Meeting Buddy Morris
Meeting my Heroes is an occasional essay series from Matt Carmichael.
On the basics
I never thought I would be the parent of an athlete, let alone a coach. Of a travel team, no less. Likewise I never thought one of my all-time favorite WTF interviews would be from a professional trainer. And then I met Buddy Morris, virtually anyway although I still hope to meet up with him next time the Arizona Cardinals come play the Bears.
In the issue about Ryder Carroll, creator of the Bullet Journal, I talked a lot about the importance of habits and routines. Buddy Morris and I chatted about that, too.
I admittedly haven’t spent enough effort on my own health and fitness over the course of my life. I haven’t eaten well. Sports were never my thing, even when I did try.
Now I’ve built some healthier habits. I still have work to do on that and advise my kids that it’s easier to start those habits early than try to catch up later.
Buddy was a fascinating guy. It’s easy to see a guy named Buddy and look at his headshot and form an opinion. But you’d be wrong in some key ways. This guy is a life-long learner. He studies his changing world of health and fitness every day, reading journal articles, trying new things. He talked about toughness but also about rest, and time restoring and recuperating. He talked about how he likes to walk in the grass of the field for “grounding” between meetings.
He’s been a trainer since 1980, when he was conditioning future football Hall of Fame QB Dan Marino at Pitt.
I asked him if Buddy then was talking about rest, or grounding, or the importance of mental health. He said that Buddy today would fire that Buddy. And admitted that Buddy then would probably fire Buddy today, too.
Buddy said one line in the interview that has stuck with me. I’ve quoted it to people in a lot of different contexts. He said “The basics are the basics for a reason, because they work.” He was talking about how “if you want to get faster, run sprints; if you want to get stronger, put more weight on the bar.” (Side note: he would approve of a great but stupidly long Men’s Journal article that says gyms and personal trainers are a scam and all you really need to do is lift weights.)
There are so many realms in which this idea of “the basics” applies. In a world where things change pretty quickly, remembering the basics comes in handy. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t add new tools to the box, but it also doesn’t mean to scrap all the old tools just because something new comes along. Do the work. Show up. Practice. Read widely. Build good habits and routines. Make the connections. Send that follow-up email, or text, or make that call. And again, surround yourself with interesting people.
If I’ve done this whole Meeting my Heroes thing right, these are all themes that should have come through, but if not I’m saying them all out loud here.
It’s a good point to recap, because we’re heading into the final lap of this adventure.
Here’s the conversation I had with Buddy for What the Future:
Buddy Morris, at 66, has trained some of the world’s most elite athletes for more than 40 years. It’s not all physical. It’s not all complex. Understanding the mental stressors as well as the physical ones is important. And Morris spends his day pondering how to keep his team at the top of their game. But for all the tech and tools available (he’s a big fan of the Nord Board) it all comes back to the basics, and that’s just as true for you as it is for his offensive line.
Matt Carmichael: I watch college football and I hear about “body transformation”? Is that really a thing?
Buddy Morris: All that means is an athlete came in fat and sloppy. He's transformed his body into being lean with more muscle mass. A college program is a better program, with all due respect to high school strength coaches. More can be accomplished at that age. It's not a beginning, it's more of an intermediate athlete, but it still comes down to this: You gotta do the work.
Carmichael: How so?
Morris: Everybody wants to be the beast, but not too many people want to do what the beast has to do. When I look at different programs, I always look at the similarities because that’s going tell you the truth. People think we write these big-time, advanced programs that take Einstein and Stephen Hawking to figure out. People need to understand that the more elite the athlete becomes, the more general work transfers. The basics are the basics for a reason; because they work. Unfortunately, social media has ruined everything.
Carmichael: How is that affecting our health?
Morris: We always look for the latest, greatest, never seen before, top secret, double probation exercise, supplementation, pill, diet, or pharmaceutical drug that is going to transform us overnight from being some fat slob to Superman. If you still want to eat cheeseburgers and drink beer, don't expect to have a great transformation. People are just amazed when they walk into what I do here. It's very basic stuff, man. If you want to get faster, you have to sprint; you want to get strong, you have to add weight to the bar.
Carmichael: You’ve talked about a lot of aspects of wellness already. How do they all fit together?
Morris: We're a gimmick-oriented society and we’re overstimulated because of social media. But the most basic of things still comes down to sleep, hydration, and nutrition. The problem with those three things is they're not expensive. Well, nutrition can be expensive, but they're not sexy.
Carmichael: How do you deal with the body’s complexity?
Morris: Strength and conditioning is not black and white. There are a lot of factors and variables that go into training our athletes. Everybody wants to prevent injury. Well guess what? It ain't that easy because injuries are just as multifactorial and complex as the human body. It's overly reductionist and absurd to try and blame it on one single factor. The human body is a complex system of interdependent parts. You need to understand the dynamic relationship between each of those parts. We forget about that. We just think about the musculoskeletal system. What about the cells that send signals to the tissue and have a cellular adaptation, a hormonal adaptation?
Carmichael: Your discussion of the basics makes it sound like this would work for regular folks, too.
Morris: It absolutely transfers to a normal individual and leading a normal, healthy life. Get off your ass and move. The human body is designed to move. People forget about the role of the brain, the ultimate governor in human performance. Everything begins in the brain.
Carmichael: I absolutely hear what you're saying about gimmicks, but do technology and AI and wearables and real-time monitoring help us understand the body better?
Morris: There's no question about that. Recent technology and data collection has proved valuable, but you could either be data-driven or data-aware. Data-driven people can't see the forest through the trees. We're data aware. Every NFL team has an analytics department that will tell you if you run this play you have a 99% chance of being successful. Here's what analytics doesn't take into account: It's cold and rainy out in the field, slippery; I'm playing with my third string center. My quarterback's having a bad day and my wide receivers are getting locked down at the line of scrimmage. You cannot replace the human side of things. Science isn’t a be-all and end-all. It’s an opportunity to study and research what we truly do not understand.
Carmichael: You’ve talked about the role of the brain and stress. Was that something you were talking about in 1980 when you started out?
Morris: The Buddy Morris of 2024 would have fired the Buddy Morris of 1980. The more I learned, the more I realized what I do not know. I don't care if they're a medical doctor, doctor of osteopathic medicine, naturopaths, homeopathic healers … they haven't figured it out yet either. And the reason is there are basic principles to guide us as human beings, but we're not all the same.