Fit To Teach

Coach/ chef/ teacher/ athlete/ writer

He teaches school in Harlem and helps athletes in Connecticut with both fitness and nutrition.  He is unfazeable, improving the lives of everyone from the underprivileged to the overprivileged.  He also makes excellent short ribs.  My CrossFit coach, nutritionist, and friend Gilbert Schuerch:

Reflecting

9 hours of sleep needs to be the new standard for sleep. The problem with saying 8 hours of sleep is optimal is the fact that people will spend 8 hours in bed and equate that to 8 hours of sleep. 8 hours in bed probably only equates to about 7 hours of actual sleep for most people. This is not optimal, this is survival. 9 hours in bed will get you closer to optimal performance with 8 actual hours of sleep.

Fuck your supplements. If you can’t put a check next to each item on the following list then don’t even think about supplements. I eat my bodyweight in grams of protein every single day I breath. I hit 800g of fruits and vegetables every single day. I spend 9 hours in bed  6-7 days a week. I hit the bed and wake up at the same time every single day. I train with weights 2-4 times a week and include squats, deadlifts, lunges, pullups, and presses. I do some kind of conditioning at least twice a week. I get plenty of sunlight, including some sunshine on my eyeballs in the morning and at night. If you’ve got all that under control….then we can talk about supplements.

Training

I perform the Bulgarian split squat twice a week. It puts fear in my heart every time I do it, but it has also paid dividends in booty gains and hip health. I’ll also give a shout out to rucking. Been on a kick where whenever I take a walk, which is usually two to three times a day I throw anywhere from 20-45 pounds in my backpack to add a little extra. Makes an easy thing wildly uncomfortable.

Fueling

Buy yourself a ribeye. Leave it out at room temperature for a couple of hours. Salt the shit out of it. Open up all the windows in your kitchen. Get a cast iron pan screaming hot with some neutral oil in there. Sear the steak on one side for 2:30 to 3:00 min. Throw half a stick of butter in there with 4 cloves of garlic and sear the other side. Continuously spoon the butter over the top of the ribeye for 2:30 - 3:00 min. Let sit for 6 minutes. Boom! Delicious. Mother. Fucking. Steak.

Supplementing

They’re all overrated.

Measuring

The ole Look, Feel, Perform are always the soft standards I try to keep up with. I weigh myself every single morning - I enjoy having a string of data points that keeps me honest. (I also don’t attach any emotion to the number, it's just data.) I always check myself out in the mirror every morning. How do I look flexed? How do I look not flexed? Between the look and the weight, am I pleased with my aesthetics? If not, I generally adjust my carbs, or become more mindful of consuming less shit. 

Performance measurements come in two forms for me. 1: Did I make incremental progress? I track every set and rep that I do via the Juggernaut training app. On every exercise that I do, I’m always aiming for either one more rep, one more set, or 5 more pounds than I performed last week. If that happens on at least 50% of my exercises I know I’m going in the right direction. Progressive overload is king.

I always measure my protein with a scale, and when I want to dial in my diet I also weigh and measure my fats and carbs. If you want to take a dive into that, I have a fairly detailed blog post about what I eat.

Recovering

If I did a heavy volume kinda day - think high rep squats, deadlifts, Bulgarian split squats, (typically my Tuesday and Fridays) then I will increase the amount of carbohydrate I generally eat. Typically I eat anywhere from 280 - 300 grams of carbs a day. I will push that number as high as 400gs if the training was intense enough.

When I start to feel run down I really buckle down on the sleep basics. Wake up and go to sleep at the same time every night. I cut back if not completely cut out screen consumption at night. I ensure I spend 9 hours in bed. I focus on getting sunlight in my eyes early in the morning. Really, I attempt to do this all the time, but when I feel run down or just beat up from training there is a higher motivation to dial in these habits.  

Mentoring

The ole Jim Wendler advice has always given me a chuckle. So you want to be strong huh? Squat, bench, and deadlift heavy once a week for the next ten years. Don’t worry we’ll figure it out from there. 

More broadly speaking, some of the best advice I ever learned from the internet came from John Welbourn’s blog. He’s a ten year NFL vet, the creator of CrossFit Football, and the CEO of Power Athlete. The man is as bad as they come, and simply dispenses a wealth of no bullshit knowledge. I tell every one of my high school lifters to read his blog, “Talk to Me Johnny.”

As for who got me into this? I started lifting when I was 16 with the express interest of trying to be less awkward when speaking to girls…so I guess we can thank my dad for essentially forcing me to be a music nerd as a kid. 

Promoting

Fit To Teach bebe! Come for the fitness advice, stay for the crazy inner city teacher stories. My insta is gilbert_s727. It’s private because I have to hide from my kiddos, but If I can identify that you’re not one of my students I’ll have no problem adding you.

Also, in the near(ish) future I plan on starting a Go Fund Me with the express intent of raising money for the after school weightlifting program I created in Harlem. 100% of the donations will go directly into buying more equipment for the kids to use. The Urban Assembly School for Global Commerce is a tiny public school with no PTA and generally raises its after school funds through bake sales and teachers volunteering to be victims of the pie throwing contest. It’s my express interest to bring the highest level of strength and conditioning to the underprivileged kids that I teach, and if you're down to support that, stay tuned to both my Substack, and Vale Tudo’s Substack in the near future. I appreciate all the support I can get on that front. 

Closing

Two truths and a lie (randomly ordered):

• Once while I was on the bulk, I was simultaneously shitting on the toilet while eating out of a pot of rice to replace the calories.

• I’m currently in pursuit of a 405 lb. bench.

• The vast majority of the validation I get in life comes in the form of mercilessly beating my high school students in P.E. activities.

Comment below if you can spot the lie. 

Retracting

Contrary to one of his three statements in the most recent post, Chris Irons did not in fact come in 1st overall in the last 5K he ran.  Next post, look to this section for a retraction of one of Gilbert’s three closing claims.