Coach Cass Barrett

Christian, Father, U.S. Marine, Strength Coach, Helper... 25yrs coaching/instructing. Owner at Core FIT a performance training space. #becomeyourpotential

[Coach Cass Barrett @corefitbarrett]

Kettlebell Swings is the epitome of a "simple not easy" exercise... here's a sequence of drills to teach anyone to properly swing a 'bell...

My jiu-jitsu fighter Ary demonstrating.

1. KB Drag to Deadlift
2. KB Hike
3. KB Hike-Swing
4. KB Swing

Hope it's useful 👍

[Coach Cass Barrett @corefitbarrett]

I believe this is partly because the doctor or physical therapist will say something like "no weights for two weeks but cleared for full practices"... 🤷🏻
Many parents also view strength training as something that takes away vs something that gives. We have so far to go with education.

[Ray Zingler @rayzingler]

Parents will question 2 hours of strength training per week, focused on the health, well-being, & performance of their children.

But 4-5 games in a single weekend & you get the Facebook post about the long day at the ballpark..

One builds the athlete.

The other spends them.

[Coach Cass Barrett @corefitbarrett]

It's the purest sport there is.

[Georges St-Pierre @GeorgesStPierre]

Wrestling shaped history’s greatest minds. Plato. Socrates. Lincoln. When you step on the mat, you’re following those who built civilization. The struggle builds the soul.

[Coach Cass Barrett @corefitbarrett]

@Brandon_L_Davis @ckstevenson Great stuff right here 👏 👍

[Coach Cass Barrett @corefitbarrett]

First question you ask yourself when a kid doesn't understand... How can I explain this better so they understand it? 💪🏻 🤝

[Seth Gross @GodsWrestler133]

One of the most underrated skills in coaching is being able to explain something simple without making the kid feel stupid. One of my biggest pet peeves is when a coach belittles or embarrasses a kid because they don’t understand a detail that seems “obvious.” Me and my boy @Scraolu were discussing this in depth, and the more we talked about it, the more obvious it became. It might be obvious to you, but it’s not obvious to them. And that is literally why they need coaching. Sometimes it comes from arrogance and sometimes it comes from ignorance, but either way, it’s bad coaching. Anybody can yell “shoot a double,” “get to your feet,” or “finish better,” but can you actually teach it? Can you explain where their hips should be, where their head should go, how they build to feet the right way, where their hands should be, whether their arms should be short or long, and what position they are trying to create before they finish? That is coaching. Not just showing the move. Not just knowing the move. Not just assuming every kid sees wrestling the way you do. The best coaches can take the smallest detail and explain it in a way anyone can understand. Some kids pick things up fast. Some need it broken down 10 different ways. That doesn’t make them dumb. That makes them normal. A coach’s job is not to prove how much they know. A coach’s job is to get the athlete to understand. If a kid doesn’t get it, your first response shouldn’t be embarrassment, sarcasm, or frustration. It should be, “How can I explain this better?” That’s the difference between someone who knows wrestling and someone who can actually coach.

[Coach Cass Barrett @corefitbarrett]

@mikefromprism @whennotcycling @Alan_Couzens We used to come in at 0200 and be on the road to run 5 miles at 0532. On Oki 🏝️ SFMF

[Coach Cass Barrett @corefitbarrett]

Eggg-zaak-lee 🤝

[Alan Couzens @Alan_Couzens]

Harsh truth o' the day:

The primary reason that 'in-person' coaching works is because most people lack the self-discipline to consistently "show up" without someone on-deck waiting for them.

[Coach Cass Barrett @corefitbarrett]

Some coaches have studied specific exercises to a really high degree.

Some coaches have studied the dynamics of human movement to a really high degree.

Both are useful, but the students of human movement have far greater utility value.

[Coach Cass Barrett @corefitbarrett]

Some coaches have studied specific exercises to a really high degree.

Some coaches have studied the dynamics of human movement to a really high degree.

Both are useful, but the students of human movement have far greater utility value.

[Coach Cass Barrett @corefitbarrett]

This is exactly how and why exercise is like a miracle drug for folks with depression. The hardest part is getting someone started, but once you have, their life can change dramatically.

[Anish Moonka @anishmoonka]

Winston Churchill fought his depression with bricks. He'd lay them for hours at his country home in Kent. He joined the bricklayers' union. And in 1921 he wrote about why it worked. It took psychology another 75 years to catch up.

He called his depression the "Black Dog." It followed him for decades. His method for fighting it back was as basic as it sounds: laying brick after brick, hour after hour.

Churchill spelled out his theory in a long essay for The Strand Magazine. People who think for a living, he wrote, can't fix a tired brain just by resting it. They have to use a different part of themselves. The part that moves the eyes and the hands. Woodworking, chemistry, bookbinding, bricklaying, painting. Anything that drags the body into a problem the mind can't solve by itself.

Modern psychology now calls this behavioral activation. It's one of the most-studied depression treatments out there. Depression sets a behavior trap. You feel bad, so you stop doing things, and doing less means less to feel good about. Feeling worse makes you do even less. The loop tightens until you can't breathe inside it.

Behavioral activation breaks the loop from the action side. You schedule the activity first, even when every part of you doesn't want to. Doing it produces small rewards: a wall gets straighter, a painting fills in, a messy room gets clean. Those small rewards slowly rewire the brain. Action comes first, and the feeling follows.

Researchers at the University of Washington put this to the test in 2006. They studied 241 adults with major depression and compared three treatments: behavioral activation, regular talk therapy, and antidepressants. For the people who were most severely depressed, behavioral activation matched the drugs. It beat the talk therapy. A 2014 review of more than 1,500 patients across 26 trials backed up the result.

Physical work like bricklaying does something extra on top of this. It crowds out rumination, the looping bad thoughts that grind people down during the worst stretches of depression. Bricklaying needs both hands and gives feedback brick by brick: each one is straight or crooked. After an hour you can see exactly how much wall you built. No room left for the mental chewing.

The line George Mack used in his post, "depression hates a moving target," is good poetry. The science behind it is sharper. Depression hates a brain that has somewhere else to be.

[Coach Cass Barrett @corefitbarrett]

Be very very careful when you decide to undergo any type surgery... Routine procedures can turn into lifelong problems.

[Teppo Järvinen @shamteppo]

A widely used knee surgery may not just be ineffective — it may cause harm.

10-year results from the FIDELITY trial, now in @NEJM.

🧵

[Coach Cass Barrett @corefitbarrett]

One of the biggest reasons I've persevered with my private sector coaching business vs trying to get a job, even when it's been difficult...

Availability.

[Fiz @MRB_AI24]

We assumed he was having an affair.
Or sneaking out for job interviews.

We were wrong.

He was picking up his daughter from school.

His wife had left the year before.
The custody agreement said 3:15 pickup. No aftercare. No flexibility. The court wouldn’t budge.

He asked to shift his hours.
HR said, “It sets a precedent.”

So he made a choice:

His kid… and a PIP.

He told us everything during his exit interview.

“Disappearing” doesn’t always mean what you think.

Not everyone with a secret is stealing time—
some people are just out of options.

[Coach Cass Barrett @corefitbarrett]

👏🏻 👏🏻 👏🏻 👏🏻

"Details matter"....

[Coach Wayland | Performance Expert | Craftsman @WSWayland]

Staggered stance RDL should be rear heel elevated.

A flat heel straightens the supporting leg which can posteriorly tilt the pelvis, tension hamstring killing ROM. Load the non working leg more defeating the point of stgrd stance which is to emphasise lead leg.

Details matter.

[Coach Cass Barrett @corefitbarrett]

The brain seeks to solve the complexity. Once that complexity is "organized", the brain is immediately searching for the next set of complexities. It's a never ending cycle. This is why a lot of strength coaches never really find mastery... they're always searching for the next shiny, new complexity to solve for. I've been in that cycle. Sooner or later you have to start driving deeper into the simplicity to find the nuance in the foundational principles, to really become great at what you're doing.

[Coach Cass Barrett @corefitbarrett]

Kneeling hand supported row is an exercise that I prioritize as a "main lift" for upper body strength, especially with all of my young people. It's not just a secondary or tertiary activity. %50 BW x5-6 reps is a great place to shoot for as a baseline, then work forward from there. Pullups are king but if they're not rowing heavy, you're missing a lot of low hanging fruit.

[Coach Cass Barrett @corefitbarrett]

🔥 > ❄️

[Coach Wayland | Performance Expert | Craftsman @WSWayland]

Always bullish on saunas.

[Coach Cass Barrett @corefitbarrett]

The brain seeks to solve the complexity. Once that complexity is "organized", the brain is immediately searching for the next set of complexities. It's a never ending cycle. This is why a lot of strength coaches never really find mastery... they're always searching for the next shiny, new complexity to solve for. I've been in that cycle. Sooner or later you have to start driving deeper into the simplicity to find the nuance in the foundational principles, to really become great at what you're doing.

[Coach Fahey @BurnTheLadders]

There is a phenomena within human psychology that when something complex is made clear, people quickly devalue it. Conversely, when something is made to look more complex (even through trickery), people perceive it as more valuable.

[Missy Mitchell-McBeth @missyMmcbeth]

Grandstanding for full time strength coaches in every school will be at an all-time high this weekend.

An absolutely wonderful sentiment, but before you weigh in, consider the following:

1. Have you personally run a school wide or district wide budget top to bottom?
2. Are you personally willing to relocate to remote America to fill one of these imaginary positions at EVERY high school (and I’ve seen it proposed for middle schools as well.)?
3. Have you provided ANY simplified and affordable strength and conditioning resources that discuss safe return to play after breaks, education on rhabdo etc, or programming in general?
4. Have you worked within a professional organization (even if it’s just to tell a friend about things like the @nhssca_us) to help provide cost effective solutions for more coaches?

That being said - I obviously am HORRIFIED by the most recent rhabdo case. It should be common sense but we’ve repeatedly seen that it isn’t.

However pretending we as an s&c profession have a super simple solution to a complicated problem doesn’t actually solve anything and gets us no closer to helping kids.

Yeah, full time strength coaches everywhere is an amazing idea - but it’s not happening anytime soon, so let’s figure out what we can do on a smaller scale to make a difference TODAY.

I think the NHSSCAs idea of a “one more” style outreach (where each of us reach out to one coach who might benefit from the NHSSCA and telling them about it) is a great start.

So text somebody. I’ll go first.

[Coach Cass Barrett @corefitbarrett]

@KikiMamaMonster I like that idea too. I'll give it a go.

[Coach Cass Barrett @corefitbarrett]

I love the foam roller hip hinge patterning drill, and if you add a plate under each forefoot to shift the center of gravity back further, and a bench behind the lower leg for reference, you can really get some mileage out of that drill. Vincent has wrestled since childhood, and was a Fargo qualifier in 2025, as well as a Colorado state qualifier as a freshman in 2026, but he's never lifted weights in any serious way before, so we're building from the bottom up.

Credit to whoever initially introduced this drill... I believe it was @WSWayland