Jocko Underground: How Do You Measure Up Against You In Your Prime?

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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 163, sitting here with Echo Charles, getting ready to provide some courses of action for various scenarios presented and also answer some questions. Let's get into it.

• 0:13Speaker 01

  That's true. Yeah, the principles of a lot of these questions, like if you take the principle of it, you can apply it to like your own scenario.

• 0:22Jocko Willink?

  Of course.

• 0:23Speaker 01

  That's kind of the deal.

• 0:24Jocko Willink?

  Of course.

• 0:24Speaker 01

  That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm doing.

• 0:26Jocko Willink?

  It's a good, good functional use.

• 0:29Speaker 01

  Because let's face it, a lot of these questions, they don't directly apply one to one to me, but kind of the fundamental principle a lot of the time, I'm like, that's good.

• 0:37Jocko Willink?

  You get to hear from a different angle, little reinforcement.

• 0:40Speaker 01

  Hundred percent.

• 0:40Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 0:42Speaker 01

  All right, first question. I'm currently a firefighter, turning 30 this year. I'm lucky enough to be in a very physically demanding specialty, surrounded by guys who are in great shape. I'm the oldest one in my rank, but have no issue keeping up and leading our PT sessions. My question is this, can you compare yourself today to your 20 to 25 year old prime? If you had to do a PST, how would your times and numbers compare then and now? Obviously, work output variables are impacted by age, but how have you been able to keep performance high through aging? Thanks for all the lessons you've imparted. You guys impact so many lives.

• 1:22Jocko Willink?

  Well, first, thanks for your service as a firefighter. That's awesome. It sounds like you're getting after it still after a long time, turning 30 this year. Oh, maybe not that long of a time. So PST, which is a physical screening test, and we used to take PSTs. And I went through a couple of different iterations of PSTs when I first joined the day back in the day. We actually took the Navy, like the regular Navy PST, which was very easy for us. And then they made, then there was a couple of different iterations that I did over the years. And they were all, I can't even, it's too many

• 2:01Jocko Willink?

  to remember. Let me put it that way. But that being, and to remember what the specifics, the standards were, I definitely can't remember. But this much I do know, that if I, if I had to take a PST, I would train for it, and I would be kind of like in the same ballpark as I was then.

• 2:29Jocko Willink?

  My younger self would need less time to prep for it.

• 2:35Jocko Willink?

  But the and the main thing, the main reason is because running and swimming. Because swimming was part of the PSD, it was part of the SEAL PSD, it wasn't part of the Navy PSD, but the SEAL PSD was swimming. You had swimming. So and surfing and swimming are not the same thing. They're similar, but but it's even more differentiated in the SEAL teams because swimming in the SEAL teams is with fins. So you have fins on. And so it's it's very different than surfing muscles. Because it's more leg muscles and finning is different than running. You're not like, oh, I'm a good runner, so I can fin. No, it doesn't work like that.

• 3:16Jocko Willink?

  So it would take me some time to get back in the game for those two things. And the rest of them were like pull ups, push ups and sit ups, which no factor.

• 3:28Jocko Willink?

  So I I think it would be somewhat similar. In Jiu Jitsu, just FYI, in case anyone's wondering, I would kick my ass when I was 20 to 25 years old. I I would just annihilate my 20 to 25 year old self, total destruction.

• 3:45Jocko Willink?

  But you know, for the spirit of the question here, you know, I would say.

• 3:52Jocko Willink?

  Uh, the biggest deficit between being 20, and by the way, 20 to 25, I don't think is prime. Is that prime for you?

• 3:58Speaker 01

  For what?

• 3:59Jocko Willink?

  For like physical strength, agility. I guess, what was the oldest you played college football?

• 4:04Speaker 01

  Twenty, twenty, twenty or 21.

• 4:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. So you didn't, you weren't in your prime at 20 or 21.

• 4:11Speaker 01

  They say, I mean, prime is, it it depends because from what I understand, like if you have like what's called muscle maturity. They say about 30, between 30 and 32 is kind of the prime for muscle, just muscle. Like I think it's like strength and size or whatever, but athleticism. I don't know, Brad, it feels like a twenty one, twenty two, twenty three, twenty four years old scenario, maybe even twenty five after that. From what I understand, I don't know, but I was doing a lot of different or much different things after the age of twenty one.

• 4:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 4:47Jocko Willink?

  The biggest deficit I would say like would be the dynamic lifts, right? Like big cleans, big snatches, big clean and jerks. And there's also another deficit, which is when I was growing up, we didn't do those. Like, what, like in high school, we didn't do, like every kid now does cleans and snatches and clean and jerks, like that's every kid now, every kid Olympic lifts now. When I was a kid in the eighties and the seventies, we didn't do that. So I don't have the really good muscle memory. You know how if you did something when you were a kid, you can just do it forever? Uh, I don't have that. And so then, and as you get older, you're like, well, do I really need to max out?

• 5:30Jocko Willink?

  Or do I really even need to go max weight for a clean for? And you start saying, what's the risk versus reward? Now, listen, lift heavy for sure, but you're not going to lift as heavy because the risk versus reward is not, is not, doesn't make sense. So that stuff would be the biggest deficit for me. But the running, swimming, pull up, pushups, I think I'd be fine.

• 6:00Jocko Willink?

  The, the other thing, so I have, the thing, the biggest thing I've noticed about getting older, and we've talked about this before, is I need more warm up now.

• 6:11Jocko Willink?

  I used to go to jujitsu and just get on the mat and start training. Slap hands, I wouldn't even jog around the mat one time. I would walk out, slap hands with Dean Lister and start fighting him. You know what I mean? And now I need like one five minute round of movement and rolling and then halfway through, I'll go live my second round, but I'm still like not quite there. And then in the middle of my third round, I feel good. And then between three and eight rounds, I'm like, that's where my kind of optimum, then you're getting tired or whatever. So that's that, I definitely need more warm up. In that my shoulders are less mobile than they used to be and I'm I work on it, you know, I I stretch every day.

• 6:56Jocko Willink?

  I even insert stretches like some very specific shoulder stretches into my workouts. So I have one where I put my shoulders up behind my back and I have one where I pull them up over my head. And I do that very regularly in my workouts. They're part of my workouts to try and keep, you know, try and make progress. But but thankfully, I will say my shoulders were injured. I I've had injured shoulders before and right now they're not injured, which is, you know, knock on wood, we'll take it. So need some more warm up. I don't go as heavy as I used to on some of these dynamic type lifts. So that's probably where you'd go, oh, you're you're you're weak now. You're getting old.

• 7:41Jocko Willink?

  But I'll kick your ass, old self. You know what I mean?

• 7:46Jocko Willink?

  So that's kind of where and and I go and and another here's another thing is like I go through. As I've explained many times, I go through various cycles of working out where. You know, at some point I'm on the squat train, then I go, then I kind of get, you know, kind of reach the. You know, I'm not I'm not taking it to the peak. Because the peak takes removes, first of all, removes other aspects of fitness. And it starts increasing risk with with very little benefit. I heard John Donahue talking the other day and he's like, I can't tell the difference between someone that can bench 300 pounds on the mat and someone could commence 400 pounds on the mat.

• 8:30Jocko Willink?

  Now, in the world of weightlifting, the difference between 300 and 400 is is. Yeah. Is huge. They're different people. They're different people. But and I I'll tell you the same thing. I mean, you know, very different people that have different, you know, like you can look at one dude and be like, this guy can probably bench 185.

• 8:51Jocko Willink?

  And this other guy can probably bench probably 350. And yet the person with a 185 can kick your ass. So and and feel strong.

• 9:03Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 9:05Jocko Willink?

  I I go through like various cycles of fitness where I'm, you know, doing this, I'm doing that, I'm chasing this, I'm chasing that. And usually in the summertime is when I kind of start chasing the the endurance type stuff because I'm getting ready to hunt in the mountains and you'd have good endurance. So, so if they hit me with this question and I was in, it was like late August, early September, I'd probably be like, all right, let's go. Although the swimming, again, the swimming, you'd have, you gotta go rebuild some of those muscles. I have, like, you have some, you know, you swim so much in the SEAL teams that I would have some muscle memory, you know, that would go, I could get it back faster than taking someone that never had 20 years in the pains. But yeah,

• 9:50Jocko Willink?

  that's where I'm at.

• 9:51Speaker 01

  So the running, you think, pretty solid?

• 9:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 9:55Speaker 01

  You know, give you a little bit to

• 9:56Jocko Willink?

  Give me some time.

• 9:56Speaker 01

  Get back on the horse a little bit.

• 9:57Jocko Willink?

  Give me some time.

• 9:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And because I run regularly, but there's a difference between running and, and actually, let me, I do jogging and I sprint, which is a good combo, good to go. But if you're going to start doing like a three mile run, which is what the PST was in the SEAL teams, that's like a specific, all right, cool, gotta get in shape for that.

• 10:19Speaker 01

  Right.

• 10:19Jocko Willink?

  So, yeah, yeah, be all, be all good. And that's to meet my old times.

• 10:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:27Jocko Willink?

  So.

• 10:28Speaker 01

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

• 10:42Jocko Willink?

  But that's actually very recommended.

• 10:45Speaker 01

  What's, well, just sprinting in general.

• 10:46Jocko Willink?

  Sprinting in general, dude.

• 10:47Speaker 01

  Big time.

• 10:48Jocko Willink?

  Sprint.

• 10:48Speaker 01

  But sprinting

• 10:49Jocko Willink?

  There's some weird, dude, you heard that thing that most people over the age of, most people never sprint again after the age of like 24 or something like that.

• 10:57Speaker 01

  That makes sense to me completely.

• 10:59Jocko Willink?

  Which is, which is horrible for human beings to not sprint anymore.

• 11:03Speaker 01

  Well, there's a lot of things that are kind of, that could be, then again, that's a whole philosophical thing, you know? I mean, there's a lot of things that, that we don't do anymore. Which could be looked at as like, oh, man, that's too bad, but it's kind of like, well, it's not as useful now.

• 11:16Jocko Willink?

  Like what?

• 11:17Speaker 01

  Sprinting is not as useful now.

• 11:20Jocko Willink?

  Okay, but give me one more example. And when you say sprinting is not as useful because you're not playing football.

• 11:24Speaker 01

  Well.

• 11:25Jocko Willink?

  Or basketball or whatever.

• 11:26Speaker 01

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

• 12:03Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 12:04Speaker 01

  I guess, I mean, and then in what way you have to think, well, maybe, yeah, when you do have to sprint away from the, you know, coyote chasing you. You're gonna hurt yourself.

• 12:12Jocko Willink?

  No, but sprinting is really good for your health in a bunch of different ways as well.

• 12:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, you'd have to consider in what specific ways?

• 12:21Speaker 01

  I'm not saying that it is or not, I'm just saying, okay, in what ways? And then I'm saying, okay, so if, if I don't sprint, am I more at risk for what? So I understand, yeah, hurting yourself, you've got to run away from something, but I don't know if, is it reasonable to say, and I don't know the answer to this, so bear with me, but will you say, okay, does lack of sprinting contribute to all cause mortality?

• 12:45Jocko Willink?

  A hundred percent. I'm gonna, I'm, you said, I'm not gonna go up, I'm saying like,

• 12:50Speaker 01

  It does.

• 12:50Jocko Willink?

  We can go look at the facts.

• 12:52Speaker 01

  Does it contribute to heart disease risk?

• 12:53Jocko Willink?

  I bet.

• 12:54Speaker 01

  Ah, well, I don't know, man. Well, then again, I don't know.

• 12:57Jocko Willink?

  I'm telling you, I, I, I, I'm saying yes.

• 13:02Speaker 01

  So you think I'm, uh, kind of trying to justify it since I don't really sprint, I'm trying to like make up for it.

• 13:08Jocko Willink?

  Oh, you don't sprint? I thought you sprinted in your Metcon sometimes.

• 13:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, sometimes, but it's not part of the routine. I do hills, yeah, hill sprints, hell yeah.

• 13:17Jocko Willink?

  Okay, well, then you're sprinting, bro, what are you talking about?

• 13:20Speaker 01

  I will say this, I have not sprinted probably for like,

• 13:24Speaker 01

  Four months.

• 13:25Jocko Willink?

  Okay, four months. That's like the age I we said 24 now you're sprinting at at how old are you?

• 13:31Speaker 01

  Forty seven.

• 13:33Jocko Willink?

  Forty six and five months you've sprinted. That's still pretty good.

• 13:36Speaker 01

  I'm I'm rarely talking about myself unless I say myself, I'm saying just saying in general. But hey, cool, man, I dig it. Uh, my numbers would be pretty close to aside from a few things. The running stuff I'm out, I'm out of that compared to how

• 13:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 13:51Speaker 01

  The number my number running.

• 13:53Jocko Willink?

  Well, that's why for you, you were you were training like, like you said, a 40. Right. That's a that's a very specific thing and you were doing it very regularly focused on that thing.

• 14:04Jocko Willink?

  So 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 Jocko Underground dot com and subscribe and we're doing this. 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 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

• 14:45Jocko Willink?

  more control, more interaction, more direct connections, better communications with us. And to do that, we are 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 Jocko Underground dot com. It costs eight dollars and 18 cents a month. And if you can't afford to support us, we can still support you. Just email assistance at Jocko Underground dot com and we'll get you taken care of. Until then, we will see you mobilized underground.