Don't have a 500 deadlift and complain your back hurts picking up a hundred

I pulled up Tom's reels and had him react to them on camera. His most watched post of 2024 was a kettlebell throw with the caption: don't have a 500 deadlift and complain your back hurts when you pick up a hundred. I asked him if he would still post it word for word two years later. He said yes.

The word was obese, and that was the trigger

His argument is simple. Could you pick up somebody who weighs that much in a burning building. Could you do it with a 200 pound person. He took heat for the word obese, and his answer was that obesity has been around for years and is one of the leading causes of death in America.

1:04

“Could you pick somebody up who weighs that much in a burning building?”

The comments split. Some called it fat shaming. Others asked where to buy a bag like that. Tom's read on the acceptance movement is that being big is not the same as being healthy. His view is that you have to laugh at this stuff, and if you are that sensitive you are living a miserable life. The fact that a word makes somebody that emotional tells him they do not like being it.

3:22

“You're so pissed off about these trigger words.”

He used himself as the example. Tom is bald. People tell him he should have gone to Turkey. He does not want to spend ten grand to relive his youth. Aging is aging. He started shaving his head at the end of 2023 and he is happy with how he looks, so the post about bald guys does nothing to him.

Scaring people off: feature or leak

Another one of his posts was about how quick people are to judge others by appearance. He hears all the time that he is intimidating, that people think he is going to hurt them in the gym. His wife made the point that posting his son and posting the two of them shows people he is a loving, kind and caring person.

The part that actually bothers him is the past clients. Current clients run into them and ask why they do not train with Tom anymore. The answer comes back the same way. I let Tom down. I stopped going. I am a disgrace to what he is doing, so I cannot go back there.

6:16

“I am a grueling and serious person.”

He does not take any shit when it comes to training. Walk through his doors and he expects you to work hard. He also says he has never stopped training. Not when he lost jobs. Not when he became a parent. Not the night his wife needed emergency gallbladder surgery, when he called his mom to the apartment, got his wife to the hospital, went home, took care of his son at four in the morning, ran a packed wait listed class, went back to the hospital, went home with her medicine, and then trained.

His line is that life is hard and he understands it, and there is still no excuse for not getting in shape or not continuing to work out. He also says he could not be a malicious person and be a husband and a father at the same time.

I have been training since I was 14 and training with Tom has been the best experience I have had, so I keep sending people to him. Julia is one of them. She is now a coach under his wife. Seeing that happen is the part I enjoy most.

You don't need new programming

Then we watched the 50 inch box jump. He is 40 pounds heavier than he was at 22 and hitting the same height. He does sets of two at 50 inches for three or four sets, and the lower heights around 44 and 46 inches are too easy for him now.

The caption is where his opinion sits. He says fitness has become whatever is trending for content or whatever is flashy to the naked eye. He has been training for 20 years and he always enjoyed doing basic stuff and pushing himself. He never started doing random workouts because everyone else was.

10:33

“You don't need new programming, stick to the one you're on.”

Push your people, do not baby them

A gym owner who has run his gym for 14 years told me the one thing he would do differently if he started again is be nicer to clients. I asked Tom if he would be nicer in 10 or 20 years.

He answered with a question. Was he an asshole to Phil. Phil lost 60 pounds and got strong, and Phil enjoys being yelled at and enjoys a coach being a coach. Tom said he would need to see how that gym owner actually talks to his clients. If somebody is calling a client worthless or a fat piece of shit, that is a different thing, and he would never do that. His gym is full of people from all walks of life, different sizes, different identities. They talk shit, it is fun, and they make fun of him all the time.

13:40

“I think people should not be babied.”

His example is the client who wants to do arms today and nothing else. Tom does not care what you want to do, you are going to do what he tells you. If you want to leave, fine, he will go train the people who want to be there. He also said if what he was doing was not working, he would look at himself and switch things up.

He does think softness has a place. With your spouse. With your children. With the waiter when you go out to dinner. Holding a door. Sending somebody a text to ask how they are doing or to say happy birthday. Then with the gym, work, business and school, be relentless, because the moment you take your foot off the gas the grades slip, the business stops flourishing and the training suffers.

The kettlebell critics

The last post was about CrossFit athletes, doctors and combat sports guys talking down on kettlebells. Tom's position is that they do not use heavy enough bells to have an opinion. You cannot tell him that goblet squatting a 200 pound kettlebell will not build muscle and strength. You cannot tell him farmers carries with 150 pound bells will not make you strong. Most of them also do not have the skill to clean, snatch or press one.

16:33

“I think they just don't know what they're talking about.”

He does not claim to be the perfect coach. He says he lives it and uses heavy kettlebells every single day. He thinks the big platforms use the take for clickbait, and people assume a doctor must be an expert in everything. Doctors get things wrong and make wrong calls. He also pointed at himself for balance. He has his opinion on Hyrox and he still went and did it.

What I see in commercial gyms is the other half of the problem. People go too light, especially the guys. Tom's answer to that is skill. A 35 pound bell is plenty for a flow if you know the figure eight, where your heel comes up, how to snatch it onto your wrist, where you come down in a windmill, how to cossack squat. Dumbbell curls are easy. Bench is easy. Deadlifting is easy once you know how to do it right.