164 Johnny Gannon On The Bra Boys Taking Charge Of Your Health Building Strong Communities

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I'm Mark Boris and this is Straight Talk.

We did stupid shit together.

You know, it was riots, stabbings.

It was rough at one stage.

But we'd congregate down the beach together, surf together, train together.

There was that brotherhood.

And yeah, just have each other's backs.

Journey Gannon. Welcome to Straight Talk, mate.

Thanks for having me, Mark.

Taj Borough, who you trained.

Taj, yeah. We travelled around the world for seven years.

He's a full-time trainer.

We've touched on breathwork, meditation, types of exercise, sleep, nutrition and hydration.

That all gets put together.

That's quite a big package for people to digest, especially if they're new to this.

Don't chase perfection, because you're not going to get perfection out of all those things.

Just be good.

That's it.

With exercise, nutrition, we're looking for longevity.

And that's what I try and teach.

Journey Gannon. Welcome to Straight Talk, mate.

Thanks for having me, Mark.

You're a long way out of town.

You're normally Northern Rivers, dude.

Yeah, mate.

I now reside up at Tweed Heads, just on the Tweed River there.

So it's beautiful.

Good place to bring the kids up.

They're really happy.

You've got a missus?

Yep.

So happily married?

Not married, but we've got three healthy, happy kids.

How old are the kids?

I've got a four-year-old daughter, Buffy.

I've got a seven-year-old daughter, Joey.

And a nine-year-old.

And a nine-year-old son named Grayson.

So you named your daughter after Robbo's missus?

No.

Definitely not.

No, there's not too many Buffys around.

No, no.

I only ever know one before.

Yeah, there's, yeah.

Robbo's missus.

Buffy Williams, yeah.

So why move up to the Northern Rivers?

Like, what was, and when did that happen?

Oh, it was five years ago.

I was living in Maroubra in a two-bedroom unit, South Maroubra,

and I loved it.

And we just were thinking, how are we going to afford a house?

Because we got another baby coming and just looked at the Northern Rivers.

Actually, we're thinking about Byron around that area.

And we just rented a joint up around Northern Rivers and saw a house we really liked and just jumped on it.

It was in the middle of COVID.

So it was, it all worked out really well for some reason.

It all happened and happened quick.

And yeah, stoked with the move.

And so we might just.

So give some context to that, because you're living in the Northern Rivers, but you're a Maroubra boy.

Yep.

Uh, more than a Maroubra boy, uh, you are Maroubra, as in bra boy.

Yeah.

Uh, do you, you're one of the original bra boys.

Yeah, grew up, grew up in Maroubra.

And, um, when the boys sort of first, sort of, the bra boys have been for around for a long period of time, but they, as we sort of, our generation went through the beach, then we've really formed the bra boys.

So it wasn't a beach.

It was, yep, definitely it was all surfers and, and everything, but they weren't as tight.

They weren't as tight as we were or as organized or as organized.

Yeah, probably not as organized.

And then, um, yeah, as we grow up, it's sort of just evolved into the bra boys and, uh, we all got the tattoos and, uh, got in a bit of trouble here and there.

But, um, what was it, what was the saying was, uh, my brother's keeper or something like that, as I recall, I mean, there's been a lot of documentaries on this and, you know, of course, lots of discussions.

Discussions about a couple of the dudes in the, in the group, um, I won't say gang, but the group, um, and some got themselves into trouble and there was some, a few, let's call it, there's at least one fatality I know of, um, and lots of speculation around it.

Um, was there a, was it like a, was it more as like a, it sounds a bit soft, but a social club or was it actually, or was there a purpose?

It was a bit of everything.

It was.

It was a gang at some stage, like we were a gang, we, we did stupid shit together, we, you know, it was riots, stabbings, murders, it was rough at one stage.

But then, um, so yeah, you could, like, we've always denied it, but yeah, it would have been a gang when you look back on it.

Then, um, there was that brotherhood where we, where we looked out for each other because there was a lot of kids that come from broken families.

I didn't, I had a pretty good family upbringing, but, um, a lot of the boys to come from broken up.

Bringing up broken families around, um, around the back of Maroubra, around Lexington Place, which was rough, mate.

Back in the day, it was rough.

Is that, is that a house I wear?

It was full house, though.

Yeah.

Yeah, full house, though.

Still is.

Yeah, yeah, still is.

Still is.

And, um, yeah, so we just would congregate down the beach together, surf together, train together.

And that's, that's what sort of brought us together, the surf and the training and some, some broken families.

And yeah, just have each other's backs and for as long as we possibly could.

And then, um, yeah.

We sort of all fell apart at some stage and now we're back together again.

What period are we talking about now?

Which, are we talking about the 80s?

Yeah, through 90s.

90s.

90s, early 2000s.

Yeah, through that, through that period.

Because you had a lot of people in these sort of, sort of semi-terrified, you know, like the Bra Boys had turned up to a venue.

Yep.

Or something happened and the Bra Boys would turn up to the venue because in response to that.

And, uh, you know, got, and, you know.

And, but your Noosa Suburbs gang, it's not that scary because, you know, you expect them to sort of come out from out west some way.

Yeah.

But you guys, I used to hear stories about, um, some of the, you guys training in things like jujitsu.

Yeah.

When jujitsu wasn't even heard of.

Yeah.

I mean, yeah, it was, but it wasn't a thing.

Training actually how to fight, how to scrap.

Yeah.

Then I used to hear some stories where you'd turn up at events or a bar or a nightclub or something like that.

And just take control.

Yeah.

And, and the coppers even have told me stories about once there was a massive conflict between the Bra Boys and the cops.

Yep.

In a, in a bar.

Yep.

Did you see much of that stuff?

Yeah, I saw it all.

So some, funnily enough, uh, two Brazilians moved to Maroubra probably 25 years ago and they were both jujitsu.

One was a jujitsu black belt, Bruno Pano and Alex Prats, who's now one of Rob Whittaker's main jujitsu coaches.

They moved to Maroubra just by coincidence.

And they both knew jujitsu really well.

So they bought jujitsu to Maroubra 25 years ago and we all started then.

But, and jujitsu wasn't even really talked about back then.

We saw it on, um, sort of the early days of UFC, those, before even UFC started.

Like the early MMA days.

Early MMA days, like way back when it was cage and no rules and the Gracies, Gracies would come in in their geese and dominate.

And we, that's all we knew about it.

So we're like, we're so interested in it.

And like learning and learning a different martial, martial art.

Cause we all did a lot of boxing as well.

Yeah.

And, um, so yeah, that's where it all, it all eventuated from.

And then it just grew from there.

Yeah.

We, we used to like talking about the police fight.

That was one of my mates 21st.

That was, um, yeah, that was a shocker.

Like for both.

Yeah.

Like looking back on it now, like it was just an all in brawl and it was a lot of frustration and anger that come out.

Cause the cops were on one level.

Um, and then the boys were at another level that was a pro Christmas party, police Christmas party boys were on another level and, um, it just turned into this massive all in brawl.

It was always going to happen.

Yeah.

It was always going to happen.

If they were there holding their function, you were there holding your function.

It was always going to happen.

It's always going to happen.

It was just a bit of a shocker.

Whoever booked both, both parties on the same night.

Why did you, why, why did you, I mean, you didn't come from a bad, you know, upbringing.

Yeah.

I mean, you lived.

You lived in Marooba, but why did you join up?

It was just because I surf there and was a local down the beach and we sort of, there was this side of it where we wanted to make the beach safe because the beach was a dangerous place.

And there was a side of it where we wanted to make the beach safe for our mums and grandmothers and sisters and the women.

What was the name of the people getting, stuff getting stolen?

Oh, there was everything.

There was rapes.

There was.

Oh, wow.

There was like women, you know, it wasn't a safe place for women and kids to walk.

Around at some stages, there was a lot of drugs.

There was a lot of alcoholism.

So the idea of that was to make the place safe.

And then it did start to like, it went one way so far that it turned into something was way more than just making the place safe.

It turned into more of a gang.

Yeah.

To be honest.

Yeah.

That's how it sort of, that's where it come from.

And what killed it off sort of thing?

Mate, like the main thing was prescription drugs, I'd say.

Again, to be honest.

Like Valium and stuff like that.

Valium, Xanax.

Yeah.

Oxycontin.

Yeah.

Those two.

The big painkiller.

The big ones.

They were.

That when they, because back in the day, people didn't realize how dangerous they were.

Because they would come from over the counter.

Yeah.

So you think, oh yeah, it's from the chemist.

It can't be that bad.

And then it just hit like it was rampant.

And you didn't even need a prescription.

You could go get it off the street for, you know, hardly anything.

It was cheaper than all the other drugs.

Definitely cheaper than alcohol.

Cheaper than alcohol.

Cheaper than cocaine.

And it tore the boys apart.

Oh, like that.

Again, that's to be honest.

It was a downfall.

Yeah.

And today, do you still have any contact with the guys or something?

Yeah, yeah.

Definitely.

I'm going to go down to Bay Pub after this and have a couple of beers with the boys.

And yeah.

And they're all dads now.

They're all, mate, that scene's finished.

Yeah, yeah.

Like it's so good to see.

Like everyone's got young kids.

Because Marouba's a beautiful place to bring your family up now.

Yeah, yeah, totally.

Like it's safe and it's fucking expensive.

Yeah, totally.

But yeah.

So, mate, it's honestly like it's probably one of the, that's one of the best thing to

come out of it.

It went full circle.

Everyone learnt their lesson.

And yeah, the dads all, you know, got families.

Family men.

Yeah, and growing up a bit.

Growing up.

Yeah, you grow out of that shit.

Yeah.

You don't need it.

You don't need that in your life.

And the shit off your liver.

Yeah.

Like it's, the world's not to blame.

Yep.

It's, you know, we've got to take some responsibility.

Yeah.

Responsibility, I guess.

And I'm not here preaching to people like, you know, I'm the last person to do that.

But yeah, but I guess when you're young, it's easier to sort of blame everybody else and

then take, take things in your own hands.

Yeah.

Like no one put those pills down anyone's throat, but the boys did it themselves.

So you can't make excuses, but it was a life lesson.

And just let that know for the younger generations that those drugs aren't safe.

For as long as I've ever known you and I met you through a ginge originally and David would

have been, well, David's 60 soon.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I first met him when he was 30.

Yep.

Maybe even a bit younger than that.

You've always been into fitness because, you know, he's always been talking about, you

know, you know, Johnny's doing this.

I remember one period there, you know, he was, he was just telling me that you used

to talk about putting your feet on the grass, bare feet on the grass.

Yeah, yeah.

The old grass, the old earthings.

Yeah, earthing.

And you're always looking at different things.

Yeah.

Where's that sort of curiosity about, I'm not going to talk about training.

There's just general health.

Yeah.

I try and keep an open mind on the whole, everything that comes through the industry,

like have a, have a crack at it and see what works before I sort of start using it on clients

or, or giving advice on it.

That's for sure.

So I give it a crack myself and yeah, just the whole earthing thing and anything else,

like especially for recovery, I'm big on recovery and de-stressing.

What's that mean, de-stressing?

Well, I just noticed that if you're in a stress state, it's really hard to lose.

It's really hard to lose body fat and it's really hard to put on lean muscle mass because

you're stressed and training and, and everything's another stress on the body.

So I always look at ways to recover.

So I'm looking at like, obviously the, the basic ones is breath work, hot, like hot,

cold immersions and then yeah, earthing and, and now I'm big on just even just lying back

on your back and just doing five or 10 minutes of meditation a day.

That's my, here's John Gannon talking about meditation.

But it's a, it's a fair evolution.

If I could just go way, way back though, let me just creep back into this, this whole process

because you just covered a lot of ground then.

You've always, you said to me, you're, you, would it be fair to say that you, you keep

up to date with all the latest developments through some sort of structure for, in terms

of your own life and research?

Like, I mean, what are you, what are you accessing?

Before Google, before what we're talking about now, what were you accessing say 20

years ago?

20 years ago.

Well, I went over and studied with these guys from the States who taught foundation training

and it's, um.

What is that?

It's a postural sort of awareness movement patterns where you can do it, no equipment.

All you're doing is really engaging the back of your body because these guys.

I'm noticing you're doing it now.

Yeah.

I'm trying to sit up straight.

You know, you are, you are.

But it's a conscious.

It's a conscious, consciously sitting up and making sure.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because if we sit, so you say, imagine you're sitting there looking at your device, you're

hunched over, your shoulders round forward, your head migrates forward and you try and

take a big breath in that position.

It doesn't happen because your sternum is pushed down into your diaphragm, rib cage

doesn't expand properly.

But as soon as you sit straight, shoulders back, take a big breath in, you'll access

your diaphragm and that nice expansion of the rib cage.

So I'm, I'm into, I'm really into teaching people that side of wellness, like not just

strength and conditioning.

And in the gym and bashing yourself up, I'm, I'm looking at like the simpler ways to, for

the, for the other 23 hours of the day, you're out of the gym, how to teach people how to

sit, stand, move, breathe.

I'm right into that side of it.

Well, why is it, why is it important then, Johnny, for example, to be able to, to be

able to breathe properly from your belly, expanding your diaphragm?

Yeah.

Yeah.

What, why, what, what, what's, why is that important?

Well, if you are in that hunched over position and you're taking those little shallow

chest breaths, your body recognizes that as a stressed out state, your heart rate lifts

up a little and you're, you're not breathing, you're not relaxed.

You're in that sort of sympathetic state.

When you sit up straight and you access diaphragm and breathe correctly, you go into more of

that parasympathetic state and your heart rate will lower.

So you're a bit, you're relaxed.

You're in a bit more of a relaxed state.

And that's when you recover because you're in that parasympathetic state.

That's the rest digest state that we're looking for.

And especially if you are stressed.

Like.

You know, there is a lot of stress around at the moment.

I don't know if you noticed, like obviously financial stress with interest rates, cost

of living.

There's political stress.

What's going on in the world?

Political stress.

Massive one.

Like who knows?

Yeah, totally.

You know, and there's a fair bit of sickness in the community, like influenzas, another

big stress on the body.

So that's why I'm, even now I'm just noticing with clients and friends and family, just

to get down and do five, 10, 15, 20 minutes, whatever time you've got, just to get down

and do a bit of breath work.

Lie down, guided meditation.

Like you've got a headspace app.

We've got just easy to YouTube's 20 minutes relaxing, relax breathing.

Inside timer.

Yeah.

That's another one.

All that stuff.

Yeah.

You just get down and just give yourself 15, 20, whatever it is, what time you've got.

Just try and get into that parasympathetic state and just, yeah, de-stress.

So maybe I'll just get you to explain the difference between the sympathetic state and

the parasympathetic state.

They're actually the opposites to what you would expect.

Yeah, they are.

Yeah.

Confuses me sometimes.

So the sympathetic state is what?

It's a stressed out state.

So your body is stressed.

Yeah, it's stressed out.

Heart rate's elevated.

Cortisol's rough.

Cortisol levels are up.

Yeah.

You're not, you've shallow upper respiratory breathing.

You're not, you're not in that relaxed state.

So what I try to do is get that people down in the other way, go the other direction,

because it's all right to be in that sympathetic state, but not for long periods of time.

Like we use it to, to say,

it's a competition, you know, you get into that sympathetic state, let's go, I'm revved

up, adrenaline's up, but you need, you can't stay at that level for long periods of time

because stress is detrimental to your health, like your heart health, your physical health,

your mental health.

So that's why, especially in the challenges I do, I add a de-stress element to, to one

of the foundations of the, of the challenge.

So now let's just talk about, so I think most people don't understand what the sympathetic

state is.

Yeah.

Most people have experienced that cortisol, adrenaline, short breath, a bit panicky, and

it can be anything that sets you off.

Probably most people don't realize that you just explained that you can put your body,

you can put yourself in a position that your body thinks it's in that stressful position,

but just by through posture, bad posture.

Yeah.

Let's talk about then parasympathetic.

Parasympathetic is about recovery.

Yep.

And we've never really thought like,

most people, especially trainers, never really thought about recovery.

All we're thinking about is train, train, train, more training.

Yep.

Do some more training.

I'll miss out on training.

Do another training session.

Can I get two in for the day?

We're going, and that's all about stress.

That's putting stress on your body.

100%.

Let's give us, give me a little bit of an understanding about this recovery process

from your point of view.

Like what are, what are we talking about here is, let's just put, let's put meditation aside.

Yep.

The mental stuff, but what, what do you mean by recovery?

So like, like we just spoke about, like when we're in that stressed out state,

it's, it's okay, but you need to come back down into that recovery state.

And it really helps with your sleep patterns.

Okay.

And there's, there's obviously, obviously there's different ways to do that.

There's hot, cold immersions that are really popular at the moment.

That's why all those recovery centers are so popular at the moment, which is great.

It's a, it's a really good form of taking inflammation out of the body,

which is another stress.

You know, when you're inflamed, you're,

you're cold under inflammation.

So that's, if you can bring that down, that's massive.

And you do that through a cold bath?

Hot, hot colds.

Like you can do whatever protocol you want.

You can do three minutes in the cold, two minutes in the hot, whatever suits you.

I can't tell people that one.

Some people just love doing the saunas.

Some people just love doing the cold.

Some people like doing a bit of both.

Yeah, that, that's a massive one.

So sort of trying to manage your inflammation.

Inflammation.

Because when we train.

Yep.

It's, it's inflammation.

We get inflamed.

A hundred percent.

I mean, when we've got sore muscles or sore joints.

Bit dehydrated, bit inflamed.

So we're looking at hydrating as well.

So what about hydration then?

Hydration's a massive form of recovery.

So what are we talking about?

So how do I know if I'm not hydrated?

Well, this is sounding like I'm a bit fanatical here, but I get on the scales.

I get on the scales a couple of times a day because I know I sit on 92 kilos.

If I go for a surf and have a train, I'll come in at, back in at 90 kilos.

I know I've got to drink two liters of water to get back up.

I know.

I haven't lost two, two kilos of fat or muscle.

Yeah.

I've lost two, two kilos of fluid.

So I'll jump on the scales.

I'm 90 kilos.

I'll drink a liter of water.

I'm back up to 91.

I'll drink another liter.

And I just try and balance my hydration like that.

It's not a bad way to do it.

I had a bit of electrolytes in the water, a bit of potassium, magnesium and salt.

No sugar.

No sugar.

I don't even, I just keep it salty.

I have no flavoring at all.

Some people love flavoring.

I just keep it salty.

Minerally and.

Your body actually, it's funny, I have just full salts like that too.

Yeah.

My body, I think initially I go, oh shit, I can't, I don't want to drink this

because you think you're going to puke.

But then your body tells you it likes it.

Yeah.

It likes the saltiness.

You adapt to its goodness.

You adapt to it pretty quick.

That's interesting what you just said about you go for a surf.

I know if, like when I used to have to cut weight, thank God those days,

when I used to have to cut weight, I know,

so I'd always love it when we had the, if in the amateurs you're weighing in the morning,

you've got to weigh in every morning, but you're weighing in the morning.

And I used to like it, the weigh in the morning, because if I,

say I get a bit at nine o'clock or whatever, 10 o'clock,

then I wake up the next morning at say six or seven o'clock

and let's say you go to the bathroom and do that business.

Just through that nighttime, you lose a kilo.

Yep.

Just your body's used it up and you're breathing and you're sweating.

You're a bit dehydrated and you can, I haven't lost any muscle or any fat or anything.

I mean, it's just lost fluid, water and a litre of water is a kilo.

Kilo.

That's the usual general rule.

Straight back on.

Exactly.

A litre of water is one kilo of weight.

Yep.

If you've lost one kilo of weight after a heavy training session,

it's not because you lost a kilo of fat.

100%.

You lost a kilo of water and it's not a bad rule.

Yeah.

Which means you've got to replace it.

You've got to replace it.

With a kilo of water, with a litre of water.

With a litre of water, because you feel like shit.

You feel like you've run down.

You feel fatigued.

That dehydration.

You lose lots of clarity.

Yep.

In your brain, because you feel a bit buzzed.

Your brain's dehydrated.

You get a bit of a headache.

That's the first sign of dehydration.

Because, I mean, I watch these, I was watching, I'm watching fighters,

boxing matches all the time, and I was watching the other day,

I won't say who it is, but someone well-known in Australia.

I've got to be disappointed with the corner because I noticed that two things.

You know, after about round five or six.

In a pro fight with three-minute rounds,

your body temperature goes up to about 40, 41 degrees.

Quite dangerous.

Like if you were a little kid, every one of your kids,

and his temperature's 40, you're off to hospital.

Yeah.

And you're burning a lot of fluid.

And I noticed that they weren't giving, putting any ice on his head.

Yep.

To cool down his core temperature.

Mm-hmm.

And they weren't, he wasn't drinking much water.

And I thought to myself, what happens in that situation,

especially if you get hit on the chin, like what happens in that situation,

you start to lose clarity.

Mm-hmm.

And you can't respond to what's in front of you.

Yep.

So you can't make good decisions.

Yep.

So if I just take that and extrapolate that out into someone

who's just a normal person out there,

who doesn't get up in the morning and drink a load of water as soon as you get up.

Mm-hmm.

You know, I don't mean immediately, but like over, start drinking the water.

Instead they get up and they drink coffee.

Yeah.

Dehydrate yourself even more.

100%.

It's a diuretic.

So drink some water.

Yep.

Before you drink coffee.

But that person, if they don't, this happens a lot of times, as you know,

a lot of people don't drink their water.

Then they go to work, they're trying to make decisions,

they've had three coffees.

Yep.

They wonder why they make mistakes.

Mm-hmm.

And that's without any training.

Yeah.

Add a bit of exercise in there.

They're really dehydrated.

Really dehydrated.

So how do you get into your client's head, the ones you train,

the ones you look after?

Yep.

How do you get into their head, like, come on, you've got to change this,

because this is a lifestyle change for all these people.

Yep.

I mean, like, drink water.

Mm-hmm.

Do you put them on a program?

No, I don't.

What I do is just, say, constantly have a bottle of water with you.

Go and buy a good quality water bottle, good stainless steel one.

Yep.

Carry it around with you.

No plastic.

No plastic.

I'm the same, no plastic.

No plastic.

I don't, even with the BPA-free plastic.

No, forget it.

I don't trust it, especially if it's in the sun and all that.

Totally.

But buy a good stainless steel water bottle.

You can have it until you lose it.

Yep.

I've lost a million of them.

Yeah, I've got a million more.

I've got them all over my house.

There's some shits because I've got so many bottles.

There's a lot of bottles in there, but yeah.

And everyone leaves them at the gym.

I've got a collection of them because everyone runs out on a bit of a high out of the gym.

They leave their water bottle there.

But yeah, mate, carry a water bottle with you at all times.

And find a good quality electrolyte that you like that's got the magnesium, the potassium,

and the salt in it.

Because you see people, say, at the end of a marathon when they lose their coordination

and they hit the wall, it's called.

Yeah.

All that is is lacquer.

It's a lot of minerals in the body.

Because you've sweated it out.

You've sweated all the minerals out of your body.

So the potassium, magnesium, and salt, if they had that, the electrical currents that

go through your body that connects your brains, the little signals that run through your nervous

system, they don't fire.

Because they need sodium.

They've lost, they need those minerals as a current to fire.

To conduct.

To conduct.

Yeah.

And they've gone.

It's depleted.

So that's why they've just turned into jellyfish.

They can't stand up.

They can't stand up.

That's exactly why we need to stay hydrated.

That's an extreme.

That's an extreme version.

But it doesn't matter.

It does affect people.

Yeah.

I mean, old school guys, like, mate, I tell you, I can remember, I used to train with

this guy called Gary Stenwall Stumbles.

And we would go out on Friday.

This is what we'd do.

Friday, we'd get on the, Friday we'd go and train.

Train our ass off after work.

Like, really hard training.

No, no, no hydration.

Yeah.

Straight to the pub.

Straight to the pub, yeah.

Drink.

10 beers.

That's old school.

Yeah.

And then Saturday morning, Saturday lunchtime, around 11 o'clock, find the hottest part of

the day anyway.

Backpack.

Yeah.

Full of sand.

And we used to go for a run.

And you wonder why you get fucking injuries.

Like, bad knees, bad, whatever you get.

You go, you wonder why.

But then that was what we used to do.

Yeah.

Like, back in those days, we were young, so you sort of get away with it.

Like, but still, that old school system.

So, you know, I think what.

People like you are trying to do is you're trying to bring back some intelligence.

Yep.

Some thought process based on science.

Yeah.

You're not just making shit up.

Yeah.

It's based on science.

I follow, you know, I've got my people I follow on Instagram.

Yeah.

Can you give us an example of who somebody is following?

I follow Dr. Rhonda Patrick.

She's an American woman.

Yeah.

And she's clued up on.

She breaks down all the science.

What's her goal?

She breaks down all the science of all the latest studies.

About exercise?

About, yeah, nutrition, exercise, movement, hydro, like sleep.

Hydration.

She's really good.

Dr. Rhonda.

Patrick.

Patrick, yeah.

Yep.

She's cool.

I just like the way she explains things.

Like, I couldn't read a scientific paper to save myself, but she breaks it down really well.

Yeah.

Her and then there's a few others I follow that are, yeah, posture up.

Yeah.

There's a few others I follow, but it's pretty interesting.

It just interests me, that side of it.

And I think it's a way forward because, again, it comes down to recovery.

The better you recover.

The better you train.

So that's the way I look at it as well.

Because if you're recovering through hydration, through hot-cold immersions, the better your next performance is when you train.

The more, like you're saying, cognitive connection you've got with your body when you train.

Because when I'm training someone, I'm not too worried about reps and sets.

I'm more thinking about how can I get this person to move better through cognitive sort of movement with intent.

So I'm saying slow.

Slow down.

Move with intent.

Move, like think about what you're going to do.

Like a purposeful move.

Purposeful movement.

Like it's all, and it works so much better than just, you know when you see people at the gym and they're just getting through their reps and sets for the sake of it.

There's no thought in what they're doing at all.

So I mean, in other words, you're saying if you're going to exercise, have a strategy.

Have strategy and move with purpose, like you just said, and intent.

And it's more cognitive.

You just can't.

Connect with the movement way better.

Slow it down and then work on speeding it up.

So when you, because I was thinking about this the other day, I thought, because, you know, I've got this project and I'm trying to work out how to optimize myself to get 100 years of age.

And I thought to myself, well, I really, Mark, what are you training for?

What do you want to achieve with your training?

Therefore, that should inform me as to what type of training I should do.

And then I thought to myself, well, you know, when I'm, let's say when I'm 90, if I get there.

But if I'm 90.

It'd be great if I've either got great-grandsons or granddaughters, whatever.

And let's say they're two.

And let's say they weigh 12 kilos.

Can I bend down and pick that kid up functionally?

So I think to myself, okay, well, Mark, maybe now, at my age now, you've got to start training for that day with movement and exercise that sort of mimics that process.

Because you don't want to be at 90.

Either you can't do it, you're frail.

Or the parents don't trust you picking up the baby.

So dad, don't do it.

Alternatively, I do and I injure myself.

And then I'm, because once you injure yourself at that age, you're in trouble for a long time.

You're in trouble, mate.

A long time.

That's, yeah.

Hips, backs, you do a knee.

And you don't want to have to go and also get a back operation or a hip operation or that in those periods.

So you've got to have enough flex and muscle and strength and whatever.

Yeah.

And body, muscle memory, et cetera.

Yeah.

To be able to do these things.

So how important is it for people, when you say purposeful, how important is it for people to sort of actually say, okay, that's the function I want to be able to do.

Yep.

So I don't really need to go and do curls.

Yep.

No.

Because I'm not going to be curling the kid up.

I'm going to be using my butt.

Yeah, you're going to hip hinge and you're going to use a nice smooth hip hinge and get down low.

And what's the right technique?

That's it.

A technique.

Get my body used to a technique.

Yeah.

You can get down into a nice deep squat pattern or a nice deep hip hinge.

Do you do that?

Yeah.

Yeah, definitely.

And you know what?

That is a great motivator.

What you just mentioned there, being able to keep up with your future grandkids, that's such a good motivator.

Well, it is for me.

It is.

It should be for everyone.

But I don't know.

But do you find that, John, that like when you get to, you need, is it just a function of say someone gets to my age and that's only when we start thinking about it?

Because, and even you now, you know, in your 50s, when you were 30, mate.

Yeah.

A lot of the stuff.

When I thought about it, you just, I mean, when I was in my 30s, man, I was just rip a tear, you know, whatever.

Yeah.

And I did, and I applied that sort of attitude to everything I did.

Yeah.

Work, sport, everything.

Now I'm older.

Do you feel as though we need to start to educate people, at least in our country, educate younger people?

And I don't want to be a lecturer on anybody, but educate them about the benefits of starting early.

Yeah.

The thinking process.

Yeah, it's a hard, like you were saying.

It's a pretty hard sell to get people in their 30s start thinking about movement when they're 67.

Are you seeing any of this?

Not really, nah.

I see it more now with our, with our age.

Yeah.

Definitely.

But when you're that age, like you were saying, it's work hard, play hard.

You're bulletproof.

Which is understandable.

Yeah, you're bulletproof.

You couldn't care what's going to happen to your body in five weeks time.

You just want to look good.

And saying that, vanity is a great motivator as well.

Totally.

Like it's as much as.

Because you're a little leaner than you used to be.

Yeah.

If I go back 20 years, I reckon you would have been, I don't know, maybe 10, I just,

10 years, 10 kilos?

Yeah, probably five or six.

Five or six kilos heavier.

But you were much thicker.

Yeah, I put on, used to put on muscle pretty quick.

But now you're more lean.

Yeah, I'm pretty lean.

Yeah.

Yeah, I try and stay around 92 kilos now.

That's like a pretty happy medium for me, but I have to eat to stay at 92.

Can we talk about that then?

Yeah.

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Eating, like take my example, the amount of food, like I had breakfast with Ginge, as

you know, and by the way, he gave me enough information to stitch you up so good, mate.

I bet he did, he loves it.

But I'm not going to do it, okay?

Because the only reason I'm not doing it is because I don't want to make him think how

good is this.

Do you want to get stitched up?

So there are some stories I'm not going to tell.

But anyway.

Thanks, mate.

But Ginge just said to me on Saturday, he said, mate, you just got to eat less.

And I thought, yeah, but it's relative to the amount of exercise you do.

100%.

And I don't want to eat less and get too skinny.

Yeah.

I don't mean skinny in a bad way.

But at the same time, I don't want to be.

Like I'm about 85.

I want to stay at 85 if I can.

Yeah.

How the fuck can I do it though?

I mean, like it should be taking protein powders.

Like I just don't feel that hungry anymore.

Yeah.

It's a bit of a tricky one because I agree.

I don't like losing, going under 90 kilos.

I look frail.

And I look, my people go, you lost weight.

You look like, you don't look that well.

It just doesn't suit me.

Yeah.

And I like just holding that weight.

So.

What do you do?

Like to keep it?

Definitely do some strength training, strength hypertrophy work to put on lean muscle mass.

So that's resistance training?

Yeah, resistance training.

But what does that mean though, John?

Like does that mean like trying?

Are you trying to bench your best bench or are you doing three of everything or five?

What are you doing?

I do.

Well, if I'm trying to put on lean muscle mass in these challenges that I run, I do sort

of anywhere from eight to 12 reps.

Eight to 12 reps.

Four sets.

And at what percentage?

It's just old school basic.

You can't do more than 10 reps.

10 to 12 reps.

Yeah.

10 to 12 reps max.

And then I always try and pick a weight.

It's pretty simple.

Where the last three reps are getting really tough.

Right.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Three reps you're going.

And you're getting a nice, you feel like you're getting the old school pump.

Yeah.

The old school burn.

Yeah.

That's when I feel like I'm putting on lean muscle.

Is the reason you want to do eight to 10 reps is because that's tearing enough muscle,

but without actually tearing too much muscle, but tearing enough so that when you recover,

when your muscle recovers, it rebuilds.

Yep.

Yeah.

That rep range is, it's a bit up in the air with reps and sets and how many, but I find

that rep range is pretty easy to teach.

It's, um, it's, uh, keeps people sort of accountable.

Yeah.

Like you get to, and you can compare it to your next workout.

Even, even if you go up to 16 to 20 reps and still get that pump at the end of 16 or 20

reps, it's still, you're still going to put on lean muscle.

Right.

So it just depends.

And how many sets do you have to do?

I do three to four sets, but sometimes if I don't have much time, like I love this whole

concept of if you haven't got much time, still go and work out because you can still go and

do one set and just absolutely blast yourself.

Say you do four exercises, one set, go heavier, do 12 reps, but have a good warmup so you don't

injure yourself.

Obviously you can go in there and do four exercises, 12 reps, but push them to the limit.

Like we've got the last two reps.

You are absolutely struggling.

It's still, you're still going to put on, your body has to adapt to that stimulus and

you're going to put on muscle.

I guarantee it.

So when you run your, your groups at least, how is it?

Sometimes I find it, it can be a bit overwhelming because you go, okay, you're going to do

some really good work.

You're going to get on a bike or a running machine or a rower or something.

You know, and some people recommend you've got to do 150 minutes a week zone two.

Like, you know, that's like in my case, 115 beats a minute.

Yeah.

Could have, you know, 40 minutes and you've got to do that three, four times a week.

Then you've got to do some resistance work.

Yep.

Minimum two times a week.

There's five days.

Yeah.

And then, like I like to wrestle.

Yep.

If you're doing that three nights a week, all of a sudden there's no more days.

I'm over a day.

Yep.

And I'm buggered too.

You're buggered.

I'm stuffed.

Yep.

So is it best to sort of say, okay, for this month I'm going to do, I'm just going to wrestle.

Next month I'm going to do resistance and the month after I'm going to do aerobic.

I mean, how do you do this stuff?

No.

Like, I know exactly what you're talking about.

Cause I'm on the pretty.

Pretty much the same program.

Whereas I think instead of doing so much cardio, I think pulling your reps and sets, making

shorter rest periods.

So you're still keeping your heart.

When you're doing your strength work, you're still keeping your heart rate at about 115,

which you just said, that's your cardio zone, your zone two cardio.

So if you can wear a heart rate monitor, do your strength work and just go around the

gym.

As a circuit.

Just with a little bit more of a circuit.

Yep.

Yep.

Yep.

Yep.

Yep.

Yep.

Yep.

Yep.

Yep.

Yep.

If you're still putting your cardio and you're still putting on lean muscle mass, that's

the way I'd treat that because then you don't have to do those extra cardio sessions and

you can still wrestle and you're still keeping lean muscle mass on.

So that's the way I'd try and cover that because I know doing those cardio sets and doing those

two weight sessions a week and wrestling, you're going to be pretty run down.

Cooked.

Yeah.

At our age, you're cooking yourself.

Well, mate, as I get older, I find it harder to eat enough.

Yeah.

I find it harder to train enough.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What I think, what I used to do.

I'm like, no drama sleeping enough because I'm exhausted.

Yeah.

But like then, but then you've got to work in the middle of all that too.

Yeah.

Then you've got to fit work in.

And family.

Then you've got all your other extended stuff that you've got to do.

And what I was just talking to you about then is like, I guess, is tailor making an exercise

program for someone like, you know, getting older.

Yep.

Let me just dial it back.

How do you tailor make an exercise training program for say someone like Taj Barrow, who

you trained?

Taj, yeah.

Was it sports, was it sports specific training?

Yeah, definitely.

One of the great surfers.

One of the great surfers of all time.

Who never, who never won anything.

Yeah.

Who never won a world title.

Who never won what he should have won, but he.

World title.

Yeah.

Yep.

So I worked for Taj for seven years on the, we traveled around the world for seven years.

I was his full-time trainer.

Sort of.

How'd that become about?

Through a mate of ours, Sammy McIntosh.

Oh yeah.

You know Sam.

Yeah.

He's been on the podcast.

Yeah.

Sam was really good mates with Taj.

Right.

And he knew I was training all the Maruba boys.

And.

He just liked the style that I was training with because he thought Taj needed a bit of

a rocket up his ass to try and win a world title.

Just a bit of a, bit more motivation, a bit more grit.

Did he have too much talent?

Yeah, I would say that.

Relative to.

A hundred percent.

Attitude.

You see, you see that a lot.

Yeah.

In all sports.

Yeah.

You know, the most talented kids are the ones that don't want to do the work.

Yeah.

So my job was to come in and obviously train a bit of grit into him.

Like, like get him hungry.

Yeah.

Like want to win.

He wanted to win.

He's a competitive little bugger.

But he just, just more grit, more like, you know, instead of getting to the end of the

comp and going, oh yeah, I probably could have done better.

But, and, and saying, nah, fuck this.

I'm, I'm going to win this thing.

Let's go.

So that was sort of my role.

But.

But how did you, how did you tailor make something for him?

So, because I've had some, you know, some people, actually someone, a ginge organizer,

someone who hired my pool and they did, um, walk, because I had a 25 meter pool up at

the time, you know.

Yeah.

And, uh.

You know, film walking underwater.

Oh yeah.

Walking on the bottom of the rocks and shit like that.

And, uh, which is cool.

I wasn't in it, so I didn't care.

But, um, do you do, did you do that sort of stuff?

Because he's not going to surf big, I mean, he's not going to, he's not going to surf

dangerous surf.

He's probably going to compete at Bells or something like that.

Yeah.

Well, they do go to a couple of dangerous waves, like obviously Pipeline and Chopu.

Yeah.

So they were both really.

Chopu is very dangerous.

Very dangerous waves, which, which he sort of, um, he ended up doing really well out,

out of, at the end of his career out at Chopu and, and we won a Pipe Master.

So he won at Pipeline when I was training him.

So that were two massive achievements for him.

Did you get him underwater doing that sort of stuff?

We did a bit of breath work, but not the rock carrying and all that stuff.

We'd do, um, sort of negative, um, empty lung breath holds where I'd get him to exhale at

the top.

So he'd sink to the bottom and just.

In the water.

In the water.

Because being in the water is so much different to doing breath work on land.

Yeah.

Because you'd, obviously you'd think, fuck.

Yeah.

I've got to get to the top here where on land you can go on.

I'll take a breath here.

Yeah.

So it's that different sort of stimulus, but yeah.

Is that control, just on that, is that, cause you got me curious now, is that, you're talking

about sort of being able to control your thoughts.

Yep.

When you've got no breath.

A hundred percent.

You've got no, you've got no oxygen left in your lungs.

No oxygen.

You go down on an empty, exactly it.

You go down on an empty, it's called an empty lung.

Yep.

So you'll sink.

If you, you know, you're not at an empty lung if you float back to the surface, but if you

aren't, you go, you breathe.

You exhale, you let everything out and your CO2 builds up a lot quicker.

Yeah.

So carbonic acid just builds up in your bloodstream.

Yeah.

Your CO2 comes quick.

Yeah.

So you were to try and either find a way in your head to say, listen, you're fine.

You're going to relax.

You can either sing a song, you can picture yourself driving down the highway.

You just keep driving to the next, whatever it is you want to do, you get down there and

you hold that breath.

That's like, and is this in order to mimic what happens to you when you come off your

board, for example?

Can do.

When you hit the bottom.

Can do.

It can make you feel a lot more comfortable on an empty lung going down and just thinking,

yeah, I'm all right.

I'm all right.

How long is he going to stay there for?

Well, it's funny because I do a bit of work with the sharks, with the Cronulla sharks

these days with Fitzy.

I go down there and do all their recovery stuff and we do that pool work and the boys

will start off, because they're not surfers, they'll start off with 15 seconds and now

you come to the surface like a torpedo.

15 seconds.

They're like, it's that funny watching them.

But they adapt.

They adapt to it so quick.

By the end of it, a lot of them can do a minute and a half after doing four rounds.

A minute and a half.

They'll do 15 seconds, 30 seconds, 45 minute and they'll go to a minute and a half.

Yeah, in one go.

One session.

One session.

And then with Taj, so you get him, you do breath work in the water with him.

Yep.

I want to come back to breath work in a moment because I want to pick your brains on this,

but what would you get him to do for, would you get him to do resistance work?

Yeah, Taj.

Definitely.

Yeah?

He wanted to strengthen him up, turn him into a, yeah, he wanted to create strength.

What would, I mean, like, is he going to do bench press?

What are you going to do?

Nah, no, no, no.

Definitely not.

I mean, the only thing he has to do is lift himself up when he's standing up on the board.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But what sort of, what are you talking about?

The way they, the way they surf as tube ride and everything, you need that sort of stability

and strength and balance because if part of the wave falls and hits you on the back of

the head while you're trying to come out of the barrel, you need that strength and sort

of almost like a resilience to, to combat that.

Is that like, you're talking about leg strength or?

Leg strength, hip strength.

Hip strength, core strength.

Yeah, core.

And the way they do a turn too, where they wrap the board around the top of the wave

and come back around, it's a lot of leg strength and core.

They, like, you look at the young guys now, they're so thick in the legs and the hips

and the core.

So yeah, we did a lot of strength work, like a lot of like, and it doesn't have to be heavy

squats or heavy deadlifts.

We were doing a lot of single leg stuff, like Bulgarian split squats and single leg Romanian

deadlifts, just to bring that balance element into it.

And that sort of proprioception around the ankle, knee and hip, where you'd get strong

in those positions.

And how did it go with him?

So like, did it, did it, did it, did it change his ranking or did it change?

How did you measure it?

I guess in a better way.

It's, it's hard to measure.

Um, we just measured it like with his confidence.

How does he feel?

He felt unbelievable.

Yeah.

He felt incredible.

It was the best he felt in his career.

So that was, um, that was the big one.

Like how he felt.

And it gave him confidence.

Like when you feel, when you're feeling strong and resilient, you feel confident.

And who did he have to beat?

Like who was.

He was up against, it was a tough run.

You know, he had Kelly Slater in his prime.

He won 11 world titles.

And Kelly Slater's prime.

Yeah.

He had him all through.

And him and Taj had a crazy rivalry.

He had Andy Irons before Andy passed away.

And then later on he had Mick and Joel.

So they were both unbelievable competitors.

Mick Fanning and Joel Parkinson.

Yeah.

So they were crazy.

The ball.

The boys.

Yeah.

The bolter boys.

They're all rich.

They're too rich now.

Rich and retired now.

But, uh, they've, um, yeah.

So he had a, he had a bit of a hard run through those, through his career.

But that's the best people to be up against.

Yeah.

But that's, that's what you want.

You want to be, if you've got to win, you've got to beat the best.

Yeah.

So, um.

So when you're sitting down with him for those seven year period, that seven year period,

I mean touring with him.

Yeah.

Would you say to him, um, did, did at any stage you have to sort of become, he's like,

I don't want to call it mental.

I don't want to call it mental, but like help him manage his mind.

Oh, definitely.

A hundred percent.

So if I go, and I'm not feeling good, I'm, how am I going to get there?

The highs and lows of professional sport are huge.

Like we'd be on the road for pretty much the whole year.

So if you, if you go for a bit of a bad run, like lose early in three events in a row that

the whole sort of camp just feels it like me, him, his girlfriend, everyone feels a

pressure to start doing well again.

So there was, um.

There was times where I had to sit him down and say, mate, what's going on?

Like, what's, what's going on up here?

Cause physically you're, you're fine.

And, um, one thing you would do was, was win an event and be all on a real big high and

then come into the next event.

Cause you got to learn how to win.

So winning, winning and losing, you've got to learn how to lose.

You got to learn how to win.

Cause you can be on this super big high and think I've got this and then go into the next

event, lose first heat.

And then the whole thing comes crashing down.

I feel like you've got to start again.

So what, what, what do you do about in terms of physical exercise, for example, that can

help you get through that weird period?

Yeah.

Do you do, is there something you would prescribe for him?

Like in terms of physical exercise?

Yeah.

Probably give him a good couple of floggings in the gym to get it out of him.

Like, yeah, this is what we're here for.

Like nothing like competing is going to be easy compared to what we're going to do in

the gym.

Make it really hard.

Make it really hard.

Say, fuck it.

Let's go.

Let's go.

Like competing.

Like you're, you're going to look forward to competing.

After these next couple of gym sessions.

That's one way we used to do it.

I don't know if it was the perfect way, but that's one way that worked for him.

It worked for him.

It worked for him.

Yep.

And how does, how does he, uh, how do you balance that up though?

Like you're on the surfing, um, you know, circuit.

He had his girlfriend with him.

Yep.

Yeah.

But you're on the surfing circuit, mate.

And you know, like surfing is notorious.

Yeah.

For good times.

And, uh, you know, the comp's over and you're there with all your mates.

And everybody's, um, doing their best after, after parties.

Yeah.

How do you manage that?

And not you, but how do you, how does he manage that?

That's, that's a good question.

Cause, um, there were every place we went to on tour, there'd be a party every night,

even before the competition started and during competition.

Wow.

So it was a day, like you had to be really careful.

Danger.

Cause a couple of the boys did not give a fuck.

They were, they'd see a free night out and go, let's go.

And then probably some of those guys could turn up the next day and go okay as well.

Some of them could.

And that, that put it through a few.

Even Andrew Johns, not that he was competing in that level, but Joey, that's Joey.

Mate, a couple of people did it really well.

It took the pressure off.

They were just like, yeah, I'm sweet.

Let's go.

Like a couple of them did it well, but we, we had this thing with Taj where if we, to

keep out, keep a bit of a social life and keep, you know, on, keep not, not make things

boring.

We just had this rule.

If we went out the night before and had a few beers, we had to be in the gym at 7am

the next morning.

There was no ifs or buts.

So you, you could go out and party, but you, you'd pay for it the next morning.

So it sort of reigned it in a bit and it kept, he kept the longevity of his career way longer

than I think if we just had a went off, just party and hope for the best.

But, but, but you wouldn't party the night before anything like that.

Nah, we, we didn't, but it certainly happened.

And then we would have a bit of a, let the hair down at the end of the event, like you

said.

Yeah, after.

Yeah.

The after party.

Yeah.

But even then you have to be on a flight.

You have to be on a flight the next day to.

So how does a circle work?

Like, just give me a bit of an idea.

We normally start off on the Gold Coast or from him and I, we'd start off at, in Yelling

Up, he's from Western Australia.

So we'd do six weeks.

So we'd get there on the 3rd of January, 3rd or 5th of January.

And we do six weeks of solid training.

Surf as much as we could, no alcohol and get him lean and hungry for snapper.

Cause snapper was his pet event.

That was snapper rocks on the Gold Coast.

So he'd come back over this way?

Yeah.

We'd come straight back over here.

Then we go to Bell's Beach.

So they, they, so you go to snapper.

Yep.

And then is, then when you go to, is Bell's like how far away between snapper and Bell's

is in terms of time?

Are we talking about between the events?

Probably have, sometimes it just depended on the waiting periods, but sometimes we'd

have a week, two weeks, just depends.

So basically you're on all the time.

On all the time, mate.

You're going from one to the other.

Like it's like a footy season.

Yep.

Yeah.

It's brutal.

And cause you're flying, like we'd, then we'd start Brazil.

Portugal, Hawaii, Hawaii was normally at the end of the season back then.

And then yeah, Tahiti, Fiji, USA.

So we're back and forth, you know, like we're on the road hard.

So would you set up his food?

Yep.

Everything.

Yep.

Food.

Just try and eat as best we could.

Like he, it was never going to be perfect on the road, but we'd just try and find, we

got it pretty dialed, like we'd find the locals farmers, farmers markets, and we'd stay

here to, he, we could afford to travel pretty comfortably.

Like we'd stay in nice places.

Cause he was getting sponsored.

Eat well.

Yeah.

He was getting paid a fortune back then.

So we could really focus.

He, he didn't mind spending the money on, on keeping the longevity of his career.

He was like, I'm, I'm all for spending another more, few more years on tour than

getting to a point where I just, I'm fall off tour cause I'm either broken or unhealthy

or sick.

So he didn't mind looking after himself.

Yeah.

And obviously the cost of me being there as well.

You, you, you just mentioned, uh, Craig Fitzgibbon, the coach of Cronulla.

Um, do, do, um, surfers get as broken as say someone like Fitzy, like Fitzy's got, you

know, lots of injuries from the impact.

Yeah.

Do surfers get that sort of thing?

No, not that bad.

They get bad backs.

They do have, they do, their hips.

Their hips.

Their hips go.

A lot of them have had hip, hip replacements.

It's normally their back hip.

Yeah.

So it's a back hip, the way they drive out of a turn.

The foot.

That's at the back.

The back foot.

The back foot, the back hip.

Yep.

So Ginge's left, hip's gone.

Yeah.

Cause he's a goofy footer.

Both of these.

He's like an old Alsatian.

Yeah.

They're both gone.

Are they?

Yeah.

Nah, nah, he's sweet.

Actually my brother just had a hip operation and, uh, my brother's on the Australian surf,

surfing Australia, whatever, he's with Ginge.

Yep.

And my brother's, um, right, he's right.

He's a, he's a, um, he's not a goofy footer.

He's, he just rides a regular surfer and he's right foot, right hip width.

Right hip.

Yep.

And he's had his right hip done.

Yep.

Um, beginning of this year.

But now he can't surf anymore.

He's, he's, he's stuffed.

But, um, that's interesting.

I never thought about that cause I was thinking to myself, he surfed a lot more than I did.

Um, I stopped surfing, like it was just too hard to surf locally, so I couldn't stand

all the crowds.

Yeah.

He kept going.

And, uh, and he, you know, I wonder, I often wonder to myself, is this a genetic thing?

Am I going to get, he's younger than me, but am I going to get it in a couple of years

time?

Thank God.

Yeah.

Now I know what it is.

It could be that.

You're right.

It probably was.

No, I'm not, I can't say a hundred percent.

But like, yeah.

But it's a, it's a big chance.

It's his back hip.

He's, he's a natural surfer.

It's his right hip.

Yeah.

Cause you'll notice, I saw a funny thing is I saw, talking about hips, I saw a photo

with Taj and Joel Parco.

They're both natural footers and they're standing together.

Their left foot was straight.

Their right foot was, but both of them were standing like that with their right foot like

that.

So it's all their external rotators of the hip are just drawn.

Boxes get it too, you know.

Yep.

Cause the foot they step back on, the back foot, um, the foot, the pushing, the pushing

of the foot.

Yeah.

And back and forth.

I know a lot of boxers had hip operations on the back foot.

Step back, yeah.

Yeah.

That's interesting that like, if you do it for too long, anything, I guess anything like

that.

I just want to, you mentioned breath work.

So I recently, um, took my senior staff up to my farm and, um, you know, a dozen of us

or something like that.

And, um, I bought in a breath work lady cause I thought to give him a new experience.

I got on just through Robbo, Trent Robinson.

And, uh, cause Trent likes to try different things like this.

Yeah, definitely.

And, um, and I, yeah.

It was interesting.

Um, so basically I've just quickly explained to him if I'm wrong, but basically, um, you

breathe in, out, in and out through your mouth.

Yep.

Big breaths, but you do it for quite a long time.

It doesn't, you don't do it 10 times.

We went for, I think about 45 minutes or something like that.

But the difference between everybody was amazing.

Like one person fell asleep.

Yeah.

Another person actually started to cry.

Yep.

Like.

Yeah.

People get emotional.

Very emotional.

Yep.

Yep.

Um, in my case, I got, I felt, I felt really, I'll be honest, I got really clear head and

I started thinking about things I need to do in my business.

I got, I got really a hell of a clarity and I felt quite energized.

I felt, I felt good, but, and everybody had different sort of outcomes.

Yeah.

Um, and I would never thought so just from breathing in and out.

Um, do you do much of that with your clients?

I know I'm on the rivers a lot of it.

Yeah.

There's heaps of it.

There's some really good breath coach.

There's some really good breath coaches up there.

Yeah.

It's, it's unreal.

It's, I love it.

I do.

Do you, do you say that's, you know, Wim Hof, he's.

Yeah.

Wim Hof's a guru of it all.

Yeah, but do you, do you.

I have, I have done, been to a couple of Wim's seminars over the years.

Yeah.

And gotten the ice after it, but that was years ago.

But I, um, I do, I don't really go, I, I love it and I go to a beautiful place, like free

drugs almost, like tingling down the arms, tingling across the face, go to a different

place.

It feels amazing.

But I.

You do it on your own or you do it with a, a, a, a person takes you through it?

I, I like to be, do it guided.

Yeah, guided, yeah.

Because you, you get more out of it, I think, because then you don't have to think, you're

not looking at the stopwatch.

You've got someone telling you how to do it.

I love someone showing me how to do it and different, different, um, aspects of it.

Like you learn from other people, obviously.

But yeah, I, I love it and I get a great experience out of it and I always feel better than before

I'd started.

I feel way better.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, and you mentioned meditation, I sort of had a bit of a, a ribbed you a bit, but.

Yeah.

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Why is meditation?

how is it that it's become so acceptable, more acceptable?

Once upon a time it was all about woohoo people doing it

and they're basically up in Byron or wherever.

Well, they're sitting on a mountain in Tibet or something like that.

Or they're a monk or something.

But meditation has formed part of it.

I do it every day.

Yep.

And even if I only do five minutes, it's okay.

And even if I just can't do it properly, I still try to do it

because I think it helps me sleep.

But why do you think meditation has become so acceptable today?

It's really necessary.

Definitely because of mental health.

I think there's so much, we're so much more aware of mental health these days

and we're so much more like, I don't know if there's a lot more of it in society

but where people are more open about speaking about it.

So I think it's more acceptable to meditate

because if that helps your mental health, then why not accept it?

And is it acceptable to have a problem with meditation?

Or is it acceptable to have a problem with mental health

or recognize you've got some mental health issue?

Recognize about it and talk about it

and then go and do whatever it is that suits you.

Like I've got, you see a lot of online people saying,

oh, look at these blokes doing heavy deadlifts.

It's bad for their back.

But I know mates that suffer from a little bit of mental health.

They're not too bad, but they'll get in the gym,

put their headphones on and lift heavy weights

and their mental health, they feel so much better

when they walk out of the gym.

So there's no, what I'm saying is there's no right and wrong

with what people should do.

There's no right and wrong with what people should do.

There's no right and wrong with what people should do.

People should be exercising or the way they do things

because they might be doing it for their mental health.

They might have found a way that clears their head

and makes them feel resilient when they walk out

of whatever they're doing, the gym, meditation.

So why sit there and judge what they're doing

when you don't know it could be for their mental health?

And that's why, getting back to the question,

that's why I think meditation is so acceptable these days.

So in your training program,

so you've got together for your clients,

we've touched on breath work,

we've touched on meditation,

we've touched on types of exercise,

you've talked about sleep,

you've talked about nutrition,

food and hydration, really important.

Because if we talk about eating the right food,

we've got to talk about drinking the right amount of water

or whatever the case may be,

whatever it is you're drinking, electrolytes and stuff.

That all gets put together.

That's quite a big package for people to digest,

especially if they're new to this, if it's not their go.

They're 50, a bit overweight.

Maybe the individual's a sports person before,

hasn't really done anything.

They've gone to the doctor, doctor's done a blood test,

they said, listen, your cholesterol's too high, blah, blah, blah.

You're going to lose weight.

You might do DEXA, you know, like you're out of shape,

you've got pituitary.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You've got a bit of visceral fat or whatever.

How did they take it when you first put it to them?

Is it a shock?

The way I explain to them,

because you get this visualization when someone says,

so the way I explain it's a whole holistic wheel,

sleep, nutrition, hydration,

but everything comes together in a wheel.

You take out one of those pieces,

the wheel starts to spin a little worse.

Take out two, three, the wheel falls apart, spins like shit.

So the way I explain it is don't chase perfection.

Because you're not going to get perfection out of all of those things.

Just be good.

That's it.

Be good at every single one of those things

and just try and improve on them a little bit each week.

And again, if you go backwards and fall off, it's fine.

Just get back on the program and try and do the best you can.

But that's going back a bit.

As I said, try not to chase perfection because it's not there.

And if you try and chase perfection, it'll do your head in.

And you'll just say, fuck it.

And you'll stop doing it.

You'll say, fuck it.

I can't do it.

It's too much for me.

It's, well, who the fuck could do this in a week?

Totally.

Just be good.

And that's the way to go.

And you'll progress.

You'll get on that nice flow state where you're slowly creeping up the hill.

You don't want to go up the hill a million miles an hour and fall off the hill.

But with exercise, nutrition, we're looking for longevity.

Yeah.

And that's what I try and teach.

It's got to be sustainable.

Sustainable.

Yeah.

100%.

If it's sustainable, you're doing really well.

It's not too much.

It's not too little.

You're not getting.

You're not getting bored.

You're not falling off the hill.

That's what we're looking for.

And that's the way I'll explain it to them.

So this brings me to the eight-week challenge.

It's something that's close to your heart.

Yep.

What's that about, mate?

Mate, so going back to DEXA scans, I get, so we call them chapters.

There's a bit of a G up.

So we get chapters.

We've got chapters in Maroubra, Lennox Head, Byron.

Chapters of what?

Chapters of people that come together and train from all walks of life.

Right.

You can, no matter where you've come from, you can come down

and join them.

You can join these chapters and they're just groups of people

and it forms a strong community.

That's what we're looking for.

Did you set this up?

You started?

I didn't, I didn't set them up.

I set the Gold Coast one up and then I've jumped in on the other chapters.

The Lennox chapter, they already, they're already going.

Maroubra chapter, they've got sort of 90 people.

There's one in Newcastle now, but all these chapters come in

and do my challenge.

So you set the challenge up?

I set the challenge up.

Yeah, I set it up.

It's all online.

So we've got one starting on the 3rd of February.

Next year.

And that's the big one.

It goes for eight weeks, doesn't it?

Eight weeks.

No alcohol and doing exactly what we've talked about today.

The whole holistic side of health.

Good.

Not perfect.

Yep.

It's just good.

Do you talk to everybody online?

I try and, yeah, we've got a WhatsApp.

Good old WhatsApp.

So good for training.

So we get like, we get sort of the last one we had 200 people do it.

So we've got chefs, other trainers, like I don't know everything.

I've got a nutritionist on board because I just wanted to make

the nutrition side more professional.

So I've got Kelly MacDonald who does,

she's on the same wavelength as nutrition as me,

but she's really good at what she does.

She sets up, but when you say nutrition,

Johnny, you're talking about she sets up a program,

what suggested meals.

She does food suggestions.

And then if you want to go into more detail,

you can do a private consult.

Obviously it costs more money.

She'll do a private consult and set you up.

And again,

then we're for sustainability.

It's not just because a funny story about that is the year,

a few years ago, Pat Rafton won the challenge.

You know, Pat.

Yeah, yeah.

I don't know him, but I know he's a good man.

Good man.

And he won the challenge.

He smashed everyone.

He's still a competitive beast, big, strong, like you think,

you know, Aussie legend.

And he smashed everyone in the challenge.

He lost like 4.5% potty fat, put on about 4.5% lean muscle mass,

lost half his visceral fat.

But he's a good man.

He got to the end of the challenge and I spoke to him.

I said, how'd you, how you feeling Pat?

He goes, mate, I'm, I'm, I was hangry the whole time.

So he was hungry and angry because he was pretty much not starving himself,

but he wasn't eating that many calories because he, he's such a competitor.

He wanted to win this thing.

And he trained till he was almost broken.

Like he didn't do my training program.

He did his own and he cooked himself.

Like you were saying, he was absolutely cooked.

And he goes, I'm going to have a month off the gym and I'm going to go and eat shit.

And I thought to myself,

it's not really what the challenge is all about.

Like the challenge, I wanted to make it so people can eat and live and train like this

for the next five, 10, 15, 20 years.

So we, we, cause that, that theme of the challenge was, um, just deal with it.

So I do a different theme each challenge that, that year was just deal with it.

So no matter what comes out, you just deal with it, get it, get it done.

And it was a bit, everyone took it literally and, and went overboard on the training and a bit and

didn't, didn't, didn't, didn't, didn't, didn't, didn't, didn't, didn't, didn't, didn't, didn't, didn't, didn't,

didn't need enough.

So that's when I thought I'll pull it back.

And the next challenge I did was sustainability.

Like, let's make this, like I just said, five, 10, 15, 20 years.

We can, we will quite happily train like that.

Live this life.

Live this life.

And it was a way better challenge.

People, that's when I started getting a lot of feedback about how, how, um, good people felt,

not just physically, but mentally.

Cause they had, they knew they could live like that for the, for a long period of time.

So that's when I was.

That's when I was thinking, all right, let's, let's cut out stress as well.

Let's cut out the stress.

So that's when I threw in the meditation side of it as well.

And it worked.

Do you, do you, do you, do you sort of direct them to my one, to one of the meditation apps

and just say, pick one, doesn't really matter, but just to fill a format and sort of say,

okay, are they, would you keep them accountable?

Accountable.

Definitely.

So that's where we get the DEXA scan at the start.

Right.

So we get the DEXA scan at the start.

So everyone gets a DEXA.

Everyone gets it.

200 DEXA scans coming at me.

Yep.

And I'm like, oh God, how am I going to calculate this?

Then I get another 200 DEXA scans at the end.

At the end.

But now we've got a system on the, on the website where people can upload their own

data.

So they can log in.

They can log in, put their own DEXA scan results here.

And what about their training?

Can they do that?

Their training's all online.

Yep.

They can either train, do my training program or they can train with their own trainer.

So you, you put a program out.

I put a program.

It's all there.

Is it like one, do you put a new program every week or is it one program for the whole eight

weeks?

It's a four, it's a four week block.

So you do one four week.

You do train.

Cause I think it takes about four weeks to learn the movements properly.

Yeah.

Even if you're going back and doing a squat, like just learning how to squat.

Do you demo them or?

I demo, it's all on video.

It's all demoed.

It's all, everything's there.

And then after the four weeks, we pretty much change the program.

Cause then, like I said, you don't want people to get bored.

Yeah.

And some people after four weeks are like, fuck, all right, what's, what's next?

So you swap it out.

So a four week block.

Yeah.

Two four week blocks for the eight weeks.

And then are people interacting?

Are they competing with each other?

Like, can you, it's not compete, but can you sort of.

A hundred percent.

Not Strava, but you know, like not on that.

Mate, it's competitive.

Like, cause we do, cause we do, we, I get each chapter to compete against each other.

So I'll take the, so you say we've got 90 blocks or 70 blocks from Maroubra, 50 from

Lennox, 40 from Byron, 30 or 40 from where I'm from.

We had South Australia, New Zealand jump in and do it.

And I'd really like rural Australia to start jumping on board as well.

That's, that's a goal.

But, um, we.

I take the top five results from each chapter and we add them up.

So I think last year, Lennox head one.

Yeah.

And the year before Byron one.

So that's, that just makes the chapters a bit more competitive.

And then when you've got blokes say traveling up to the goal coach from Sydney, they can

jump in and train with our chapter, vice versa.

Do you train, if you're in a chapter, let's say I'm in, I don't know, let's say I'm in

the Maroubra chapter.

Yeah.

Do I physically train with these guys?

Yeah.

Like you, you, you pick someone's garage.

Or a gym or something like that.

And you, oh, okay.

So you actually do.

You actually train together.

You, it creates a community.

So you train together, you go and jump in the ocean and all go and have a coffee together.

Go about your day.

It's almost like a massive community.

Right.

Okay.

So we're trying to create a strong, healthy, vibrant community.

So these chapters, they all say if they meet three times a week or twice a week, they go

and train together and then they can do their own training or they can put, they can get

small groups and splinter off and do their weight training.

That.

I set out.

It just depends where they want to go with it.

We know that joint used to have in Bondi, North Bondi there, where you used to train

in the garage.

You used to have that.

Yeah, the garage.

Was that one of the chapters?

Was that a chapter?

That's where it all started.

Really?

Yeah.

That's where it all started.

We're five guys.

I used to train a group of actually.

It's not a small garage.

Tiny little single car garage.

That's where we trained for years.

And I used to train four guys in there and I was just looking for something to motivate

them.

I was like, I was always interested in DEXA scans and I was like, all right, boys, let's

go get a DEXA scan, not drink alcohol for eight weeks.

And then we'll get a DEXA scan at the end and see who wins.

Like see who can lose the most, lose the most body fat, put on the most lean muscle mass

and lose the most visceral fat, the important fat, that fat that sits around your belly.

Yeah.

So that, all those three results we look at and then we sort of did a calculation at the

end and see who wins.

Has it done anything for mental health?

Definitely.

I didn't set out to do that, to be honest.

Like I didn't set out to, for it to be a, I've set it out to be more of a physical challenge.

But the amount of people that bring me after it and say, mate, my mental health, I didn't

realize that I was in a rut.

They're not like, obviously they're not like in a bad state of mental health.

Not necessarily suicidal.

Yeah.

But they drink, they're just over drinking alcohol and using that as a bit of a masking

agent for their, whatever they're going through, stress at work, financial stress.

And then at the end they go, mate, I not only feel physically better, but I feel mentally

better.

So that's a big, that was massive to hear that off a lot of people.

How many, how many people, let's say, so you do it, how many times a year?

I did it twice last year.

Okay.

But this one, I'll probably, I don't know, last, last year at this, at the same time

of year, I've got 200 people doing it.

I'd like to get four or 500.

If someone was to build a chapter, set up a chapter.

Set up a chapter.

How do they do it?

Mate, they just get a group of, small group of people from the local community, pick two

mornings, just meet.

Either down the beach or at a local gym or at someone's place.

And you just, people gravitate towards it.

They hear about it, start a thread.

Like, like I said before, the threads are the best thing for group training because

you can send out one quick message and everyone's on it.

Everyone supports each other.

Bit of a no dickhead policy.

And how do they register though with the eight week challenges?

Like you have to go register yourself.

Yeah.

When, when you're, when that time comes around in February, you jump on, it costs 250 bucks

to do the challenge.

Yep.

And then you pay for your own two DEXA scans.

They're a hundred dollars each.

Yeah.

That's pretty good.

So it costs 450 bucks all up to do the challenge.

And, but you, like if you're a drinker, you'll save that money in two or three weeks.

Not even a couple of nights.

Totally.

Yeah.

So that's.

How many years you been doing this for?

Because I mean, I remember.

I think it's about six years.

This is like seven years.

You've lived in Bondi longer than that though.

Yeah.

That's, I've been training in Bondi around those places for years, but I think we're

up to about.

Challenge number seven coming up.

Number seven.

And why do you do it?

It's not for money making.

So why are you doing it?

Why is John Gannon doing it?

I really enjoy just seeing people come together in a community and go have each other's backs.

Where like, even when the floods were on, like up in 22, when the floods were on.

In Lismore.

It was Lismore and all around the, down towards Lenox and all around the back of Lenox Head,

New Brighton and all those places.

It was the local community that got up.

And saved people and helped people out.

There was no one else for four days.

It was the boys on their jet skis and in tinnies.

The women were on the boat ramps.

Like local businesses were bringing down jerry cans full of fuel.

They're bringing down generators.

But everyone just come together as a community and sorted it out.

But there's like, without that, those people were in all sorts of trouble.

I remember hearing a story that Mitt Fanning, and I was drawing a contract,

contacted.

Musk.

Yeah.

Elon.

Elon Musk.

And got the.

Elon Musk was.

He got the.

Starlight.

Starlink.

Starlink.

Starlink.

Starlink.

Starlink internet services.

Starlink.

Starlink internet services.

Yeah.

And for people in Lismore.

Yep.

People in Lismore and all around the back of.

Waddell and all those areas.

Yeah, Waddell.

Yeah.

That was really bad.

That was bad, mate.

They were stuck.

They were stuck in their roof cavities for four days.

Yeah.

No phone, no food, no water, no nothing.

And everything's closed down because the internet needs cable.

And you couldn't get there.

You could only get there by boat or jet ski.

You know, it's interesting, off the back of that, they might join up there.

And I thought, you know, I've got, I had, you know, some other, you know, internet service.

I won't say which one.

And I thought, eh, I'm going to support Starlink.

So I got Starlink on the two houses just because of what Mick Fanning did for Lismore.

I thought I would reward, it's not going to make any difference to Starlink.

But I thought it would make, I thought, no, no, I'll make it, my decision is I'm going with that brand.

Yep.

At the time, it was a few years ago, it was a bit more expensive.

Because you had to buy the kit.

It's much cheaper now.

But, great, by the way, an unbelievable service at Starlink.

Like, I never get downtime.

Like, even when, like, last weekend was, like, belting down.

Yeah.

It was still, I was still, was still finding, my dish was still finding the satellite.

And it was, and it was perfect.

Every now and then I had, like, a little blip.

But it was heavy duty weather.

Yeah.

And that's off the back of someone like Mick Fanning doing what he did.

And it wasn't just Mick.

It was a whole lot of other blokes.

There was a big gang of them.

Yeah.

A group of people.

Yeah.

And they're the sorts of people who are doing this eight-week challenge.

Yeah, that's it.

That's what I want to create.

Like, strong communities.

Yeah.

For when the shit does hit the fan.

Like, even little things that happen that we don't even know about.

Like, someone's kid's sick.

That group of people go and do a fundraiser.

Like, anything like that.

Just to create, like, because I think that's what we're lacking.

Like, strong, healthy, vibrant communities.

Especially after COVID, we realized how social people are as well.

So, now we've got our social.

We've got our social life back.

We don't have to go to the pub and drink 10 schooners and write yourself off and just talk shit.

You don't even remember what your mate said to you anyway.

Well, mate, if you do, you're just repeating shit you've been talking about every other time.

Yeah, yeah.

It's the same shit.

It's the same crap.

Same shit.

So, I'd rather see people come down and train together, have a swim in the ocean or in a cold plunge or whatever they've got, river.

Go and have a coffee.

Talk about whatever.

Like, the shit that comes out is so funny.

And you remember what each other said.

Yeah.

And you go about your day and you feel better about yourself.

Yeah, I feel better even just hearing you talk about it now.

Because, you know, it's funny, you know.

It's nearly full circle because what you're telling me now, what you're trying to create, letting others create, helping others create, is sort of like the original foundation premise of the bra boys looking after each other.

Yeah.

But without all the other stuff that went with it.

Yeah.

Just older blokes, probably.

Probably they're not 20-year-olds.

Probably blokes in their 30s, 40s, whatever.

Building a community themselves.

Healthy community looking after each other.

Yep.

Looking out for each other.

Yep.

And also enjoying each other's company, which is sort of where you started.

Yeah.

When you were 20.

Yeah, definitely.

But you've just taken the best part of it.

Yeah.

And then put it into what you're doing now.

Took out a bit of stuff.

You ever thought about that?

Yeah.

Oh, not really.

Nah.

Now that you just mentioned it, I am.

But-

Because every human likes that, mate.

Yeah, I love it.

We all want to be part of something.

I love it.

It builds so quick too.

The one in Newcastle started a year ago with four or five blokes.

They got 50 or 60 blokes turning up to each session.

Wow.

Are they mostly just surfers?

Because of your community?

A bit of everything.

A bit of everything.

For ex-footy players, surfers, mate, ex-crims, whatever.

It doesn't matter.

There's no judgements.

There's no judgements.

Yeah.

There's blokes that have come out of drug and rehab that really come down and love it

because it gives them a bit of a purpose.

They got something to get up for the next day.

It's whoever wants to come and join in.

Now the women are starting to jump in.

Oh, good.

You got a lot of women jumping into it as well.

Maroubra have got 10 or so girls, young girls, that come down and jump in and smash the session

with the boys.

So now that's the other thing.

To make it more women inclusive as well, I'd love to get more women on the challenge.

Because then the other thing is when you've got mum and dad doing the challenge, the healthy

living and the healthy lifestyle filters down to the rest of the family without even saying

anything.

We get a bit of feedback from that.

Yeah.

We do what we see.

Yep.

We don't do what we're told.

Yeah, the kids can't understand.

Monkeys eat monkey dirt.

You don't tell your kids to eat that, eat that, but if they see mum and dad cooking

healthy, then we get a few people coming back with a bit of feedback saying the kids want

to prepare dinner with me, the kids want to come up, jump up in the morning, come for

a run with me.

So there's that element of it as well that we get a bit of feedback about as well.

Especially if you start introducing your kids to things like breath work, these unusual

things, breath work.

It doesn't have to be a cold plunge, but it could be just jumping in the ocean.

Yep.

Jump in the ocean.

Jump in the ocean.

100%.

How much better do you feel?

And walking around on the grass.

I remember when I was a kid, I had a pair of thongs.

That was it.

It was summer come, so no school.

I only had two pairs of shoes, a pair of sand shoes and a pair of school shoes and a pair

of thongs.

In the summer, it was thongs all barefoot.

Yep.

Everywhere.

In those days, you'd step in on bindis, those bindi eye things just getting your foot numb.

Oh, they'd drop you.

Cat's eyes.

Yeah, cat's eyes.

And you'd be there plucking them out of your foot.

But it didn't bother you.

Like if a kid today just stood and they'd freak out, you'd step on a bee.

Straight to an emergency.

Step on a bee, get a bee sting.

Build up a bit of resilience to the old bee sting.

Yeah.

Or step on a nail and then you'd be down at the doctor getting a tetanus shot.

I mean, a number of times I got on those things.

And I reckon, you know, I don't want to sound like some old dude, but I just think that,

you know, I think of my own grandsons, what I'm talking about, so I've got three grandsons.

I've got to think about, are they ever going to experience that sort of stuff or is it

going to be their life's going to be about like protecting and making sure that, put

your shoes on.

Yeah.

There's bees around here.

Yeah.

Or put your shoes on, you might step on a rusty nail.

I don't want them to get the rusty nail in their foot, but at the same time-

It's a fine line.

I do want them to experience some life.

It's funny, you know, my grandson, one of my second eldest grandson, my son sent me

a photograph of him on the weekend.

Yep.

And this is like 11 o'clock at night, Saturday night.

And when you get a message from your son at 11 o'clock at night, it's never good, okay?

Yeah, you know, fuck, what's happened?

So he's at the hospital in Sydney.

And my grandson is one.

One year and three weeks old.

Wild as they come.

And he climbed up on top of a bean bag and fell off onto a concrete floor.

So he opened his head up.

Yep.

He's got the biggest gash on his head, like big gash on his head.

And yeah, and the worst part about it is, you know, he got there at nine o'clock at

night, eight o'clock at night.

The worst part about it is I was still at 11 waiting for someone to come stitch him

up.

Yeah.

That's the hospital system.

Yeah.

But, and I thought it was, and he stitched up now and he got three stitches in his head

and he's got a band.

And I thought to myself, yeah, but you know, it's sort of, I don't know, it's sort of okay.

Yep.

Too.

Yep.

Yeah.

It happens.

It's nothing wrong.

And his older brother was crying.

Yep.

And I said, and I thought, well, that's okay too.

You see your little brother get injured, you feel something.

Yeah.

And that's something you never forget when you're, when you're six or seven and your

little brother's one.

You will never forget that incident.

And those little sort of natural human things that happened to us, like I was just saying

before about running around with your bare feet on the grass and standing on a little

flower that might have a bee on it and getting a bee sting.

Mate, they're all, they're all nature's little warnings and.

Yeah.

Builds up a bit of resilience.

Totally.

Builds up a bit of grit.

Totally.

Yeah.

We need it.

I think we need it.

Yeah.

And I think that's the challenge.

It's sort of an older person's version of what I just said.

Like it's about being natural.

Stop drinking.

Watch what you eat.

Eat well.

Yeah.

Sleep well.

Train your ass off.

Yep.

Have a goal.

Talk to your mates about it.

Yep.

Cause train your ass off on your own is really hard.

Yeah.

Talk to your mates about it.

Yeah.

Watch the day they're down cause you, you be rest assured you're going to have a shit

day.

Yeah.

You pick each other up when you need it.

You say, come on mate, let's get into it.

Um, if I turn up, I'll turn up because I know you're turning up.

100%.

Cause I don't want to let you down.

That's a good motivator.

Totally.

Yep.

Really.

Like this morning I didn't train cause I got up a bit later.

I didn't get up a bit late.

And, uh, but if I was meeting someone, there's no way in the world, if I went to bed at two

in the morning, I was still turning up at six cause I don't want to let someone down.

100%.

Not myself.

Like I'll let myself down every time.

Yeah.

But if I got someone else, I don't want to let them down.

So I think that like community thing is really important.

Yeah.

Definitely.

The eight week challenge is a rip off.

I got a, it's funny.

I'm talking about a Blake who we know needs to do something about his training regime.

Yep.

And, uh, Ging said to me, get him on the eight week challenge.

Yeah.

Bring him in.

Bring him in.

So maybe we should build a little group, me and him and a few others.

Yeah.

Get a Bondi chap to go on.

Yeah.

Bondi chap.

Well, he's a roosters guy, so we could do it.

Another rooster.

Yeah.

Another rooster.

Surrounded by him.

Mate, they're everywhere.

He's not going to tell me you're a bunny supporter.

I'm a bunny supporter, mate.

Oh my God.

And so is our producer over there.

Look at him.

Pit fierce pumping.

What's wrong with you guys?

He's good mates with Ging.

And Ging, two of my best mates.

Roosters.

Roosters.

Two of my best, closest friends.

So I'm used to it, mate.

And then I know Trent Robbo well.

Yeah.

And another, obviously the coach.

So, and you and Fabi over there.

There's roosters.

Surrounded by him.

There's roosters everywhere.

Yeah.

So mate, I, I want to wish you the best for, for the, uh, what date in February?

What date?

Third of, third of February.

Third of Feb.

Yep.

Um, I want to wish you the best for the third.

Thanks mate.

I want to wish, more importantly, you don't need it.

I want to wish all the people who join up the best.

Best outcome.

Yeah.

That's great.

It's a great, a great initiative.

And, uh, like if you're listening, um, and you want to get motivated, it's called the

eight week challenge.

Yep.

Is, is there a website?

It's a big eight challenge, sorry.

A big eight challenge?

Yep.

So is there a website?

Website.

Yeah.

We'll, we'll put it on the link below.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

Go there.

Get a gang together.

Yep.

Register whenever the time comes.

Register.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Move forward.

Go to registration and have a crack.

Yup.

Thanks.

Thanks Johnny.

Appreciate it mate.

Appreciate it man.

Thank you.

Good to see you.

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