by Ben House | Aug 23, 2025 | Nutrition, Recovery
This is the start of the Talk Nerdy To Me series. These talks will be about 20 minutes in duration. The goal is to simplify complex and/or tabooed subjects. We will release one a month by myself or one of our many esteemed colleagues throughout the country. Without further adieu… And below are the individual images and a video with the animations of the slides for this presentation. http://trainadaptevolve.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Male-Hormone-Synthesis.mp4...
by Aaron Davis | Aug 20, 2025 | Programming, Psychology, Recovery, Training Theory
When we first started Train Adapt Evolve we did everything for free. It was a stellar business model. We started by giving out Omegawave mobile monitors to friends or athletes curious about the technology for free. I will admit, this was also for selfish reasons. I wanted to collect data, watch, and learn. This has now evolved into us putting athletes on our mobile platform and consulting with coaches and/or athletes. Recently we had an opportunity to consult with a UFC fighter and his coach preparing for an upcoming fight. The daily Omegawave results were not uncommon from what we have seen in the past which include former UFC champions. Chaos. As both Ben and I learn more from coaches or nutritionists in the MMA scene, one thing is becoming increasingly clear: It is chaos. The 1% of the 1% I often hear S&C coaches talking about making their fighters tougher. This blows my mind! If you are a MMA Fighter - you are tough. If you fight for the UFC you are the 1% of the 1% of the toughest dudes on the planet. Congrats. I hope that is nothing knew to you. So why in the hell do you think battle ropes and MB slams are going to make you tougher? Maybe I should ask the S&C coach that question. Why is making the athlete tougher the objective? If this was the case, we could go down to the local box gym, pick out a few guys who are burpee’n their faces off at the moment and throw them in the cage. That toughness won’t last long. An...
by Ben House | Aug 16, 2025 | Nutrition, Psychology, Recovery
Back to writing. As I was walking out of the first day of the Optimizing Athleticism Seminar, Dr. Culleton asked me, “That was phenomenal, what do you think the audience took from that?” I had been contemplating the same thought as the day progressed. The audience was primarily strength coaches and physical therapists and Dr. Rakowski who headlined the first day was not playing coy with big words and systems biology. I responded to Dr. Culleton,”Probably not that much right now, but they now know what they don’t know, and this group of people will run with that somewhere special.” This conversation has floated in and out of my mind over the past week and it becomes a question of scope of practice and ultimately responsibility to the client to do the right thing. Davis and I have posted on this topic many times. We both believe that a Strength Coach’s knowledge base must be vast, but not necessarily overly specific until they find their passion/niche. They have to be able move seamlessly and talk intelligently with many other professions. I will give two examples of how I feel the strength coach or personal trainer is either the gateway to health or the hammer of dysfunction. Many of us have seen and/or signed the waiver forms that say: You must see a health care professional before starting this or that exercise program. And how many clients actually do that? Thought so. But this is because the average Joe primary care physician isn’t going to tell anyone anything unless they have some set of obvious symptoms that fit into the...
by Ben House | Jul 24, 2025 | Nutrition
Supplements, groceries, gym memberships, programming, blue blocking sun glasses, comprehensive lab work, unfortunately it all costs money. This post is about breaking down the cost of attempting to be awesome. Health in our current climate takes effort and is expensive, but the alternative is likely much more expensive. I mean how much does a heart attack cost? ummm 10 grand at a minimum, throw in some kind of higher end surgery and it’s pushing 50k. Lifetime cost of a stroke $100,000 dollars and perhaps not being able to move one side of your face. Cancer somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 to 120k, depending on the type and where you live. Diabetes a cool $13,700 per year. Now you might say well I don’t have to pay all of those medical costs, to which I would answer, someone does. Like it or not the US of A is one big Team. If all the tubbie Marthas decide to go and get diabetes, have a heart attack, survive, and then get put on dialysis it will be a huge financial burden on the rest of us. So tubbie Marthas get your shit together and start front loading your costs so we can all relax. Now you might not care at all about Martha and only care about lifting weights more better and running more faster, this is fine, whatever drives you to do the right thing for the rest of us. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that this and how I feel/look is what ultimately drives me more than anything. Figuring out your why is important, and for...
by Ben House | Jul 19, 2025 | Nutrition, Psychology, Recovery
I have read a lot of posts lately that give broad recommendations based on circadian rhythms or the idea that certain hormones or biological systems are high or low at different times of the day. Don’t drink coffee at this time, but drink coffee at this time, work out at this time, eat carbs at this time, and on down the line. This may be a great way to get clicks, but these generalizations are likely ineffective for any one individual, and perhaps even dangerous. Many people know about cortisol which peaks in the morning to wake us and then dwindles as the day progresses. Melatonin on the other hand wanes in the morning and creeps back up to its peak in the evening allowing us to go to sleep. Both ideally and theoretically. Melatonin and cortisol are not the only peaks and valleys in the system but without getting them back in step you won’t be able to correct other hormonal imbalances. Every hormone in the body is pulsatile and the brain is constantly collecting data and adapting to whatever situation we give it. Dr. Gottfried puts cortisol dysregulation at 92% of the population. We don’t live in a primal world. Some people never see the sun, let alone feel it on their skin. We can do anything we want whenever we want. We aren’t active throughout the day, but instead exercise in spurts. 90 cents of every dollar we spend on food is thrown away on processed garbage which dismantles our internal clocks through blood sugar spikes, insulin surges, and food sensitives/allergies. Most of our lives...
by Ben House | Jul 15, 2025 | Nutrition, Psychology
I don’t like the brain. It’s egotistical and bumpy and effing complicated with words like gyrus, mesensephalon, and pontomedullary reticular formation that make you want to curl up in the fetal position with a Snuggy. I have tried as hard as I can to stay away from this amazing structure even though my lab group performs functional brain scans on a weekly basis. Also, my colleague Grace Shearrer is an absolute brain genius and can rattle off neuroanatomy and how these different areas of the brain influence physiology and vice versa. It’s awesome and I love listening to her lectures, but a good portion of my time at UT with her being so amazing allowed me to say, “Grace will handle it.” Yet, over the last year I have had to come to terms with the fact that ultimately the brain controls everything and although we cannot fix the brain without fixing physiology, many times we cannot fix physiology without respecting and understanding brain chemistry, anatomy, and physiology. “You are your brain – the health of the brain dictates everything about you. The brain is one of the most susceptible and fragile organs to the imbalances caused by poor diets and chronic stress. ” Datis Kharrazian, DHSc, DC, MS, MNeuroSci, FAACP, DACBN, DABCN, DIBAK, CNS And we are not doing well at respecting or supporting our brain health One in eight senior citizens develop Alzheimer’s. One in three seniors die with Alzheimer’s Disease or some other type of dementia. One in eight children are diagnosed with brain development disorders (autism, ADD, ADHD) The brain...
by Aaron Davis | Jul 15, 2025 | Endurance, Programming, Training Theory
I once was asked “Can you really build a Healthy CrossFit Athlete?” I mention this not because it’s difficult question to answer, but how disheartening it was to hear — the question is an acknowledgement of a problem. Now this is not a shot at CrossFit, these days you can interchange the word CrossFit with any other name in sports. It’s all the same problem stemming from a lack of education and awareness from the coaches - Regardless of the sport. I can see the frustration from the enlightened few coaches who are really trying to dig deep — searching for the truth. These coaches spend a lot of time and a butt load of money on their education — certs, seminars, and conferences — always looking for answers. Maybe I have my nose in too many books but what certification is really talking about biological systems and the combination of morphological and physiological adaptation? As far as I can tell it’s all the same — a little bit of…. and we can’t forget about this… Some dress it up by showing off their genetic freaks while others try to build in a perfect assessment protocol. All trying to add value to the same information being sold. This is why writing about fitness and health on the internet is redundant. The same stories being told by different voices — some witty, some matter of fact, some copy and paste. “If you can’t say something interesting don’t say anything at all.” — These are words I am trying to live by. As a mentor of mine once warned me “I don’t want you...
by Ben House | Jul 10, 2025 | Nutrition, Psychology
Once or twice a week a client will text me some link to some bullshit site about some supplement or high level tweak that they want to add. It also comes from here-say recommendations. My buddy has been drinking yack urine and is f$cking jacked, can I do that? WHAT?! NO These types of texts make me noticeably angry, not because I am mad at the people (ok a little) but because the black hole of the internet and personal recommendations from unqualified friends are the lowest forms of information. A lot of people say I shouldn’t give clients my phone number, but I like to be accessible and at night I have the ability to flick the iPhone off. Let’s face it if someone is blowing me up with power clean questions at Midnight, we have much bigger problems and there is no way I am answering. The other virtue I have to instill in my clients is where they get their information, how to sift through the nonsense, and better yet how to just flat out avoid it. In our culture, information is stressful and unrelenting. I have to give them the security so their beliefs are unwavering. They have to know they are doing the right thing and therefore they aren’t flipping around in the wind, swayed by every Tom, Dick, and Marge that comes by the house and talks about their new Splenda and Collard Green diet or the most bestest fluorescent bottle of RED 40 on the shelves of GNC. These texts usually come from new clients who haven’t mastered the fundamentals. This is...
by Ben House | Jul 9, 2025 | Psychology
A few weeks ago I was at an APEX - Functional Medicine Seminar in Dallas and my Truck got ripped up with screwdrivers and bashed in with a tire iron. This is what I wrote right after it happened as I walked back into the seminar with no belongings and little concentration. “My truck got robbed. Locks ripped off, shattered glass everywhere, and an 18,000 dollar device gone out of the back seat. All my clothes, my cooler full of broccoli, and my lifting shoes. Poof. Insurance will likely cover $200 bucks. I walked through the door back into the functional med seminar and I couldn’t pay attention. All I could think in my head was F$CK. They took my compression tights. Those were f$cking expensive! Then the lecturer Dr. Brock started telling a story about diagnosing a man who had muscle belly growths all over his body. He said this gentleman didn’t know yet, but he had ALS and less than two years to live. It could be worse, I just have to buy some new underwear. Time to learn.” This is the first time I have been robbed since High School. It leaves an eerie feeling in the pit of your stomach, but this feeling didn’t even come close to when our house got robbed multiple times during the recession, they even ripped off the copper gutters up to the second story while we were asleep. I am not an innocent angel by any means and likely have built up plenty of bad ju ju from my adolescence, so shit happens… We can only hope there...
by Ben House | Jul 4, 2025 | Psychology
I started reading Getting Naked: A Business Fable About Shedding The Three Fears That Sabotage Client Loyalty by Patrick Lencioni yesterday in the mid-afternoon and finished it right after dinner. That is how I spend my Friday nights. I know tantalizing. The book is about how to do small business really well. I first read the book a few years ago at the suggestion of one of my mentors and forgot how simple and powerful it was. The book will immediately make you think of small businesses or people in your life that just seem to be naturally successful without a giant marketing budget or fancy business training. Below are some quotes, some discussion points, and the Three Fears. “And then it dawned on me. I was a salesman. Dick was just a consultant. He didn’t do any selling at all. Instead, he just went in there and started helping them.” “Almost all of the time and energy at Lighthouse Partners was being directed toward consulting to paying clients. Those clients in turn became the sales engine for the firm, and even when they did an occasional cold call, it was the references from clients that shortened the sales cycle considerably.” This is a good reminder for me to stop thinking about price points and marketing strategies and just pony up and do everything I can for my people as well as the community. The rest has always taken care of itself. “We’ve learned over the years that having a bad client is worse than having none.” This is a big one in the...
by Ben House | Jul 1, 2025 | Nutrition, Psychology, Recovery
It’s 4:10am in the morning. I couldn’t sleep I was so excited about life. It’s ok, I went to bed at 8pm. We have swept real health under a rug and replaced it with the cursory definition - lack of ill-health or disease. All of us deserve the right to quality health care, we deserve the right to answers. We deserve the right to leading indicators. Unfortunately, in our current climate the only one who can do anything about this is YOU. People feel their doctor can’t help them unless their appendix is going to blow up or they lacerated their femoral artery with a chainsaw. This is because they go to the doctor’s office and the conventional doc says, “Your labs look great! Cholesterol is a little high, so watch your fat intake.” Your insurance paid 900 dollars, for that? All this even though you are 60% of the way to diabetes, have brain fog, and feel like the carpet got pulled out from under you at 3pm. The writing is on the wall…they just can’t see it. There is no better marriage than Athletic Performance and Functional Medicine. For some this may seem like an oxymoronic statement, but the people that I have found who are willing to take a good hard look at their physiology and what’s going on with the system are after optimization. They aren’t happy with just getting by or using the bullshit phrase, “I’m getting older.” For many athletes and clients, we are the gateway into the functional or integrative medicine realm. The OmegaWave is one of the best check engine lights...
by Aaron Davis | Jun 26, 2025 | Psychology, Training Theory
Coach House asked me to weigh in on the article PRI- A Continued Conversation. To be honest when it comes to giving opinions on acronyms via social media I usually stay away. 9 times out of 10 it ends in petty infighting worthy of the Black & Blue Vs. Gold & White Dress debate. “Duh guys — it’s Gold & White.” Ridiculousness On a more serious note I draw parallels to the perennial philosophy when I hear such debates within our industry. I truly believe we all begin from the same universal truth and as time passes our own societal need for uniqueness (research based) balanced with our need for acceptance diverts us into groups, sects, clans, etc. The point being we all start from the same universal truth, we just call it something different. As a coach who is trying to understand ALL. THINGS. you learn fast not to get overwhelmed and concerned about the fighting between different schools of thought but instead search for universal truths. As we dissolve the arguments or philosophies down we see the universal truths being breathing, and pattern recognition. All important and all are a part of the process. Breathing For obvious structural reasons there is a need to address breathing with our athletes. As Coach House alluded to previously, we need to get off the training table and have this integrated within our sessions. We are strength and conditioning coaches aren’t we? If an athlete is spending more time on a table than on the weight room floor chances are you are doing something wrong. For simple integration within the session,...
by Ben House | Jun 23, 2026 | Programming, Psychology, Recovery
Transparency For instance, I sent the message below to a client who is highly athletic and been with us for about a month, in which we have made huge strides. “My value add will likely diminish for you when I teach you all the lifts and get you moving really well consistently. There are always little tweaks that we can find, but you are self-motivated and smart sooo programming may be all that is needed after we accomplish what we set out to from the beginning.” This may strike some as odd, why would I tell a client they may not need me for more in-person training? We are expensive and that is unlikely to change any time soon. It is the right thing to do. This client sought me ought for a specific reason which we will have fully addressed in two months time. My job is not to sign this person up for lifetime training, it is to get them doing what they love to do better, more confidently, and most definitely without pain. Now if that thing they love to do is training with me – great. If it isn’t, carry on and come back when you need further insight. This ideology of doing the right thing seems to be lost in this snowballing business of health and fitness. I get it, people have bills to pay and lights to keep on, but I have found if you do the right thing it tends to come back around, especially in a field that tries to up-sell every chance it gets. Shit, we tell potential clients they...
by Ben House | Jun 22, 2026 | Programming, Psychology, Recovery
Tony Gentilcore has some fantastic posts about PRI (Postural Restoration Institute), as well as coming out the other end of the PRI tunnel as a strength and conditioning coach. I would highly suggest reading them here, here, and especially f$cking here. I’ve been into breathing for about 4 years (there is a joke there, but I won’t take it). Breathing mechanics peaked my interest when I saw that the best movers looked relatively at ease and tended to breathe through their belly under load. I then went to a workshop by Jim Laird and I knew I was missing a big piece of this breathing, inner ab, pelvis, shoulder girdle, conundrum, so I dug deep into PRI for over a year (I’m still digging and this is not a long time by any means, PRI has been around since the 70s, and breathing well forever), taking all the courses and regularly shadowing one of the best PRI PTs Steve Cuddy. Also, we have had the opportunity to run about 200 evals on athletes utilizing a combination of PRI, Gary Gray, and FMS measurements. Some PRI heavy folks will scream, “why do you need anything else!” Well, we just like to be absolutely certain and tell the story to the client as best we can and also get them back on the ground to look at what happens up and down the chain. What we saw were tons of similar compensations across the board that correlated to the sport in question. We tweaked most of our warm-ups to include a lot of breathing “add-ons”. We also consistently added in more...
by Aaron Davis | Jun 19, 2026 | Nutrition, Programming, Recovery, Sprinting, Training Theory
“Beware of the myth of building a base … always ask yourself – A base of what?” - Dan Pfaff Anytime I am planning a General Preparation Period (GPP) I always keep the above quote in mind. A base of what? Endurance? Speed? Strength? In my mind we need a base of Movement. For this GPP we have 3 priorities. Synergy in Movement (Power) Support Work for SPP and CPP Lifestyle Synergy in Movement Just as the title claims I want all movements to work together. I want to see similarities in foot dynamics within Sprint Drills, Olympic lifts, and Plyometrics. Simply we should see commonalities in all three. This synergy enhances the athlete’s ability to stay injury free. It makes no sense to coach one way on the track and another in the weight room — and the reasons are not centered around “Transfer” via the weight room. It’s simpler that that. It’s not how much they are loading the bar or how an athlete mimics sprinting movements via strength exercises, its’ how they are loading joints and soft tissue structures. We want synergy so we don’t have to chase problems via therapy or recovery modalities. Hamza has progressed well this last year as it pertains to hitting positions during drills and jumping activities. Now that we have a little more time we will break down power development exercises specifically Snatch, Clean, and Jerk Variations (lighter load - technique emphasis) with the focus being full foot power development. Support Work Another goal of GPP is to do work that supports the specific work carried out in (SPP &...
by Aaron Davis | Jun 12, 2026 | Nutrition, Programming, Psychology, Recovery
This idea to “Know Thyself” is nothing new. It can be traced back to aphorisms in Ancient Greece or sage teachings of “the Self ought to be the subject to know” in Ancient India. The theme of “Self” can also be traced back through Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism. The thirst to Know Thyself has also fueled physiologists, psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, and philosophers alike. There is a teaching in Confucianism that you should reflect on yourself 3 times a day. When is the last time you reflected on yourself 3 times a day? I mean truly slowed down and just. be. still. Push notifications from social media, emails, phone calls, text messages, adult responsibilities — Who has the time? Confucius says 3 times a day but Confucius never had ESPN. We are inundated with dings, illuminations, and vibrations — information, information, information! We have no time for silence or clear thought. “True intelligence operates silently. Stillness is where creativity and solutions to problems are found.” - Eckhart Tolle We then operate in chaos and to survive chaos we limit our decision making — in other words we form habits and often times not good ones. This lack of mindfulness and reliance on habits only perpetuates our stress. Being mindful is always the brake, if you don’t use it sooner or later you run out of gas. Coaches Get Ready With more and more tech companies creating applications for health, sooner or later you will have athletes walking into your gym with quantified self knowledge. That means you better have answers. A recent conversation with a coach/business owner asked “Why...
by Ben House | Jun 11, 2026 | Nutrition, Programming, Psychology
People ask why we inquire at great detail about our athlete’s sexual health. Frankly for some it seems intrusive and none of our god damn business, especially in our uptight American bubble. Yet, sexual health/function is one of the most early identifiers as health declines. Think about it, if your body is unwilling or lacks the desire to procreate that probably hints at some insidious problem in your lifestyle or physiology. For men we commonly see this depicted as a lack of libido, morning erections, motivation, an increase in fat mass, as well as many other signs and symptoms. These symptoms are fairly broad/common and men are generally extremely uneducated and reluctant to seek help and when they do it is through even more poorly educated avenues. Whereas, women have a much more glaring symptom – their menstrual cycle becomes dysregulated or lost and their sexual function is diminished. “A physiological system that is extremely sensitive to the stress of exercise training is the endocrine reproductive system.” Dr. Anthony Hackney Enter the Female Athlete Triad which is described by the American College of Sports Medicine as the interrelationships among energy availability, menstrual function, and bone mineral density, which may have clinical manifestations including eating disorders, functional hypothalamic amenorrhea (loss of the menstrual cycle), and osteoporosis. In the pro and university setting the Female Athlete Triad is policed very heavily and the proper channels exist to get these women the help they need, but in the private world I see this pushed under the rug and more often than not it is just shrugged off as part of...
by Ben House | Jun 9, 2026 | Nutrition
So you’ve been hitting the books on endocrinology related to weight loss and physical activity and you have concluded that Cortisol is the greatest of all catabolic evils (it’s not really that simple). You have also learned that anything other than low level walking is going to spike cortisol. You are a personal trainer so this is a giant smelly wrench in everything you believe to be holy – Hard Work, Sweat, and Glory. Below is a chart from Hackney et al. from the University of North Carolina, who is one of the leaders in field of neuroendocrinology as it relates to physical activity. As you can see from the chart above, short periods of low level aerobics under 60% of VO2 max are the only way that you are not going to drive the stress response (ACTH, Catecholamine, Cortisol). So what are you to do? Tell all your general pop weight loss clients to change their diet/lifestyle habits and go for leisurely walks every day? Come on. That’s ridiculous. These people need to be punished for their transgressions. Wrong. So Wrong. Leisurely walking is exactly how Jim Laird a very well respected strength coach in Lexington, Kentucky on boards his general pop clients. He gives them the dietary/lifestyle tools they need to succeed and sets them loose. If they can’t make it happen, he simply doesn’t take them on as clients, they aren’t ready. We tend to go with one training session a week to work on movement patterns to keep them motivated, but the majority of our energies are put toward lifestyle interventions. If you do...
by Aaron Davis | Jun 4, 2026 | Programming, Sprinting
The only way to discover your strengths is through feedback analysis. Whenever you make a key decision or take a key action, write down what you expect will happen. Nine or 12 months later, compare the actual results with your expectations. - Peter Drucker Each year every track and field athlete we work with begins with time spent writing a “Plan”. I will admit the plan is loose and ultimately we spend more time erasing and rewriting than sticking to first draft — a natural by-product of learning the athlete. The key is to not repeat mistakes and eventually, over time plans will more closely resemble work being done — trial and error. So this leads me to the topic at hand. Why not talk the “plan” out on the blog? House and I both have been discussing how we can better educate and simultaneously learn. What better way than being transparent about the process? Am I always right? No. Selfishly is this a learning opportunity for me? Yes. Will I blow minds with science as I try to rationalize my decisions? Hardly. For example our friend and fellow coach from the south Daniel Martinez came up to talk shop and watch two of our sprint athletes train. He asked a great question about monitoring and prescribing load. I am sure I gave some shit safe answer “yada yada Omegawave yada yada” When in reality I should have said “Fear”. Fear is what has driven my decisions over the last year and the eyeball test on the track takes precedence over any data I might collect. Especially with this...
by Ben House | Jun 2, 2026 | Programming, Psychology, Recovery
“To rest is to rust.” - Jack Dempsey Pizza, donuts, couch, LIFT, donuts, pizza, couch, sleep, repeat. We know the dudes Hey you want to help with dishes? No. It might interfere with my gains. I need to lie here like Jabba The Hut and infuse muscle milk intravenously into my femoral artery. I have succumb to this ideology more than once and I believe the problem lies in where we think we are as an athlete and well…reality. We want to train like the best in the world train, but we don’t look at what they did on the road to get to where they are, or genuinely assess whether we have a legitimate shot at getting to those heights. CrossFit has invigorated a lot of people to take another shot at professional athletics and has equally awakened a new found cultural love for Olympic lifting, but it has also illuminated how far we are behind other countries and what the average person will sacrifice for the mere chance to stand in the spotlight one more time (myself included). The best breakdown and philosophy to wrap our minds around this topic is the Four Quadrants by Dan John. Below is a brief introduction to the ideology of the four quadrants, the quadrants themselves, and a bit of information on each. If you would like to read more on this buy Easy Strength by Dan John and Pavel Tsatsouline, most of this information was gleaned from resources in or related to this book. The four quadrants are determined by two simple concepts: The number of qualities the...
