Joe DeFranco Seminar Review
by The Doorman
For www.EliteFTS.com
I. Introduction
“There are no dangerous lifts. Just dangerous coaches.”
Jim Wendler said this with conviction at Saturday’s DeFranco/Wendler/Tate seminar, and I’m here to agree with him. Jim Wendler is a dangerous coach. So is Dave Tate, and so is Joe DeFranco. Three dangerous motherfuckers, sharing the same stage, in the same gym, at the same time. They’re as dangerous as hell to the status quo in the training industry. So dangerous, in fact, that if they’re ever truly able to spread “this thing of theirs” to the masses the same way they did for a select few at Joe DeFranco’s magnificent facility in Wyckoff, New Jersey last Saturday, the strength and conditioning world won’t ever be the same.
Dave wanted this seminar to be a free-form affair. Instead of having a group of strangers sit in a classroom with desks and chairs, he wanted it to take place in a gym – one of the world’s best gyms, mind you - with the attendees running the show, interacting with the presenters and with each other. The point, if you will, was access: granting a very fortunate collection of people access to a set of resources unlike any other so we could learn what we needed to learn, with an emphasis on hacking and slicing our way, collectively, though all the typical bullshit doled out at more conventional seminars. What we did with that access was entirely up to us. We could, as we did at times, stare blankly at the “podium” waiting for the EFS triumvirate to present us with some magic combination of words that would put our training over the top. Or, as eventually happened with some prompting from Dave, we could jump into the pool and start asking questions.
The main idea, according to Dave, was for everyone to FGI – to just “fucking get it.” The FGI moment could be anything. It could come in a thousand different shapes or forms, but if you ask the right questions of the right people, you finally realize that there’s no ultimate program or ideal solution for what you want to do. “What people need,” Dave said, “are ideas to work with what they already know. Most people know far more than they need to know in order to achieve success. This is why there are people who know a lot less about training, but are at an advanced level. They don’t know as much, maybe, but they FGI.”
Thanks to Dave, Jim and Joe, I officially left New Jersey FGI. Big time.
II. The Facility
That Joe DeFranco’s converted warehouse is one of the best, most effective athletic training facilities in the country should be no mystery to anyone familiar with the preparation of athletes these days. Take a trip to Wyckoff, check out his gym and have a conversation with Joe, and it won’t take you long to realize that he’s the fucking man when it comes to this stuff. What did surprise me during my first visit to his place was the simplicity with which he operates. Back then, the untrained eye would think there wasn’t much useful in evidence. For the layman, there was absolutely nothing about DeFranco’s to indicate that elite athletes were trained there. If you didn’t know what you were looking at, you’d certainly wonder how the hell this guy could be getting the kind of results he’s been posting with a handful of power racks and a half-dozen pieces of equipment that looked like they belonged in some medieval torture chamber.
That was then, however, and this is now. Last week, the Elite Fitness Systems crew gave DeFranco’s a makeover, the results of which smack you square in the mouth as soon as you walk in the door. As a connoisseur of quality gyms, the changes literally took my breath away. Three new Collegiate Power Racks, complete with 6x8 oak deadlift platforms, all emblazoned with the familiar DeFranco’s Training Systems logo - it’s actually laser engraved on the racks, too – had my training blood boiling within seconds of entering the gym, as did Joe’s new collection of toys: a full arsenal of board press boards, a Grappler and a Prowler. When you’re in the business of getting results from your athletes, developing the proper atmosphere in your facility is crucial. The “before” version of DeFranco’s had it in spades. The “after,” complete with Dave and Jim’s nitrous oxide injection, has made the atmosphere in Wyckoff absolutely world class. Throw in the expert programming and supervision you’ll receive from Joe and his staff, and you’d be hard pressed to find a better facility anywhere on the planet.
III. Tate
I’d never met Dave Tate in person before last Saturday. We’d exchanged shitloads of emails discussing everything under the sun, but I have to confess to being a touch unprepared for the level of dedication the man has to his company and his customers. Dave’s writing typically smacks of self-depreciation, but I can tell you firsthand that most of it is complete bullshit. Get your ass to one of his seminars and you’ll see exactly what I mean. Dave owns the room. When he moves to the front and begins to speak, you’re riveted, because everything about the guy radiates authority – from the way he makes a point of introducing himself to every single attendee before beginning the seminar, to his formidable physical carriage (the guy is fucking massive).
Resplendent in a white long sleeve EFS tee shirt and black Puma sweatpants with an EFS logo on his right hip – I think he keeps the good shit for himself, truth be told - Dave began the seminar by apologizing in advance for his excessive use of profanity and for his frequent declarations that certain things are “just fucking gay.” Evidently, the word “gay” is capable of triggering uncontrollable bursts of high-pitched laughter from Joe DeFranco, much to the amusement of everyone in the room. Dave’s point was made, however. This was to be a bullshit-free presentation where he’d be getting ideas across the best way he knew how – mostly preceded by epithets beginning with the letter “f.”
IV. Wendler
The first thing you notice about Jim is the shape he appears to be in. His post-thousand-pound-squat programming seems to have taken effect quite nicely. The guy looks like a fucking battering ram. Talks like one, too. Jim’s presentation style is in keeping with the no-bullshit theme – taken to the extreme. After listening to him expound upon his ideas for the better part of eight hours, I’m convinced that what the guy wants to do is take every single training myth ever sent into the ether by a “guru” or a “Yoda” and crush the sons of bitches into dust. That’s Wendler’s style: the truth.
Jim’s presentations are the truth, as well. A highlight of the morning portion of the seminar was his comprehensive demonstration of the box squat. We all gathered around one of Joe’s new power racks as, using Matt Rhodes – a former football teammate at Arizona and world class powerlifter in his own right – Jim proceeded to cover every aspect of box squatting. The technical points of the discussion were covered in his article Teaching the Squat, but what mattered here was the coaching. “Squeeze the bar, arch your upper back, lead with your ass and show your groin” were drilled into every attendee with balls enough to step into the rack. This group included New York Jets strength and conditioning coach Sal Alosi, who challenged Jim to “rip him apart” – which Jim essentially did, albeit as constructively as possible.
Side note: When you notice three members of an NFL coaching staff carrying notebooks and feverishly scrawling notes when a lecturer has the floor, you know something special is happening before your eyes, and it’s time to pick up your pen and pad and do likewise. That is how good Wendler is.
V. DeFranco
Aside from his gleeful squeals at the mention of the word “gay,” Joe DeFranco is one of the most quietly intense people you’ll ever come across. I’ve met guys like Joe before, and they’re the ones you’ll need to watch out for in fights, because they’ll not be talking you to death. His father George, who was in attendance on Saturday – and whom I’m convinced is the model for Joe’s logo - comes across the same way: with no wasted verbiage in evidence. When Joe took center stage, you simply knew this was his house, and you knew he had complete and total command of the subject matter.
Why? Because he gets results, and he tells you how he gets them. When Joe suggested incorporating a “jump day” into the training of athletes on dynamic squat day – instead of actually squatting – it resonated because we’d all seen Mike Guadango’s 54” box jump and we want, somehow, to enable our own athletes to do the same.
Of particular interest was Joe’s demonstration of the three-point start position for the 40-yard dash, the technical points of which can be found here. Again, what was paramount here, and what you can’t get from an article, is the coaching. Joe repeatedly hammered home the concepts of a 45-degree shin angle, proper breathing technique and having your down hand behind your shoulder as you “crowd the start.” Joe’s method was dazzling in its simplicity, and yet, as a coach, I was stunned at how much I’d been missing on the technical end of things. After listening to Joe’s analysis of such minutiae, I’m convinced there’s nothing he doesn’t cover with his athletes.
Additionally, Joe touched on the evolution of his philosophy regarding the bench press test – maximum reps with 225 pounds – at the NFL combine. Interestingly, he stated that his athletes have had better results with “controlled reps” – done with some degree of pacing – than they’ve had by trying to blast their reps out as quickly as possible. The latter was what he’d originally taught, but Joe now staunchly advocates the rather counterintuitive concept of controlled repetitions based upon his success with Dallas Cowboys receiver Miles Austin and several others.
VI. Business Sense
After lunch, Dave, by popular demand, dedicated a segment of the seminar to business discussion. Specifically, he gave us the rundown on how Elite Fitness Systems operates, and pointed to concrete examples of things both he and Joe have done correctly in securing their respective niches in the fitness industry.
According to Dave, the way to run a business is to “tell people the truth. To tell people what they’re getting, and then give it to them.” EFS is run according to the strict tenets of Dave’s personal system of values and ethics. If you want to know what these values are, simply click here and you’ll find them in the section entitled “Core Values.” Without naming names, he cited the example of a vendor who, for various reasons, didn’t share the company’s commitment to integrity. EFS no longer carries this vendor’s products.
“It shows,” said Dave, “how fucked this industry has become when preaching ethics and values is considered to be going against the mainstream.”
Once Dave had finished excoriating the liars and thieves of the fitness industry, Joe took over and espoused the benefits of group training. “I’ll only train a client one-on-one if he’s just coming off surgery or has some other extenuating circumstance,” he said. “It doesn’t make financial sense for me to do one-on-ones otherwise, in addition to the fact that it totally detracts from the competitive atmosphere I’ve tried to cultivate in here. I had a pretty prominent baseball player who wanted me to train him privately at his house, for a decent amount of money, but it wouldn’t have worked out for me with my other clients so I turned him down.”
“Joe,” added Dave “did the right thing, business-wise, by making these improvements. He made some money, then reinvested his capital in himself. Look around at what this place looks like now. He can turn around and charge more if he wants, because he has a room full of the best equipment in the world.”
VII. Common Sense
Once he’d said his piece about the industry, Dave returned to the middle rack – the de facto podium for the day – and riffed for a while on common sense, and the lack thereof, in all things training related. “There is,” he said, “no magic bullet. There is no great training program. There’s only ones that work, and ones that don’t work.”
Using “indicators” to illustrate his point, Dave stated that it takes time and experimentation to figure out what goes with what. If you bring up your numbers in a certain lift, and the numbers in another lift you thought was associated with the first lift don’t increase, the latter is not an indicator of the former. If, however, one lift goes up at the same time as another, you’ve found something useful and should pursue that course. We must, Dave warned, pay close attention to these indicators and avoid a monastic devotion to set templates.
Also addressed was the lifter’s cognizance of overtraining, and, more importantly, how he or she can avoid it. This is done, according to Dave, by “building a bridge” from one accessory exercise to the next. “If you want to add something, you have to start at the end of the bridge that allows you to recover. Take your triceps as an example. At one end of the bridge, we have, say, band pushdowns. At the other end we have board presses. You can’t just jump in and add board presses. You have to start at the band pushdowns end of the bridge and work your way across.”
VIII. Extracurricular
In the official EFS announcement for this seminar, Dave stated that “the best training information is discussed at dinners, in the warm-up room and hanging out after the seminar.” This held true on Saturday, as all three presenters were perpetually enmeshed in serious training discussions in back corners of the gym during breaks in the action. In fact, Dave seemed to have hit on the “building a bridge” idea while chatting privately with my friend Kenny shortly before we left to get lunch – repeatedly tapping different levels of the side of a lat pulldown machine to illustrate his point, which was made, at that moment, specifically for us. Jim and Joe were remarkably accessible as well, making time for everyone and having private discussions with virtually every individual attendee.
At one point during something of a break, I thought I recognized someone standing near me. I tapped him on the shoulder.
“Are you Zach?”
Sure enough, Zach Even-Esh had been standing in front of me, listening intently to Jim Wendler for the better part of the last hour. I introduced myself and we proceeded to engage in a spirited discussion – is any discussion with Zach not spirited? – about sled training, MMA, wrestling, kettlebells and deloading for the next half hour. As Dave had originally hoped, and as this example illustrates, many of the best parts of the seminar came at moments when nobody was presenting anything. People asked questions. We talked. We went directly after the information we wanted and needed instead of letting the panel decide what they wanted us to hear.
IX. Aftermath
Was Dave’s idea a success? Did letting us run the show actually work? I can’t say for certain, because I don’t have the right to speak for everyone in attendance on Saturday, but it worked for me. The last time I drove out of Wyckoff and made my way back to New York, I felt like I’d uncovered a fucking diamond mine in my backyard, and I spent the majority portion of the next hour thanking Al Gore for inventing the internet. As for last Saturday, imagine that feeling – not quite as good as sex, but pretty fucking positive nonetheless – and magnify it a hundredfold. The knowledge and the resources we need are here, on this site, for all of us to use. Sometimes, however, it takes a great set of coaches to make us FGI:
Dave,
I just wanted to thank you for letting me attend the weekend’s seminar at Joe DeFranco’s. In all my years of so-called training, this was the first time I actually had the opportunity to talk and listen to people who know what strength training is all about. With the exception of the articles in your newsletters, most of the crap I’ve read from all the supposed “experts” out there has been exactly that: crap.
Something clicked with me this weekend. My quest for strength started the moment I walked out of DeFranco’s. For that, I thank you. I will keep you posted on my progress. Thanks again, Dave.
Kenny H (the tall dude you told to put on 80 pounds)
Mastering the Football Combine DVD
