Notes
Kevin M.: Mixing
It Up With The Fitness Community is a podcast created by Fit Mix that
introduces you to local health and fitness individuals along with their
stories.
Kevin M.: Episode
five. Lawrence Herrera with the Performance Ranch. Lawrence has trained some of
the best fighters in UFC history. He has taken that knowledge and now trains
non-professional athletes. Let's listen in and learn more.
Sara Y.: Hi,
Lawrence. Thank you for joining us today.
Lawrence H.: Thank
you for having me. It's great.
Sara Y.: So the
easiest question of the day. Tell us about your gym. What do you have to offer
there?
Lawrence H.: Well,
so the Performance Ranch is a training facility that's a coaching-based
facility. Anybody who comes in has some sort of plan or a workout of some sort
that's all based on the person's goals and the movement screen that we see.
Every session, whether it's a class or a small group or private partner
training, you know, they're all they're all coached. Again, the difference is,
is just how much coaching you actually want based on the package that the
client decides on. But we've had really good success with it. We've only been
open for a little over two and half years now. December of 2017 was our
official opening date. I've been doing this for almost 20 years now. I've
helped out other gyms and things like that. But yeah, that's the kind of the gym
in a nutshell.
Sara Y.: So how
did the Performance Ranch get started. You said you've been in this business
for 20 years,why did you decide to go off on your own and open Performance
Ranch?
Lawrence H.: Well,
it was it was a unique situation. Probably close to seven years ago now, I
started training one of my more famous club clients, which is a Cowboy Cerrone,
the ultimate fighter guy. I started training him at a different gym. Him and I
just formed more of a friendship than anything because I was with him several,
several times, you know. I don't know how many hours if we add them all up now,
but it's definitely a long time of both training him. We had talked about it
even after about a year of training him at the other place. We've kind of
talked about, 'hey, would you ever want to do this on your own and have your
own place?' And I was like, 'you know, that's kind of a thought of mine.' I was
a partner at the other gym, but besides that, we were more on board of of
working together and trying to develop different things for fighters because if
you know him at all; he has a training facility at his house. So, yeah, it's
really, really cool. The BMF Ranch, he takes in fighters there. He helps train
them there. We wanted more of a commercial space. So we decided to open up our
own gym and fast forward. You know, at that point, it was four years down the
road that we decided to sign our own lease and do our own thing. So that's how
it started. You know, we were kind of directed at the initial time, whereas
helping fighters out and training fighters and those types of rounds. But a lot
of my clients tell was normal, everyday people who just had more of a fitness
goal than than anything. So it kind of developed into that. And that's the way
we we started. It was more of an idea and we acted on it.
Sara Y.: So why
do you make the transition from training fighters to now your everyday person?
Lawrence H.: Well,
the reality is and obviously there's four big fighting gyms in Albuquerque. We're
lucky for that. I was fortunate when I started with fighters. I was training
UFC top fighters from the very start. I never had a chance to even train the
amateurs or the up and comers. I was in the thick of it from the very start. So
when we started doing that, we realized there's not that many UFC fighters in
Albuquerque. If there are, I've trained most of them. Probably close to 15 or
20 of them here in town. But other than that, the reality is we have to keep
our doors open and they don't have fights of all the time. So we're only
training them for a certain amount of time every camp. We knew and I was
already training regular people anyways. When I started talking to them about
my idea, they are like, 'I want to go there. I want to train there.' So. 'OK,
well, great! Let's just do that then and we're going to bring you in on a
training basis of that's sort.' I would say 90 percent of our clientele is that
every day average client like the average athlete type client that just wants
to improve. We do have fighter classes. We do train some of them, but the
majority is just our everyday athlete that wants to get better.
Sara Y.: Yeah,
for sure. Going off on that. What kind of classes do you offer at Performance
Ranch?
Lawrence H.: We
have three different classes. Our most popular is our strong class. That's more
strength training focused and strength training based. Your normal sets/rep/
rest time. Those kind of things. They're upper body focused / lower body
focused type of classes. That's kind of our bread and butter there. And then
our other one is burn. Burn class is more of a metabolic conditioning class.
And that one, we use a lot of tech for that class. In tech, I say we use heart
rate monitors. We use power meters. We use devices that have some type of
metric to record and to monitor the effort of that client. So then we can
always give them feedback later on either in that session, or sessions after
that. Say 'look. You've improved your heart rate because of this or you've
improved your power threshold because of this.' And we like to test and retest
a lot. You just see where people are getting more fit. That a really popular
one, too. The burn class. Then the other class, the third one is called Move.
Move class is more active recovery based. It's very similar to yoga, but it's
not long hold stretches. It's more taking you through ranges of motion that the
joints can handle, but yet also trying to strengthen the joint in these kind of
awkward positions. I would say, you know, working on the hip capsule a lot,
working on the shoulder capsule as the experience we've had, we've seen a lot
of people who come in injured are usually injured just because the joint itself
doesn't move how it should. The ankle, the hip and the knee are the big ones
and of course, the shoulder. So we just teach them how to teach those clients
how to be better suited for that. That movement that's they're trying to do.
But those are three classes that we offer.
Sara Y.: Very
Cool!. Is that Burn Class the bike class? Because that's one thing I think is
really cool about the gym. How there's road bikes connected to that software.
Can you talk about that.
Lawrence H.: For
sure. So Burn is actually different than that. So I was wrong. There is
actually a fourth class, which is our cycling corral. The cycling corral is a
whole separate thing. People bring in their own bikes. We do have one spin bike
in there right now. That's just the Watt bike? So somebody who doesn't have a
bike could use the watt bike and get on that and do their workout. Yes. All the
bikes and the trainers that are connected to the computer itself and the
computer pretty much dictates the effort how hard that clients should go based
on the client's thresholds. And we know the threshold because we test the
client with a simple ramp test. The ramp test takes about 20 minutes max. You
know, obviously, the more fit you are, the further you go into that test. But
normally we see people ending the tests between 15 and 20 minutes or so and we
can establish good numbers for them. Then we will retest them again in about
four to six weeks after that. We'll see how they improved. And basically those
programs are set up to get that client more fit. It's been really, really good.
We've seen some good success with some of our clients who who've never even
rode a bike before. And they started doing the cycling corral. I have one client
in particular who over the course of six months dropped 40 pounds and then end
up buying a mountain bike because he liked it so much. 'This is fun. I actually
want to ride outside now.' It kind of sparked a new habit for him and a new
hobby. He's all in right now. He's done some races on it. He's done a whole
bunch of cool stuff on his mountain bike.
Sara Y.: Yeah. I
thought that was one really cool class or offering or whatever you want to call
it.
Lawrence H.: Well,
it's similar to that. Have you ever heard of the app Zwift? I think some of the
cyclists and the endurance athletes use a Zwift class. Basically you get to
workout at your house and you get this app called Swift and you can do a ride
or whatever. This is a little more intricate because we actually have programs
designed to help improve that client based on what we see in the thresholds. We
can see a lot of stuff that happens just by doing the simple ramp test and then
we can tell them, 'hey, you need to work more on this end of your fitness or
this end of your fitness to help improve you overall.' So that's where that
kind of device comes in.
Sara Y.: Very
cool. You offer one on one training, too. Is that correct?
Lawrence H.: Correct.
Correct. Yeah. Our bread and butter at our gym is small group training, which
is a max of four. But we do private training and we typically, as far as
private clients go, those are usually those clients that are coming in that
want more personal time with the coach. They're working on specific things or
they have some type of injury. We're very fortunate that we have a Elite OSM in
our building. They rent an office space from us. We get a lot of clientele from
them that come to us. They get fed to us after they're done with their with the
rehab. We help get them stronger so they don't have to go back and do more
rehab.
Sara Y.: That's
definitely good. So it's kind of like a one stop shop almost in a way.
Lawrence H.: Correct.
Correct. Yes. Yes. We've been fortunate. That was one big thing that we know.
And Kaukab, when I first talked about the whole thing of what we wanted in
there and one of it was we want, you know, someone like Beau Hightower or Beau
Hightower, which was a perfect combination there. We talked to him and got him
on board with everything. It's been good. It's been really good. Like I said we
both started in there at the same exact time. We opened our doors and Dr. Char
and Alicia, where we're in there from the very start.
Sara Y.: And for
those who don't know what Ellie OSM is, tell us about that.
Lawrence H.: Yeah.
Elite OSM is basically an ortho's therapy place where they do. It's kind of you
know, Dr. Beau is a chiropractor. Dr. Char is a physical therapist. Alicia is a
massage therapist and an ortho-therapist. So there's a big range of specialties
that these particular people have. They use their specialties with soft tissue
work and modalities and different type of rehab protocols that help improve a
patient's ability to get away from pain. Because usually when they're coming in,
they're usually coming in with some type of pain, whether it's back pain, hip
pain, knee pain, whatever. Right. They're coming in for something. So when they
come in, they get worked on by them. And the pain is usually getting caused by
the lack of strength they have in a particular muscle or wherever they're
lacking that range at. So when they work with them, they they can tell, 'You
need to work on this to get stronger.' Usually it's the glutes. That's probably
the biggest thing we see. So we get them in with us and then we teach them how
to strengthen their glutes or whatever or their core. And we see some great
results. I mean, we've had, I don't even know how many clients we've had from
them. Probably close to 50, easily. And it's been a very good success for the
clients, the patient and then for us and of course, for Elite OSM. Because then
it's just a referral network that they go, 'OK, I want to go in and see a Elite
and then I'm after that I'm going to go see the Performance Rantch to help me get
strong. We're teach them how to work out because that's usually what we're
really doing. We're educating the client on how to move better.
Sara Y.: Absolutely,
which is very important. Also, you have Caveman Coffee there, right? And Onnitsupplements.
Lawrence H.: Onnit,
Yes. Caveman? No, we actually have Villa Myriam that used to work with Cavemen.
But yeah, we have others like Michael Thomas and stuff like that. Actually it's
kind of unique. Villa Myriam's our main coffee supplier. And again, our coffee
is always free for our members and for a guest there. So we always brew fresh
coffee in the morning. We have Nitro Coffee on tap. Nitro Tea. And Michael
Thomas is a client of ours also. So the owner of the Myriam and Michael Thomas,
which is Michael Sweeney, is actually his name. He's a client of ours. They
come in and they do a workout and enjoy coffee with us. But, you know, we
basically are coffee connoisseur. So I like coffee. I'm actually drinking
coffee right now. Unfortunately, it's not either one of those brands because I
haven't been to the gym in a while.
Sara Y.: Very
cool. So last question. What's your favorite workout or your favorite.
Lawrence H.: My
favorite workout. I'm a fan of Kettle Bells. You know, I'm not necessarily a
kettlebell instructor. But I do like the kettle bells because of the
versatility. And I like the kettlebell swing because it is a total body type of
exercise. I like to pair up swings and pull ups and farmer walks. It's just
something that's easy to do. You literally need one kettlebell. So when we have
to close the gym, the only thing I brought home was kettlebell. I brought a 70
and 40. I was like, 'I can get my workouts done at home just with that. And I
have a Coolabah bar hear, so that's what I'll do. I'll do swings. I'll do chin
ups or pull ups and I'll do some farmer walks. Just hold on to the kettlebell
there.' It's just an easy go to total body workout. It doesn't take a long
time. It's something that you can do until you basically fatigue and then you
just can't do any more. And it's always good to kind of test yourself against
your time, right? You know that more than anybody else. I've seen you with your
CrossFit stuff. You're always testing. You're always going to see how fast you
can do something or how long you can sustain it. So it's always a nice workout.
That's like my go to strength. My go to cardio is the mountain bike. I'm a big
believer in cycling and I love to Mountain bike a lot. I've invested thousands
and thousands of hours trying to be better at it. I've hired coaches and things
like that. I'm all in when it comes to mountain biking. It's kind of like my
big thing. I've been fortunate to kind of turn the fighters on to it as well.
Cowboys into the biking. I think Cowboy owns close to 15 bikes now. It's crazy.
You know, Ray Borg and even Jon Jones, you know, some of these guys, they all
have bikes. It's usually, you know, because I've talked to them about it and
how good it is and how, you know, just get your mind away from everything else.
Sara Y.: There's
plenty of places to go here.
Lawrence H.: Yeah,
we're fortunate. We are very fortunate. Ii it's not the foothills. We can go
somewhere else. We have the mountains, close access. So that's it's been great.
Sara Y.: Awesome.
Anything you'd like to add about Performance Ranch that we may have missed?
Lawrence H.: No,
I mean, the biggest thing about Performance Ranch, again, we're just here to
help clients. Obviously, going through all this stuff. We put up every Monday,
Wednesday and Friday, we've been doing three live classes on Facebook and on
Instagram. So somebody can just tune in. On Facebook, there always saved so
someone can go to our page. Facebook.com/ThePerformanceRanch and they can see
all of our classes and go through it and try it out. It's literally me in my
backyard. My daughter joins us at times, my little six year old. My dog will be
there also. So those are the things we just want to help everybody out as much
as possible. That's our number one thing we're here for is just to get people
moving better and pain free.
Sara Y.: I agree.
That's a great goal to have and it's something that America desperately needs.
Lawrence H.: Yeah.
Yeah, for sure. You know, I've been fortunate. I've been doing this for close
to 20 years, the majority of my, half my life. I'm 40 now. Almost half my life
I've been working out in this kind of fashion and I, knock on wood, the only
reason I'm ever hurt or in pain is because I've crashed on my bike. That's
usually it. So as long as I keep my wheels on the ground and my body on the
bike, I'm pretty good.
Sara Y.: Awesome!
Well, thank you so much for joining us today. I really appreciate you taking
the time out of your day to do this with us.
Lawrence H.: Thank
you very much for hosting these. This is great.
Sara Y.: Of
Course. Have a great day.
Lawrence H.: You
too. Thank you.
Kevin M.: Thanks
for listening. If you enjoyed the Mixing It Up With The Fitness Community
podcast, we'd love for you to subscribe and leave a review. On the next
episode, Sara talks with the owner of Blended Acai, Anntonette Franklin. We
learned why Anntonette started Blended Acai along with the benefits of eating
healthy and drinking Alkaline water.