**EP317: Interview With Jason Curtis - Strength and Conditioning Coach (Part 1)**
**Dr. Auric Bishop:** Welcome, my name's Dr. Auric Bishop. I'm a cardiologist, I'm an author, and a keynote speaker. I'm the CEO of the Healthy Heart Network. I'm all about trying to help people live as well as possible for as long as possible. Heart disease is huge in Australia. Every 20 minutes, someone suffers a heart attack. Most of these could probably have been avoided if only we knew what to do. This podcast is all about helping you understand blood pressure, weight, cholesterol, for better health. If you enjoy this podcast, I would be honoured for a five-star review. You can share it with your family and friends. It may well save someone you love.
Hi, my name is Dr. Warwick Bishop, and welcome to my podcast and videocast station. Today, I have a special guest, Coach Jason Curtis, all the way from the UK. We're on Zoom. G'day, Jason. How are you?
**Jason Curtis:** Yeah, not too bad. Doing well.
**Dr. Warwick Bishop:** Look, Jason's been in the fitness industry for years. He's married with three kids, and they're peacefully asleep at the moment. So we're going to take the opportunity to find out more about Jason, more about his journey because he's moved through the military and now really focuses on strength and conditioning, which I think is such an important aspect of health span and general well-being. Jason, tell us a little bit about your own story and where that interest in health, fitness, and conditioning started.
**Jason Curtis:** Yeah, so basically, I'm quite lucky and quite fortunate to have known what I wanted to do from a very young age. I was interested in combat sports as a youth. So from a very young age, I knew I was interested in fitness and physical training. I also knew I wanted to join the army from a young age. So I was very lucky in that respect. I ended up joining the military, did six years as an infantry soldier, an army physical training instructor, where I worked training infantry soldiers and also recruits that were getting ready to join the battalions and go off on operations and whatnot.
During my time in the military, I did a lot of qualifications and really learned that I was a fitness professional and that was my passion and where I wanted to go. I realized I wanted to leave the army and set up a gym. However, I didn't have much money. I earned a reasonable amount in the military but spent most of that on beer. When I did come to leave the army, I went into the civilian fitness industry, started running boot camps, and just grew from there. Eventually, I was given private investment to set up my own gym, which I currently still own. It's been going for about eight years now. We have a couple of hundred members. I work with the general population, so of all ages and genders. We're sort of 50-50 male and female. The bulk of the gym is the general population, just normal folk. I also work with athletes, hobbyist athletes, right the way through to world-class athletes.
During that time, whilst running the gym, I published over 20 books on strength and conditioning, whether it be Olympic weightlifting, strength training, warming up, even anatomy and physiology specific for fitness professionals. What I'm actually working on now is my own fitness race, which we perform on athletics tracks. So that's my main focus at the moment, and I'm writing a book on fitness racing.
**Dr. Warwick Bishop:** Sorry, just maybe for me and for the people listening, Jason, what do you mean by fitness racing? Give me an example of that, just so I've got a better mind's eye.
**Jason Curtis:** So fitness racing is... A lot of people might be aware of, say, CrossFit, which I call specialist fitness racing because it has a high technical demand. So people are racing through essentially fitness events, like it might be Olympic weightlifting, box jumps, or muscle-ups, right? But that's high technical demand. Then you've got OCR, which is obstacle course racing or ninja racing, where they're running over obstacles, crawling, and doing monkey bars. What I call conventional fitness racing is like the High Rocks race, which is where you do eight times 1K followed by rowing, skiing, sled pushes, stuff like that.
So conventional fitness racing is where there's a low technical demand. However, obviously, if you've got good rowing technique, you're better off. If you've got good running technique, you're better off, but anyone can enter these races as long as they're fit enough. So my race is on a track. You do 12 times 400-meter runs, and in between each 400-meter run, you do what I call labours, which is 12 exercises like farmer's carry, dumbbell push press, bear crawls, and burpee broad jumps. So people are racing through fitness events. I think this is going to be one of the fastest-growing sports in the world because what you actually find is more people, as they get older, don't do as much sport. Yet more and more people are joining the gym, getting into fitness, and they need goals. So it makes complete sense to me to take all the things that people are training in the gym to make their bodies stronger and create a sport out of that. So that's one of my main focuses at the moment.
**Dr. Warwick Bishop:** An interesting concept. I certainly see where that's coming from, and I think it will fill a gap, actually. This idea of being able to test fitness separate from school set is a good idea. I like it.
**Jason Curtis:** Yeah, awesome. Look, one of the things that I thought I'd just tease you out on a little bit is how different did you find it dealing with the army or the military sort of situation for training and exercise and requirements for boot camp style training versus dealing with the general public? Was there a big shift there for you, Jason?
**Jason Curtis:** So for me, I think people are actually shocked to find out that I saw the opposite of what people perceive me to think, which was in the military. Yes, you've got a lot of fit people, and you're doing fitness every morning, and it's very regimented. I was the guy that was running out of fitness. The military often tells you that civvies, i.e., the people outside the military, are all weak and lazy and pathetic, and the military are hardcore and tough. But what I actually found was, in the military, you're forced to do physical training every morning with a guy like me, the PTI. Often, the PTI is seen as that bad guy that's beasting you.
Whereas when I left the military, obviously, I'm in a bubble of the fitness industry. The people that are coming to my boot camps or coming to train with me are paying me to train them. I was expecting people to be a bit lazy and moan about everything. There are a lot of people like that, but I think the style of training that I deliver brought people to me that wanted to train. I was actually really shocked at how hardcore civvies were, you know? So these people that I deemed as average folk are now running ultra marathons or doing obstacle course races, or guys in their 60s and 70s are still wanting to deadlift and be active.
It's still a small percentage of the population on the grand scale of things, but that's actually growing. I love the military, and the guys were great, and the camaraderie was huge, but I actually found leaving the military, I found more motivation in a lot of ways for physical training because it was almost seen as part of the job in the infantry, especially.
**Dr. Warwick Bishop:** That's in fact almost to a T that reflects a theory, I guess, or really a philosophical position I see in my own work. I think it's probably across the board. The concept is a bit along the lines of if you give somebody something for nothing, they value it for nothing. If someone pays for something, that payment is their investment in it. To a degree, you're saying that the army situation is one where the guys have to turn up. They're told to turn up. They're not invested personally; it's part of what they have to do. And yet your private members, the people who engage with you, they have paid in, they've invested.
So for them, what you say has true value because it's the value of the money out of their pocket, which really focuses people's attention. So it's a nice reminder that you give people something for nothing; they often don't value it as much as if they have to pay for it.
**Jason Curtis:** Oh, absolutely. I mean, I've seen that firsthand with my courses where I actually made a bit of, not really a mistake, but I give a lot of free content away, and people will say often too much. It definitely is a little bit too much, but I enjoy doing it, and I have a lot of content behind it. I actually found when I promoted too much free content to areas that were just lapping it up, my engagement was through the roof, but the conversions weren't.
When I was giving massive discounts and also giving courses away for free, when I looked at the analytics at the backend of my online course platform, if I give a course away for free, this is pretty much straight across the board. If I give a course away for free, they never complete the course. If they pay full price for the course, they always complete the course. I'm not just saying that to fit the example. It is absolutely black and white that that is the case of what happens. If it's free, they don't complete it. The completion rates are all – I've never seen someone get a course for free from my online learning platform and complete it like they do when they've spent money on it. It's really telling.
**Dr. Warwick Bishop:** Well, look, I – There's no, we won't dive into human psychology because we're going to stick with physiology and exercise mainly, but there's no question there's a lot of psychology behind exercise. One of the things you said, which I think is a beautiful line and I've written it down, is "average is no longer average." I think that really speaks to what we're seeing in an environment where people are looking to try and recognize there's a need for health span over lifespan and over just plodding along.
Do you want to speak to that at all? How do you engage with your community around that?
**Jason Curtis:** Yeah, so I've seen a massive uptake on people having that view of health span, and it normally kicks in, in my experience, after the 30s or after the initial kids. What I tend to see is because my gym does a lot of harder training, so intense circuits and conditioning work. Yes, we have teenagers and guys in their 20s, but what I see a lot of is the guys in their 20s. They're all bothered about aesthetics, and by guys, I mean guys and girls, men and women. They're bothered about aesthetics; they go to the big commercial gyms, they work on developing the muscles, and they work on developing the physiques, right?
They're not as conscious of their overall health. Where my membership picks up is after 30, but even more so between like 40 and 60 is the big sort of age group within my gym. These are the guys that have got through their early 20s where they're going out, and their nutrition and drinking doesn't affect them too much. They're more conscious of physique. Then they maybe have their first kids, and they realize, actually, I'm getting out of breath now. I'm starting to get over that sort of bell curve where things are starting to decrease naturally. I'm starting to age. They start realizing they need to be fitter and stronger.
With things like this, like your podcast and podcasts and videos online and the media sort of pushing the scientific research, more and more people are aware now of bone mineral density, the fact that muscle activity is a real problem, and the fact that if you're not exercising, you risk falling. What would be well-known, you know, common knowledge to fitness professionals and health and fitness professionals is now, in my opinion, common knowledge to the general population. They know that I often say to people, it can sound depressing, but as you get older, maintaining is improving because actually, you're going downhill. So even if you don't improve and get fitter, if you stay the same, you're doing well.
What we see in our gym is we see people improving drastically in their 40s, 50s, and 60s, stronger than they've ever been, fitter than they've ever been. So, yeah, I've seen a massive uptake in people going, you know, I'm training not just to look good. I'm training for health span because yes, training is not necessarily going to make you live 20 or 50 years longer, but the years that you do have, you're going to be considerably healthier for. The awareness of that is in my bubble and my gym is through the roof. I would say that's the bulk of why people are training. The other side is the mental health because training, as we know, makes you feel great.
I think the people listening to this podcast are aligned with that. They would only be doing that, listening to these sorts of resources if they are interested in giving themselves the best chance of a healthy future. Otherwise, why would you undertake the investment? So I completely concur with what you're saying, and I think we're probably going to be listened to by people who are exactly in that space. So yeah, we are seeing that change in the world, almost no question.
As you speak with people about this physical well-being, you touched on how important it is for mental health to exercise. I completely agree with that. I just wonder if you offer much dietary or nutritional advice as part of your program when you're dealing with people, Jason?
**Jason Curtis:** Yeah, so actually what I do is I have nutritionists at the gym because obviously, nutrition is essential. The only reason why I, I obviously have a background where I've studied nutrition and I'm educated within nutrition, but I just don't find, I'm not as interested. If you look at all the books behind me, they're all strength conditioning manuals and a few other novels, but I'm not as interested myself in the nutritional side of it. Although I consider my diet to be very good, I give advice to my clients. That's not my area of passion, and I definitely always say to people lean into where your passions lie. You know, people buy into, if someone said what's the key to success, I'd say, you know, the passionate demonstration of expertise.
If you're a passionate expert, people will buy into you. So yeah, we do give nutrition advice because it's key. I mean, I'm very much, when it comes to, you know, even my writing within strength and conditioning, I'm very much, I caveat more than people often expect where, you know, there's many ways to squat. So I'm very down the middle when it comes to nutrition. I'm very much agree with balance, very much agree with, you know, eating whole foods, just get a good varied diet of whole foods, plenty of water. I'm not too dogmatic on any particular side because obviously, there is that within nutrition, which I'm sort of adverse to.
So I think obviously there's no question, and the people listening to this would be aware, if you're looking to maximize your health journey, the exercise component is pretty important. No question about that. That will feed into emotional well-being, psychological well-being, and that needs to really be complemented by sensible eating because that's really the fuel that your body uses to build the structures, the tissues that are the response to the training triggers. So it's a package, isn't it? It's very hard to ignore one.
**Jason Curtis:** Yes, which is why we have the sort of nutritionists at the gym just because I don't like, if I'm being completely honest, I just don't like dealing with the nutritional side because so much of the fitness industry is focused on weight loss. Now, my journey through training has been weight gain, as in I was always a very skinny lad, so I just don't like dealing with people when everything's so focused on weight loss. I just hand everything to my sort of the guys that work on nutrition who are really passionate about it because I think a lot of nutrition is more about the coaching around nutrition.
It's not about giving someone a dietary regime or giving someone recipes; there's far more nuance to it because I have someone for an hour in the gym or a couple of hours, and I can program for them. But elite athletes might be training 20 hours a week, but most people are training two or three hours a week. So I can focus on that and get the most out of them. When it comes to a good nutrition coach, it's far more than just, "Here's your program. Here's how you perform the exercise." Because nutrition, especially when there are problems like weight and stuff like that, it's far more psychological.
The best nutritionists, in my opinion, are almost like lifestyle coaches. You know, they've got to mentor individuals. It's not just where I'm very analytical with training, and I can coach an individual to move better, perform better. I think you have to have that real passion about people and the empathy around why someone is. Because for me, I can eat chicken and rice five times a day; it doesn't bother me. Food is fuel. I can eat all my veg. Do you want this chocolate bar? Do you want alcohol? I don't drink. I used to enjoy it, but I don't drink anymore. I find that easy, and it's not because I'm disciplined; it's because it's easy. I'd rather train than eat. So I think it's better to have a nutritionist that has that real empathy, which I don't think I have for people that are going, "Oh, I've eaten too much." And I'm like, "Well, don't." You know, I think, you know, that's why I push it to new, but it's absolutely essential. And I take my diet, especially in the last few years, very seriously.
**Dr. Warwick Bishop:** Well, it certainly demonstrates some insight if you recognize where your skill set is and how you can help people where you can and where you can't and fill in those gaps for them. Look, this stuff is absolutely fascinating. But one of the things that I've noticed, and you alluded to, is the books you've written. Tell me how you started those. And what I might add, Jason, is we're at about 10 to 15 minutes. So I might chat about books, but we've got so much to talk about. I'll float the possibility of a second podcast.
For those listening, we might finish up on Jason's story about being an author and then wrap that up. We may do a second podcast talking about some of the details and drilling down on the physiology of exercise programs and how to get the best bang for your buck. So tell us about being an author and how that all came about, because not everyone writes a book.
**Jason Curtis:** Yeah, so basically, I think this is another area where I was quite lucky. You know, I've always wanted to own a gym and be in the army from being younger. I've also had an interest in writing, so I was never particularly good at writing, you know, never excelled at English in school. However, I've always enjoyed reading and writing. I actually had an idea for a book, a manual called "Train the Movements," which was about all the sort of, rather than focusing on training muscles, it's training movements. So rather than doing sort of chest and tris, you're training pushing movements.
There are fundamental movements like hinge, squat, lunge, push, pull, rotate, and gait, which is locomotion. So that was the idea for the first book. It just so happened that one of my clients was quite a well-known indie publisher of guitar books, one of the most prolific indie authors on Amazon. He sort of initially turned around to me and said, "Look, rather than trying to write a massive manual, what's the first chapter? Just write a book on that. Rather than writing a symphony, write a song."
So we went into that, and he published a few books for me. From there, I decided that I wanted to write that sort of magnum opus, the big manuals. I wanted to write how I wanted to write. His publishing was great, but he very much had a style, which was break it down into exactly what the reader needs to know, similar to his guitar manuals, which are tremendously successful.
Since then, going into my writing methodology and my style, what I do is I create a skeleton of a book where, for example, if it's a strength training book that I published, which is about 300 pages, that essentially was my "Train the Movements" book. What I do is I go, "Right, so what is strength training? It's the progressive development of movement. What are the movements you've got?" Like I mentioned previously, hinge, squat, push, pull. Then I said, "Right, what are 20 squat variants?" So you've got goblet, bodyweight squat, goblet squat, back squat, front squat, search squat, Anderson squat, overhead squat, all these different squats.
Let's do half a page on introducing the exercise benefits, you know, what muscles it works, teaching points. I did the photography for it, and before I knew it, the book was just proliferated with content. That's the approach I've taken for all my books. So when it comes to, say, Olympic weightlifting, breaking it down section by section, I create the contents page, create all the titles, all the subtitles, and then it's fill in the blanks.
That initial stage, because I consider myself to be a content creator, that initial stage of writing the book is awesome because it's all the serotonin; everything's going, you're feeling great, you're being very creative. The middle stage is where it gets a little bit harder, especially because you have that sort of massive burst of creative energy where you're excited about the book, and you're starting to fill in the blanks, you're building up those tens of thousands of word count, and then you hit that wall where you've done loads of work. I feel that hype is starting to wear off, and you realize there's loads of work left to do, and that's the wall for me where you've just got to churn away.
You know, you've got every possible little bit of time; you've got to sort of get typing and just work away, chip away at it. Before you know it, you've done your first draft. The editing phase is another phase where I get quite excited about it because you're getting close to the end. So the middle phase for me with writing is difficult, but the start and the finish are great. I can honestly say there's some, I publish hundreds and hundreds of eBooks, but there's something special about publishing, especially a paperback or hardcover where people can get a physical copy. You've got that ISBN. You know, it's published on Amazon. You can find it in a bookstore, for example, if you offer that.
There's something really special about that, and it's something that even if someone were to argue that, you know, old people aren't reading as much, you've got YouTube and stuff, I'll continue writing books for the rest of my life. I find it incredibly rewarding, albeit hard work.
**Dr. Warwick Bishop:** Yeah, good on you. Look, I've written a couple of books. That journey is enormous. It is genuinely hard work, but incredibly satisfying, particularly holding a book at the end. You almost think of it a bit like a child, part of your family that you've created. It's a nice thing.
Look, I'm going to wrap it up there. I've been speaking with Coach Jason Curtis. It's an absolute delight. We're speaking with Jason in the UK, and I'm in Tasmania. He's a strength performance conditioning coach, has written 20-odd books, is married with three kids, and is very busy and passionate about helping people with their health span journey. I'm going to wrap it up for now, and stay tuned for a second podcast where I'm going to speak to Jason about more specifics around the physiology of exercise programs and how we can make them work.
For now, thank you so much for listening. If you have any queries or questions, drop us a note at info@drwarwickbishop.com. If you've got any suggestions for future podcasts, let us know. Until next time, I wish you the very best and hope you live as well as possible for as long as possible. Take care and bye for now.
**Dr. Warwick Bishop:** Hi. Ever wondered what your risk of heart attack is? You should. It's the single biggest killer in the Western world. We're talking one death less than every 30 minutes in Australia. One death less than every 60 seconds in the United States. 9 million deaths globally per annum. Well, how do you check your risk? You can go to www.virtualheartcheck.com.au. You'll find out about your risk and what can be done beyond that to be even more precise.
