Before he was calling out “random bulls***” exercise” on YouTube, Tanner Shuck was that young workhorse doing exactly what every gym rat thought was the right choice. He trained more. More workouts, more sweat, more soreness, more grind. It worked well enough that after playing at Oklahoma high school powerhouse Jenks, he went on to play at Rice University.
When the NFL didn’t happen, Shuck turned to CrossFit—and with that still spent years spinning his wheels. Now he’s worked his way to becoming the YouTube straight-talking trash talker who tells it like it is.
“I’m actually ashamed to say that I followed CrossFit-style programming,” he says on his YouTube segment. “I had no real plan, no goal, no long-term structure. I just checked CrossFit main site for the WOD (Workout of the Day) and do that when that’s literally just a random a** workout made up out of thin air by some CrossFitter that’s never even squatted four plates or played real sports. I did that for around six months, and you know what happened? I got f***ing weaker and slower.”
Now Tanner Shuck has shed his CrossFit shame, and is a high-level strength and conditioning coach and the founder of the TrueStrength training platform. Driven by a passion for heavy barbell training passed down by his powerlifter father, Shuck built an elite athletic foundation as a Division 1 football player at Rice University before transitioning into competitive functional fitness. After winning the Dubai Fitness Championship and competing at the sport’s highest levels, he stepped away from extreme high-volume training to advocate for a more sustainable, “no-nonsense” approach to lifelong athleticism. Today, Shuck leverages his background in elite collegiate sports and international coaching to help individuals build raw strength, functional power, and an unshakeable work ethic using timeless, foundational lifting principles.
Shuck sparked immense backlash from the evidence-based fitness community by repeatedly making videos targeting popular science-focused creators like Jeff Nippard. Shuck frequently mocks modern concepts like “stretch-mediated hypertrophy” as over-complicated, “fancy science-based fluff.” Critics and fans of Nippard quickly pushed back, pointing out that Shuck’s rejection of exercise science to promote simple “hard work” often makes him look dogmatic, out-of-touch, or deliberately abrasive to get views.
6 Training Mistakes You Can and Should Avoid
1. Pushing Weight, Not Seeking ‘Pain’ is the Goal
You don’t get strong by seeing how wrecked you can crawl out of the gym. “Soreness is not progression, fatigue is not progression, mechanical tension is progression. If your numbers aren’t moving, you’re not building shit.”
Tanner’s Tip: Quit bragging about how sore you are. Start bragging about what’s on the bar. Track your squat, bench, and deadlift like you’d track cattle or acres—numbers matter. If the weight isn’t going up over time, all that hurt is just noise. “Soreness is not progression, fatigue is not progression, mechanical tension is progression,” he says. “If your numbers aren’t moving, you’re not building s***.”
2. “Workout of the Day” Ain’t a Plan
Tanner spent months treating training like a grab-bag of random challenges—whatever the CrossFit main site posted, he did. “I had no real plan, no goal, no long-term structure… I just needed to get stronger… muscle density is built from years of repeating the same patterns under increased load.”
Tanner’s Tip: You wouldn’t plant a field with a different crop every week and expect a harvest. Same with training. Pick a program built on progression, hammer the same key lifts, and run that plan for years, not just until the next shiny program pops up.
“What I wished I realized sooner was I just needed to get stronger,” he says. “I should have kept training like I did in college football, hammering the basics.”
3. More Days Doesn’t Mean More Muscle
In his 20s, Tanner wore overtraining like a badge—five or six days a week, all gas, no brakes. “Natural lifters grow in recovering, not training… I would have grown faster training just three days per week instead of six.”
Tanner’s Tip: If you’re not on drugs, you can’t train like you are. Hit the iron 3–4 days a week, go hard, then get out. Sleep like it’s part of the program, because it is. Out here, crops don’t grow while you’re stomping the field—they grow when you leave it alone. “I used to think if I can train more, I should—wrong!” he admits. “Natural lifters grow in recovering, not training.”
4. Quit Dodging the Hard Lifts
Tanner admits he skipped or soft-pedaled the heavy squats and deads, chasing cleans, snatches, and fun accessory work instead. “The compounds are the real shit… If I could go back, I’d always do squats, deadlifts, heavy presses, heavy weighted pull-ups and dips, and I’d push those numbers aggressively for years.”
Tanner’s Tip: The lifts you dread are the ones that make you. Build your week around deep squats, deadlifts, heavy presses, and weighted pullups/dips. Everything else is garnish. Put the heavy work first in the session, then earn the right to do curls.
“The compounds are the real s***,” he says
5. You Can’t Stay Shredded and Expect to Grow
Tanner chased abs and bodyweight skills, hovering at maintenance or in a slight deficit. “Natural lifters need strategic surplus phases… If you’re always scared of gaining three to five pounds, you’ll never build serious size.”
Tanner’s Tip: You don’t build a barn out of thin air; you need lumber. Run controlled surplus phases—a few hundred calories over maintenance—with heavy lifting. Accept a little fluff now so you can carry real size later. You can always lean down once you’ve built something worth cutting.
“I always thought being leaner was better,” he says. “In my 20s, I cared way too much about abs.”
6. Think in Seasons, Not Weeks
In his 20s, Tanner felt like he was “grinding,” but compared to now, he wasn’t really strong yet “Natural strength is built over decades… The guys who win naturally—they’re boring. They repeat the basics. They don’t panic. They don’t chase trends.”
Tanner’s Tip: Farmers think in seasons and years, not days. You should too. Commit to decades of progressive overload on the basics. Be the boring lifter who shows up, squats deep, pulls heavy, presses hard, eats, sleeps, and repeats. That’s how you go from looking “fit” to looking like you were built to work.
“Natural strength is built over decades.,” he says. “The guys who win naturally—they’re boring. They repeat the basics. They don’t panic. They don’t chase trends. They just keep building.”
Photo: Gabin Vallet for Unsplash