Podbit · Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
When a Tennessee Titans player asked Kula who the best speed coach is, Kula pointed at his own parents. Genetics set the ceiling for athletic potential — coaches just help athletes reach it. The work matters, but the blueprint is largely inherited.
Where this was said
At 58:50 · chapter starts 51:00
The conversation shifts to business when Sal asks about ETS Performance, the Minneapolis-based company that acquired Kula Sports Performance. Kula describes ETS as a faith-based, corporately-owned performance company founded by Ryan Engelbert — who trained NFL receiver Adam Thielen — that has grown to over 80 locations and is targeting becoming the world's largest performance company. The acquisition model is intentional: no franchise, all corporate ownership, with every new coach brought to Minneapolis for three months of full immersion training before opening a location. Kula sold the company but retained an equity stake and an active role in thought leadership, speed development education, and growth strategy. He frames the sale not as a loss but as a multiplier — overnight access to 50,000 athletes he couldn't have reached alone. On the question of career paths for trainers wanting to enter sports performance, Kula is direct to the point of being blunt: personal trainers who dabble in sports performance are 'dangerous' — they have enough knowledge to cause problems but not enough to achieve results. His advice is to go entirely all-in, including through unpaid internships and deep coursework, because these are genuinely different disciplines. He acknowledges the financial difficulty of the sports performance path, which is part of why he sees ETS as valuable — it creates a viable salary trajectory for coaches who previously had little option beyond low-paying college staff positions.
Multi-sport development is ideal through childhood, but Kula acknowledges the real-world pressure of specialization by high school. His pragmatic advice: stay multi-sport through at least freshman year to avoid overuse injuries and build diverse movement patterns, then commit — because in precision sports like baseball, you can't catch up by jumping in late.
Kula recommends multi-sport participation through at least the freshman year of high school to build diverse movement patterns and avoid overuse injuries before specializing.
When 6-year-olds show up wanting speed training, Kula sends them to gymnastics instead. Body awareness, bodyweight strength, and quality movement patterns built in gymnastics make athletes far more coachable when they return at 9. It's not remedial — it's the fastest path to elite performance.
Kula turns away athletes younger than 9 and recommends gymnastics first, believing it builds superior body awareness and movement quality before speed training.
When asked who the best speed coach is, Kula told a Tennessee Titans player 'it's your mom and dad' — genetics play a massive role in athletic potential.
Thomas's wife deferred her CrossFit career — she's in the global top 1% of athletes — to put him through law school debt-free. He wants her to chase the dream now; she wants the emergency fund and house down payment first. On a $200K lawyer income with no debt, the opportunity cost is just a few months of slower saving.
Underground calisthenics battles are exactly like UFC meets a rap battle — 150 people crowded around a circle, fighters walking out with masks and chains, nicknames like 'Extra Money' vs 'Calisthenics the Prince,' and people throwing money and betting. The battle set: 100 burpees, 50 muscle-ups, 75 dips, 75 squats with a 65-pound dumbbell. This is the next big spectator sport.
Rico Verhoeven controlled the undisputed heavyweight boxing champion for approximately 10 rounds — and had his appeal upheld when officials admitted the fight was stopped after the bell. The result was never overturned. Rogan calls it either incompetence or corruption, and argues the money behind Usyk made an upset politically inconvenient.
Rogan lays out a blunt case: boxing's 3-judge system is structurally broken, and the judges know who the promoter wants to win. Glory's 5-judge format is the right model. Corruption doesn't have to be conscious — just knowing Usyk is the cash cow is enough to tilt the scales.
With the Usyk-Wilder fight stalling and Fury-Joshua coming too late, the real fight the world wants is the rematch. Rico is a free agent. Usyk vacated his belts. The story is unfinished and both Rogan and Rico know it. His Excellency Turki Alasheikh already called for it ringside — the question is money.
Rico texted Jason Statham during the Canelo-Crawford fight. Statham showed Rico's highlight videos to promoters. Two days later, Rico was on a call about fighting Anthony Joshua. When Joshua pulled out, Rico pitched Usyk himself — Undisputed vs. Undisputed. Usyk said yes in two weeks. The whole thing started with one text.
Every heavyweight who faced Usyk tried to move to the right — straight into his power hand. Rico and Peter Fury identified the obvious solution: move left, away from the left hand, and smother him with size. It sounds simple. Nobody had done it. That one adjustment was the foundation of 10 dominant rounds.
MMA fans boo when fights go to the ground. They love stand-up. Kickboxing is pure stand-up. Yet it barely exists in America while boxing and MMA are enormous. Rogan's diagnosis: no promotion machine. If the UFC got behind kickboxing the way they've built MMA, it would explode. The talent is there — the storytelling machine is not.
A nation of 17 million people gave the world Ramon Deckers, Peter Aerts, Badr Hari, Melvin Manhoef, Rob Kamen, Ernesto Hoost, and Rico Verhoeven. Rico's theory: the country is so small that every gym shares knowledge freely. In the US, you need a flight. In Holland, you drive 40 minutes and spar the national champion.
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