The Round-Up Interviews: Alwyn Cosgrove
by Nate Green
It's time to play catch-up with the Testosterone authors. Nate Green does the asking, Alwyn Cosgrove does the talking. After
being in the fitness industry for almost two decades Alwyn Cosgrove has
earned the admiration and respect of, well, just about everyone. And
with good reason. His training philosophy is simple: get
results by any means possible. This thinking has led to great success
with his clients and a flurry of articles and a couple of books that
challenge mainstream fitness thinking, including the ground-breaking
work, The New Rules of Lifting, available from Amazon.com. A
two-time cancer survivor, Alwyn turned his life-threatening experiences
into life-affirming reminders and now has less time than ever for "all
that little bullshit." He truly is the quintessential strength and conditioning coach with something to teach. Pencils up.
Testosterone: A simple question: How's life after surviving cancer twice? What did you take for granted? AC: Lance
Armstrong once said "after cancer there are only good days and great
days." I think that says it all. It's hard for any day to not feel
good. Going face to face with your own mortality certainly changes your
mindset on things.
I think most people just take life
for granted. I mean, what would you do if you only had a few more years
left? We all think that we have decades of time. But what if you
didn't? What if you don't make it to retirement age? Would you live
differently?
I think being diagnosed with Stage
IV cancer and then being in remission is like being told that your life
is over, and then being given a second chance. You don't waste it.
After
cancer, you just start to look at everything differently. You savor
everything positive. Every conversation with someone is enjoyable.
Other little things don't bother you.
It's hard
to spend any time on anything negative at all, really. I've even cut
some negative people out because I just don't want that energy in my
life. I just don't have that kind of room to carry other people's crap,
you know? I still get regular CT-PET scans.
It's actually a weird feeling when you go for check ups. Part of you
knows that you're okay, but part of you is aware that they aren't doing
scans for no reason. It just reawakens every old emotion inside you. I'm
not sure that these feelings will ever go away. But maybe they're good
to bring up. It reminds you of your spirit and the support you have.
As
much as they make me uncomfortable, at the same time I feel grateful
for these thoughts. It's as if they are a gift — a reminder to
appreciate everything. That's a gift that most people don't have. T: How was the road back to fitness after cancer? What kind of stuff are you currently doing? AC: It's been a struggle, but I'm still on the road.
It's
been about 15 months since my relapse/transplant. I've done about 215
workouts this year. I still get out of breath going up stairs, and get really tired doing the simplest things. I need about 11-12 hours sleep a night most of the time.
Despite
all my training knowledge, resources, and my efforts I'm at about 50%
of my strength levels before I got sick. I'm smaller and have less
muscle, more fat, less strength, less endurance, and get winded easy.
But I've come a long way. I have no complaints.
My first workout back (about a month post bone-marrow transplant) I did 20 minutes of walking.
On a treadmill.
At two miles per hour.
And then I vomited.
I
also tried to do some push ups. I got 4 before my arms gave out. Last
week, though, I did 75 push ups (in sets) as part of my program wearing
a 30lb weighted vest. So I'm improving.
Week one I started doing four push ups and four bodyweight squats. I added a rep a day for the first week.

Week two I started with two sets of five of each and added a rep each
day. I followed that protocol for the first month and then evolved into
an EDT type routine for a while — one where I tried to perform more
reps in the same time, and an alternate one where I tried to do the
same reps in less time. Then I started back with lifting weights.
I'm
probably one of very few coaches to have personally competed at a World
Championships, and also been the least conditioned person I've ever met
(post transplant). I've learned a lot from that process.
The
rest of my personal programming focuses on mobility, 'prehab' (although
I hate that word), core work, elasticity, strength training, cardio,
and some regeneration stuff. It's very balanced and challenging despite
not being at max intensity. T: Your
studio in California has been compared to a human laboratory. How has
this contributed to your "results-based" training programs? AC: I'd
been training people since '89 but this was my first facility. Since
opening day I have recorded every single workout ever performed in our
gym. We also check body fat once a week with all clients. I can see
what works and recognize patterns and trends. Over time it helped shape
our philosophies and refined what we did.
Consider
that we have around 200 members training 3 times per week on average.
We can see the effects of 1200 workouts per month. And we've kept that
information for close to ten years now. With that sheer amount of data
you can't help but see what works best.
We have
more people at our gym on a given program than most studies have total
participants. Regardless of what people think — as far as result go —
there is weight in numbers. T: What's the most interesting "experiment" you've ever tried? AC: It's
not so much experimentation as it is seeing ineffective protocols fall
by the wayside. If certain clients are getting leaner than others I
look for commonalities in the successful and unsuccessful programs. For
fat loss clients for example, we've evolved pretty much to full-body
workouts using rarely more than two different resistance training
routines in the week.
Actually for most of
our clients we use an A-B resistance training split. Whether that's two
full body routines, an upper-lower split, or a lift-specific split
(e.g. powerlifting) with a max effort or dynamic effort focus, doesn't
change the underlying principle. Splitting up movements beyond that is
always less effective. Frequency of exposure is a key factor in
success. That seems to be a constant regardless of goal.
Now
we may use a five or six day training program with energy system work
and mobility, foam rolling on other days, but the resistance training
is typically an A-B repeated.
We've used
different supplements and cardio approaches over time and eliminated
all but the most effective strategies. The only thing that matters is
the result we see. That determines everything.
I'm
not against any form of training. I'm not anti-anything. I'm just
pro-results. If I could see a better, faster result using another
method I'll always change.
It's back to the Bruce Lee line that I'm sure every Testosterone reader can quote verbatim after reading my stuff.