Tony Gentilcore on the Importance of Training With Purpose

Also on Spotify.

In this episode, I interview Tony Gentilcore, one of the three original founders of the exceptionally successful, Cressey Sports Performance, and now founder-owner of the new CORE training center in Boston.

The interview starts off talking about the subjectiveness of strength (6:20), moves to training with purpose and intrinsic motivation (8:40), progressing the chin-up for women (10:40), the hollow hold positions (19:15), progressing the deadlift for men (26:20) and finishes up with the “trainable menu” (42:30).

Tony is one of the great personalities of the fitness industry. It was a hell of a lot of fun doing this interview and I hope you enjoy it.

Listen here.

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Show notes

Writing [2:00]
How do you describe it is what you do, Tony? Making people deadlift terminators. I want people to be strong and move well. [3:25]
Strength is subjective. Of course, I want people to get strong in the big three lifts. Who am I to tell someone who someone who can do a human flag is not strong? [6:00]

TRAINING WITH PURPOSE

Training with purpose. Why are we coming here? What are we working toward? [8:20]
Intrinsic motivation to get your ass to the gym. Getting jazzed up and excited is key to being self-motivated. [9:00]

PROGRESSING TO THE CHIN-UP FOR WOMEN

Woman are can be impeded by the media on what they can achieve. The ‘chin-up’ resonates with a lot of woman as a goal to work toward. [10:20]
Progression pattern to get that first chin-up. Training once or twice a week is not enough, but doing chin ups every day is not the best avenue. [13:50]
Tony’s impressive YouTube on form and technique. [17:15]
Hollow hold position as a first step. [19:00]

PROGRESSING THE DEADLIFT FOR MEN

Intro [26:00]
Deadlift stance. Conventional deadlift is actually the most difficult. [27:30]
How to get started with a conventional deadlift. [35:00]
Using video to fix deadlift technique. [39:00]

THE TRAINABLE MENU