Ray Zingler is a Strength Coach, Entrepreneur, Consultant, and Author. He is the Owner of Zingler Strength & Conditioning, LLC., an Industry Leader in Performance Training for athletes, busy professionals, and military personnel.
Ray is recognized as a Certified Physical Preparation Specialist and has been serving the Metro Atlanta, Georgia area since 2009. His blue collar, consistency and hard work approach to research based training has allowed him to serve thousands of clients.
In addition to operating his training facility, Ray consults current and perspective gym owners on business structure and implementation. Beyond mentoring strength professionals, Ray consults high school sport and strength coaches, aiding in the development of program structure and design. Ray also does contract work within local high schools and club sport organizations, implementing S&C programs within the team settings of a variety of sports.
In this episode Ray discusses:
- Growing up in a family of coaches.
- Taking an unconventional route into S&C Coaching.
- Why for him impact is more important than income.
- The meaning of “Hammers Only”.
- Why the value of S&C Coaching can go far beyond the physical.
You can listen to the episode in full here.
You can keep up to date with Ray’s work via his Instagram: @zingler_strength and via the website:www.zinglerstrength.com
To learn more about the LTAD Network check out www.ltadnetwork.com or follow on Instagram: @ltadnetwork or Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ltadnetwork .
You can keep up to date with Athletic Evolution via our www.athleticevolution.co.uk , Instagram: @athleticevouk and Twitter: @athleticevouk .
Rob Anderson
Ray, it’s awesome to have you on the podcast today.
Ray Zingler
Thanks for joining us all the way from the States.Alright, thank you for having me. I’m glad to be here.
Rob Anderson
So you’re I’ve been following on some of your work on social media for a while. And there’s been a lot of parallels, I think, between the way we think and our philosophy and in cultivating athletes, not just from a physical perspective, but more holistically. So I’m really looking forward to diving into that. But before we do that, give us a bit of an insight. What was it like for young re growing up? What were the sports that you really got captured by? And how did that unfold?
Ray Zingler
Absolutely. So just to kind of paint the picture a little bit, I was the son of two coaches, my father was a football coach, American football coach, and my mother was a cheerleading coach. And then beyond that, I’ve got grandparents that were coaches. So again, I’ve been around coaches my entire life, obviously, different disciplines. But I’ve been been around sports ever since that I can remember, you know, and it was one of those things that, again, my parents understanding the value of sports as a very young kid, they got me involved in everything from soccer, to hockey, to football, all of the above. And eventually, after I got into, you know, my middle school years, I kind of settled on football, again, American football being my main sport, just because I think having a lot of influence from my father and my grandfather, my uncles who played the game, that was kind of where I fell naturally. And, you know, it was one of those things that again, and I think we’ll dig into this a little bit more, I ended up coming to love the preparation for sport more than I love the actual sport. And don’t get me wrong, I was very passionate player and, and I had some ability. But you know, what really kind of helped my ability was obviously the training side of things. I was a very average athlete on the surface. But I created some opportunities for myself through the training, which again, not to kind of jump to the end of this conversation. But that’s, that’s essentially what started my, my passion for what I’m doing today. So I, again, attributed a lot of the lessons that I’ve learned to sports and obviously mentors along the way. But that was me as a young guy played everything. And then obviously, as you get a little bit older, you know, you kind of funnel things down.
And I fell so much in love with everything about sports, I ended up deciding to want to turn it into a passion, which is you know what I’m doing today.
Rob Anderson
Awesome. So what did that look like, at the end of your time playing American football and deciding, I’m going to go into the preparation side of the game? What What were some of the studies and where did that take you?
Ray Zingler
Yeah, so I’ll just kind of run through a little bit of you know, how my whole story transpired, you know, and I got to start back into the, to the middle school area around 12 years old, you know, Dad, again, was a was a college football coach. And he took on he had at the time, he had gotten out of the college game and was was focusing a little bit more on entrepreneurship, running his own business, here in Atlanta, Georgia. And he saw a need, he coached our football team, our youth football team growing up, he saw a need for strength and conditioning in the youth area. And at the time, this was you know, very early 2000s. It wasn’t as big as it is obviously today. So Dad, we had an unfinished room in our basement, he went to the local fitness depot centre, and he bought a glorified Gold’s Gym, and he put it into our basement, you know, as you know, not a very big room, but 500 square feet with the power racks, lat pull downs, the whole thing and, you know, he told our football team at the end of one of our seasons, that hey, guys, you know, we’re gonna have a voluntary strength and conditioning programme after the season. And you know, Dad didn’t know anything about what was going to happen. He thought three or four kids from the 40 man team, were going to show up well, that first session, there’s 20 Kids knocking on our door, this isn’t my parents home, you know, so my mom’s thinking what in the world is going on? was kind of just this crazy thing, that kind of it. It grabbed flight without us even trying to do anything with it. And it was such a unique situation that you know, that was I was 12 years old. Dad had a supplementary strength and conditioning business running out of the basement of our house training athletes in the community. From the time I went through, you know, middle school up through high school and I got to a point at 18 years old you know, I was under my dad’s direction and again, he didn’t he didn’t know it like we know it today, but he knew enough to be dangerous. And I learned from him all throughout my childhood and and eventually got to the point when I was kind of graduating high school I had some opportunities to play football in college but like I said earlier, I enjoyed the preparation side more than I did actually playing. And dad was getting to the point where in his business which he owns a commercial flooring business, you know, carpet, tile, etc. And he said I can’t serve two masters would you like to kind of take over this Strength & Conditioning thing that he had, you know, running At our house, and I said, you know, I’m an 18 year old guy, you know, whatever, I’ll do it for some side money while I go to college and all this stuff and turned out, you know, it was one of those things that it just it just, it just gained weight and started flying, you know, I was in school at a local community college going to get my degree. And, you know, I started with two clients, and then you know, two turns to four, four turns to 12. And, you know, I’m not necessarily proud to admit it, but I ended up having to drop out of college, because again, I was going to college to get a degree to get a job. Well, now my job, it was getting in the way of school, I had an opt out an option, I could go to class at four o’clock PM, or I could train 15 athletes at four o’clock PM. And it was one of those things that again, and as you know, in this field, you know, it’s the certifications, and it’s like, when you know it, you know it so again, I didn’t, I didn’t need the fancy degree, you know, not knocking anybody who’s getting a degree, I didn’t need that, because I had proven, you know, that I was providing enough value with the education that I kind of incurred not only with physical practice with my father, but also the studies, you know, on my own.
Rob Anderson
It’s really cool. It’s, I mean, it’s great to see something organic. I didn’t realise your dad was involved initially. And it seemed it was yes, itself, but it’s really cool to kind of see that transition.
Ray Zingler
Absolutely. You know, it was one of those things that was funny, Dad had no plan, what he wanted to do was buy a home gym, you know, now home gyms are the craze he wanted to buy the home gym, and he thought, all right, well, my son is in middle school, I’ll train him in a couple of his buddies, you know, for an offseason, and then he’ll get into high school, and then dad will have this home gym for himself to save his time. And it blew up like wildfire. I mean, there was kids in the community that didn’t even play on our sports teams, you know, that were coming from all over the place. And you know, it even grew, which was really special to me, and to kids into the community who didn’t play any sports, they were those kids who were struggling with mental health issues, they were struggling with confidence. They were in the band, they weren’t athletes, but dad, and what I learned that he would take anybody on, he’d say, You know what, your best might be different than his best, but I’m not turning anybody down. And that’s kind of what put it in my heart that I don’t care if you’re the elite athlete, or the professional player, you give me that you give me that 12 year old kid that’s afraid of his own shadow. And I will treat him like he’s a professional athlete for the New York Jets. You know, I just, I really believe that I saw that there was no bias. It wasn’t, he wasn’t trying to get the best kid in the school, whoever wanted to get a little bit better dad was gonna pour into I mean that that really laid the groundwork for my philosophy today.
Rob Anderson
I couldn’t agree more. That’s kind of my my philosophy as well, in terms of the practice side of things is, I want to work with people who want to work with me. And I don’t care if you play recreationally or you play at the highest level. That’s, you know, how you show up? Is the criteria for me whether you want to put the work in or you don’t?
Ray Zingler
Absolutely, absolutely.
Rob Anderson
So tell us a bit, it has always been just a single string full time or have you had other bits and pieces around that.
Ray Zingler
So I am what I call a serial entrepreneur, I have never in my entire life had a job where I worked for somebody else, I’ve never had a schedule, I’ve never had a clock, I’ve never had a check in my life cut to me from from somebody other than myself, you know, I started at 10 years old and mowing lawns, and then I started air rating lawns, I would pressure wash driveways, I had my own little moving company out of the back of a pickup truck where I would haul couches and whatever I had to do. And then from there, and again, I don’t claim to be some self made, you know, I had a lot of a lot of encouragement, a lot of help a lot of resources along the way. But beyond my odd jobs in middle school and high school that again, were were born largely out of knocking on doors and offering to mow people’s lawns. I’ve never had a job outside of that. And from from there kind of took over and created Ziggler Strength & Conditioning at 18 years old. And I’m 32 now and haven’t looked back since. So it was one of those things that, you know, at 18 years old, I knew everything there was to know but then all of a sudden at 32 I realised how much I don’t know. So it’s funny how, how you grow but I was I was naive in the sense that I didn’t know what I didn’t know and I just tried my best and these these lessons that I learned were very organic where, again, I don’t I don’t encourage my path to a lot of people I think there’s a tonne of value in going to work under somebody and and learn but again, it was one of these things that was just happenstance for me that for a lot of years, I just kept my head down and just kept trying to surf and surf and surf and then all of a sudden I’d look up to breathe and my accountants calling me saying right do you have any idea how much Money, right? I said, Sir, I have no idea. I got a session at four o’clock. So just tell me what I got to pay in taxes and leave me alone because I got an, you know, I was so I was. So I didn’t know business and logistics and all this stuff. I was just pouring myself into others. And it worked out it worked out for me.
Rob Anderson
So how was that growing? So you mentioned you started with four athletes and then became 12? What does it look like today? When you turn up to Zynga strength? What does it look like?
Ray Zingler
Yeah, so again, I don’t want to, I don’t want to and this is something that I share with a lot of coaches as well, because again, being well connected within the industry. You see, a lot of the ebbs and flows were a lot of times you might see on social media, where you’ve got this gym, you see on Instagram, the guy’s got 12,000 square feet, it looks like there’s 500 clients in there the whole deal. And really what a lot of that is just to be honest with you, and you probably know this, it’s a facade, you know, it’s everybody trying to look the part and make you think that oh, bigger is better. I pride myself on staying small. And what I mean by that is not that I don’t think big and have a big picture, Outlook or anything like that. But I think one of the things that goes, that goes by the wayside in this industry is people actually pouring into the individuals, you know, we probably have 100 athletes at our gym at, you know, based on the time of the year. But the one thing I take a lot of pride in, I can tell you every kid’s first and last name, I know their parents, I know their hobbies, I know how they receive the coaching, I’m very, very detailed in that regard. Whereas Yeah, I could expand and I can get 500 clients, but then what happens is raising their isn’t raising or any more raising, Where’s the guy that’s sitting in an office, who’s looking at the numbers, who doesn’t know Jimmy’s name, or Stevens name. And now the sudden I might be able to buy a little bit of a nicer truck, because I’ve got, I’ve got more people, but but as the impact there, and as somebody who values impact over dollars and cents, what I’m trying to do in my business right now, is not necessarily shrink the size of it, but maintain a size, that I can have the direct impact over the programme as a whole. Because again, as much as I love the business and entrepreneurial side, I get more value out of actually having my hand in the day to day operations of being able to impact the kids specifically, versus just touting myself as some guy who’s really good at marketing and, you know, throwing a bunch of money at the big project that just not congruent with with what I want to do not to knock anybody that is but that’s that’s just my, my philosophy,
Rob Anderson
essentially, because that’s a change that’s taking place in my mindset as well recently, because, you know, you kind of fall into the trap of thinking, Okay, I’m an X amount from this, I could, I can learn more by increasing the numbers, but actually some of yourself is that actually, it’s quality over quantity. And actually, I want less athletes that I see more frequently. So I know the ins and outs and all that kind of stuff. It’s not about having people that come in once a week, and we just stack them high. For exactly,
Ray Zingler
and a lot of people they do that, you know, they’ll see especially around here, they have what they call an I’m sure they have it over there drop ins to where you know, they charge a small fee to try to pack 100 Kids in the door. And again, parents might be attracted to that because Oh, it’s only 10 bucks to go run around for an hour, which again, not knocking anybody that’s one thing I won’t do is knock anybody but I asked the question how much quality training is going on there? You know, of course, it looks cool. When the owner of that facility takes a picture. And it looks like there’s 100 Kids in the gym, go ask him to name 15 of those kids. You know, he’s trying to look the part on Instagram, is there real coaching going on in there as he pouring in and into that individual? Is that individual going to be able to take that workout and compound it over time? Or is he in there to sweat for a little bit and look good on Instagram, you know what I mean? And that’s something that I think is, is very large in our industry. Because again, it’s it’s the perception and the social media era. You know, back in the day, the Louie Simmons of the world at Westside barbell and even the early days of the Jota Franco’s and Zack Avinash is who are people that I value greatly? You know, they kind of got they started this whole YouTube craze, you know, with the strength and conditioning. But there were a lot of days where those gyms were packed with not very many kids. But Zach and Joe were pouring into those kids and nobody saw it. But that’s, that’s something that hey, I get we got to play the modern social media game, but I will not compromise my standards, trying to get a stranger on the internet to think that I’ve got 300 kids in my gym, so just not not me.
Rob Anderson
Yeah, I like that a lot. It’s funny, I was going to ask you about some of your influences from it from an S&C perspective, but I think you probably gave me some of the answers they asked Louie Simmons was gonna be the ones that I thought were the conjugate benefit. And you know, Joe DeFranco makes sense what other influences have kind of shaped your coaching style? Yeah.
Ray Zingler
So when I first started out, you know, again, like any 16 year old boy I was attracted to the to the Dorian Yates of the world and the branch warrants and these massive body builders because you know every 17 year old kid wants big arms but I got to the point where it was like I got I got huge you know I’m I went up to 250 pounds, you know doing the heavy rack poles and all this stuff trying to be a bodybuilder but I found you know that that bodybuilding style training while there is value in it, it wasn’t the performance based training. So that’s when I got into a lot of the Louis Simmons conjugate style programming. And then I learned from Zack Avinash, who I mentioned Joe to Franco. Those were two of my biggest influences. Jim Wendler, as well with the 531 programme, just from a simplicity nature. So those three were the biggest impacts on me just from a programming and structure standpoint, as well as business, you know, a lot of those guys, Joe and Zack specifically, it’s funny, as they get older, I see them shrinking down, and they have other other things going on. But to your point earlier, it’s the quality over quantity. And then for myself, personally, you know, it’s funny, have these ebbs and flows and the transitions in your own training to Where from 14 to 18 I wanted to look like a refrigerator, you know, from 18 to 25, I wanted to be the strongest guy in the world at 32. Excuse My French, but I’m trying to feel less like shit, you know, much more focused approach on the longevity and feeling good. So I’ve learned from guys, there’s a coach here in the States Dan John, who I’m not sure if you’re familiar with Dan John, but very, very simple minded, you know, performing exercises that are going to give more than they take, you know, repeated efforts. That type of stuff. For me personally, now, I still believe in some of the hard charging stuff with the with the younger athletes who need to build the base. But as I continue to grow and evolve myself, fortunately, I’m I’m learning from the same guys I’ve learned from because I don’t know how familiar you are with like a Joe DeFranco, for example, but 15 years ago, it was the heaviness the Prowler you know, doing all that, and now he’s sitting here with bands doing his pull up parts, and I get it, you know, before five years, I said, Man, Joe’s going soft, you know, some of these guys aren’t doing this stuff. And then now, when I sneeze too hard, it hurts my back, I’m starting to understand what the heck these guys are talking about. So, you know, I try to learn from everybody. Because I think there’s value and whatever everybody has to say whether I agree with it or not, is up to discussion. But I also believe in kind of sticking to your guns a little bit in the sense that sometimes if we try to pull and dabble from everybody under the sun, we can get clouded with the, with the over analysis sometimes. So I have tried to listen to everybody. But I’m not just going to jump on the new trend tomorrow, because so and so brought it up on social media, I’ll investigate it now. I’ll dabble in it, but I’m not going to flip the script. You know, sometimes people will say, you know, they’ve never done an ice bath in their life. But then all of a sudden, two weeks from now they’re their ice bath kind of sewers. You know, I, I take everything with a grain of salt until I can prove it over over the long haul. If it’s good for six months, fine. If it’s good for 16 years, I’m probably going to pay a bit more attention to to what’s been around
Rob Anderson
100%. So what does success look like for you personally? So I’m thinking in the business and the coaching that you’re doing when you you know, it’s easy, and I guess a championship when people are thinking, Okay, we’re gonna have to trophy what does success mean for you in training athletes? Or you know, what you’re trying to get out?
Ray Zingler
For? Sure. That’s a great question. You know, I think for me, personally, the way that I look at success, you know, the typical way of looking at success to measure it, and again, in the world of measurements, you know, that’s what we do in Strength. & Conditioning is we collect data, and we look at the value, etc, etc. But from a success standpoint, you know, how we measure success in the world is based on your wealth, you know, how much do you have, you know, and something for me. And it’s not to say that I undermine the importance of money and needing to, you know, create, you know, a sense of stability financially with your family. But I’m playing an entirely different game, you know, what I would like to do my, my idea of success is being able to leverage my time and spend it the way that I want to. So now if I sacrifice income, but I’m purchasing more time, I value time more than money. And now, by having an excess of time, which again, is more important than money to me, those limited hours that I do spend working. I don’t say this to toot my own horn, but but you’re not going to beat me. You know, I spend eight to 12 hours a week coaching, and when I’m coaching those eight, I am locked in all and ready to go. Whereas when I first started, I’d work up to 80 hours a week. So now you’ve got this young guy who’s hard charging and hungry, working 80 hours a week, and now 10 years later, he’s working 12 hours a week and he’s 10 years smarter than he was 10 years ago. I’m gonna be the best of the best, and those limited amount of hours and I feel like And that allows me to be to be more successful, because my reach may not be as wide, but my reach is deeper. And when I’m able to focus on depth, not only do I have more fire and more passion with it, but now I’m able to give those kids the best of the best, right? I don’t care who you are our 77 of the week, you’re not going to be the best, you know. And that’s just how I’ve used it. I’ve toughed it out. And I’ve done all that. And I’m not saying that I’m not proud of that, because I think that’s what laid the groundwork for me today. But if you ask me, right, what are your goals today? What does success look like for you, I want to be able to do what I want to do every hour of my week. Now, don’t get me wrong. Coaching is part of that, you know, that’s something that I want to do. But we live in a world where a lot of people have other people control their time. And that’s one thing that I am working very, very hard on being able to do people say, When do you want to retire, you know, I could probably retire at 40 years old, I probably could just based on the way that I started at 18 years old. And I’ve been very, you know, intelligent, not me. But I’ve had a lot of mentors, and a lot of advisors helped me strategically on the finance side, I could probably retire at 40. I don’t necessarily want to do that. But a goal of mine is at 40, to be able to spend every hour of my day the way that I want to spend it. And that’s not obviously there’s going to be things that come up that are uncontrollables. But from a from a general overview, I don’t want anybody to be able to tell me what I’m doing, you know, over the course of my day, so maybe a bit of an odd answer. But that’s, that’s really what I’m focused on versus trying to tell you, I’d like to grow 15% and blah, blah, blah, a growth is inevitable if you work hard and do the right things for a long enough time. I believe that I’m focused on the other side of the spectrum, how can I take the wealth that I’ve occurred, and crude, excuse me, and turn that into being able to leverage my time how raising her wants to leverage his time?
Rob Anderson
Nice nodding, it’s a great explanation. Really good. Right? Talk to me about hamazon Lee, what is Amazon?
Ray Zingler
Amazon? Okay, so there was, this was years ago, I was trained in a 12 year old boy, and he came into my gym, cut off T shirt, you know, had a mullet, the rat tail, just just a rough, rough edge kid. And, you know, I asked all the kids, what are their goals? And this is again, early on now, everything’s digital, and we send the email and I said, buddy, what are your goals, and most most kids would say, to get faster, to get stronger, you know, whatever their goals are, it’s 12 year old boy looked me dead in the eye. And he said, You know, I just want to be harder to kill. And you know, I’m thinking, goodness gracious, this is a 12 year old boy cut off. He’s, I just want to be harder to kill. And I just looked at him. I said, and I don’t know where it came from. But I said, Man, you’re, you’re a freaking hammer, you know what I mean? Just just just and then all of a sudden, I took the, you know, obviously, you have the corny be the hammer, not the nail, you know, that type of deal. And, and now hammers only is kind of my tagline. And again, it’s not people think that it’s this, you know, tough guy nonsense. And it’s, it’s really not that hammers only is as again, like we talked about in the intro. It’s Hey, are you willing to show up? Are you willing to do the work? Are you willing to commit to getting a little bit better, and in my eyes, that’s, that’s a hammer, that’s somebody that’s willing to do the work that’s required to get them to where they want to go. And again, you hear that phrase? And if you didn’t know me, or you just saw a picture of me, you probably think I’m talking about, you know, just eaten an animal alive, roll off the carcass with a hammer or something crazy. But no, there’s I’ve got an 11 year old girls that are that are more hammers only than some of those tough guys you see on on social media. So it’s just a mindset.
Rob Anderson
So let’s dive into that a bit more. Because I think this is maybe one of the things that people don’t maybe value or realise is happening in the private sector. Because if, you know, if you’re working for a big organisation, and there’s a big focus on performance, right, players and athletes can kind of become commodities and you don’t perform right, you’re gone. Next, you will get someone who can perform. When you’re working with those, those individual athletes in the private sector, the focus really does then become on them as an individual and as you’ve pointed out, it’s not just the physical bit, it’s awesome to get stronger, more powerful, but I like you have seen the changes that happen to kids in their self esteem, their confidence, how they, how they walk into a room and look in the eye and give you a handshake like what do you think is some of that more holistic impact that we can have as coaches on athletes?
Ray Zingler
Absolutely. So so that’s one thing that drew me to the to the private sector again, I was the son of a college football coach who spent tonnes of time away from his family that was just what the that was the nature of the beast. You know, you’re recruiting and you’re on the road. You know, the reason had got out of coaching in the public sector was because he was leaving the house in the morning before his children were waking up and he was getting home, by the time his children went to sleep. So I said, you know, I don’t want to go that route. And that doesn’t, that doesn’t mean that I don’t have a tonne of respect for a lot of colleagues that I do have in that route. Or in that in that path, excuse me. But the one thing and this isn’t to knock anybody that’s in the public sector at all, because I understand it’s an entirely different system, or it’s a different approach. But you know, the one thing that that is true about the high school sector, for example, is those coaches who again, can be very, very valuable coaches, they are appointed athletes. And what I mean by that is they can act, obviously, within reason they can act the way they want, they can be the tough guy, they can run them into the ground, they can play on their phone for a minute, and nobody’s going to hold them accountable whatsoever. Because again, if they fire that guy, now they gotta go find somebody else. That’s it’s a tough, tough deal. Whereas in the private sector, I have realised this, if I take off one day, if I miss out on the opportunity of one conversation, if I don’t add value to that specific individual doesn’t necessarily I’m going to lose him tomorrow. But what does happen is, if I’m not on my toes, making this entire thing about the individual, I lose out as an entrepreneur on the ability to leverage resources for my family, because again, like you just anybody can get stronger, you can you can go on Google, you can find the programme, you can go to your $10 a month fitness centre, and you can you can get stronger, I had to get away from the sets and reps not Yes, I understand the sets and reps and I understand how to programme that’s obviously the the foundational or fundamental elements of what I do. But again, recognising that, at the end of the day to the consumer, whether they do four sets of eight split squats at Ziggler, Strength & Conditioning, four sets of eight split squats at their local high school or four sets of eight split squats at their local gym. It’s four sets of eight split squats, it’s there’s nothing unique about that. But where I knew that I could gain an edge is I understand the value of the physical side, I understand the value of the accountability. And I understand the value of taking that physical work that you’re held accountable on, and then how that translates into some of the confidence and the mental sides of the approach. So again, I don’t I don’t sell sets and reps, I’m not I’m not renting out my equipment at my gym, to to consumers who want to come in and be told what to do or what’s written up on the whiteboard. I take this very seriously. And I’m selling, I’m selling global development. This is this is yes, we’re gonna get you stronger and faster for basketball. I promise we can do that. But But listen, the game that I’m playing is is I’m very, very, very strategic about my impact, can I impact you in a way at 17 years old, that helps you to positively associated with this whole health and fitness strength, whatever you want to call it. And then when you’re 32 years old, and raising there is no longer in your day to day life? Are you going to the gym? And are you doing goblet squats two days a week, because that one guy with a big beard took the time to pour into you strategically when you were an adolescent. So that’s that’s the game I’m playing. I care about the 40 yard dashes and the vertical, measure all that. But that’s not the game I’m playing. I’m playing I want you I care about you. It’s one thing that I don’t take lightly. I love every kid and I’ll tell every kid, listen, we are here, we’re going to focus on what we need to focus on today. That’s the micro but the macro perspective I have, I am looking at every single angle and looking at where I can improve as a coach to add value to your life. Beyond the programme, I’ll print you out a sheet and send you a sheet you can follow. But can you build the can you build the mindset of being able to take this today? And then have the lessons apply to your life tomorrow? That’s that’s where I’m I’m focused.
Rob Anderson
Yeah. 100%. And this is something I think if we were if we were really critical as ourselves as S&C, coaches, right, particularly, I guess, in the private sector, like if our marker of success is these athletes get pro deals, then we’re gonna loss or failures, right? Because how many people does that happen to
Ray Zingler
exactly that’s it’s so funny. You say that people like Ray, are you going to do the NFL Combine training? Are you going to do this, this, this and this? I said, You know what I want I want 89th graders just pain in the butt 14 year old high school kids that are willing to show up. Because again at that age, they’re so impressionable, you know, you can really teach and that’s why I’m so drawn to the youth side of things. And a lot of guys will say that that’s that’s where you can have the most impact on them. You take an elite athlete, and let’s just say he’s a 9.2 out of 10. Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s a lot harder to go from 9.2 to nine point At Five than it is to go from 6.2 to 8.3. But at the same time, a lot of that training those elite athletes Well, it does take skill. And I know some guys that do it do it very, very well. You’re really just trying to you’re putting rims on a Mercedes, you know what I mean? And you’re just allowing them to really, really the objective with those those elite guys is don’t get them hurt, you know what I mean? Let let them be special, you know, and a lot won’t admit it. But those guys would likely be special with or without me. And you, you know, so it’s one of those things. But with a kid, a kid who’s scared of his own shadows just learned how to tie his shoes doesn’t even know what a kettlebell is. And you get that kid to come in six months later, walking proud, performing three sets of 10 with a 53 pound kettlebell, holy crap, you just, you just you just made a difference in somebody’s life. You know, that’s, that’s big to me.
Rob Anderson
And I think this is one of the things that the whole essence, S&C industry really overlooks at its peril. Because it’s all like this one way traffic, everyone goes, you know, goes this the same route of I want to work with the pros, I want to work at the college I want, because they kind of think this, it’s not glorified. It’s not as valuable. But actually, there’s this huge domain of people that are underserved, that sometimes, okay, the people that are maybe delivering stuff aren’t that good. So if I come into this sector, and you and you’re good at what you do, you care about the kids and you want to make an impact, you can have a colossal impact on these on this population.
Ray Zingler
It’s insane. And that’s the thing. And that’s the hardest part, I do want to touch on that, again, not to sit here and, and knock anybody else. But that’s the other side of it is people there, there are coaches out there who understand that like, Okay, well, if we’ve got a youth athlete, there’s, there’s millions of youth athletes, there’s hundreds of elite athletes. So naturally, the majority of the pool, whether they want to or not, are going to be drawn to the lowest hanging fruit, which is the youth athlete. But then the problem and as you know, and this is something I tried to educate and speak on quite a bit, is there are a lot of people out there selling snake oil, because they know there’s a large populace of people. And as a consumer who doesn’t know, nobody, whether you’re the bro at the local field doing a bunch of nonsense, or somebody like you or me who’s devoted 1000s of hours of strategic study to be able to properly you know, train this, they don’t you and I and that guy down the road are the same. And unfortunately, that’s something that’s that’s very difficult. Because again, everybody tells me Ray, stay in your lane focus on you. And that’s true. And I do and I do do that. But the reason I’m so vocal, especially on social media, is I feel like failure on my end, to notify or at least make it present. There’s a lot of garbage going on. It’s a disservice to those youth athletes and those parents, I realised I’m not going to be able to convince everybody I realised I’m not going to turn the tide on my own. But like we’ve just talked about, we’re trying to go quality over what if I get 10 Dads per year to say, You know what? That garbage that Billy is doing at the field that looks cool with the highlight video and the music video, if I get 10 Dads a year to see through that facade, and I leverage the opportunity to service their sixth grade 12 year old son for the next eight years of their life the right way. I’m going to put it all out there because I’m after I’m after the 1% I’m not trying to get 75% of that I couldn’t serve as if I wanted to. But but but can I can I try to tastefully present the facts without bashing others so that I can earn the opportunity? Listen, I want to serve people, I want to serve people the right way. But if I don’t let people know that there’s a lot of garbage going on out there. How is anybody going to know it’d be like me, who knows nothing about welding, you let the guy weld the right way and you let the guy weld the wrong way. And they’re both wearing the gear, they’ve got the helmet on, they’ve got the stuff, they’ve got the truck with the tank. I don’t know what I don’t know, right? Unless somebody takes the time to show me. Again, I’m I’m a serial learner, I want to know I don’t have any interest in welding. But if you would teach me which one was right, and which one was wrong, in the event, I needed a welder. I’d like to know at least what to look for. But in our modern society that is so focused on instant gratification and what looks good and what looks cool. These parents a lot of times they don’t they don’t understand that these youth coaches. They’re not they’re not doing what’s right. They’re playing into perceptions. Well, Jimmy’s mom thinks that this speed and agility thing is safer and cleaner. So let me sell out on that. I know what I’m selling is a much harder sale. But again, I’m focused on such a smaller subset or such a smaller demographic. I will I will I will forego the path of least resistance and an effort to do what’s right to serve those who want to be served correctly. And that’s just my my stance.
Rob Anderson
Yeah, I think you’re really right. This is something I mean, it was a bit of a I guess kind of a journey I had to go on as an entrepreneur and as a coach was, it’s easy to sit there and bag all these people on social media go look at he’s doing this sport specific stuff. That’s nonsense. He’s doing this. But actually, if you’re not in the marketplace, you’re giving the customer a disservice. Because if all they have to choose from as these people, well, they can’t choose the right thing because you aren’t there and you aren’t being vocal. So I think people have have problems, sometimes tooting their own horn. But I often encourage coaches to say, Listen, if you’re not shouting from the rooftops, hey, I’m doing this I’m available. I’m, you know, doing this kind of work. And actually, we’re choosing not to focus on that stuff. People don’t have the option to choose something good.
Ray Zingler
Absolutely. And that’s and that’s where it’s so critical. And that’s why I think one of the biggest issues with strength and conditioning, and it’s a good and a bad thing. There’s there’s sides on every side, right? But the thing about it is there’s no governing body, there’s nobody that sits there, especially in you know, in America, the you can go by a whistle and start coaching tomorrow in the state that I live in, you don’t have to have any certification, you don’t have to have anything, you can grab a whistle and some cones, and start tomorrow. And again, this is where I just get so mind boggling. The I’m not a smart guy. So like anytime something stresses my brain out, it’s not because it’s something complex, I just don’t understand a lot of things. But we have kids who are at the most instrumental pivotal stage of their of their growing lives. And we’re outsourcing some of the training to some guy that just bought cones yesterday, they’re like, Wow, just if you want to if you want to skimp out on something, skimp out on the on the summer travel, take three less days at the beach and save that money and invest. Again, I’m speaking for myself, it’s not my job to tell other people how to spend their money or do whatever they want to do. But goodness, do a little bit of research. It’s like buying buying a house and you want to get granite countertops in your kitchen? Well, the neighbour he does lawn care, and he did he renovated a bathroom in 1997. Let’s just hire him for the for the for the count, we would never do that. But our 14 year old boy will go ahead and just say Hey, that guy down the roads probably good and sign off on I mean, In what world but that’s the world we live in. Because hey, Timmy goes there too. And Timmies mom said that guys off show me the data proves to me that guys the bet. He’s nice to him. There’s a lot of nice people that dress up nicely, that are selling garbage. And that’s just, that’s just a fact. And again, you’re gonna get me heated. I want to curb it. Because again, at my roots, I do appreciate anybody that is willing to devote time and energy into children. I appreciate that. But Goodness gracious, you don’t get a badge of honour just for showing up and doing it. You’ve got to provide the right value. And that’s missing it.
Rob Anderson
And it’s a you know, it’s one of the classic kindness and see guys things like your evac Mecca chance, give some of that, like any idiot can make another idiot tired, right? Like, my job is not to make your kid sweaty and come out and say, oh, did you have a good time? It’s the making better?
Ray Zingler
Right? No, exactly. So So that’s, that’s, that’s exactly what it is. And again, I think a lot of parents too. And this is where I struggle, because I get it. They’re looking for a babysitter, they want to drop somebody out there is value in going out and getting sweaty and tired. There’s value in that when I was growing up, we did that in the neighbourhood riding our bikes and playing games in the evenings. But it’s like, if you want to send them go these trampoline parks, you know where they go in and they jump around, go be a kid, you know, you don’t need to pay somebody to go out and get tired doing what they call sports performance training, when in reality, you know what they’re buying, when they’re buying the ladders and the agility that they’re playing hopscotch. And hopscotch is a great childhood game, go play it at your local pockets, it’s the same exact thing. Now you just have somebody with a video camera screaming at you and you’re paying for it. You know, it’s said that again, what those guys are doing hey, if they if the alternative is for those kids to sit on the couch, then great, go go go jump around and sweat for a little bit. But to think that we can encourage our children to go out and be children and play pickup basketball and play pickup soccer in the streets and do these things. That’s that’s gonna be more valuable than sitting here and having a conducted speed and agility session, as you know not to get into the weeds of it. But sports are random. They’re chaotic in nature. There’s no pretty squares out on a football field or a soccer there that doesn’t exist. So to sit here and live and die by these closed drills that are predetermined from the start. That doesn’t do and it’s a good warm up for 10 year olds right. That’s fine if you want to do that. But to sit here and hook bungee cords to 13 year olds to try to fool parents into believing that they need resistance. They can’t overcome their own bodyweight. Now you’re going to tether them to a band because on Instagram, somebody’s mom thinks it works. What the hell you know so, so that’s where I again, I wish I could stay quiet on it but again that can consumers that I’m competing for, I owe it to them, they can think I’m an idiot. They don’t have to like me Ray’s super vocal that guy’s posted 5000 posts on I’ve averaged two posts a day, every day of my life for the last eight years without missing a day. Do you think this guy might be passionate, you can think he over posts and he’s annoying. And he does. I’m doing that because it’s not it’s not a side gig. For me. This is my life that I deeply care about. Looking at my body of work, you don’t have to love me. But I’m doing this because I truly want to serve serve your kid or I want to inspire another coach to do things the right way. Because again, there’s always going to be the guys that go for the low hanging fruit. But if we can get a group of people that are servicing kids the right way, and we can show others with time, it takes time to learn how to do things the right way, can I impact the populace by 1%? That’s all I’m trying to do.
Rob Anderson
And I think that’s massive. And this goes back to what we’re saying about that long term thing. Like you want to if you want to get good coaches, you have to pay them properly. But also looking at something beyond sports performance, hey, if if we are teaching your kid your kid to move well to understand training, and what makes a good training programme and understand sleeping and nutrition, that will serve them for the next 80 years, this is probably one of the best products you could ever buy for your child
Ray Zingler
forever. And that’s my selling point. Again, like I said, it’s, you know, what’s the long term vision, right? Oh, my kid wants to play college. And I listened to that. But it’s like, at the end of the day, what I really want is when your son is done with sports, right? That’s the thing that people miss the most. It’s like, when they’re playing sports, they have the they have the discipline stimulus, it’s already in there, they’ve got to get out. And that’s why I love it. They got to get up in the morning, they gotta go to practice, they got to train. And then now at 18 years old, that discipline stimulus no longer exists. We send them to college, to eat hot wings and drink beer four nights a week. And now that nobody’s holding me accountable to exercise, why do we have an obesity epidemic in the world? What Why do we have that? And again, it’s because we undervalue the fundamentals. What if we taught this kid listen, you can live a lifestyle to where you can have some fun, you can eat pizza, you can do these things. But let’s make sure that we focus on at least the minimal amount of physical activity, so that we can maintain ourselves as we get into life as it becomes more stressful. But no, so many parents are focused on playing on the elite, amateur baseball team that we sell out on the idea of trying to get on to this specific team. We ended up burning the kid out at 18 years old, the kid wants nothing to do with baseball, he wants nothing to do with discipline, he wants nothing to do with physical exertion. He wants to go be in a fraternity and drink beer with his buddies. And then at 30 years old, he was a really good 16 year old baseball player who’s now on the verge of diabetes. I mean, and that sounds aggressive and crazy. But I wish I was wrong. But unfortunately, I’m not. And I think it starts from our lack of instruction, and our lack of coaching and teaching. At a young age, you and I are into physical fitness and strength and conditioning. Because somebody taught us somebody showed us the value, we then learned that value and applied it to the remaining years of our lives beyond sport. It’s not a it’s it doesn’t just happen, you know, and it’s a learned trait, you know, physical exercise physical, it’s something that you have to learn. You don’t just wake up tomorrow and know how to change your oil, you have to learn how to do and we missed that. Oh, he was an athlete. He played sports in high school, he’s set for life. Go look at the average NFL player who gets out of the NFL, who has all the money and all the time in the world. And they’re eatin all these gourmet meals, they’re drinking the highest top shelf liquor at 35 years old that running back who looked like he was cut out of stone at 25. Now it looks like your everyday Joe that sitting on the couch. It happens but people don’t people don’t want to talk about that. Because we’re so focused on the right now, you know, so it’s, it’s a shame,
Rob Anderson
I think even goes beyond like health and fitness. Because it’s also those things we talked about in terms of like, if you want to be good at anything in life, whether it’s academia, whether it’s your job, whether it’s running your own business, you have to first we got to turn up, you got to be consistent, you got to work hard, and you’re not going to see the rewards next week or next month or in three months, it’s going to be six months, 12 months, 18 months. And that is a transferable lesson as well, you can take that out of the gym and put it into another context.
Ray Zingler
Absolutely. And that’s where I think the process you know, there’s a lot of people who I’m a results oriented person, but I love the process more than I do the result because the process I’ve learned is where all the value is. It was funny, I had like an Instagram q&a A couple of weeks ago and somebody said, you know, how do I how do I get bigger arms and I said, eat a lot of food restwell Train your arms consistently for 10 years and they’re like, oh my god, you I’d like I could do the other part, I could eat a lot. I could, but 10 year, what are you talking about? But again, in that, right now, it’s hard to rationalise because again, we want the results because we just saw it on Instagram. It’s like, people, somebody asked me that today read the weights you’re using in your, in your in your weight training session, you did three reps, it looked like you could have done 15. And I said, Yeah, you’re right, I probably could have done 15. But I’d like to be doing this same workout 45 years from now, you know what I mean? What in the world are you taught? It’s such a foreign concept, because again, everybody wants to train for the marathon and run the marathon. I want to run a 10th of a marathon every day until I die. You know, that’s really where I’m, I’m focused. And I wish I could, I could get that note into the kids especially. But as you know, they’re on their phones all day from Instagram to Tik Tok, they’re measuring, they’re, they’re measuring their life based on the highlight reel of another. And again, I wish I could say that the parents would cut a notch in it. But the parents were watching the same thing on Instagram. And they’re seeing that Susan just bought a boat and they they own a stake in a winery and all that they’re they’re doing the same thing. On a on a different scale, Jimmy’s looking at the baseball players that are better than them. You know, Mike’s looking at the guy who’s more successful in business than him. And it’s a Keeping Up with the Joneses contest from 12 to 80. And it’s only when we get on our deathbed that we realise that none of it matters. Well, I’m trying to focus on that stuff now. Because you’ve been told the stories that, oh, if you could go back, what would you do? I’d spend more time I’d focus less on this. You know, I’m trying to live the that 80 year old wisdom as a 33 year old guy.
Rob Anderson
There’s a story, I think you’re gonna appreciate this because I think you’re going to probably agree with it. It’s a friend of mine. Shane is a coach out in Ireland is taekwondo martial arts instructor, but he also discrimination coach, and I think he has probably the best success story I’ve ever heard in coaching, which is that one of his old, like, martial arts kind of, you know, attendees, participants, came in at the age of 40, brought his eight year old and said, I want you to coach my kid. So he’s not coaching two generations of his family, but over 2030 years, what a compliment.
Ray Zingler
Oh, wow. Wow. That’s, that’s, and that’s, and that’s the stuff that, again, doesn’t get talked about enough. Because, again, it’s the value in that, you know, and I just when you told me that just thinking of like, okay, well, now the son and the dad are learning lessons together, and now they can take that with him and they’re walking, you know, that’s, that that’s, that’s, it’s a beautiful thing that a lot of times, and I appreciate the unselfish nature of a lot of parents because hey, they are willing to do whatever it takes to help give their kid an edge. And I appreciate that. But it’s like sometimes, you know, and this is why we have an adult fitness programme for for business as well. You know, a lot of the parents, they want to get the training like their son is getting, and we separate the programmes and all that, but we keep our, our, you know, kind of not necessarily the hammers only because not necessarily many women want to swing sledgehammers and go crazy. But it’s, it’s showing them it’s important for you to you know, now these prayers, we don’t have time, we’re too busy, you know, and the problem that I try to share with others, if you’re if you don’t have time for yourself, and you’re too busy for yourself, all you’re doing is emptying your own cup, thinking that it’s just going to magically refill. While we’ve tried to say listen, you don’t need 12 hours a week devote two hours a week to you come into the gym, exercise feel better. It’s not about muscles, it’s about feeling better and filling your cup. So guess what, you can pour even more into those you love and care about the most. So it’s one of those selfish to be unselfish type type mindsets.
Rob Anderson
Not to mention that whole you know, role modelling what you want for your kids.
Ray Zingler
Exactly, you know, don’t text and drive as they sit there and text on their phone while they sit in a fast food parking lot and tell them my kid won’t eat his vegetables. I wonder why. You know?
Rob Anderson
Yeah, yeah, I know exactly. Talking about
Ray Zingler
Yeah. Oh.
Rob Anderson
So right, what’s coming up for you in the next year to 18 months? You got anything coming down the pipe? Or is it just business as usual?
Ray Zingler
So business as usual. I’m currently writing another book right now. I wrote a book this last year that was focused on kind of some of my philosophies that I’ve learned over the years and simplifying training for kind of that I call a washed up meathead or anybody that just wants a general baseline of physical preparation, strength and conditioning. But this next book I’m writing is titled fundamentals over flash. And it’s essentially a guidebook for the youth and developing athlete to where it’s kind of how I’ve taken my philosophies, and how I’ve learned things along the way and how I’ve recognised what’s going on in our current landscape of youth sports. You know, it’s one of those things that youth sports right now, not to hit you with a bunch of factoids, but you know, we have less kids across the board playing sports, but the kids that we do have playing sports are playing more volume of sport than ever before. And the unfortunate side is that more volume of sport is not more volley. aim of single sport. So we’ve gotten away from the whole physical education side of, you know, general preparedness, and we’re focused on on specificity. Well, the problem is our, our kids today, they don’t have the general background to defend the specific stimulus to be able to excel, what we do is we find those five kids that can skip over the base, and then now we sell out our entire, you know, mode, or our entire, you know, process is that same Well, Jimmy did it and he’s elite, so my kids gonna do it too. So I basically just go into again, I know our kids need sport, you know, participation, they need sports training. But we can’t just magically skip over this general base, because we want to, and the general stuff is boring. So it’s kind of goes into, again, examples of how I run the programming at my gym. But also, I didn’t just want to give a sets and reps book, I wanted to speak on a little bit more of the here’s the why behind that. Because, again, if our kids were if this was 1970, you know, Eastern Bloc countries, and they were training, weight training from eight years old until the time, I’d say, Listen, we don’t need any more of that weight. You could go go play soccer, go play baseball, but we have it, it’s shift, right? We don’t place any emphasis on general physical preparation, we placed all the emphasis in the world of specificity, specificity side, I kind of speak on on that nature. So that book, you know, I give myself a year for these projects. So I can’t say exactly when it will be out. But I’m in the, I’m in the stages of writing that. And that’s really my, my yearly project for this year. And then other than that, I’m training the heck out of my kids and just trying to grow and get a little bit better every day, just like everybody else.
Rob Anderson
Awesome. So where can people maybe pick up a copy of the previous book or the new one when it launches? Or follow your stuff? Where can they find you?
Ray Zingler
Yeah, so my books, my book brought axe training, it’s available on Amazon. So if you just search broad axe training and raising that’ll pop right up, and then obviously I have links to all of my stuff on Instagram at Singler strength, Twitter is at raising where and I think Facebook is just for old people, but I’m on Ziggler string, but that’s where I’m at.
Rob Anderson
Awesome. It was really cool. You’re I think your passion for enthusiasm for the area’s obvious to people that are listening and the fact that your hearts in the right place and you’re doing it for the right reasons. So I love what you’re doing. Keep doing it. I like nine times out of 10 When I see you share something, I’m like, boom, he’s on the money again. I would appreciate that. Because as you say people need to hear it.
Ray Zingler
Thank you very much. Now you just need to tell my wife that because unfortunately, I’m wrong nine times out of 10 to her and all my all my Strength & Conditioning buddies think I got to figure it out. So I appreciate the time and this stuff is very important to me because I like being able to, to spread a message that again, we may not hit them all but you get you get in front of the right couple of people, you can really make a difference.
Rob Anderson
Awesome night. Thanks again. It’s been really valuable. I’ve loved chatting to you.
Ray Zingler
Thank you so much, Rob. I appreciate the time.