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Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Jocko Willink?

  This is the Jocko Underground Podcast number 206 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. We have questions from you all out in the field and we will provide courses of action, recommendations, possibly answers. Let's go.

• 0:15Speaker 01

  That's true. All right. First question. Hello, Jocko Echo. I'm a dad who works long hours. Also have a six month old daughter. It's been a struggle for me to spend valuable time with my wife and daughter. After waking up early for the gym and coming home exhausted. I've been listening to your podcast for the few years and have finally made space for a home gym.

• 0:38Speaker 01

  That's what time it is. What, what do you guys think are the must haves for, for a beginner gym? Not sure where to even start looking. I appreciate all your hard work. Thanks in advance.

• 0:49Jocko Willink?

  So out of the gate, uh, I'm going to go, you know, right out of the gate, if you get rings, you got a lot of stuff covered, right? So if you got rings, you got pull ups covered, you got dips covered. And then you can do all kinds of calisthenics and there's a bunch of other kind of like functional strength training that you can do with rings. So that's out of the gate. For me, if I was gonna be on a desert island and I could only have one piece of exercise equipment, it's going to be rings.

• 1:19Jocko Willink?

  If I didn't have rings, a pull up bar. Because once again, if you have a pull up bar, you can do pull ups and then you can always do pushups. And you can do squats and jump squats and sprints and stuff like that for your legs. So you're good there. After a pull up bar is a dip bar. Now again, rings cover both those. If you have a place to hang rings, then you can do pull ups, you can do dips, you can do, uh, ring pushups. You can do, there's so much stuff that you can do with rings. So rings are really good. But if I didn't get rings and rings aren't that expensive either, like a hundred bucks, you get a nice, nice, get wood rings too. Don't get plastic rings. Don't get metal rings. I went through a time in my life where I thought everything should be made of metal.

• 2:00Speaker 01

  That makes sense.

• 2:01Jocko Willink?

  I was trying to, I was trying to, if you were to make something, it had to be, it should be metal, I thought to myself. Well, it turned out I was wrong. This was probably when I was like 22. Hey, everything should be metal.

• 2:13Jocko Willink?

  But rings, definitely metal is worse. Wood is optimal. Absorb sweat, better traction, the whole nine yards. So that's where I'm out, out of the gate. My next thing. Would be, we're starting to get into some kettlebell. Cause kettlebell, you can do a lot of very good conditioning and you can do some strength training with a kettlebell.

• 2:35Jocko Willink?

  So that's kind of the basic confined space, confined budget scenario. Now, what the next, the next step from there is kind of a big step in a way. What do you think it is?

• 2:51Speaker 01

  Squat rack.

• 2:53Jocko Willink?

  Yep. The next thing you're getting is squat rack and, and a barbell with bumper plates, right? And that's, that's going to be, you know, now you're into this thing for a couple of grand. You know, when you start talking about a, a good squat rack, good, probably two bars, two barbells. And some enough bumper plates. You're talking a couple of grand, a couple of thousand bucks. So, but once you have that. And also by the way, when you have that, usually a squat rack comes with a pull-up bar on it. Usually it comes with some kind of a dip bar attachment. So you kind of are covering all those things, but those things are so inexpensive compared to a squat rack. But yeah, once then it's squat rack time. And when you get a good squat rack, you're kind of set for life, honestly.

• 3:37Jocko Willink?

  I had one of my squat racks, I had like a, kind of a crappy old squat rack that I bought in 1998. And that thing lasted me 20 years, you know, it just GT, and it was just a piece of, you know, whatever low quality squat, uh, squat rack. But it still lasted a long time. And so squat rack should, if you get a quality one, you'll be good to go for a really long time. You get like a Rogue or Sorenex, you're kind of set for life, by the way, both those American made. So, you know, then, and you might've thrown this in there earlier. And it kind of comes in the same time zone, but you know, you, you're going to need a bench at some point.

• 4:17Jocko Willink?

  Cause there's a lot of adjustable bench that you can do decline, flat bench, incline bench, all the way up to some kind of shoulder press scenario. Good to have. And with that, now we're starting to talk about dumbbells. You know, and I actually have this kind of dumbbells, adjustable dumbbells. What are they called? Rep pippin or something like that? They were really expensive, but they seemed like they were pretty good. I'm liking them, you know?

• 4:45Jocko Willink?

  There's no adjustable dumbbell that's perfect.

• 4:48Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 4:48Jocko Willink?

  I think these might be the best of the adjustable dumbbells. But, you know, they're just not perfect.

• 4:54Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 4:55Jocko Willink?

  But, you know, you save a bunch of space and you do essentially save money.

• 4:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:59Jocko Willink?

  Cause you're getting, whatever, 20 dumbbells for the cost of one really expensive one.

• 5:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:05Jocko Willink?

  I mean, they were like a thousand bucks.

• 5:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, what's the weight limit? Where they go up to, do you know?

• 5:10Jocko Willink?

  They go to one ten.

• 5:13Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 5:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, they're.

• 5:14Speaker 01

  In there, how much?

• 5:15Jocko Willink?

  Like 1,200 bucks.

• 5:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's very cheap.

• 5:17Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's very cheap. Cause what do you pay? Like, what is it? A buck a pound?

• 5:21Speaker 01

  No more than.

• 5:21Jocko Willink?

  Two bucks a pound?

• 5:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, give or take.

• 5:23Jocko Willink?

  When I was in, when I was at Team One, back in the day, we went on an arg deployment and we brought dumbbells on the ship with us. And we got up to one twenties. So, but, but I had to buy them. And that's what I remember. The pricing was all like, kind of by the pound.

• 5:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. So. And the higher you go up, the higher the per pound gets.

• 5:43Jocko Willink?

  Oh, I didn't know that. I don't remember that.

• 5:44Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 5:45Jocko Willink?

  Oh, Jack. So, but we had a lot of, we didn't have to buy the lower end of dumbbells. Cause they were kind of already on the ship and they're regular ships, Jim. But if you wanted to get out those buck twenties.

• 5:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 5:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, good to go. And then, uh, one more thing I added. I mean, there's, there's some little, you know, there's like a jump rope. There's, uh, plyo boxes, right? Having a plyo box is you can do a lot of stuff with that as well. So, what is it? They're 20 inches on one side, 24 inches on the other side and 30, 30 inches on the other side or 36 inches on the other side. So there, you can do a lot of different stuff with a plyo box. So that's a good thing to have. But that's kind of where I'm at.

• 6:24Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 6:25Jocko Willink?

  You with me?

• 6:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm with you, but you know, like I would always say, if you can determine what kind of, even on a general, generally speaking, like what your goal is, like what are we working out for?

• 6:38Jocko Willink?

  Cause you're right. Cause if this guy wanted to be a, a triathlete, I didn't talk about any, you know, having a, having a treadmill.

• 6:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:47Jocko Willink?

  Having a. A bike, whatever, having a rowing machine, because I got a rowing machine and I got an aerosol bike.

• 6:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:55Jocko Willink?

  And I've got a C2 concept two freaking um ski erg.

• 7:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 7:01Jocko Willink?

  And I've got a swim erg. I got some ergs in my house. I got a lot of ergs in my house.

• 7:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:07Jocko Willink?

  But I'll tell you what, what's interesting, I was talking to um the dude the other day, he's running, he's running a thousand miles.

• 7:13Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 7:14Jocko Willink?

  And I don't, I don't, I don't think I've ever actually run. Again, I won't like make a sworn statement on this, but I don't think of, there's a chance I've never run on a treadmill.

• 7:28Jocko Willink?

  For more than like, maybe I've done it for at some point, but even on the Navy ships, I wouldn't run on a treadmill. I'd go run around in circles on the flight deck.

• 7:38Speaker 01

  Oh, just because you don't like it, kind of a thing?

• 7:40Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah. And then on the aircraft carrier, you don't run on the flight deck itself, you run below the hangar deck.

• 7:45Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 7:46Jocko Willink?

  And I have this little map, little course, I just run around in circles.

• 7:49Speaker 01

  I can see it.

• 7:50Jocko Willink?

  On the amphibious ship, you're running on the flight deck because the flight deck doesn't get used as much, but it's a lot smaller. She's just running like just in circles, tight, tight circles, tight circles. So I would rather, I think there's so much to do with cardio, like if you have a jump rope and you can do runs. Do you really need a car, you would really need to invest because those machines are expensive, like those are all a thousand dollars, right? Any kind of treadmill, rowing machine, those things are all like a, like a, like a rack each.

• 8:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, even more for sure, the running kind, yeah. Yeah, your, your fitness goals, even though you have everything. It seems like you have this real general um like capability, fitness pursuit, you know, like. And it made sense to me when I kind of figured this out on my own, where I was like, you know how like uh going into um the Navy SEAL scenario, you kind of got to be able to do everything. Generally speaking, versus a guy who just wants to get bigger muscles and cut up a little bit. Or the person who wants to do a triathlon or just lose a lot of weight, you know, like they're, these are completely different things as far as like well, how to do it or whatever and what equipment you need.

• 9:04Speaker 01

  But if you're like, oh yeah, just general fitness, right, you don't, you barely need anything. And if you want to add resistance training, then yeah, you, you actually don't really need that much. Let's just, let's just say.

• 9:18Speaker 01

  You want to increase muscle mass? You want to lose body fat? And you want to have some, a general level of cardio health, we'll say. I would go squat rack first. This is, this is why, because just like you said, even the cheap ones, by the way, they come with a pull-up bar usually. Even mine, mine is like a cheap one. Cause I needed space. I couldn't get the big, you know, thing. And it's like cheap, it's flimsy for the pull-up bar, but I already got a pull-up bar, a regular one.

• 9:50Jocko Willink?

  Um, but you, you do have to check, like when you get a cheap one, you, there's a, there's a 50% chance, maybe even a 70% chance that the pull-up bar is not, not what you're looking for.

• 9:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, it'll be.

• 10:00Jocko Willink?

  Even the old one that I just talked about, that I had bought in 1998, I put my own pull-up bar on that. I just went down to Home Depot, cause the pull-up it came, bar it came with was like skinny.

• 10:10Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, too narrow.

• 10:11Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, too skinny. And so I just went and sawed that thing off and just got a pipe from Home Depot and just put that pipe on there. And I used 550 cord, like paracord, just to tie it on there. I drilled the holes through it. And that thing I, was good to go.

• 10:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:26Jocko Willink?

  I wish, I don't think I have that pull-up bar anymore, dude. Unfortunately, that's a damn shame.

• 10:30Speaker 01

  Got some nostalgia on that one. But pulling, the pulling exercises is going to be the hardest one to go just find in the wild, you know? Like to, to get it. So that's why I agree with you with the rings, um, situation. But if you get the squat, the squat rack, doesn't, does not necessarily have to be in the thousands of dollars. It can be like actually a few hundred dollars, but with that, it'll be super cheap and it'll be flimsy. But you got it done 100% and you still got the squat situation. You have the pull-up situation and then you can buy just a flat bench or adjustable bench or whatever. Now you got bench, shoulder press, you have everything now in there.

• 11:05Jocko Willink?

  There's also, if you're, if you have a little bit of patience, not even a lot.

• 11:09Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 11:09Jocko Willink?

  Offer up. Yeah, yeah.

• 11:12Speaker 01

  Bruh, yeah, yeah.

• 11:13Jocko Willink?

  My kid be buying, he's got all kinds of crazy exercise equipment from OfferUp.

• 11:19Speaker 01

  That's a good marketplace for sure.

• 11:20Jocko Willink?

  Just in there, just driving out to whatever, East County and grabbing old whatever. He's getting it together.

• 11:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, especially like the weights, weights. So like anything with cables, I, I, I, I very much like to get the brand new stuff with cables.

• 11:34Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 11:34Speaker 01

  Just cause, you know, just with the wear and tear and, you know, the reliability, but oh yeah, plates, bumper plates, freaking dumbbells, you know, all this stuff with an offer up all day. You don't need them to match or be gold or freaking, you know, branded or nothing like this. So there's that. I personally invested in the full dumbbell set early on, just cause you can do a lot of stuff with dumbbells in like a bench or whatever. Um, but really that squat rack, bar, plates, a set of plates. That's kind of really all you need.

• 12:05Jocko Willink?

  Bumper plates, by the way.

• 12:06Speaker 01

  Bumper plates is ideal, but.

• 12:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it, it really is a big deal though. It's not just ideal. It's kind of a big deal. Cause if you don't, cause if you don't have bumper plates, bro, it's just, it's just chaos when you start, you know, dropping, if you're doing any like, any cleaning jerks, any snatches, any really deadlifts, like hi- high pulls, you know, rack pulls, like everything that you're doing is kind of, you're just, you're not being a good neighbor when you.

• 12:33Speaker 01

  I, I understand what you mean and I, but I do suspect that you're used to this stuff. Like, you know, you know, let's face it, you know, we got, you got your own full setup. You're going nuts. You're just like, bro, this is like, you're in it, you know? So you're dropping weights. You don't gotta worry about your neighbor. You don't gotta worry about damaging the concrete or whatever, you know, that, you know, the normal thing is you, you're just kind of going. And to get, and to say goodbye to that kind of stuff is probably a big deal for you and I understand. But I will tell you this, like, I don't have bumper plates, but when I do deadlifts, I have never been a big slammer of weights. Except when I was doing, we were doing Olympic lifting, like for football, but we had full bumper plates, the whole thing.

• 13:15Jocko Willink?

  Exactly.

• 13:15Speaker 01

  But that, but that wasn't really part of my normal routine. See what I'm saying? So the difference between. Being able to drop the weights full speed or saving money, that's going to be up to you. You see what I'm saying? So if we're, if we're concerned about budget, maybe we can start just laying the, the weights down a little bit more gently and be more friendly to our neighbors and, and family or whatever. Um, so yeah, that's the way I see it. So that squat rack right there, even the cheap one is really kind of that, that, that linchpin of every, and then everything kind of branches off from there, in my opinion. Everything else you can do in the environment or at your home, any kind of like cardio, even like legs. Well, you got the squat rack. So you're good to

• 13:56Speaker 01

  go. But, um, cardio, you can run, you do jumping jacks, calisthenics, like there's a lot of cardio options in the wild. Burpees, yeah, without the, you know, so you can kind of make do, but it's really hard to, to, uh, replicate pull-ups, um, weight, like loaded squats and pushes and stuff. Like it's, it starts to get hard. So if you have that squat rack with the adjustable bench and you know, the squat rack things can, can adjust, you know, but you're, you're kind of good to go.

• 14:24Jocko Willink?

  I did make one more note. Uh, wait, that is a little excerpt of what we are doing on the Jocko Underground Podcast. So if you want to continue to listen, go to jockounderground.com and subscribe. And we're doing this to mitigate our reliance on external platforms. So we are not subject to their control. And we are doing this so that we can support the Jocko Podcast, which will remain as is free for all, as long as we can keep it that way. But we are doing this so we don't have to be under the control of sponsors and we're doing it so we can give you more control, more interaction, more direct connections, better communications with us. And to do that, we are,

• 15:08Jocko Willink?

  we're building a website right now where we'll be able to utilize to strengthen this legion of troopers that are in the game with us. So thank you. It's jockounderground.com. It costs $8.18 a month. And if you can't afford to support us, we can still support you. Just email assistance at jockounderground.com and we'll get you taken care of. Until then, we will see you mobilized underground.