind of just have to dawdle along until they get to the other side of the... I guess it's the 18th fairway or whatever, where they loop around and actually get staged by all the people who set up how it's gonna look. And so if you're walking around, you can see cars moving that you'll never see moving, so much fun stuff. I have a billion photos that I have to figure out... Not a billion, I have about 250 photos that I have to figure out how to get onto Houdinki CMS without too much stress. And hopefully that story will come up before this episode or, or roughly the same time. So, yeah. Wow. That's a big lift. Yeah. Oh, the other thing we got to do, which wasn't part of the official programming, but it is maybe the most TGN thing I did there was some of the other folks on the Rolex trip were much more from the car side. And they asked if I wanted to go to a tangent vector premiere. So I've definitely talked about a couple of tangent vectors films. on the show in the past, you might remember either Pike's Peak, On the Edge or Apex, which is the secret race across America. They also did... The first Apex was the story of the hyper car. So they do these incredible documentaries and they've worked with a lot of different partners, but this one was with Porsche and it's the story of Edith, which is one of the two cars that Porsche developed to set the record for the highest a car has ever been driven. So they drive a 911 and drive is very lightly. If you went when, when this becomes streaming, I'll mention it again and you guys can all check it out, but they drive it up a volcano in the Atacama desert. It's truly insane. Is it just like a gravel road all the way to the top? No, there's no road. They're like moving rocks by hand and using winches and there's like, you know, parts you have to pass that are a glacier, which cars don't drive on glaciers very well. Yeah, it's it was great. It's about not quite an hour long. It will be streaming at some point. So I highly recommend that but a big shout out to Tangent Vector and JF Musial. It was a really, really fun, really interesting look and covered a little bit of like the corporate side of how Porsche would decide huge company would decide to send a very famous race car driver. Romain Dumas was was at the wheel of the car to go up the mountain and just it took them years to figure out how to do it to get the right weather. It was very much like more story of mountaineering than driving. Yeah. And I liked it a lot. So I'll be sure to re mention it when I, when I hear that it came out, but I did want to give a shout out to the, that as it was one very cool that I got to see it into just a great film. It was fun. |
| Jason Heaton | Oh, that's amazing. Was it a Dakar or what? |
| James Stacey | Or just a pre so predates a Dakar. And when you see it, it's much more hardcore, much more travel. The body's much higher off the ground and then it's just covered in, there's a place for a spotter to stand on the side of the vehicle. because you're not moving very quickly, typically. Yeah. Yeah, I would say like, it looks like a modern 911. That's kind of jacked up. So like, think like a Dakar Plus. Yeah, yeah. A GT3 Dakar. I'm not sure what you'd want to call it. But yeah, so and they had the they had the car out front as well, which was very cool. Wow. Wow. That is cool. But yeah, so that was great, and I had an amazing time. I'm trying to think of what else I had in terms of updates. Oh, I spoke about that Moment bag that I got from Moment and from Gajan, who we had on the show recently. Oh, yeah. And could not have been happier with what that experience was like. I might actually have changed the way that I carry cameras. Really? It was just so much handier to have the tote. It had so much room, and I wasn't fussing with the bag as much as I expected to for a first time using it. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James Stacey | And I took the SL, which is a huge camera and the 24 to 70, which is a fairly large lens. And then I had pretty much everything else you would expect for production. I had a little tripod, I had a monkey tail, I had DJI mics, I had a, you know, insta 360 go, I had a jacket, you know, all that kind of stuff, a giant battery pack, cables, sunscreen, everything you need to like do these sorts of things. Yeah. And it just worked out beautifully. And, you know, for me, the, the hook really comes down to like when it's packed correctly, any bag should be fine. I could put my camera in this gear in a duffel bag, but the thing is, can you have the same bag when it's 100% at max capacity for travel and yet it still works when you load it for a specific task? And this did it beautifully. It actually still fit. I wasn't sure because it's a deceivingly confusing bag in terms of its size because looking at it, you go, yeah, that'll fit under a seat, I think, and then you pack it out and you go, maybe it won't. There's a lot in there. I don't know where it all went, but there's a lot in there and it fits right under a seat. It was very easy to use and even the Velcro patches held up. I really had expected to lose half of these patches that I stuck onto the side and so far I've only lost one. So it was one I probably didn't put the Velcro backing on correctly, but it's great. So I'm hoping they do other colors. I'd love to have one that's not black. like a gray would be great. They do a green, but it was in the first version. I wanted to try the current. Uh, so yeah, shout out to moment for, uh, for a bag for the cost of the bag. I'm actually quite impressed. It's significantly less money than my 10, but, and I would say in many ways, a similar level of usefulness. |
| Jason Heaton | You know, that's the funny thing about, about a bag, whether it's a, you know, a backpack or a travel bag or whatever, it's, they're always the best when you actually don't have to think about them or fuss with them. And like, they just work, you know, Like suddenly it's like some come with a lot of features or quote unquote features. And then you end up fiddling with a lot of zippers or Velcro or forgetting where you stashed that, you know, backup memory card or whatever it is. Can you just end up opening a lot of Velcro and zippers? And sometimes it's nice to just have something simple that works. |
| James Stacey | That's cool. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So that's a plus on that one. And then lastly, uh, for those of you who, We're missing us the last couple of weeks. There is an extra piece of content out in the world because Jason and I both did a call-in show to chat about dive watches with our buddies at Rolldorf. So Jason Gallop, who we've had on the show before, is a good buddy of mine, invited Jason and I to talk about the two worlds that exist together briefly between dive computers and dive watches. And I actually think it ended up being a really fun chat. We had a good time talking about a bunch of different topics, obviously, most of them being very much dive related, uh, but I'll include the, uh, YouTube link for that in the show notes. If you'd like to check it out, it was a solid time. And obviously a huge thank you to, uh, Jason Gallop and the team at Roaldorf for having us on. We had a good time. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. I haven't checked out the YouTube video yet. I'm curious to see how that came out. It was kind of a technical technological challenge. I mean, I think when we were first getting connected, I mean, they had a room full of people there at Roaldorf and we could see them and then Jason was on a microphone and then you and I were in our separate locations and whatever, but once it got kicked off and started, it was, it went really smoothly. It was really fun and good to see some familiar, familiar faces in the audience. And, uh, yeah, the time just flew. I mean, an hour it was gone and you know, 10 minutes or something spelt like, yeah, absolutely. |
| James Stacey | So, uh, I think that's, I think that's all my updates after a couple of weeks off. Uh, how about you? What have, what have you been up to? |
| Jason Heaton | Um, yeah, so I, you know, I made a significant purchase a couple of weeks ago. Um, just, uh, I guess it was, maybe it was even just before we, kind of went off the air, so to speak. I, I, I've been contemplating getting a new bike for a while. I've, I've got a kind of what people would consider a gravel bike or something, you know, like a road style bike with wider tires and some clearance for kind of riding on gravel or off road and whatever. But I, um, I actually bought a mountain bike and it's the first one I've had for over a decade. And. You know, I just thought rather than kind of buy a different version, I was kind of for a while looking for something light and fast, like some kind of a carbon fiber road bike with narrower tires and something I could get a little zippier on. But in the end, I thought if I'm looking for a whole different experience and want to get off road and get back on some trails, um, mountain bike was the way to go. And I had kind of missed it and I didn't really realize it until I got it. So I shopped around, I had a few ideas in mind, and then I ended up picking up a um for those that are familiar with mountain bikes a rocky mountain growler and rocky mountains a proud canadian company so it's got the maple leaf on the on the uh nice on the top tube yeah um and it's uh it's just a great bike it's it's what what's referred to in the mountain bike world as a hardtail so it's not a full suspension it's just got the suspension fork up front um i'm kind of partial to hardtails they're a little lighter and simpler and kind of old school and uh but man bikes have changed i Like my last mountain bike, which I sold off, like I said, over 10 years ago, um, was just so much different. This has a really stubby little stem, really wide handlebars, um, hydraulic disc brakes, um, an air fork. Yeah. It's only got one, uh, chain wheel on the front and 12 gears on the back. So you're not fiddling with a front derailleur. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's been amazing. I've been out three or four times on trails since, and I've done some putzing around just to kind of dial in some Fit issues, um, just kind of on the road, just tooling around the neighborhood. But, but yeah, I've been out for three solid single track trail rides. I was out yesterday on a new trail or new to me trail. And, uh, just kind of getting my legs back. You know, I've, I've been riding on the road for so many years now and, and, you know, I've got the fitness, but like mountain biking on single track through the woods, like where you're kind of going between narrow trees and over rocks and down to sense and. climbs. It's, it's such a different experience. It's very, very much more anaerobic. You tend to, you know, you're always trying to keep momentum so you don't really get a lot of time to just coast and rest or reach down for your water bottle and that sort of thing. So, um, it's been, it's been a revelation. It's been really fun to, to get back on the trail and just, you know, have fun. It just feels like being a pure kid again. In fact, I was out on this trail yesterday and I, um, mistakenly took a turn onto a, uh, It was just, it was labeled as a blue, blue trail. Like if you're kind of familiar with the ski, ski jargon. And so I thought, okay, intermediate. So I, I round the corner and I see this big sign that says, um, jump track rules. And I was like, jump track. Like, and I go to, I come around this corner and there's like these three like kids, they must've been 13 years old and they're all like in full, full face helmets on like BMX bikes. And as I round the corner, they said, can you do a tail whip? And I said, a tail whip. I was like, no, they're like, you know, and, and as I passed my look and there's like the steep downhill with like this jump. And then they said, they said, do something like guys, I'm, I'm like, I could be like your grandfather. I'm not, I'm not going to be going off jumps and doing tail whips, you know, like where you kick out your rear wheel when you're in the middle of the air or something like that. So I, I took it with a bit more caution, but yeah, it's been, it's been fun to kind of get the, get the mountain bike skills kind of back again. And, uh, Just been, just been a blast. So that's, that's kind of been the big, the big news in my world here over the past couple of weeks. And then, uh, after we record this, I'm offered a very different sort of sporting activity. I'm headed down to Milwaukee for just a couple of days. And tomorrow I'll be, um, diving on one, maybe two shipwrecks, uh, with my, my buddy, Chris. Nice. Um, it's a little project I'm doing with, uh, with marathon watch company. So I'm taking a couple of their watches down. In fact, one of which I'm wearing and we'll talk about in risk check here in a bit, but yeah, it's kind of turned into an annual outing. I meet up with my, my friend down there and we just spend a couple of days hanging out and, uh, we go out on, on a small boat with a friend of ours who has become something of a renowned shipwreck country. It was in the New York times recently for discovering a new wreck. in Lake Michigan and he's, he's a good guy. So he just takes us out and we'll do a couple of dives. The weather looks promising and uh, yeah, hope it goes well. So that's, that's my news. That's, that's my, you know, new bike and some diving. |
| James Stacey | That's awesome, man. I'm really happy to hear about the bike. |
| Jason Heaton | That's uh, I think we've kind of, we've kind of, we're kind of hitting all the TGN. Like if you think about our slogan, you know, diving, driving gear, et cetera, like even here in chit chat, we've already hit on most of that. Right. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Cars and cars and adventure and diving and yeah, gear. |
| James Stacey | Well, look, I want to get into some risk check because we've got some cool watches. One I'm super pumped about. But before we get to that, and we will in just a moment, we do have a special kind of offer deal scenario with Citizen. That's actually quite exciting. Jason, do you want to give him the details as you type it in here? And I'd rather not get it wrong. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, sure. So Citizen and the caveat here is that it only is related to Citizens US site. So unfortunately for our international listeners, this won't apply. But for those of you that are in the U.S. and would like to take advantage, Citizen is offering a discount to TGN listeners for an additional 10% off ProMaster Dive Collection watches. So this is an offer that runs from now through the end of the year. So no rush. You can take your time, check out any of their ProMaster Dive watches. And the code is, and I believe I believe it's all caps. Uh, at least that's the way they sent it to us. Uh, gray NATO. So gray G R E Y N A T O. Uh, and that will get you a 10% off any pro master dive collection watch on citizens, us sites. So we're, we're really thrilled that, that, um, you know, our partnership with citizens been a really rewarding one. We obviously had a great time with them at wind up in Chicago last month. And, uh, since then we've, you know, they extended this offer to, to TGN listeners here in the US to take advantage of this. So we're really excited and thanks so much to Citizen for coming up with this. I'm really excited about it. |
| James Stacey | Absolutely. Yeah. Nice to get a little deal and keep in mind they often run other sales. So I'm not sure how the code will apply depending on whether the watch is already being discounted, but that's nice. Another 10% is always great. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. All right. So a little bit of risk check. What have you got on today? |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. So as I mentioned, I'll be working on this photo project for, for marathon down in, uh, in Lake Michigan here tomorrow. And thus I'm wearing one of two watches that they sent over. They actually sent over the, the big jumbo day date, the 46 millimeter JSAR automatic, which is a fun, just a fun watch to say, to say the least. Um, but what the other watch that they sent that I've got on my wrist today is the the 41 millimeter SAR, automatic SAR, and it's the Arctic edition. So it's the one with the white dial, red seconds hand, um, came on a bracelet, which I sized fairly loosely so I can easily slip it over my dry suit sleeve. And, uh, yeah, it's great. I mean, you know, I've, I had a couple of marathons in the past, you know, I had kind of a navigator, not the steel one, but the composite case one. And then I've had a TSAR and I had, uh, I had an automatic many years ago, but, I'd forgotten how just fun these watches are. And just, I, I would almost go on record. I'm, I'm, I'm, you know, I'm a little hesitant to, but I will, I, I can't think of a better dive bezel, like in, in real world conditions than a marathon. I mean, they're just, especially on the JSAR, the thing just, it's an 18 millimeter thick watch. It just sits up so high and like, it's just fun to like grab that bezel and just turn it. They're so satisfying. |
| James Stacey | And of course we talk about the intersection between a dive computer and a dive watch. |
| Jason Heaton | It's a monster. Yeah. |
| James Stacey | Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | They're really cool. And I'm really excited to, to get these underwater. I'll have some photos to share I'm sure in the near future, but yeah, that's what I've got on. |
| James Stacey | I'm pumped to see those underwater. That'll be great. Yeah. How about you? You've got something special on today. I do. Yeah, actually, it's a nice timing. I didn't work. I didn't work this out specifically, but it's a nice time because of the Roald Dorf dive chat because I finally got in my DOCSIS sub 200t. Amazing. And I got it through Roald Dorf. You know, there's, I think if you obviously there's a ton of folks on the slack that already have the 200t on their wrist. But I thought it was cool with Roald Dorf just announcing that they were going to be a Doxa A.D. I just thought I would buy it through them. It's a little sweeter for me that way to support, you know, a buddy's business and that sort of thing. And yeah, it arrived the day that I left for California. So Sarah wore it around a little bit and I got home last night. And so I actually sized the bracelet and I've been wearing it on the bracelet for the last, you know, 12 hours or something like that, 15 hours. And I weirdly really like this bracelet. I don't know why. I don't know why this is. It's no different It's almost like I would say the class was better than the one on the 50th anniversary, but the bracelet is otherwise deeply similar. It's now single sided screws, which I don't even remember if that was the case on the 50th anniversary. I know so little about these bracelets because I don't really like them. And now I'm just wondering if a little bit of a taper and a smaller case made all the difference because I kind of like the way it looks, which is kind of brand new for me. And it has a little push button micro adjust like a dive extension, but you can easily use it just to adjust for a little bit of extra clasp. Yeah, I don't know. I'm eating some crow, at least in my own mind, because I've been really hard on these bracelets for years. And maybe this is a small evolution. It's definitely not a huge evolution. It's still this sort of faux beads of rice style bracelet, but I've got it on and it suits the watch really quite nicely. And I went with the diving star, which I've talked about in the past, the yellow. And I got to be honest, man, I just absolutely love it. |
| Jason Heaton | I'm actually surprised you got the Diving Star. I, for some reason, I didn't think that was the one. I thought you were more of a Caribbean guy. |
| James Stacey | It was between Diving Star and Caribbean. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I thought. And I am happy with the decision. I think the yellow is really fun. I have other watches that have blue dials. And the weird thing is, is at least in images, you think like, how could it really wear that much differently than a 300? And it wears, feels so much smaller. Oh yeah. Yeah. Which is just really nice. Like when, when, Sarah texted me, my wife Sarah texted me to say that she had gotten the watch, that it had arrived. I said, well, open it up and take a look. And the first thing she said was like, oh, it's so much smaller than anything kind of prepared me for. Yeah. It's again, like the 42.5 of a 300 does not wear like 42.5. I'd say it wears closer to 40 because of the small dial. Yeah. And with this one, it's 39 and it wears significantly smaller than my Pelagos. |
| Jason Heaton | Well, you sent me a wrist shot when you got this and I had to look twice. I was like, it just, it doesn't look smaller. I mean, in a photo, it just doesn't look tremendously smaller than the standard one. But I remember trying one of these on in Geneva back in the spring and it definitely feels smaller. I mean, it's just a, it's just a much more compact watch. So I kind of like that mix. I like that it doesn't look like this petite, tiny little watch and yet it would wear so much nicer. Yeah. |
| James Stacey | Well, keeping with our aquatic theme, you want to get into today's main chat? |
| Jason Heaton | Aquatic, yeah. Right on top of the water, at least in this case. Last week I sat down for about an hour via Zoom to chat with someone who might be familiar to our TGN listeners from past discussions. His name is Austin Hendrickson, and we might know him better as Training Tall. In fact, James, you had turned me on to Austin's Uh, YouTube channel, uh, way back when, uh, when I had first gotten my water rower and then you got a water rower and we were kind of looking for good. Rowing workouts and Austin, um, who is a California based fitness enthusiast, um, and training coach, uh, orange theory coach. Um, if, if, if you're familiar with that kind of fitness model, um, just an all around great guy, really enthusiastic, uh, helps a lot of people anyway, he was a collegiate rower and he put together this row 20 program that you and I were following, um, kind of a series of 20 rowing workouts on YouTube. And, uh, I really enjoyed it and then started following him on Instagram. And, uh, he's got quite the platform. He goes by training tall, his name, as the name suggests, he is a tall guy. He's six foot eight. And, uh, but he, he does not discriminate. He certainly does, uh, coaching and gives advice for people that are not quite as, uh, as, uh, vertically blessed as he is. Yeah. And Austin and I had a great, uh, chat last week and we hope everyone enjoys this. All right, Austin Hendrickson, welcome to the Graynado. It's really fun to have you on. |
| Austin Hendrickson | Hey, thanks so much. I'm very excited to be here. It's been a while since I've been on a podcast, so this is very exciting for me. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. So, you know, I mentioned before we started recording here that, um, I learned of you, James and I both learned of you, um, through your row 20 series on YouTube, you know, which is probably a small part of your overall kind of footprint in the fitness world, but we had both gotten rowing machines and we're kind of trying to stave off some, some Northern winters here by, by doing some of that. And he found that great program that you, you did. And, uh, I started following you on Instagram and here we are. So, um, really excited to have you on. We've, we've done some fitness content on the gray NATO. Um, but I guess I'd like to start with what I find unique about your delivery is it has a very approachable nature to it. And, and one, kind of example of that, that I remember from row 20 is, you know, you aren't talking about the Watts that you're pulling or, or anything like that. And the statement you made was, you know, everybody's on a different point in their fitness journey to me that really resonated. And I always kind of say that almost jokingly to friends, if I go running with them or something like that, but just explain a little bit what that means to you and, and, and, and what it could mean to people that are at different stages. |
| Austin Hendrickson | Well, you know, I think one of the biggest barriers to getting into a fitness routine, joining a gym or doing a program of some sort. I think it all stems from this common kind of fear of judgment that I think we, a lot of us have just in all aspects of our life. And one thing that I just try to demystify with fitness is that, yeah, we are, we're all at different stages. And especially with something like rowing, which on a rowing machine, the ability for you to like whole fast times or high Watts, There's so many factors that play into that from not just a technique standpoint, but from a physiological standpoint, uh, how, you know, how old you are, how tall you are, how much you weigh, how much fitness stuff have you done in the past. And at the end of the day, when I make these programs, I try to frame them all around the feel rather than the specific, like number goals themselves. And when everyone can go off of the feel. No matter what your build is, no matter what your age is, no matter what your experience is, you basically end the workout having the same experience that's just been adjusted for you. And then you realize like, wow, that was a good workout. And that was enough because you know, as they say, comparison is the thief of joy. And I think in the fitness world, comparison is the downfall of you sticking to a program. Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. That's so true. And I think it's kind of timely that we're, having this conversation today because the Olympics just wrapped up two days ago. And I think for me personally, I mean, I just, every time, particularly the summer Olympics, I like the winter Olympics as well, but I just, I get so hooked on it and I'm sure it provides such a source of inspiration for so many people when they see all these incredible athletes, um, doing these amazing things to like get out there. and just do stuff, right? Did you watch a lot of the Olympics? |
| Austin Hendrickson | I did. I watched quite a bit, actually. I was watching, of course, some of the rowing. Yeah. But I was a big fan of the beach volleyball. I got I had a little beach volleyball stint about a year ago when I was living in Southern California, where the beaches there are just amazing for the sport. But with the gymnastics and then the track and field to to see these athletes basically like at the top of their game, I think one of the athletes made a comment of like, this is me realizing my full potential. And I was thinking, I was like, wow. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| Austin Hendrickson | Like, I guess it is like, what more could you do then this? Because of course every sport has like their world championships and they're kind of, there's separate events that are different than the Olympics, but it's like, this really is the culmination of that. And it's so interesting that such a small percentage of people ever get to get to that level or experience that. I think I did the math. Cause I think there was 10,500 athletes. Out of the 8 billion of us in the world. But what's funny is that they all started with no experience, not knowing what they were doing. And they all went through that learning process. And sure, talent does play a role as far as how quickly they can learn. But most of that came down to just the discipline and the consistency of doing it for years and years and years. A lot of them fell into these sports when they were little kids or just really young in general. And that's the fruit of their labors. And I think that's just a really good reminder for all aspects of life that whether we might not make it to the Olympics in the, in athletics, like we can, we can strive for a high level of competing for ourselves in our own world as long as we put in the work to do so. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, we've talked about rowing, we talked about the Olympics and kind of your interests there. Um, and, but I think we need to kind of rewind a little bit or, or pause and, and get a sense of your own background because I, from my, what I've gleaned from some of your, um, videos is that you, you were a rower at a competitive level, right? Was it, was it in college? |
| Austin Hendrickson | Yes. Yeah. So I wrote, I started rowing in college. Yeah. So I'm a, so I'm pretty tall. I'm six foot eight. And my whole life I was playing basketball, not because I loved basketball, but just because like I was told to do it. I was always, you know, a head plus taller than everyone in class. And I grew up in a family that didn't really expose me to a lot of other sports or, or things like that. It was kind of just, I just kind of just did basketball, but I also think I pretended to like basketball. So I stuck with it, but I never had like this burning passion for it. But when I went to my freshman orientation, I went to school at a university of California Davis here in Northern California, the rowing team there, which was just a club team. So they're not NCAA and side note, there's no NCAA men's rowing. There's NCAA women's rowing. And that's to counteract the balance of number of NCAA sports for men and women, since women don't have sports like football. Okay. So usually universities will offer either field hockey or, uh, or rowing as like some of the alternatives, but anyway, so most men's rowing is club rowing. So I was going to have to pay to join the team, but they, they saw me walking at orientation. They sent me, they told me to come try out the rowing machine, which I'd never used or, I don't think I've even seen it before because I had never stepped into a commercial gym at that point in my life. In high school, I didn't really exercise at a gym. I went to basketball practice, did some home workout DVDs, but, um, that was my first time on a rowing machine. So I just got on there and I started yanking as hard as I can just because they said, go for it. And they were definitely buttering me up. They were like, wow, we've never seen anyone. well, that hard, that fast before you should join the team. And so I was super naive. I was like, oh yeah, well, I gotta do this now. Like they hooked me right in. Uh, but I soon, I soon fell in love with it a lot more than I did with basketball. And I think it's just a, it's just kind of a different, it's just a much different sport. You know, it's, it's, it's individual, but it's also team-based, but it's, it really came down to just the more effort you put into training yourself from a pure in power endurance standpoint, the better you got. And the camaraderie of, of rowing in a boat together and competing like that, it was, it was unmatched. And so I did it for all four years in college while I was studying exercise science. And my junior year, we won our, our nationals, which was part of the kind of the club circuit in the, in, in the four man's boat. So there's different boat sizes in rowing. The main ones that you race in college are the eight boat, there's eight rowers, and then one coxswain, spelled coxswain, who's the small person who basically steers the boat and kind of gives commands throughout the races. But we had a really, really strong top four boat, which I was in, four rowers and then a coxswain for that. And we had like an undefeated year season. And what was really cool in rowing is that when you beat other teams, you get their shirts, you get their tank tops. You literally take the shirts off their back if you beat them. Let's just say I ended up over the course of four years, I gave up a lot of shirts. more than I got, but that one year was pretty great. And then so after I, after I graduated, uh, I got my degree and I was kind of at a crossroads in my life where this was in 2016. That's when I graduated undergrad. I went from 2012 to 2016 and I was at this crossroads of, I'm either going to pursue graduate work and get into something like sports medicine or physical therapy, or do this other thing, Cause I was really inspired by watching these fitness YouTubers in 2016 back when YouTube was the only place to watch videos. And the whole kind of vlogging documentary style of videos was, was starting to creep up, but a lot of like fitness instruction videos were starting to pop up. And I was thinking, you know, that could be really fun to try out. Maybe I'll take like a pause year and just like train personal training clients. Cause I had my personal training certification in my sophomore year and I'll just make some videos on the side. And so I was just making random fitness videos on the side while training clients. And I was also working at a Trader Joe's. Oh yeah. All my free time was just making videos and editing videos and learning that process. And what was interesting was you post your videos back on YouTube this in 2016 and they'll get two views, 14 views, nothing. But I remember I was trying to cover all sorts of fitness topics cause I was, you know, this fresh trainer and had a lot, you know, there's lots of stuff to talk about, but, One time I was like, you know, let me just grab the, uh, the rowing machine here and I'm going to just do a little technique thing I wrote in college. And while all my videos had like six views, 14 views, the rowing video after like a week or two had like 200 views. And I was like, Oh wow. Wow. Okay. Interesting. Okay. I was like, well, there's lots of stuff to talk about with rowing. And then I just kind of went from there and really leaned into the rowing niche from 2017 until about 2021. Those were like kind of the peak years of YouTube and, before short form social media and vertical videos really started taking over. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| Austin Hendrickson | Back then on YouTube, you know, the bread and butter of, of good content was horizontal videos that were like four to eight minutes long. And it turns out that's how much, uh, that's, that was perfect for like these sub rowing topics. Yeah. And so that's where things kind of just got started. I feel like I blabbered there. I'm sorry. That was a bit. |
| Jason Heaton | No, that's fine. It's interesting. You know, I think your, your kind of journey, reminds me of, of, of a little bit of my own. Um, because when I was in high school, um, I was, I was a bigger guy. I was kind of the same size I am now back then, which was, it was pretty big. So I started out in football and then moved to basketball in high school, but I never really enjoyed it. It was like, it was kind of fun. I was sort of a, I wouldn't say mediocre, you know, better than average, but not a great player and whatever. And then once I graduated from high school and moved away and whatever, I really found my passion in kind of more individual um, endurance sports, you know, I started running a lot, training for a marathon, um, you know, triathlons, climbing mountains, uh, all that kind of stuff. And, um, you know, I, I think that that kind of goes to a point about finding your, your sweet spot, I guess, you know, and, and I think a lot of people, when it comes to fitness, one of the barriers, you know, you talked about comparison being sort of an intimidating factor, but also just finding something that resonates with you that, that, that works because so many people struggle to, get started on their fitness journey, so to speak. And it's because they just don't know what their passion is yet, you know, in all aspects of life too. |
| Austin Hendrickson | You know, thinking about like the jobs we settle into because it's just, cause it's got a nice, you know, a nice salary number to it. Right. Yeah. I agree with fitness. It's all about finding what you enjoy because everyone's got their thing. Some people like to do those jumping on the trampoline classes. They love, they love that stuff. And some people like the fact that you just said, like, you really started enjoying running and training for a marathon. I think most people would call you crazy, but that's what you like to do. One of the nice things about rowing is it's a, it's, it's, it's very niche. You know, it's not, it's not very well known. It's not a super popular sport. I mean, people know of like crew and see rowing in the Olympics and every gym's got a rowing machine now, but there's not, it's not like this commonplace thing, like lifting weights is, or, you know, doing the elliptical or something like rowing is, It's very niche in that way, but it provides a very unique experience. Something that I think a lot of people won't ever experience. Some people never touch the rowing machine, but there's also so much nuance to it and so much to learn and get from that all while being a very low impact cardio activity. Uh, there's, there's a, there's a lot to be gained from that. I think that really intrigues people initially. |
| Jason Heaton | So what, I mean, when we talk about fitness, I, I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I've been thinking like what, um, different people have different motivations for, for taking on a fitness, uh, regimen or, or challenge or goal or anything like that. And I think, you know, they're, one is longevity. Um, you know, just living a healthy life, living as long as you can, et cetera. And that ties into diet and every everything else. But, um, there's an aesthetic part of it. Some people just want to look a certain way. So they, they kind of aim for, for that, you know, as you kind of move from a team sport that you were sort of Yeah. So, so about to something like rowing, which you found you had a skill for and then moved into fitness as a profession. Where do you get the joy? Like how did you move from rowing to other stuff like lifting weights or running? |
| Austin Hendrickson | Is that as fun for you? Yeah. You enjoy all of it. So one of the reasons why I started with a fitness journey in general was I had mentioned, I said it very briefly, but I used to do these home workout DVDs at home and they were from Beachbody and they were called P90X. |
| Jason Heaton | Oh sure. Yeah, I do remember that. |
| Austin Hendrickson | Tony Horton. He, he was, he was the first person I ever saw ever that made fitness kind of like this, like goofy, fun, accessible thing where it wasn't about like dictator, like go hard, go hard, go hard, like work harder, more push-ups, more. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| Austin Hendrickson | He just brought this like fun spin to it. And when I was in high school and I, and I went first, went through that program. It was brutal. It was a really hard program, really tough. But again, his, His positive energy throughout the whole thing was so inspiring. And from there, I remember thinking like one day I'm going to create a set of home workout DVDs. DVDs. Yeah. Right. Not thinking about the future and DVDs kind of being like this thing of the relic of the past now. Yeah. But that was the, that was a big thing that got me into just into, into trying to branch out into the fitness world outside of rowing and try to still bring that same vibe. with the weight training and with, uh, you know, I do some running as well, but, uh, I wanted to just teach all of that stuff. So I, I knew I had to do all of that stuff. Yeah. Um, with, with going into weight training specifically, that was an interesting journey after rowing because rowing, when you look at rowing athletes, they are very, they're very lean, but they're very disproportionate. A lot of people think of rowing as like very arm and shoulder heavy, but it's primarily legs, boots, hamstrings. Sure. Uh, and so you look at, when you look at pictures of professional rowers, they're disproportionately have giant legs and just very lean and toned upper bodies because that's the sport. And look at Olympic athletes of any sport. You look at the body types. It's so interesting how it's very symbiotic across the sport. All the top guys look the same in swimming. All the top rowers look the same in rowing. Very interesting. But for me, as, as a, as a tall guy, who's just been kind of been told I've been, you know, lanky and uncoordinated. there was a kind of this burning passion for me to break those stereotypes as well. And when I finished rowing, I was a lean guy with slightly bigger legs than my upper body now, but I was around, uh, 200 pounds and, um, at, at six foot eight, which was, which was very thin in most people's eyes. And so I wanted to kind of bulk up a little bit from there. And so as far as doing weight training goes, I started, I wanted to just balance my physique and look like a strong tall guy that wasn't lanky. So that was a big process. It was, it took about like five years of consistent weight training to get into a weight where I am now, which is around 230 pounds consistently and around the same body fat that I was back when I was rowing. Thing is though, it's a give and take in this, in the world of strength and endurance. And I think it's really important for people to realize that too. Like you can't really have the best of both worlds. I'm a much slower runner now that I'm carrying 20 extra plus pounds of muscle than when I was thinner and leaner. And so I think it's really important for people to really think about their goals and understand that your aesthetics can't necessarily always line up with your goals depending on how ambitious they are. If you're looking to just be healthy and get a nice balance of cardiovascular fitness and strength, yeah, you can probably get the ideal physique that you think of when we think of like these like ideal physiques. especially in the world of endurance sports, look at top endurance athletes. They're, they're not super duper like built in aesthetic because muscle is such a, it's very metabolically active. It takes a lot of from your body to just keep that on you. And endurance is about using all of your energy for, for aerobic metabolism, not to keep on big muscle. It's so true. Yeah. So I think it's, it's, it's striking an interesting balance with that. And I think I've come to just accept the fact that I don't want to be the fastest runner ever. but I more want to inspire other people who might be taller or lankier to, to know that like you can, you can break those stereotypes. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. You mentioned the, the physiques of, of these top athletes, because as I was, I would turn on the Olympics and they would, you know, be right in the middle of, of, of an event. And I would, I was kind of playing a little game with myself, trying to figure out like which distance are these runners just by looking at their bodies, like as they're lining up, I'm like, if I just turned on the TV, And I didn't know if this was an 800, a 1500, you know, the 10,000 meter or whatever. And you can tell, right? I mean, as you go down in the distance, it's like these, these hundred meter and 200 meter sprinters are just like, they're built like linebackers, you know? And then as you move up, they're just, they get slimmer and slimmer and slimmer. It's, it really is fascinating. Um, I'm curious, like personally, I cannot stand, um, weight training. I don't like, I actually don't really like to exercise indoors. I do most of everything. running open water swimming, um, cycling, that sort of stuff outside. But indoors, if I do anything, it's, you know, some stretching, the rowing machine, pushups, planks, that sort of stuff. I mean, what's the key to like enjoying gym time or weightlifting or, or is that beside the point? You just do it because it's necessity. |
| Austin Hendrickson | Well, well, here's, well, here's the good news. First off as a, um, as what's interesting is when you look at the research of men and women as they get older, What's fascinating is that the only group that actually needs resistance training, whether that's the form of bodyweight calisthenics or using weights, are older women, because they're the ones that suffer biologically the most from osteoporosis. Even older males who aren't exercising still have enough bone density to prevent major fractures from sudden falls and things like that. All I would say to you in that, in that regard is that you actually, as long as you are like happy with how you look and you, you don't have these other aesthetic goals, what you're doing right now is enough. Like you're, you, it's not, it is not a necessity. The only thing I would say there is, you know, it's good to keep some mobility training in there to keep yourself limber, but it sounds like you're doing that too. So strength training is not this like absolute necessity for everybody. And I think that might be a hot take, but that is, at least what the evidence shows as far as longevity goes, especially if you're keeping up exercise in other regards. Yeah. I think resistance training is a, and weight training in general tends to be what people would opt into more so than, than endurance efforts. Just because with endurance you elevate your heart rate and you get into kind of this uncomfortable state and you have to kind of stay there for a while. And with resistance training, when you're doing a set of an exercise, a set is not going to really last longer than like 40, 45 seconds before you get a little rest break. So I think a lot of people just opt into that because it's not as mentally challenging. Uh, but you know, one thing that I would say if, if for those that maybe do have aesthetic goals of, you know, building a certain physique with weight training, if you're struggling to find the motivation to do so, one thing I would highly recommend you do is find a program and try to do a program. Cause then all of a sudden it adds this layer of like, just like a life challenge. Like, Hey, do you think I, could I do this program? Yeah. I do this 12 week, you know, specifically periodized work of strength, hypertrophy, and then maximizing both. It's all laid out. It's 20, it's a $20, $30 program or whatever it might be. Let me just see if I can just do this. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| Austin Hendrickson | And depending on the personality type, you know, as someone who's like, I would consider myself fairly competitive. I would be like, Oh, I'll take on that challenge. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| Austin Hendrickson | And so I think that in doing something like that, knowing that you, you have this program that you're going to try to stick to and finish to say that you did it, that can spark a little bit more of the motivation because then when you're on a good program, especially you start to see the results of that program too. And you just learn a lot about yourself along the way. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| Austin Hendrickson | Usually when you first start a program, you end up going too hard, too fast, or you're not as strong as you think, or you're stronger than you think. And so there's a lot of life lessons that can come from doing that. And I think that you can't, you won't necessarily have that same experience if you just like, Look up exercises on YouTube. You say, okay, so do this exercise, this one, this one. Okay. I'm just going to go in there and now just do those. That's a lot. It's a much different scenario. It's going to take a lot more intrinsic motivation to keep yourself doing rather than like saying, I'm just going to try this program out this starting strength program. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. I think that's a good point. I think the idea of, um, of having a goal, whether it's an event, you know, I want to run my first 5k, my first marathon, I want to, you know, whatever it is, uh, is so important at least for, for somebody like me. And I, I think, you know, I had a kind of a big challenge that happened in mid June that I was training for. And since then I've kind of kept things up, but I feel a restless now. I feel like I need to find the challenge. It was this obscure event over in Wales in the UK called the fan dance. It was this weighted, um, kind of Hill climb 14 miles. You had to complete it in about four hours and it was a lot of elevation gain, whatever. So fun. I trained starting back in the winter and, and, and did all that. And I, you know, talked about it a fair bit on the podcast and that sort of stuff. But now I'm like looking ahead and I'm thinking like, what, what's next? You know, like it's, I just sort of see this horizon with nothing on it. And I, I like need the next thing. Do you, do you do the same? I think I saw that you ran an event a month or two ago, right? Were you, did you do something? |
| Austin Hendrickson | No. So I, I did a half marathon a few months ago. That was the last one. I was actually doing that though with my girlfriend. I was pacing her throughout it. I remember that. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I work, I, when I work with one-on-one individuals, a lot of the times they're training for a certain event. And so we'll, we'll create a very structured plan to peak them for whatever event they're training for. Then the event happens. And that exact same experience that you just mentioned happens It happens to everyone. Like that's not, that's not a, that's, that's not a unique experience. Like that is a very common thing. And I think it's also okay to have that. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| Austin Hendrickson | You know, I think that's part of kind of the journey in life in general. Think about like when you achieve other stuff like professionally or what have you, you kind of have that like low a little bit of like, Oh, okay. Then I guess we're just going to kind of cruise here for a bit until we see, set our sights on the next thing. A personal example for that is, Right there behind me. That's my YouTube silver play button that you get when you get a hundred thousand subscribers. And I remember when I first started, I was like, I want that a hundred thousand subscriber play button. Like that's every kid's dream. And then when I got it, it was cool. And then I was like, okay, now what, like what's, what's next? Like you, you get that moment of like you, the goal achieved, but then there's kind of that low of like, Oh, okay. Well, so now like my life hasn't changed that much now, but I achieved what I wanted to. So like, what's the next, thing to look for. And it just takes some time to find that, I think. And I wouldn't try to rush that process either, but I would just always be kind of on the lookout. I was kind of scanning around, seeing like what's out there, but having a few months of, you know, just kind of keeping up with what you do. Cause if you train for something like that, like you have those ingrained habits already, you know, you, you know, you're going to work out this week, like no matter, even if there's a competition or not. And even if those workouts aren't as intense, as long as you're doing something, Like that's enough. Like we got a lot of life. There's a lot of life. Some people say life is short. I really think the journey of life is so long. And when you really think of like exercising three times a week for a year, like that's over 150 workouts. And if you take a couple, if you take a week off of that, it's still 148 workouts. Like it, there's so much time for, and it's the culmination of everything. I think that matters the most. So having these low periods of not sure what to do next, I think are totally okay. Yeah. I think we get too obsessed of feeling like we always gotta be doing something. |
| Jason Heaton | Okay. So that, that, that really brings up a interesting point and something I've been sort of struggling with and that is, um, is rest. It's like building in rest. And, and I remember, um, uh, post I saw on Instagram by another, um, fitness coach and, and he said something like, you know, uh, what is it training equals, workout plus rest. I mean, you both are, are equally important, right? And, but once you get in that groove of like regular exercise, it does become addictive to a certain degree. And I guess it can almost tip over into an unhealthy mindset where you feel like you can't even take a day off. And I've, I've experienced that, you know, what, what's your own personal kind of take on that or how do you structure your workouts or your, your fitness? |
| Austin Hendrickson | Well, what's interesting is that there, a lot of people are always looking for like the concrete answer of like, how many days should I be doing this strength training? How many times a day should I be doing cardio and how many rest days should I take? What's the balance? And unfortunately it's just not a black and white situation. And one thing that over the years that I've noticed, and I've trained in person, I mean thousands upon thousands of people and then more thousands online, And there's a very common theme throughout. And that common theme is that a lot of the times we are capable of doing more than we think we are. And we don't necessarily need as much rest as what's touted out there. It all depends. So the thing is, if, if you're someone who's newer to fitness, let's say resistance training or, or let's just say rowing as an example, when you're, when you're on the rowing machine and you're learning proper form and just kind of getting through a workout, you're still learning how to push yourself and learning how to row with a proper technique. And because of that, the physiological demand of doing that is not going to be so high and so taxing that like, Oh, you need a rest day the next day. A rest day is totally okay. But a lot of the times we can actually handle a lot more of the workload than sometimes like, it feels like we, we should or shouldn't. It all comes down to how your body feels. And that's what I think I was trying to say there is that if you really feel like your body is sore, you're tired, you're not sleeping well, like that's how, you know, it's good. It's time for a rest day or two. And yeah, when you do resistance training, the, your muscles need the rest to recover and grow and get stronger. But like with weight training, a lot of people don't necessarily push to the point where their muscles are so damaged or sore that they can't do it in the next day or two. Again, that's a skillset in and of itself. And so, where specific programmed rest days become really, really important are for people that are getting more into the intermediate advanced of whatever the fitness endeavor is, whether it's running or whether it's rowing or whether it's weight training. But in those first initial stages, you know, you just kind of listen to your body. And a lot of the times you can get away with resistance training like five, six days a week. You know, if you're just learning, that's why having a coach is so good because the coach can always check in on you and check with how your body's feeling and check on you with your sleep quality. And with all that in mind, they can help you navigate like, okay, this is actually probably a good day for a rest day, or let's take two rest days, or you know what, your body's feeling good. You're feeling like you're ready for more. Okay. We'll just, we'll actually skip the rest day tomorrow and we'll get right back into the training. So it's a lot more fluid and it's nice to have concrete, like defined. It'd be nice to have a nice concrete defined thing like that. But the simple fact of the matter is it's not, and we're all at different stages of how hard we push ourself, how much volume we do, how much intensity we do, So it's very specific, very unique. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Makes me wonder like how, how, how do you work with your clients? I'm curious, like how a typical, let's say you and I are just embarking on our relationship. You as a coach and me as a client and I have a goal of say you know, doing a triathlon in six months or something like that. Like where, where do you begin and how do you tailor that for somebody's age and somebody's goals and somebody's current levels? And I'm speaking specifically from, our scenario here. I'm sitting here in Minnesota here in California, I believe. Um, like how does that work when it comes to distance coaching? How do you, how do you set that up? |
| Austin Hendrickson | So a lot of the, a lot of the, the, the main benefits of the coaching come from essentially these kind of one-on-one talks, like how we're talking right now, where while we will have an initial chat about your goals and just getting to know each other, because I think part of being a, a, a good trainer that gets a lot of success out of clients, comes from you being more than just like the trainer giving them workouts and giving them nutrition advice, but also just being their friend along the way too. You just so happen to be the friend that like knows a lot about fitness programming and nutrition. And so that initial call, that initial talk is all about just getting to know each other a bit. And from there, once we've got the goal defined, it's all about kind of creating a sample starting plan based off of, again, keeping in mind the age, keeping in mind, how often you've worked out in the last few months, uh, keeping in mind what equipment you have access to. And then from there, we kind of start off with like a sample week of the workouts and same with the nutrition plan. I always like to do all inclusive stuff when I, whenever I'm working one-on-one with someone, because as every fitness person would say, it's just as much about nutrition as it is about exercise as well. And the thing is with nutrition, it doesn't need to be complicated. And there's a lot of, uh, You know, you can go as nuanced as you want with food tracking, or you can make things a lot more simple and a lot more intuitive. There's strategies for both. And that's part of the initial learning process too, is you learn like what some people love to be really analytical and track everything. And so you can tailor fitness workouts and nutrition around that or the exact opposite. And then from there, after we kind of try out a sample week, every week, I always hop on one-on-one calls with my clients like this. And we sit down for 30 to 45 minutes and we just talk about what's going on. We talk about what feels good, what's, um, you know, what's working, what's not working. And then from there, my job is just to adjust things, makes kind of small shifts week to week to adapt for the individual to accommodate for, you know, travel situations, family situations, a change of plans. And again, what's working or not working within the program and how fast they're progressing or if they're not progressing. So there's a lot of kind of week to week tweaks in that way, but in the broad sense, I've got this timeline out for like getting you prepped for whatever your event is. And so that's how that works. So it's a, it's a lot of talking like you and I are doing essentially. And then from there it's on them to, to, and we would be on you to do the work yourself. But I also have a text line that I use WhatsApp for, uh, that way it keeps it separate from my own personal text messages. But the WhatsApp, they have access to me to talk to me about random questions about the day, send me workout summaries. I become again more kind of like their friend. It's like, Oh yeah, good job today. Awesome. Can't wait to talk about this on Tuesday or whatever. So that's generally how the coaching works on my end. |
| Jason Heaton | And then the in-person stuff, I'm guessing there's a bit more hands on maybe technique demonstration if it's in the weight room or, or something like that. Maybe where you're showing them things. |
| Austin Hendrickson | Yeah. So I actually don't do a one on one client in person anymore. I actually stopped doing that a few years ago after I discovered, group fitness training. So I, I've been associated with orange theory fitness. You heard of that before? I've heard of it. |
| Jason Heaton | Yes. I think that's your t-shirt logo, right? |
| Austin Hendrickson | Yeah. So orange theory fitness is a, it's a one hour interval training group style workout where every workout is a combination of using treadmills, rowing machines, and weight stations. And with this workout, what's interesting is that the coaches, we do not make the workouts for this, for our studio, for our location. They're made by Orange Theory Corporate. They create the month of workouts, and then they send out the month of workouts to all the thousands of studios across the United States and Europe, and even overseas in Asia as well. And so every day it's a new workout, but it's the same workout across all the locations. So the workout shows all the intervals of what we'll do on the treadmill, what we'll do on the rower, what we'll do on the weight floor. And then from there as the coach, our job is to essentially prescribe the workout, time it out, And make sure that as people are going about, they're pushing themselves appropriately and they've got correct form and technique. So you're kind of micromanaging these three different stations throughout the class. It's not a body or not like a bootcamp style where you're doing stuff with the coach. All right, let's go. It's not like that. The coaches scanning and walking around the room and making sure that again, people are appropriately challenging themselves, keeping themselves safe with form. And so for me personally, I enjoy the, kind of constant chaos of that a lot more. It's an environment that I thrive in. I'm a lot more high energy. And so being able to sometimes classes can be 36 people, 12 people on the weight floor, 12 people on the rowers, 12 people on the treadmills, all at the same time, one coach in the room, you are timing all these intervals while micromanaging these individuals and doing kind of group motivation stuff too. So it's a lot, a lot going on. And for me, I've been doing that for the last eight years. And for me, that's been a lot more fulfilling than kind of the in-person one-on-one personal training. Uh, because a lot of the time, like I've got, of course, knowledge to share with, with the individual and to help them with their specific goals. But then when they're doing a set and I'm just kind of standing there and just watching their form only for me, it's just, it's not, it's not as engaging and I just get a lot more fulfillment out of group training. So that's what I do as far as in-person goes. And I do that a few times a week now still, I coach between eight and 10 classes a week. And that's mainly just to get out of this office or out of my filming room where I film my rowing videos or my tip of the day fitness videos for social media. Uh, because most of my stuff in my, you know, my living is through online, but there is something about being in person that is so you, you just can't replicate it online no matter what you do. |
| Jason Heaton | So, yeah. Um, you, you mentioned that the huge, part that nutrition plays in, in fitness. And I think I've learned from, from watching some of your, your clips on, on social media that, that you're a, you have a plant-based diet. Is that correct? |
| Austin Hendrickson | Yeah. For, uh, for over eight years now. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. I mean, I I've, I'm close to that. I, I, I do cheat every now and then. Um, but I do think that there, there's a sizable group in our audience that probably is plant-based, but probably a much bigger group that isn't. And I'm curious how you, approach that with clients, um, how you advise them nutritionally, um, if they are not aligned with your own. |
| Austin Hendrickson | Yeah. So that's, so that's one thing I try to make. |
| Jason Heaton | Is it, is it kind of broken down by protein, carbs and fats and kind of just keep it higher level? |
| Austin Hendrickson | I, I always bring that up up front too. Cause I, there's kind of a, uh, you know, there, there's a stigma against vegans and people like, uh, when they look at the, the social, the social research out there, that vegans are one of the most discriminated against groups of individuals. And there is a lot of stigma that people have about people that follow that diet. And so what I try to do with my clients is kind of clear the air right away, kind of just like let them know my position. But I then immediately after say, this is not about me trying to turn you into a vegan. This is about me trying to work for you. What, how the foods that you like, your lifestyle, and we're going to try to make whatever you do as healthy as possible. And the way that I kind of bring my own influence into that is It's not about saying this food is bad for you. This is bad for you and this is good for you or whatever. It's just kind of making these like subtle swaps here and there too. For example, if you're having a meal with like chicken, broccoli rice, you know, yeah, but that's, you know, that's like the bodybuilding, like, you know what I mean? Like everyone, everyone hears that and they're like, Oh God. But like in that example, let's say if that was like a meal someone was eating, What I would do with that to optimize it is I would probably make the chicken portion three-fourths the size and then add in a quarter cup of kidney beans with that. Right there, all of a sudden we've introduced a healthier plant food into there, cutting out a little bit more of the animal protein in that way, but everyone still gets what they want out of it. And a lot of the time when I, when I do that, again, it's not because I'm like, I'm trying to make them more vegan. It's that like, when you look at the health outcomes of like higher animal protein diets and higher plant protein diets, like we do tend to see general better health outcomes with less animal protein, more plant protein. And so it's just about not, not creating this like political or moral compass around anything. It's just about being like focused on the research and doing what's, uh, what's, what's, what's going to help the person longterm live a happier, healthier life. But I don't, but yeah, I hardly ever program fully, fully plant-based nutrition plants. And that's just because that's just not the reality of most people. I think people that eat fully plant-based that are vegan are less than 1% of the entire like Western civilization. So it was just a very, very small, small group of people in general. So I don't, I go into coaching kind of expecting that. And also, I wasn't, I haven't been vegan my whole life. Like I used to drink a gallon of milk a day in college because I was scared of being lactose intolerant. |
| Unknown | Oh yeah. |
| Austin Hendrickson | Yeah. I was like, I'm going to make sure my body loves this stuff. I would drink, I would purposely try to drink a gallon of milk a day to not get lactose intolerant. So I was eating, I was eating pounds of ground Turkey and chicken. I was, I was like the biggest meat head ever. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| Austin Hendrickson | Yeah. That's why I'm in no position to judge anyone else either. And that's why I don't, that's why I'm just, Yeah, I try to lead by example in my way. And if people ask me like, Oh, Austin, like, how do you have such high energy? How do you look the way you do? I'll just tell them what I do. And that's what that way I can kind of, you know, I'm doing my own thing. But if people ask about it, I'll talk to them about it. And then from there, just bringing up the general nutrition, the general nutrition trends of again, like more plant protein tends to lead to healthier lives, more fruits and vegetables tend to lead to better longevity. Let's see how we can start kind of slowly incrementally introducing things, making some of these simple swaps so that we're including more healthier foods and less of the foods that tend to lead to more chronic disease. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. All right. Speaking of nutrition and, um, and getting protein, uh, I recently saw you plugging a specific protein powder that the name escapes me now. Um, I'm a, I'm a big FIDA, F-Y-T-A, right? Okay. You're, you're a huge fan of that, right? And that's, |
| Austin Hendrickson | Oh man. It's, you know, I, so I've been a protein powder user pretty much my whole life since growing in college. You know, I used to do the, the aunt, the ON nutrition, whey protein back when I was just eating whatever I've experienced. I experimented with casein protein and all the, lots of different plant-based proteins too over the years. And you, you know, when you, when you have protein powder, sometimes you don't want it in the shake. Sometimes you're like, Oh, I wonder if I can mix this in with something like some ice cream or something like a yogurt or something. And so whenever I would try to mix in protein powders, I don't know if you've tried this before, but it gets cakey, chalky and really gross. But this new brand FIDA, it's, it's a, it's, it's made of upcycled barley protein. Like that's the main, it's the, that's the main component of it. And somehow because of that, it's more like a sand texture. And so when you mix it into food or coffee, like I was doing, like I was sipping on earlier, it mixes in without even having to hardly having to stir at all. It's mind blowing how, how it, when I like to mix it into my oatmeal and it kind of makes it like a chocolate syrup almost. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| Austin Hendrickson | No powder, no clumps. And I'm not, if you scan my social media, I'm not a big promoter of like products and like, I don't, I get, I get probably a half dozen to a dozen sponsorship emails from supplement companies and like all the time, every day. And most of the time it's just a bunch of crap that I don't use or would never use. And so whenever I recommend something, it's because I'm like, yo, I'm not just trying to make a 5% commission on this. This is like amazing. It's created by James Wilkes, who was the creator of the Game Changers documentary. If you've heard of that, Oh, and so it's nice too, cause I really liked that documentary too. It highlights the, uh, like the higher performers that are more plant-based, uh, eaters too. So it all kind of aligns with, with, with me as well. And it just so happens to be like the best tasting best mixing. So, um, but here's the thing. Most people don't need protein powders. That is something that like, I, uh, just want to get out there with the topic of protein. We tend to obsess over protein as this like magical nutrient, but, I always like to pose this oxymoronic statement of whenever you're trying to get stronger, build up muscle and get bulkier, what do people say? They say, eat more protein. But then when you hear, okay, well I want to lose fat. I want to get like leaner and like, you know, tone up, eat more protein. Okay. So what, which is it? Do you eat more protein to get bigger? Do you eat more protein to get smaller? Yeah. The thing is protein deficiency is like not a thing. Not in, not in the developed Western civilizations in United States and Europe because we're getting enough calories. Protein deficiency mainly comes from people that just aren't getting enough food that are in places that are, that are, they're literally not getting enough calories and they're kind of in starvation mode. Most people are getting all the protein they need. The RDA for protein, the recommended daily allowance or amount or recommendation for males is 55 grams a day. and for females is 45 grams a day. That's all you need to keep your body going. Can having slightly higher than that help you with certain athletic endeavors? Absolutely. If you're a bodybuilder and you're trying to get as muscular and huge as possible, the research shows that the kind of peak peaking out limit of protein before you kind of overdo it and you're just taking in too much is around 0.6 to 0.8 grams per pound of lean mass. No, if you take someone like myself, who's on the upper echelon of like big humans, six foot eight, 230 pounds, that ends up being like 160, 170 grams a day. |
| Unknown | Wow. |
| Austin Hendrickson | And I know middle-aged women that are short and overweight that are trying to eat more than that, more protein than that. And what happens is that when you focus so much on getting a high amount of protein, the thing is all these macronutrients, carbohydrates, proteins, fats, they're all tied to calories. And so, If you're really focused on trying to get a high protein amount, a lot of the times we can overdo the calories and the calorie balance is what leads to your weight gain or your weight loss. So rest assured that you're most likely getting enough protein just from your diet alone. And as long as you're, if you're trying to build muscle, you have to do really hard, really intense resistance training, which is a skillset to learn to push yourself hard. Like we were talking about earlier, most people don't push themselves as hard as they think they're pushing themselves. Hard resistance training is the main driver of muscle building. not protein. You need a protein threshold, but you don't need to go overboard and you're probably getting enough. So that's my protein spiel. |
| Jason Heaton | Well, and it, it, it makes me think about, um, and we're, we're getting long on time here, so we'll wrap up here shortly, but I wanted to ask you about any specific kind of fitness myths or misconceptions beyond that one about protein that, that maybe irk you or, or that you, you think about. |
| Austin Hendrickson | Uh, well I think, yeah, the only one, the only other one that I think is really, it's, it's becoming a bit of a, you're, there's a lot of confusion being that's going out there about it. And it's this idea that like people need to eat more to lose weight. Like they're not losing weight cause they're not eating enough. I'm sure, I don't know if you've heard that, but that's a very common thing, especially in the realm of women's fitness right now. It's a, And I think it's, it's causing a lot of confusion because again, at the end of the day, this is not, this is not about the magic of certain foods or nutrients or macros. The magic is coming from the basics of thermodynamics of your, of your calories being burned and the calories you're consuming. We have excess fat stores on our body because when we can see, we consumed more calories than our body needed in our body stored that away. So how do we use those extra stores? we need to be giving our body less calories than it needs in a day for a long period of time for it to adequately pull from those fat stores. And so there's a thing going on right now that like if you, if you all of a sudden you start eating too few calories that it wrecks your metabolism and your metabolism, your, your basal metabolic rate, your BMR that's responsible for most of the calories you burn in a day. But the thing is when we look at metabolism differences with age or with I mean, the biggest player of that is your body height and your overall body weight. The more you weigh, the more calories you burn. The taller you are, the more calories you burn. With age, what's interesting is that if you see over time, if you see people that stay consistent with resistance training and maintain muscle mass from their 20s through their 40s, 50s, 60s, you see very, very little change in their overall metabolism, actually. Very, very small. you know, 50 to 70 calories per day burned less maybe when you get older. So the whole metabolism slowing down as you age is a bit of a myth, but that's mainly because after our twenties we settle into our careers. We started sitting on our butt a lot more. We raise kids, we stop exercising, we don't do any resistance training, we don't do anything. And so as our bodies were growing in their twenties and we're gaining more lean mass as our bodies just get bigger and we grow into adulthood, we just start to lose that over time. But if you maintain it, you can keep your metabolism pretty high. And you can ask any like fitter guy or gal and they're set in like their seventies. You know, those, there's a few of them out there that are like, like lean machines and just like high energy and always getting it. They've been like that forever. And they maintain a high metabolism because of that. But I digress. You're not eating. If you eat too few calories, it's not going to wreck your metabolism. What's most important is that you don't eat too few to the point where you can't sustain it. Because I think a lot of people forget that. When, by the time you get to the point where you realize like, okay, I need to get my health together. This is out of control. I'm I'm 50 pounds overweight. I have an exercise and I can't remember when all of that took probably more than a decade plus of you not taking care of yourself to get to that point where you decided it's time for a change. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| Austin Hendrickson | It's audacious to say, to think that you can just all of a sudden change that and go back to like an ideal weight or whatever within like even like three months. Like that's, that's not enough time with something that took 10 years to kind of get you to this point. It's going to take a lot of work and a lot of time to get us to where we want to go. If you crash diet and you cut a ton of calories out, you can't sustain that for a long period of time. There is, you need to be, you know, there's a, there's some psychology that pays into that. Like your body sends you hunger signals when you're not consuming enough food. It doesn't want to pull from those stored fat stores because it wants to keep those because your body's trying to keep you in the best survival state possible. And so it's about finding that balance of eating fewer calories than you need and sustaining that for a really long period of time. Remembering that you have decades and decades and decades of life. I don't care if you're 55 years old in this day and age, you're probably going to live for another 40 years at least. That's so much time to get there. And I think we're just, we live in that instant gratification world where we kind of want the results now. And if it's, you know, we're checking the scale every single day to see the numbers drop. And if it doesn't drop, oh man, I must've crashed my metabolism. I gotta, I guess I have to eat more now to bring it back up. It's like, no, no, just try this for a few months and see what happens. Let's, let's, let's look at, let's, let's stick to something for four months and then maybe reassess and see where things are. So I think that's, those are kind of the big things right now is that eating not enough calories is going to crash your metabolism. It's not, you'll be okay. And that is what it takes to, to lose your body fat stores. Your body's only going to pull from that if it's not getting the calories through your own diet. |
| Jason Heaton | So I like your point about, um, you know, as, as people age, like, you know, the people that kind of are lean and energetic as they're older, um, are the ones that just never stopped. And I always tell people like I'm 54 and I'm like, you know, just, uh, I'm just not going to stop because like if I stop, it's too hard to get back into it from so many different aspects, physical, emotional, you know, motivational, et cetera. And I think it's just like, keep at it. But if you are in that position of having backslid or not done anything for years, like all it takes is like, it's simple, right? Just, just start moving. |
| Austin Hendrickson | Just start getting into it and be patient. Just be, remember you still have, you have so much life. So many years still, so many years. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| Austin Hendrickson | Three workouts a week is 150 workouts a year for 10 years. That's. 1500 workouts. Imagine, imagine if you did three workouts a year from 54 to 64, you're still going to be young in the, in the grand scheme of like, you know, again, how long we're going to be living in this day and age. Like this, I think when we can zoom out in that perspective and just also just be accountable and just be like, you know, yeah, I haven't been taking care of myself for decades now. I haven't been doing that. And so it's time to start doing that. And that's okay. Because when you're in the, when you accept the fact of where you are, You have two choices. You either keep doing what you're doing and give up or you just make the change and you, you know, you just, you're always at that crossroads. Yeah. I think it's easy to kind of shift the blame on other parts of our life. But I think when you take that personal accountability and be like, this is my fault, but I have the power to change it because I did this and I can undo it. Yeah. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | And I think this is a good, good place to kind of circle back and close with, with the initial kind of quote that I, attributed to you and that is we're all on our own different fitness journeys. And I think that that really goes to that. So, um, before we sign off here, how can people find you, reach you? Are you, do you take clients? Um, what's the best way to kind of get in touch or follow you? |
| Austin Hendrickson | So I am known as training tall across the internet. I don't know if I even mentioned that at any point during the start of this, but you can find me at training tall across all the social media platforms. So I'm over on Facebook and Instagram. YouTube and take talk. Uh, I make daily essentially tip of the day videos these days. So if you're looking for just some motivation for the exercises that you're probably already doing, you'll see a lot of the stuff that I make Monday through Friday, most days. And if you're really interested in rowing stuff, specifically my YouTube channel, training tall is the best place to go for that. I've got lots of rowing advice to give, but also I cover and review all sorts of rowing machines. If you're looking to buy a certain rowing machine, I've probably done a review on that. And yeah, that's, yeah, I'm training tall, but it's not about being tall. It's about taking your fitness and health above the average, no matter how tall you are. Amazing. |
| Jason Heaton | Austin Hendrickson. Thank you so much for, uh, for joining us on the gray NATO. Really appreciate it. |
| Austin Hendrickson | Thanks so much for having me. This was a lot of fun. Sorry if I blabbered too long at any point. |
| Jason Heaton | No, this was great. |
| Austin Hendrickson | Thanks so much. |
| James Stacey | All right, that's amazing. What a treat to have Austin on the show. Yeah, big fan of the row 20 of really the whole platform. Yeah, you know, I find this time of year, Jason, maybe you're the same, maybe not. I don't use the the roar nearly as much when I can go outside. But I find huge value in that in the colder months. It's nice and comfortable and you can really get a great workout in not much time at all. And I think if you're curious, I haven't found anything better than Austin as far as an intro how to do it correctly. He was the first videos I went to find like technique and structure, like how to understand if you're getting better, all that kind of stuff. And I think it was great to have him on the show. So a huge shout out to Austin for making that happen. And yeah, a real treat to have that on and a nice kind of focus as we start to get a little bit closer to 300 there with some great guests. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. And just before we leave off from Austin, I should mention that you can find him on YouTube. Well, pretty much anywhere. Just, just search for training tall, his YouTube channel. We'll throw in the show notes, but it's a, it's just YouTube. And then look for training tall and same thing on Instagram training tall. And yeah, thanks again to Austin for coming on. It was a great, great time. That's great. Well, how about a little bit of a final notes? Yeah, let's do it. So I, my, my final note is also aquatic this, this week seems to be a theme of ours. Um, And it comes from a listener and friend of the show, uh, Jacob Van Buren, who has a sub stack that he calls C view, which is also his handle on Instagram. And Jacob is a diver, but he has a, he has a very unique take on diving. He, um, focuses on diving with vintage dive gear. And he posts a lot on Instagram about his exploits using and kind of restoring and using old everything from suits to masks to fins to regulators. And, um, One of his recent substacks was called New Beginnings and it was actually about his diving experience with a 1953 Aqualung. So this is like, I'm not as familiar obviously as Jacob, but you know this is close to being kind of first generation or early generation at least Aqualung from you know the Cousteau era. This is like the year that uh, or right around the time that, you know, of course the first dive watches were coming out and the silent world was premiering. So this is really a step back in history. And while some of us might think it's maybe ludicrous or brave or stupid to dive with vintage gear, you know, Jacob's out to prove you wrong. And, and, you know, he goes to show that if you maintain stuff and restore it and learn how to use it correctly, um, I know early dive gear is if not as efficient, um, as maybe modern stuff, it's, uh, it's still very serviceable and And it looks like he had a great time and there's some great photos in here. So it's a good story. |
| James Stacey | Check it out. Yeah, this is a, I think this is a must read. Very cool of Jacob to, uh, to do this and to take this up as sort of a passion project. Uh, the, like you said, the photos are, are great and it's great to see some, some familiar faces in the photos as well. It's wild. Cause you'd look at these and you'd swear these photos are from 1963. Uh, it's just so much fun. So kudos on that one. Very neat. And, uh, hit the show notes to find that. My final note to close out the show today is actually just a video I came across recently, and it is a Wolfpack live in France. We've we've definitely covered the Madison Square Garden show. So this one was a it's almost two hours long. It's a live performance that they did in France about that they uploaded about two weeks ago. And honestly, it's just it's just so much fun. I I had, you know, a long day, maybe a week ago or so and and needed to just kind of unwind at the end of the day and wanted to sit still and put this on and just found myself just kind of moving around to the beat. It was great. Uh, the, these guys have the most fun. There's so much talent and, uh, and I highly recommend anytime they do the live stuff, it's always a big treat. Cause the way it's, I love the way it's filmed and the audio quality is almost always very good. And they just have a really fun time, uh, doing what they do. They seem to really love it. And also, I mean, like from the get go, the songs are, they're playing all the hits. |
| Jason Heaton | It's great. Yeah. I mean, do you watch that on, uh, did you watch that on, uh, on a laptop or an iPad or did you put it on the, on the projector and with some good speakers? |
| James Stacey | I had it on the, on the big screen with the, with the speakers. You got it. I mean, AirPods aren't that bad, but I like, yeah, like a bigger sound sometimes, especially if I'm on the couch with my feet up for sure. |
| Unknown | Cool. |
| James Stacey | Nice. So check that one out in the show notes as well. And thanks so much to everybody for putting up with our summer break. We are back. We are moving towards episode 300. If I'm completely honest, We do not have a plan for 300, so if you have a great idea, let us know in the Slack. I was thinking of maybe a clip show, but then I have to figure out when I would find the time to go through 299 episodes and that sort of thing. But even if we don't get up to a ton for it, we're still looking forward to it. And a big thank you to Austin for coming on the show and for the last few guests we've had on. It's been a really fun little run we've had going. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, I agree. I think my idea for the 300th episode is if we can track down Jazar and interview Jazar on the show, that would seem very fitting. He's been with us every episode along the way. |
| James Stacey | It's true. Yeah. One of the few unchanged elements to the show in a lot of years, eight years. Yeah. All right. Well, as always, thank you so much for listening. If you want to subscribe to the show notes, get into the comments for each episode or consider supporting the show directly. And we leave you with this quote from Seneca who said, difficulties strengthen the mind as labor does the body. |