SHAWN STEVENSON:  The game is changing. No longer are we settling for the conventional version of aging. As you are well aware here in our modern society, aging looks very, very different than our ancestors. But I'm here today to tell you that rapid degradation and degeneration does not have to be your story. And through that, it's all about having models and examples who are willing to share their insights, to share their blueprint for how we can age gracefully. But more important than that, having the audacity to be better than we've ever been. And my special guest today checks all of those boxes. He absolutely blew me away with his level of fitness functionality, things he's doing at almost 50 years old, dunking out the gym. I mean, it's just absolutely amazing.

But as you'll hear, this was not always his story. He was dealing with a lot of pain and a lot of struggle. But through a series of events that he's gonna share with you, he was able to find out what some people might look at as a fountain of youth, but it's not something that you drink. It was some practices. And by employing these things in his life, he was able to transform his body, his mind, and also impact countless people all over the world. Right now, he's frequently training and coaching professional athletes, and of course everyday folks who just want to achieve the very best fitness that's possible for them.

And these principles that you're going to learn are very actionable and doable at some level for all of us. And so I'm very inspired to share this powerful episode with you today. Today's guest is Derek Williams, AKA Mr. Infinity, and he's a former professional athlete, author, and the founder of the fastest growing fitness and lifestyle brand on the planet. Known for blending physical mastery, elite mindset, and practical wisdom, Derek has built a fitness empire that includes his signature app, the Mr. Infinity Longevity Blueprint, and his breakthrough book, disrupting Fitness at 47. He's more shredded, powerful, and present than ever, and he's just getting started. Let's dive into this conversation with the one and only Derek Williams. My man, derek, good to see you, man. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: Hey, man, appreciate you having me, man. Looking forward to chopping it up with you. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Yes. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: Right? Seriously. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  AKA Mr. Infinity. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: That's what they calling me now. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Listen, man, your level of fitness, what you're able to do at nearing 50 years old is, as you know, is very unusual in our culture today. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: Yeah, true. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  And so this is why I'm so excited to have you here. Can you share some of your secrets to your longevity, to your performance, to your fitness? Again, nearing 50 years old, what are some of your secrets to longevity? 

DEREK WILLIAMS: I don't know if there's a lot of secrets, and I know me and you were kind of talking off, off air about how your body is just kind of like a representative of your level of awareness man. I feel like everybody's like operating at their own level of awareness and I feel like there's so much noise in the fitness and health and the bodybuilding space that people aren't really talking enough about consciousness and awareness in terms of the as above, below principle with fitness and health. So I feel like I like to start there and I, and I rarely talk about like diet and nutrition and like, 'cause if you're not at a certain level awareness, you'll think I'm probably nuts like, you know what I'm saying? So, so just on some practical things, just being consistent and I feel like that's one thing that, that has helped me out.

Like, I've always desired to be in shape. I never wanted to let myself get outta shape. You know, I felt, I felt like. Just having that desire to understanding the understanding that man, your health is really, your wealth. Like only now exists and I don't care if it's 10 years from now, 20 years from now, 30 years from now, and so called man made time, now it's coming. You know what I'm saying? So in my mind, I want feel good. So I feel like that's number one is just I have that desire to be in shape. And then two is just like listening to my main thing is like, like I told my sons, never listen to anyone in any field that's not experiencing the results you wanna produce. Only listen to people that are experiencing the results I want to produce. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Yeah. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: And that's kind of how me and Ben got together and these over told guy, that's how I listen to my buddies, Indianapolis, Nuri Muhammad, he kind of taught me about nutrition, how to eat properly and like different people, I only listen to people that are experiencing the results I wanna produce. So that's number two. And obviously man, you can't get around discipline, so I feel like that's a, but I don't think it's a big secret, man. I feel like everybody deep down knows what they need to do to. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Yeah, for sure. That's the thing. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: You know what I'm saying? 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  We know. We know. But like you said, you know, in our culture today, it's, as I kick this off with, it's unusual to be as fit and healthy as you are right now. Unfortunately, this doesn't have to be this way. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: There you go. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  And it's having these examples and it's like only listening to people that have the results that you want to have. Right? And of course you could learn from other, and I think both of us are very good at learning what not to do from our environment and from certain people.

DEREK WILLIAMS: Yeah. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  But who are your role models for longevity for fitness? And so some of the people that I've intentionally put in my life are people like Mark Sisson. Right. Over 70. Incredibly fit, one of my close friends and mentors. Most of my friends, my close friends, and my son is here in the studio. He know this as well. They're much older than me, you know? Oftentimes a decade older than me. You know, Michael Beckwith is another one of those people. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: Wow. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Role model, mentor. He's about that life when it comes to his fitness and his health and his mindset. And you mentioned the tenet as above, so below. And starting with the, the mindset and the belief system that makes all of this automatic, is that what I'm hearing?

DEREK WILLIAMS: Yeah. I mean like I'm a big reader, man. One of my favorite books is the Kabillion, you know what I mean? The as above, so below principle is like, law of correspondence is like everything is everything like, you know, so as above, so below meaning like we have our physical body, right? Which is really just a very small part of who we really are, you know what I mean? Then you got your mind and you got your spirit and you got different levels of, and so everything is everything. And so I feel like you have to be addressing everything too like a lot of times in, like I said, in the nutrition and the fitness space, there's so much money. When it comes to supplements, when it comes to gym, you know what I mean?

Gyms are just popping up everywhere 'cause they know that people really think that jumping on the treadmill or lifting weights. So, and getting shredded, you know, but it's, it's so much, there's not an, I don't feel like there's not enough emphasis on the unseen, you know what I mean, 'cause the unseen creates the scene. You know what I mean? And so that's, that's kind of where I try to, I spend a lot of time there, you know what I'm saying, to be honest with you. And I feel like the more, the more time I spend working on my mind consciousness, reading, like meditation, whatever, I feel like your body's just gonna be a product byproduct of it. You know? 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  That's powerful. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So feeding yourself spiritually, mentally. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: Yeah. And I'm not perfect, bro. I got a long way to go. Like, you know what I mean? That's why I say like, I just, I know I got a lot more in the tank, like, you know what I'm saying? 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Yeah, for sure. But, but you know, and you could see it. You could see it as well. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: Yeah. Appreciate it. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  You know. And so with that being said, you mentioned, you know, all of the, the gyms that are popping up all over the place, which is great. It's great to have more of that emerging in culture. Maybe a little bit less fast food, you know? But the system itself is oftentimes as you said, the fitness industry is broken, right? So let's talk about some of the things that's going on with the fitness industry that are kind of, I guess, maybe gatekeeping or preventing people from getting the results that they want. Why do you think that the fitness industry is broken? 

DEREK WILLIAMS: I think it's a lot of ego, man. It's a lot of ego and it's a lot of quick fixes. It's a lot of just five minute abs type energy, you know what I'm saying? And just kind of the backtrack. One of the things that has allowed me to get healthy more on a practical level, instead of me always going woo woo, is learning how to train properly. One thing that I've learned over the past, maybe seven years, man, when I turned 40, I really understood that you gotta get strong. Yoga is one thing, having flexibility and being flexible and picking your leg over your head. But then being strong and having that physical muscle mass is important too. I found a way to combine the two, and I call it strength to length or range of motion. Combining those two has allowed me to feel good.

When I was in my mid thirties, I was having all kind of knee pain, back pain, shoulder pain, and then when I learned how to train properly, I started jumping higher. Feel good. I literally can wake outta my bed and run and dunk, you know? So I feel like practically learning how to train, like strength through length and training properly, training from the ground up, training your feet, training your joints, understanding synovial fluid, you know, I feel like that, and it's not necessarily so much for aesthetic. And I feel like social media has played a huge part in having people see like, man, I, I want this and I'm, I'm in the culture, so I see there's so much drugs in it. There's so much like testosterone. It's not bad, but I feel like it's just, it's overdone right now. And you know, when we was coming up, it was to be like shooting your butt up with whatever, like, you know what I mean? But now it's like these kids are like. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: Right. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  I'm doing Anna Bar and I'm doing this, and I'm doing that. And it's like, bro, the side effects of this stuff, man. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: Right, right. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  You know what I mean? And social media, there's so much money in it too. And when you got money and you got the egos and money, then the fitness industry is just, sure.

DEREK WILLIAMS: I, I didn't know you was gonna bring that up, but I'm glad that you did, because I think also from, from our, our perspective and our generation also, it's like more so maximizing what you have first. Are you even doing the things necessary just to, you know what I mean? Like you're creating all these hormonal changes in your bodies and potential dependencies and, you know, all kinds of potential issues and you haven't even done the basics on, you know, maximizing what you already have. And so that's the thing about it too, in talking with you as well, I can already see, like you already know, we all have so much potential, just like right there in us already and it's just being more intelligent, you know, with, with programming, with training and with principles, with the mindset. And we're gonna talk about all this today guys. So yeah, let's go back. You mentioned strength through length. Yeah. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  What does that mean? 

DEREK WILLIAMS: So strength through length was a word I kind of coined that like you get strength through a full range of motion. So like instead of doing like a basic exercise where you're not getting your full range of motion and your full flexibility and getting strong through the fullest range of motion possible, then you limiting yourself long term. And then, you know, a lot of bodybuilders, they kind of walking around, kind of bound up because they haven't trained all the way full range of motion. And over time that compounds to having a tight hip, having a knee pain and kind of creating a lot of misalignment within the bodies. Like I said, it's like yoga with weights or like really, really getting the fullest range of motion outta your hip flexors, outta your quads or out, you know what I mean?

So it's getting the deepest possible while you're lifting. And you can do that with every muscle for your chest, your quads, your tibialis, you know, and it's a lot of muscles that I didn't train growing up for as far as my tibialis. Far as like a lot of different muscles, my hip flexor that affected me that I didn't know were affecting me. So yeah, so it's really strength of strength and length is just training for the fullest range of motion possible. All your lifts. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Yeah. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: Yeah. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Let's talk about the tibialis a little bit more training that why it's important. Okay. What is it, first of all? 

DEREK WILLIAMS: So tibialis is muscle, like right in front. It's like opposite your calf muscles. People do tow raises all day or jump rope. But your tibialis, it really is your first line of defense when you running, when you jumping, when you walking, when you jogging. So it's, it's the muscle right in front of your calve in the front of your leg, which a lot of people don't train, you know? And so a lot of people have, if you running over time, if you pounding your pavement and you don't train your tibialis, then you gonna have a lot of impact going to your knee, you know? And so that's one of the, the ways that I got my knees back healthy. I used to have severe tendonitis, so training your tibialis is uber important for runners or fighters or athletes, you know, but it's a simple fix too. Yeah. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  So, yeah, it just seems logical to have some balance, right? Yeah. Because it's like just training your back all the time and not training your chest. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: There you go. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Right? And so you can really create some muscle imbalances. And so the calf tibialis, so how do we train the tibialis? 

DEREK WILLIAMS: So I, we sell a bar, man, you put a bar on your foot and you kind of let it go down, get a full range of motion, and you come all the way up. Or somebody can just stand against the wall, lean back, and kind of just pick your feet up. So even right now, we can just kind of sit and you can just kind go and just squeeze. Yeah. And just kind of come up and just kind of squeeze. But like standing up, having your back against the wall, that's the easy way to just wake up train talis, you know what I mean? Or if you use the bar, in some gyms it's getting more popular. So some gyms have sit down machines you can put in, put some weights on, and then train that muscle. But it's like you said, growing up you see calf machines in every gym.

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Right. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: And now you're starting to see more tibialis machines, and that's going to save so many knees. Just doing that specific exercise will protect your knees, give you another 20 years on your knees. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  That sounds so good. That sounds so good, man. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: It's a lot of runners, man. I think running is more damaging. I feel like unless you really have your body primed for running specifically, you know? 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Yeah. And this is one that everybody that's listening to this episode, this is one to see the video. So make sure to pop over to YouTube. You can see examples of all the stuff that we're talking about for sure. Alright. What's that bar like? We have one at the house. I don't know what the f**k it's called, but like I put some plates on it. It's a tid bar, but I put plates on it and then, so is it called a tip bar? 

DEREK WILLIAMS: Yeah, called a tip bar. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Yeah. So even at my house, and this was on the encouragement of you before I even met you, and also Ben Patrick over TOS guy, and I found out about you guys. By the way. I was hanging out with Mark Bell and Sima and Andrew. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: Oh my gosh. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Up in NorCal. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: Yeah, exactly. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  They were just so, and I brought, Jordan was with me, my son who's here at the studio today. He was with me as well. And had us doing all this sled stuff. I'm like, why you guys going so hard with this sled? You know? 

DEREK WILLIAMS: They put you through it, huh? 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Man! Like, no mercy, bro. Like I did a certain weight, a certain amount of plates, you know, on the backpedal. Mark came on that last set, threw another plate on, like, while I was trying to get to the finish line, he threw another plate on there, man.

DEREK WILLIAMS: That's Mark for you. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Yeah, man, I, I never wanted to punch somebody during the workout, but like, you know, they're just incredible guys. And I brought that back with me. I'm like, I gotta get a sled. I gotta train because I've been on the sled since somewhere almost 10 years. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: Wow. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  You know, back at the gym that we used to go to, I'd be probably the only guy in the gym who's pushing this sled all crazy in the middle of the gym. And it was one that you gotta turn around and come back. So I, I fly through, put the on there, turn around, come back but I didn't have the backwards pedal. And also of course football, you know, we had the sled that we pushed hitting up against that bad boy. But I mean, actually practically using the sled, it was probably every other week I'd use it.

DEREK WILLIAMS: Yeah. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  But now it's like a consistent weekly part of my routine most times, twice a week. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: Wow. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  And I mean, I just love it obviously. It's just unlocked so much. And what it allows you to do the explosiveness and there's so many capacities to it. We're gonna talk about the sled in one moment, but I wanna mention this. We have a tib bar that I found out about because of you guys. And so it's a bar. I just got it off of Amazon. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: Okay. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  And we put weight plates on it and I could do t raises using that. It's a bunch of different ways to do it. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: Yeah. So really, man, like a simple way people can do it, just put your foot up on a phone roller or put your foot up on a bench and and have that plate and just make sure you're getting four range of motion, getting a deep stretch, and then kind of try to explode up and squeeze at the top, you know? And like I said, that alone will increase your vertical. How you run faster and, and most importantly, just to protect your's knees. Because I've seen, I've seen, I was, I've been training N-B-A-N-F-L guys and one of the biggest problems is weak tibia. And once that's fixed, man, a lot of times they knee pain go away. They rebalance their self, they get faster, they more explosive. And it's just like a simple fix, man. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  I'm so grateful to know you guys, because this is stuff that I was doing. I felt kind of by myself. You know, back in the day when we lived in Ferguson Florissant, there was a Golds Gym. And, I go there and I put the hand grip attachment to the universal gym. I get a flat bench, put my leg up and put the grip, the handle around my foot, and then do single leg tib raises using a waist stack. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: You was doing this before? 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  I was doing that. I was doing glute ham. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: No. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  I was doing glute ham by putting my legs into the seat for the lap pull down. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: No. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  And I, I used that, that pad to like anchor my feet. And I was doing, I, I got video doing this stuff. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: You gotta send me this stuff, man. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Yeah, that's crazy. Crazy. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: So you was ahead of your time, man. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Man, come on now. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: Seriously. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  But then, you know, once I moved here to LA like just kind of being disconnected from certain things, that access was different. Yeah. But I picked up other things. Right? So now again, I'm really focused on the sled and it's thanks to your inspiration by way of marking those guys. But it's really rooted in something that you've been, I mean, if there's anybody on earth right now who's behind the popularization of the sled is you. And that's real talk. Not true. So let's talk about directly from the source, why the sled is such a important piece of equipment. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: It's funny, man, like I said, I was 39, 40 and then me and Ben, these other toast guys, we got together and we was like, man, we, we started studying the biomechanics of the body, obviously. And then it was a guy named Charles Quinn that kind of our mentor, he learned a lot from, and Ben had a gym in Clearwater, ATG. And so we started to work together and then we had a sled lane. And like I said, when I kind of first got into it, man, I had a lot of imbalances, a lot of knee pain, a lot of hip pain. And so every night I go, I used to go by myself and just work on the sled, work on the sled, work on the sled. And I just saw my body just change.

And so I was just so consistent with it. And so from that, and there's so many ways to use a sled and obviously when you're getting older you wanna make sure you're peaking your hormones out. So I got my hormones tested and just doing the sled alone, obviously getting sunlight, I had changed those numbers too, and I was like, man, something to this sled. And so I just started, started insisting and we started doing protocols for a lot of athletes. We had some NBA guys, NFL guys, and we had just a lot of indoor outdoor, and we just saw the effects that it was having on myself, being other people around us. And we was like, man, this is a really efficient tool that it's not gonna cost you thousands of dollars.

And it's not as high impact on your body, like running or treadmill or some of these other things. It's low impact. You can get a hormone boost. It's great for a total body workout. You build from the ground up, you training in your ankles, your feet, your tibialis, your quads. So it's a ground up workout. And all, all in all, I feel like I didn't know what I was doing when I first started, but after years and years we were able to see the importance of utilizing that sled man. Like, you know what I'm saying? 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Yeah, for sure. So everybody that's watching the video can see examples, but for those that are listening, can you illustrate what you mean specifically by a sled? What does that look like? Yeah. And also what are some of the different exercises that you wanna do with the sled? 

DEREK WILLIAMS: So, one thing that we really popularized was going backwards on the sled, you know what I mean? So sled is like a metal piece where you have, most of the time it's like a little square metal piece where you can put weights on top and you have two poles, or sometimes there's four poles and you can push the sled, put your head in, or extend those arms out and push the sleds and make sure you knees over toes, you getting, making sure you, your knees is over that toe and you're really driving as you drive that knee up, extend that leg all the way out.

That's, that's a good way to use it. A lot of times we use it, we push down and then we got a belt or we going backwards. And when you going backwards, you wanna really focus on still getting your knee over your toe, that heel up and then following through your heel. So you really wanna follow through and contract that quad, which is your VMO, your VAs Medias oblique. So that's the muscle that protects your knees. So that's another thing I didn't mention. That trend, that VMO with the sled, that's another thing that really protects your knees. If you watch any great athlete, they have a strong VMO muscle, right? Anybody that has a high vertical, they got a strong sculpted VMO muscle.

So, that's another exercise that protects your knees, great for your knees. If we had athletes that come in there that had knee pain, we always man do 20 minutes on backward sleds. We said, oh, that was our initial. So that the metal piece you push, you can pull. I, what I do right now as I set a timer, and put my body weight on the sled and I do each minute on, I call it an EMAM, each minute on a minute and do a down and back for like 30, 30 reps. And yet I'm going 50 yards. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Down and back? 

DEREK WILLIAMS: Down and back 50 yards. Boom. Go in intense. I try to get back in like 35 seconds. Time goes in, boom, down and back, 30 seconds. So that's kind of like my cardio conditioning type of workout.

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Amazing. Yeah. Amazing. I see my son shaking his head over there.

DEREK WILLIAMS: Yeah. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  You know, he just, he just trained my, my youngest son who's 13 on the sled. Okay. Was that yesterday? Yeah. My son was, he came in, he was like, he was cooked, it was a workout had him doing the push and pull. It was about, it's about 50 yards. Yeah, about 50 yards back and forth and then kind of like some interval rests and then doing it again. He said I did six. He came in, 'cause I usually have him do like three or four. Yeah. And he was like, he had me do six. Yeah. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: And so this is at the house? 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Yeah. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: Okay. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Got a quick break coming up. We'll be right back. 

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SHAWN STEVENSON:  This is another thing to illustrate. So that metal bar can be on, I guess a, a type of turf or a certain type of carpet. That's where people can push it. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: Yeah, usually on a turf. Sometimes people get like little skis. If you wanna do it outside, you can do it like that. And then there's so many, man, we really have popularized slab, man. So it's so many different versions. Like you have the tank it sounds like. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Yeah, yeah. With the wheels. So it has actual wheels on it. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: Yeah, so I guess you can get a tank sled now and then they're even making like Ben has a backwards treadmill that you can use for, if you just want to have something in your house, some stationary or, in like gyms usually on a turf. So it's definitely most, I like it on a turf, old school metal push, pull, you know, go hard. Another way I really like to use it is, I call it HASD man, heavy ass sled drives, where you put as much weight as you really can handle. You know, sometimes it get up to a thousand pounds. And just drive. You really want to like stoke your metabolism or stoke your hormones. That's a really good way to utilize the sled, even if you go like 20 yards, you know what I mean? Yeah. That's a really total body workout. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  And it, this is, this is the thing about it too, is that you're getting that anabolic stimulus. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: There you go. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Because your body knows that that much weight is there, but it's in a design that is so much safer, right?

DEREK WILLIAMS: Yeah. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  So much more functionally safe for a human body to interact with that amount of weight. So you're getting that anabolic stimulus with less risk. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: There you go. And most people usually get that antibiotic stimulus from putting 500 pounds in their back. You know what I mean? All that pressure in your spine or deadlift and a lot of pressure on your back. And the sled, if you can't move it, you can't move it. It's not, it's not gonna crush you, you know? So, it's a lot safer, you know what I mean? Especially as I'm, like I said, near 50, I don't wanna be squatting 500 pounds, you know what I mean? Not that I could anyway. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  But at least just, you know, even keeping in mind like some of the things that humans we're creative. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: True. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  We're very smart and we figured out all kinds of incredible things a human body can do. But there are a few things that we are designed to do. All right. Walking is obviously one. Sprinting is obviously one. Pushing and pulling things, you know, in that movement of with using our gate is something that humans have been doing forever. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: That's facts. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Dragging things. Pushing things. And so, you know, but putting a bar with 500 pounds on the back, that's, you know, not so much, you know. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: That's facts. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  But we can do that and we can get some great benefit from it. Yeah. So it's just like, especially if people are, if they got, they got their eyes on longevity, it's just like, what have our ancestors done to great benefit? And also working with our particular mechanics and thinking about this concept you already shared with everybody, which is strength through length. Right. And so another one of those that we mentioned a little bit were the Nordics. Right. So talk about, what is that?

DEREK WILLIAMS: So the Nordics is another exercise we kind of popularize. So it's for, and and I I always like to talk about the injury prevention side of it 'cause a lot of times it's not what, the way we train, it's not necessarily so for aesthetics or like popping your veins, but the Nordic is like, your 13-year-old son should start doing these. Even just the resistance, the eccentrics of it, right? But it's great for the li of at attendants behind your knee. And so a lot of times A-C-L, M-C-L meniscus tears are prevalent nowadays, especially in girls soccer, volleyball, basketball, because people don't train those ligaments, tendons behind their knee. And so the Nordic, what it does is it's great for athleticism, but the most important thing is, is trains those ligaments behind their knee to, to protect those from having those a-C-L, M-C-L, L-C-L tears. And so if you resist coming down, obviously you strengthen your hamstrings, strengthening those ligaments behind that knee and you either slow it up or just kind of push yourself up, you know? And so a lot of people are intimidated by it 'cause they see me or bend or other people do it. And it's, it's really just, if you just resist yourself coming down and push yourself up, that's really all you need. You don't to need that. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Describe, describe it a little bit more. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: So how to do it. So you put your feet in a contraption called a Nordic machine, or sometimes if you don't have a Nordic, you can put like, use a GL ham or even an old school way. You obviously, you want to kind of keep those hips forward as much as possible. Trying to keep your body straight and just kind of resist yourself coming down. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  So you, you anchor, you anchor your feet anchor and you're on your knees. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: On your knees. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Right? So you anchoring your feet, you're on your knees. And you're upright and then you're going to Perfect. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: Yeah. You anchor your knees down, you're upright and you resist yourself coming down. A lot of times people. Yeah. Kind of come here. Yeah. You wanna kind of keep those hips forward and resist coming down as much as you can, and then if you can explode up. But if you can't just kind of push yourself up. And what that's doing is really, really strengthening those ligament tendons behind that knee that that is designed to protect your knees from all these ligament tears. You know, so, that's key. I'm glad you brought that up. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Yeah. And it's also called glute ham, right?

DEREK WILLIAMS: Glute ham's a little different. Nordic is more, more strict. It's more of a strict exercise, specifically glute ham. It's like more of a, for more of a glute ham raise for your glute and hamstring. But this is specifically for one foot jumping. If, if anybody's watching, they wanna be a track athlete or be faster or jump higher off the one leg. Nordic it's a great for that and specifically for design to really strengthen those ligaments and tend. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  So the glute ham, would that be like a different position? 

DEREK WILLIAMS: So yeah. 'cause a lot of times people see those glute ham machines in goals or in a LA fitness. It allows for more momentum and they're just not as strict for those knees. Yeah. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Got it. So it's more like, get more activation of the glutes and hamstrings using not doing it a strict Nordic. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. But I mean, people can use that glu hand machine and really if they, if they want to be strict about it. But, but a lot of times when you don't have that, you don't have a surface, you know what I mean? If you don't have a surface, yeah. Then you can just go all the way down and come all the way up and it's not really isolating those ligaments and tendon, you know what I mean? So it's a little different. Yeah. Yeah. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Awesome. Alright, so just to circle back to this idea and this awareness that the, the fitness industry is broken, right? And so what I got from what you shared earlier is just the programming. The focus is disoriented or dysfunctional, is looking at the human body more mechanistically, and not holistically. Is that, is that what I'm hearing? 

DEREK WILLIAMS: Yeah, I mean, you said it. I couldn't have said it any better man. It is very 3D. It's very physical, it's very materialistic. It is very just capitalistic, you know? And I feel like that's, people get into it because yeah, they wanna look good. Yeah, they wanna feel good, but so much noise going around it is so capitalistic. You have to sift through all. That's why I say never listen to anyone in any field that's not experiencing results you wanna produce 'cause you can go down some real serious rabbit holes. You know, a lot of people never come out. A lot of people get in this bodybuilding culture, all these cultures and get stuck, man. Like, you know, because it's money. It's a lot of money in that stuff, man. And awareness is everything. Awareness is everything.

But yeah, man, and I don't know. If broken is a word, obviously each individual is responsible for their own reality. But, let me ask you, man, when you see the fitness industry, how do you see the fitness industry? Do you see it as a, a broken industry or just as a collective? Like how, how, how would you see it? Because you, you, you, the pioneer man, you've been doing this for a minute. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Yeah, man. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: You a goat. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Thank you, man. But I've, I've seen a lot, I've seen a lot of trends, you know, and right now I just think it is very superficial. That's what I see predominantly. But at the same time, there're emerging cultures of people who are basing this on community, on support and growing in that domain as well. So I think that there's energies that are at odds with each other. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: There you go. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  But what I'm excited and happy about is that people are training. There's a much bigger fitness culture that we have right now. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: That's a good point. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  And I, and I think that, you know, if anything is. Whatever side you're on, even if it's with the superficial, you know, you got the tripod at the gym all the time recording. Do your best to be inclusive, to get more people involved and finding their own, you know, path, their own dharma with the fitness. Right. Because, you know, today more than ever, man, like there's a lot of stuff as you were, as you were sharing. Like there's a lot of different obstacles and things that can hook people, and that's partly your story too.

You know, like you, you've overcome a lot to have the impact that you're having and living the life and have the health that you have right now. Yeah. So this is a perfect opportunity. If you could, can you share how did you get into all this in the first place? Like, how did you get into the field of health and wellness?

DEREK WILLIAMS: Yeah. I've been an athlete my entire life, man. I played high school basketball, college basketball. I played pro basketball for a little bit. And so I've been in the fitness, you know, and I always just enjoyed it, you know, I feel like. Everybody tends to lean to do more of what they enjoy. So I just enjoyed it. I enjoyed learning about it, studying, and I remember the first book I kind of read that opened my eyes to a lot of it was, Kevin Trudeau's Natural Cures, they Don't Want You To Know About, you know. And once I read that I was like, man, it's a lot of stuff going on that we unaware of. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  I ordered that book in Ferguson.

DEREK WILLIAMS: Did you? 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Yes. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: Yeah. Right off the commercial. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Yeah. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: Woke you up a little bit, didn't it? 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Yeah, absolutely. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: Yeah. And so I was like, man, and so I kind of really, I got, I, I was, I'm from Indianapolis, Indiana, so I got, when I was overseas in Norway, I got certified to teach Pilates and yoga. And so when I came back to Indianapolis, I opened like a, a, a studio. And so I was training a lot of like NBA athletes, their wives. So I was just kind of like in that culture. And, so I did that. It was, it was a good business. I had a company called One Life. I had sportswear and like, so, but then long story short man, I had some kids and kind of turmo brought me to Florida and ended, I was, ended up being a PE teacher and for a couple years of teaching, it just wasn't for me.

And me and Ben, ni or Toast guy, he was young, you know what I mean? We ran into each other playing basketball. I was a basketball player. He was a up and coming basketball player. And you know, when you meet somebody and you kind of like, there's kind of a spark. You kind of, you just know it's something. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Yeah. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: You know? And so we met, we talked and then a couple years later he called me. He's like, man, I'm doing this something called a TG. I've been studying a Charles Quin. I feel like you come with your connections with, with I feel like me and we can really do something here. And so I moved to Clearwater and we really. I just started one day at a time. We was seven days a week man. Grinding, grinding, grinding, learning, studying. Came up with like these exercises in Nordic. I had something called a Nordic strap. Most people don't have a Nordic bench, so they was using my strap to strap their feet in to do these Nordics, the tip bar. So we came up with a lot of different contraptions so people could do these exercises. A lot of my NBA guys came and trained with us, and so we just continually build that culture up. So that's kind of the story, man. I'm always into fitness. Met my dude Ben. 

Ben had all the resources and the gym and the capital, and we kind of just went all in on really building that, that ATG brand up. You know, I still feel like it's making an impact, but I feel like it's still a long way to go in terms of people having that awareness of really how to train their body properly and understanding strength through length. You probably see it all over the internet. People like talking about it. But yeah, man, that's my story anyway as far as how I kind of. You know, and I still hoop, man. I got two sons, my youngest son, we compete, you know what I mean? My sons, we compete, 22 and 19, and my youngest son is a basketball player. My older son is a football player, so, you know, I gotta stay in shape for them, you know what I'm saying? 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Yeah. That, that's, thank you for mentioning that part at the end too is like anchoring yourself to something. We've been talking about that a lot as well, because we all need something to keep us motivated. Right, is being honest about what that is for you, you know? It could be to, you know, to be strong enough to provide for your family or to help a movement that you're trying to do, or to make sure that you're there at your grandkids wedding or to be able to compete with your sons, you know what I mean? Like, I love that it's such a. Valuable and happy part of my life, you know? And my oldest son over there, he knows, like me and my youngest son especially, we're very chippy with each other. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: Oh yeah, the youngest one's the one man. They the one they the ones bro, my oldest, me and my oldest son, we, we. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Yeah, same! 

DEREK WILLIAMS: But them youngest, them younger boys. They, they trying to go, they trying to get you early. Is is he going, you playing right now? One on one. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  He always challenging me, man. He like, dad, you can't, you can't. Yeah man, he, he's, you know, he's, he's pushing those buttons, you know, and of course I'm like, I'm still, you know, I'm still beating him. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: But it is just like he coming up.

SHAWN STEVENSON:  I see it. Yeah. Yeah. But it's, it's amazing man. And you know, your story is incredible. You know, like you coming from the Midwest as well, you know, and that's what, immediately, as soon as I heard your voice, I'm like, oh, I know him. You know what I mean? 

DEREK WILLIAMS: Facts. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  And you know. But you mentioned in that transition coming home. Identity shifts a bit, you know, playing professional sports to now running a business and now making that move to Florida as well. You hopped over, like there's some turbulence, some difficulties in that move. And a lot of people don't know this part about your story, but there was a time period when you were in Florida that you were sleeping in your car. Is that, is that right? 

DEREK WILLIAMS: That's true. Yeah. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Talk about that a little bit. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: Yeah. I, I, I was playing ball and then when I came back to any, my son's mother had drove my sons to move to Florida and I was like, man, I wasn't raised with a father. And I know I still struggle with a lot of identity from not having a father, you know? And so I just didn't want my sons to kind of that generational cycle to continue, you know? And so I, I just came out here. I didn't know nobody. I was just like, man, I just wanted to be around my sons, you know? And if anybody went through battle with their son's mother. You know how that goes, man. She wouldn't let me see em.

And I had to go throughout that type of drama, you know, which shapes you, you know what I mean? I'll be the last one to play victim, you know what I mean? I'll take responsibility for my reality. But it was a lot of challenges that went through that, you know what I mean? That builds you as a person and builds a lot of character and resilience in you, I feel like. But that was, that's probably, and me and you talked off Air Man, when you wake up to how reality is, you're going to go through a lot of challenges and changes, you know? That's just what happens. So that was just an experience that forced me to grow up, forced me to learn about survival, learn about, you know what I mean?

How to really fight for what I really wanted to do. So yeah, I was in my car, man, six months to a year just trying to figure it out, you know what I mean? And another thing you said, man, when you go through that, there's a opposite actual and obviously reaction, man, that's just as good as a struggle. You know what I mean? A lot of times I've been so blessed. For going through that fire. You know what I mean? I didn't run from it, you know, I sat in it and I was like, man, if I die, die, or if I, if I don't make it, I don't make it. But I'm going to set out to accomplish that to raise my kids, man. Now, my youngest son, we fly out tomorrow to go for D one tryout, and then my oldest son's playing football. He got a division one scholarship for college. So all that to say, man, like challenges gonna come. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Yeah. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: You know what I mean? But you gotta, and especially as you wake up to reality and, and how, I hate to say it, man, 90, 95% of we've been programmed with is just BS man or lies. You know what I mean? So when you waking up to that and you dealing with this, and so it's just like. You know what I mean? And I know you understand what I'm saying. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Yeah, absolutely. And I know that your kids' lives would be dramatically different had you not moved and sacrificed and did everything that you can do to be in their life. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: And then they kids, you know what I mean? We as a minority man, we dealing with a lot, man. We dealing with a lot of generational, you know what I mean? We don't talk about a lot, but it's a lot of stuff that we dealing with internally that seven generations in the past, seven generations in the future that we sitting with like right now. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Yeah. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: You know what I mean? That we gotta face. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  And your choice to break that pattern was not easy. I mean, it was the opposite of easy. It could cause a lot of strife, so many people would've thrown in the towel. You know what I'm saying? 

DEREK WILLIAMS: I wanted to. Don't get me wrong. Yeah. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  For you to decide like I'm gonna, no matter what it takes, I'm gonna sleep in my car. I gotta be by my kids. Yeah. I gotta do what I can do to be in their life. That kind of love and parenting and willingness to be a good father, even if you didn't know how to be it yet was going to lead you down that path and create the life that you have. And so honestly, man, I just wanna give you huge props for that because. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: No, that's love man. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Yeah, that's like one in a billion. And this is the thing about you too. Like, you know, we all have this deep inner power within us, but so many of us are just asleep to it, you know? And so what, you are awake to that potential. And you also had the mindset, and this is what I want to ask you about next, the mindset of doing whatever it takes. I'm gonna do whatever it takes. And so I wanna talk about the mindset around longevity and you working with some of the most exceptional athletes in the world, and also everyday folks who just have exceptional levels of health who've overcome, yeah, incredible injuries and difficulties and experiencing a great level of health. What are the mindset pieces? What are three things about. The mindset of longevity, the mindset of the highest performing people, including yourself that you've had the ability to work with, to impact? 

DEREK WILLIAMS: Hmm, that's a good question, man. Like some of the athletes, man, they just have this, some of the elite athletes, they, they have a different level of self-belief. It's like, right? It's just like, man. However they was groomed growing up, however they was programmed, they have a different level of self-release, which allows them to discipline themselves to discipline themselves, 'cause the identity. I feel like it all boils down to how you see yourself, right? Psycho-Cybernetics, man. How you see yourself shapes everything.

And so they see themselves as great. You know? I feel like in order to really make a shift, your identity has to shift. You know what I mean? And so your identity shifts. I think that's the biggest one. And then secondly is understanding, man, like. And I always, two of my taglines are only now exist only now exists when if you stay present and focused. And a lot of times people that exceptional, they, you can tell they just present and they hear, they like, they're in their body, like they're not, you know? So I think that's another one, just understanding that only now exists and you gotta be centered in the now. And then, maybe the third one is little humility, man, understanding that you don't know it all.

You know, you don't, you don't know what you don't know. You know what I mean? And so I feel like those are, that's a good little combination of the elites. They know, they listen. They, even though they may be millionaires, they come and they listen to me like students, they a hundred million dollar contracts, they listen to me like, whatever I say, I'm listening 'cause you got the results or you had the results or, you know, you know. So a lot of, yeah, so those are good ones. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: I love that, man. Yeah, I love that combination of intense self-belief, but also the humility and the coachability and listening. Yeah. Like you put that together, that's special. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: It's crazy, man. Some of these high school or college athletes, they think they know it all. And then you got these a hundred million dollars athletes, they coming in and they, yeah, coach what you want me to do? And they going hard and intense focused so, and only now exists. So you can tell if you put both of 'em together the same time, same space, you could tell which one's gonna go up and which one's gonna stay stagnant, go down. You know what I mean? Because that, that combination of the intensity, self beliefs, identity, being present like that, just, yeah. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Yeah, man, that's powerful. 

You know, this reminds me of, you know, just being, being attuned to certain things like ev, everybody listening to this right now, there's a reason that you're here, there's a reason that this is resonating with you at this very moment. There's something special about you that is attracted to this kind of information. And this energy and me, what you just shared, those three principles that is so, so strong for me that I attracted somebody who really illustrated this to me in the biggest way, right. Arguably one of the, if not the greatest athlete, you know, in the NBA, in the history of the NBA Michael Jordan.

Having his coach in many conversations and talking with him, Tim Grover, his personal trainer. And he would share how Michael listened. Michael, Michael's the greatest basketball player in the world, and he's, he's got a coach. He's listening to Phil Jackson. He's listening to Tim and taking their advice and, and putting in the, and of course, he knows a thing or 10,000 about getting the results.

But even Michael Jordan needed a coach. And Michael Jordan needed somebody that he can respect and to listen to, even if neither one of these guys could do any of the stuff that he could do, but he knows that he doesn't see everything. And also having that accountability, having that support, all those things help defeat our spirit. Obviously, we all go through different stages and seasons in our life. And you know, at this point, again, this conversation is about changing the culture, right? Making it more accessible and normal to be incredibly fit and active and healthy in your forties, fifties, sixties, and beyond. We've got examples existing on the planet right now of what's possible.

But our culture today is creating an environment to where people are not living longer, they're dying longer. So what we want to do is provide these models and these examples, but you've actually over time have come up with certain tenets or principles and things for people to strive for as they're getting older. And if you could, can you share some of these standards and give us some advice on some of the things that we need to strive for as people are getting older? 

DEREK WILLIAMS: Yeah. I appreciate you bringing that up, man. I have something, call it 20 infinity standards. I have 10 upper body and 10 lower body standards. And this is something I feel like if you master all these standards, then you're gonna be 0.0001 of the population. Your body will be in complete alignment. You'll be strong, you'll have feet, your body will be built from the ground up. So for instance, one of the standards man is 15, full range of motion pull ups. 20 full range of motion dips. There's a grip standard with grippers. 10 Nordics is on there, a half body weight split squat with both hands full, full being flat ground.

So there's a lot of different standards. I feel like me and Ben kind of put sat down for months to put this together to really make the body super bulletproof. If you master these standards, you're 0.0001 in the population and it's almost impossible for your body to get injured. So I could run through a lot of the standards, but it's 20 standards that somebody can always aspire to. I actually have a poster with all the different standards that somebody can order the standards. Let me make sure I get these 15 pull ups, these 20 dips, these squats, two 30 your body weight, 20 reps. VMO squats. 

Obviously I said the Nordics, you got the cross bench pullover. There's a lot of ATG exercises that are on there that gives you full range of motion, strength through length, building your body from the ground up, addressing all your weak links and you'll be strong and powerful. And at the end of the day, you're gonna look good too. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Yeah. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: You're gonna be super aesthetic. 'cause you gotta have a certain body composition and low body fat to do 15 pullups or 20 dips, you know?

SHAWN STEVENSON:  So there's this tenet that you're only as strong as your weakest link. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: Yeah, exactly. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  And so like, being mindful of those things and understanding if your heart is beating right now, you can improve. Right. And so now with some of these standards, somebody might hear, you know, 10 pull-ups, 15 pull-ups, and they're like, what? I can't, I can't do one. So you also have progressions. Yeah, that you teach and you already said it, have something to aspire to. But there's progressions and there's levels for everybody where everybody can get started. So let's talk about a pull up progression. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: Yeah. So those are the standards, you know what I mean? That's the infinity standards. You master those. That's something to shoot for, aspire to for the rest of your life, you know? But there's a gradient for everything. And so with it, a pull up and we have a hang, the standards is a hang, hang there for two minutes, hang at a bar. Have you ever done that? 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Of course. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: But that's the standard. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  I didn't know it was a thing. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: Yeah, I've seen all the standards. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Of course. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: Two minute hang and that's great for your grip. So a pull up progression will be just hang from a bar and if you can't hang from a bar, you can sit down, do one arm pull downs from a pull down machine. You know what I mean? Kind of start there. And then once you get there, you will hang. And then you can just resist, jump up, resist yourself coming down. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Yeah. You know, doing the negative. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: And then once you feel like you do that, put a band around your feet. Come all the camaraderie. All the way down. All the way up. And then you'll get to a pull up. And that's with anything in life. There's gradients and there's levels to, like you said, if you can get better. You know what I mean? You still, we feel like you got a long way to go, right? 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Man. Yeah. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: Come on and everything. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Yeah. I want to go to another level with my pull-ups. You know, that's one of my goals for this year. You know, so I can do 24. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: 24 pull up? 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Yeah. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: Let's go. That's your goal? 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Yeah. No, 30 is my goal. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: Okay. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  You're three, four. 'cause I was already, I was at 26. Yeah. What is that about? Yeah. About a year and a half ago before we had a rough year. Right. We had a rough year. And so, when I went to do it, I thought, you know, I didn't know what the number was gonna be. Once I did my litmus test to see what my goal was, I was like, damn. So I still, I got 24 and so my goal is to get to 30. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: Okay. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  You know, and that's for me. And then also, but by listening to you, it's become, it, it really cemented my goal because just remembering like. That's 0.0, zero zero 0% of the, you know, 1% of the population that could do something like that.

DEREK WILLIAMS: Yeah. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Especially in my age bracket. Right. Like that's exceptional. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: Yeah. And every age bracket. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Leaning into my strengths, but also you're only as strong as your weakest link. So being mindful of those things as well. And I love you mentioning the band because there's been such a, a evolution thankfully with using bands. You know, there was an, there, there it still is. A lot of gyms have like an assisted pull-up machine. Yeah. I really like the bands because they get you to control your body. Yeah. Right. And so that's why I do with my youngest son for example, like he could do a couple of pull-ups on his own. But you know, just so he can get in some reps we use a band, you know, he puts it around his foot or you can put it around your knee and get those reps in.

And this is something that just about everybody listening can do is utilizing some bands or you know, as you mentioned, some pull down. So using lap pull down machine but just progressing. And I think it's very fulfilling and rewarding. I remember my wife before we moved to la, she could jump up on, and she started the same way. She was like, I can't, she couldn't do a pull up. She couldn't even start to do a pull up. She grabbed the bar and just like, there's nothing, nothing happening. Right. And she got to the point where she could literally jump up on that bar and do a pull up. Right. And that happened over the course of a year.

DEREK WILLIAMS: Wow. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  And now of course she's back. Now, you know, it's been a tough year. She's working on getting her pull up game back up. So she's using the bands. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: Okay. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Doing the negatives, as you mentioned. Yeah. And these are all, everything is scalable and it's just like giving yourself something to strive for. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: Yeah. I love that. Yo, is your wife, you and her work out together pretty intense or what? 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  She was my gym buddy for a minute, but our schedules are a little bit different. So we work out maybe once a week together. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: Okay. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  And it's the consistency part. She's found her rhythm. I found my rhythm. I. And also, you know, we walk together like that's another good time.

DEREK WILLIAMS: That's great workout. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Right, right. Yeah. And so, and I want to ask you about this. So you mentioned grip strength. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: Yeah. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Why is that so important?

DEREK WILLIAMS: The grip stream kind of correlates to a lot, like you said, as above, so below, it correlates to your vitality as people get old, we've know this and it scientific studies done on this, that their grip gets a lot weaker. And so you can test by testing your grip, you can tell, you can tell how much vitality you have over your entire body. If you see anybody that's super strong or doing deadlifts. And a lot of these exercises, they got a strong grip and that correlates to how healthy your overall body is. And so that's another thing people don't really work on or talk about a lot, is just isolating that grip 'cause that strengthens so much than just your grip. Like I said, it, it just corresponds how vital your body is. Right? Yeah. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Yeah. It's one of those like epigenetic markers. Yeah. Because it's like that grip strength translates to so many things in our life, right? Yeah. And the people who are watching the YouTube version, we'll put up a study for everybody to see that. Some researchers, a lot of researchers actually have identified this as like a physical marker of all the different physical tests. This might be the strongest correlation with how long you're gonna live is your grip strength. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: Exactly. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Right. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: Exactly. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  So it's really fascinating. So what are some things we could do to work on a grip strength?

DEREK WILLIAMS: So one of the standards is being to hang there for 20 minutes. I mean, I'm sorry, even two minutes. Hang on a bar for 20 minutes. Yeah. But, hang there for two minutes, which is a challenge, which really works. Your grip and your forearm strength. Grippers, just regular grippers. And then doing a lot of exercises. I have a, when you're doing a squat and you holding, like holding these kettlebells or kettlebell dumbbells, that works in your grip. But yeah, we, we don't try to overthink it too much. We just, we have all our clients finish it out with grips. Every time somebody finishes a at TG workout or Mr. Finish workout, you finish with like three sets of this grip.

You know what I mean? Just to kind of polish it off and make sure that you're addressing that. And over time the compound interest takes effect. And man, we have guys squeezing 300 pounds now just from starting when they was in high school. Now their grip strength is like they couldn't do the 50 pound gripper now they doing 300 pound. It's pretty crazy. And then you could tell they bodies are just like, your sitting over here, you know, just choke the mess up. Yeah. Yeah. That grip strength strong. And that grip, I'm telling you, you don't recognize, but over time, just training your grips so much, man, it's just, it helps you. You know what I mean?

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Yeah. That's great. That's powerful. Something that I love to do also that works on a grip strength at the end of workouts is to do some caries. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: Like farmer's caries. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Farmer's caries. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: That's good too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I, I wouldn't say that 'cause a lot of people's times don't have access to like those you got, you got you mean like with dumbbells or with the whole. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Heavy dumbbells or heavy kettlebells.

DEREK WILLIAMS: Okay. Yeah, yeah. That's a good, that's a great for. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  And do the suitcase carry so you do like one side, you know, like there's all kinds of ways that you can work on your grip strength and that's the thing it translates to so many things just doing pullups that's working on your.. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: Pullups. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Strength as well, you know? Yeah, yeah. So lots of ways, but it's, you are encouraging us. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: A dead lift. All that stuff is working on your grip really. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Just the encouragement for all of us listening and watching to put this into play intentionally for ourselves. Yeah. And you know, you mentioned that you have the standards, the 20 standards, where can people get more information about that, get access to more information from you, just get more into your world.

DEREK WILLIAMS: Yeah. So I appreciate that man. Obviously you can go to my website, mrinfinity.com with the ones MR1NF1N1TY. It's funny, the 1 1 1, if you didn't ask about it, but, I, I got it with the ones, my son's names are one in 11. So it was pretty cool that I, I was able to get that. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  I thought that this was because of your sons? Wow. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: No, I didn't. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  I just happened to be a syn. That's one of those synchronicities. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: Yeah. I didn't come into this to be Mr. Infinity. I was playing basketball with some NBA guys and I was like 40 at the time. And then one of my friends was like, bro, man. And he called me, he's like, man, you need to change your name to Mr. Infinity. And I couldn't get it with the, I, I was trying to get it with the eyes and I couldn't get the eyes. So I got it with the ones and it was just like, it just synced up. But anyway, mr infinity.com, you can got a lot of my programs are on ATG online coaching.com. I have an app of my own now you can find on my website. I have books, ATG for Life, one of my books is Disrupting Fitness. If you want to get more into like my story and kind of where my evolution of just mindset, consciousness. Yeah. Fitness. So yeah, man. Yeah. I appreciate it. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  It's my pleasure. And so that's Mr. Infinity and the is are ones exactly, number ones.com. Yep. And we'll put all of that for everybody in the show notes as well. And this has just been a real pleasure, man, real joy. And, you know, even before we met, you inspire certain changes in my life. This is through other people. And this is, this is the power of what you're doing, is that you never know who you're gonna impact.

Maybe it's just for themselves. Maybe it's for their family, maybe it's for, you know, other, very influential people that can impact millions of lives. And so the work that you're doing is incredibly important and valuable. And I'm grateful that you persevered through the turbulent times, and I appreciate you, man.

DEREK WILLIAMS: No, man. I appreciate you having me on, man. It's a pleasure to meet you, man. I've been one of my big role models a long time, man. I've been, I've been watching you. Like you said, man, probably when you first started 13 years ago and you've been inspiring millions. You know what I mean? It's not a lot of people, minorities out here that's really talking in deep about consciousness and health and really going to those deeper, deeper levels of information, man. So you really serving the people. So I appreciate you, bro. Yeah. It's a full circle moment for me. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Yeah, no doubt. Thank you, man. I received that and grateful for you, man. This has been awesome. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: Yeah, no doubt, no doubt. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  The one and only Mr. Infinity. 

DEREK WILLIAMS: Appreciate you. 

SHAWN STEVENSON:  Let's go. Thank you so much for tuning into this episode today. I hope that you got a lot of value out of this. This is inspiring stuff right here, and I highly recommend that you follow and check out Derek Williams and his work. Again, he's Mr. Infinity. The I in Infinity are ones. Check him out for sure on Instagram. You know, we're a very visual culture. Again, just to see what he's doing and some of these incredible physical feats. And also just the coaching that it provides is really remarkable. It's one of the benefits today, truly, where we've got all this technology and it can be absolutely disorienting and distracting, but there's a right use of it and it's by intentionally utilizing it for our benefit and to get some access to incredible coaching and wisdom from people like Derek.

And so definitely a matter of fact, take a screenshot of this episode right now shared on Instagram and tag me. I'm at Shawn model and tag Derek as well. Again, Mr. Infinity. I'm telling you, he's gonna absolutely make his day. He's gonna see that you shared and it's really gonna mean a lot. So again, let's help keep this message growing and glowing. We've got some amazing masterclasses and world-class guests coming your way very, very soon. So make sure to stay tuned. Take care, have an amazing day, and I'll talk with you soon. And for more after the show, make sure to head over to the model health show.com. That's where you can find all of the show notes.

You can find transcriptions videos for each episode. And if you've got a comment, you can leave me a comment there as well. And please make sure to head over to iTunes and leave us a rating to let everybody know that the show is awesome. And I appreciate that so much and take care. I promise, to keep giving you more powerful, empowering, great content to help you transform your life. Thanks for tuning in.