For a long time I was running from who I am you know I was trying to figure out how to be someone who I'm not because that was okay like I am this super Allin guy and at the detriment of everything else and I'm like that's not how you should be like you can't do that um and so like I took a long time away trying to figure out like how to not be the person I am and what I've turned around and realized is that like I have to just Embrace who I am and
leverage that and so like I'm like I can't play a board game with someone for fun if we're playing I'm beating you and if I don't I'm pissed and it makes it terrible for family events when you're just trying to have a game of Monopoly and I'm going no you can't go to bed we're not you know but what I realize is is that if I can leverage that to my advantage and turn everything into competition everything into a game um Then it can it can it gives me the motivation to show up every day
and what I've learned is to enjoy showing up every day [Music] [Applause] it's time to sit down keep it real and cut the [ __ ] welcome to table talk all right let's get started all right guys we're back with another episode of table talk my guest today is AJ Roberts he was on episode 137 and 252 He's in town because he's going to be competing this weekend so we'll just jump right off into what are you competing in yeah so it's uh Rob fr's putting it on I think it's called the king of the
bench and uh it's an idea he came up with after the Arnold you know they keep changing the format on the main stage for the Arnold to try to make it more entertaining to the crowd um they have like you know um uh rep challenges uh ryen bar challenges um and So he got the idea of what if we did single multiply and unlimited all in the same meat so um he talked to Pal U um the record Keepers um and uh they said as long as you know each division was competed in they would
count each one and so he put the meet together and basically invited a bunch of bench guys to come out and so I think there's a dozen or so of us going to do that so we'll get two benches each each discipline with 30 minutes between it so Uh unique format um especially as I hadn't been in multiply gear for a long time or single play gear for a long time um and so I'm just going to go have fun and you know hopefully put up a big unlimited bench and then just see what I
can do at the at the other two as I haven't really had much time but well kind of makes sense cuz the weight would be ascending yeah you would hope right yeah and that's kind of how I've been training you know just like instead of Trying to figure out each shirt individually just using it during warm-ups and um you know I'm when I put my shirt on like I'm not trying to get strong on that day so I put it on early figure out the groove so uh when I get the single ply shirt I
put it on at 135 and how close can I get um I think I got it down to like a three board and then just kept going and at like 405 or 455 something like that I was able to touch you know like shirt all the way up not Jacked and I was like oh okay you know I got it down and so uh that day continued work up in it to 700 and then you know I knew that was about the limit and then just switched out into the unlimited and just kept going so
um yeah it's just it's really I use different layers anyway normally warming up you know I have a single layer multi layer triple um so I'm used to changing the shirts out as you go so I was like yeah it sounds good to me it's it's a challenge Right it's something different it's something new and as I'm not squatting and deadlifting much um I was like I need something new you know I need something different so so you're gonna add he's gonna then add the best of each discipline yes he's going to add up your
best three lifts and then you know he's G I think he's just dividing it by body weight to get your you know total and then that will be like Whoever has the highest number will be the winner so now Is your Technique different yes so that's the biggest thing that's different um so in the band shirt like I don't really touch as low as I used to so in the in the multiplay when I was wearing multiply gear i' i' touch just above the belly button I was kind of the highest point of the stomach
and um I I think I was just one of those guys that like the right forearm to upper arm ratio where I was able to really push the bar out and then Tuck my elbows and stay in control um and obviously I learn a lot from the Metal Militia guys on how to control you know in the bottom position and then how to kind of throwback manipulate the body um in the band shirt I can't do that I'll dump the bar every single time so I touch much higher not not not not the sternum just
slightly below but probably the upper AB abdomen um and and and so that was the biggest difference is just like oh I got to tuck my elbows again um Versus drive out but the shirt with the band shirt um the shirt is a tactical cue because that material you can feel it like really strongly on the on the bottom of the elbows whereas um when you know with the other shirts a lot of it is in the chest plate so even though the band shirt works like that there is more of a tactical cure on
where you need to be with the elbows and if you get out of that Groove there's no pop you know it's a very fine it's the same in the multi Shirts but as you move the shirt down with multiply obviously you touch lower and you don't need to with the band shirts it just makes it tighter um so yeah I kind of have a higher touch with the band shirt lower touch uh with that but because of the reverse grip you know uh Jimmy Cole bought the reverse grip bench and back I've added that in
that actually like that groove of reverse is the same Groove as my single multiply Groove so I use it and it keeps all of The pressure out of the shoulders and I don't have any so days that I'm beat up I'll do reverse grip um and so I actually found like when I went to I was like oh yeah it's just like a reverse my hands are just the other way so so you're going to do that for all three the single multiply and vure or no just for the single and Modi and then I'll
go to my regular Groove for the band shirt okay all right all right so that kind of keeps the technical aspect fluid yeah Yeah and it you know it's just one of those things you just have to remember you know so like it adds to that challenge because you know you you have to be able to um really understand and the technical side of it which is why I was always attracted to geared lifting because it wasn't just a pure strength thing it was more of to me it was more competitive in the sense of
you could be the strongest guy but could you also figure out the competition um equipment Could you also figure out peaking can you also figure out nutrition like so it's like all these elements played into it and my thought process was always like I can be the like better than most at everything and then that will make me better overall and that's you know that's how my philosophy went and it worked so um you know I I appreciate all types of lift and the stuff people are doing now just blows my mind um but uh
for me you know I didn't ever have raw Goals cuz I never saw anybody to an anything Ru and I'm too old to set these crazy Ro goals now my body just won't hold up so um yeah it keeps it fun and keeps me allows me to continue to compete and as my weight keeps coming off you know it it uh gives me a new challenge we talked before about what brought you back into the sport where now my question would be what keeps you in it sanity well that was years AG yeah so like
what I've realized in um you Know I'm working a lot with JM to like figure some of this stuff out just because he's kind of been where I am he's got 20 years on me uh and so he's already gone through a lot of the thought process but what I've come to realize is like for a long time I was running from who I am you know I was trying to figure out how to be someone who I'm not because that was okay like I am this super Allin guy and at the detriment of everything
else and I'm Like that's not how you should be like you can't do that um and so like I took a long time away trying to figure out like how to not be the person I am and what I've turned around and realized is that like I have to just Embrace who I am and leverage that and so like I'm like I can't play a board game with someone for fun if we're playing I'm beating you and if I don't I'm pissed and it makes it terrible for family events when you're just trying to have
a Game of Monopoly and I'm going no you can't go to bed we you know but what I realize is is that if I can leverage that to my advantage and turn everything into competition everything into a game um then it can it can it gives me the motivation to show up every day and what I've learned is to enjoy showing up every day versus just doing it for the end result and so I've kind of flipped like my the the reason I compete um before I competed because I wanted to be The best now
I compete because I want to show up in the gym every day and get and and you know live longer and do those things cuz the way I was going you know I was going to 400 plus pounds um and so like I to it's it's interesting like using my own um what most people would say uh disadvantages to actually become advantages and just and just accepting okay like I'm wired this way I try to break the wiring I did therapy I did psychedelics I you know I've gone all This personal development and and just
come back around and been like oh what I seeking is already inside me I just have to embrace it and you know why not and why not like I don't need permission from anybody you know and um still look at the things that are negatives and have to have checks and balances on that and different people to to Wrangle it in but why why try to be some and come not you know I'm most 40 the chances of me changing who I am at the at the root Core um you know it kept me from
fulfillment it kept me from happiness because there was always something missing you know there was always a piece of me that was like like searching for something and and you know through sedation with for for me it was food you know um it was a coping mechanism I just realize like this is not if this is how most people are I want [ __ ] nothing to do with it you know if this is how the average person is like I I don't Want anything to do with that and um I'm going to figure out
a way to how to be with my people that I connect with that understand me and that I understand them and you don't even have to say anything we just get it like there's there's something in us that we're bitten by the iron bug and when we're in the gym it's our church it's our Sanctuary it's it's where we figure out our problems for me to not be involved in that is insane and it's going to create even bigger mental Issues for me so um you know it keeps I stay in and involved in the
sport and continue to get more involved in the sport um because I'm I'm looking at and going you know if I want to make it to 100 I need something to live for and you know I would love to say my kids are the reason I you know I want to live for my kids but I do but you continue to put off because it's not you it's not you you know like it's it's like you can say oh I want to live to see my kids grow up And grow old but it's their life
and there's still a disconnect to that even though you love them there's still this self you know the issues with self that create that barrier and so I try to use them as motivation and I realized that that was just an excuse like I have to live for me and be an example to them on what's possible and only that is like that's true leadership right you know and so I was like I don't want my kids to have a dad that passes away and they Go my dad was one of the strongest men in
the world my dad was one of the greatest Minds in business my dad was this and like I want to be there for them when they have their kids and I want to you know be a to have those conversations on how hard that is and and you know be able to guide them and I was like I can't do that if I don't figure out me and um I it finally like clicked all these things I've gone through finally started to make sense Because I was I wasn't running for myself anymore you know I
was like oh okay this is I this has been a bad habit or this has been a negative uh you know thing how do I turn that into a positive you know and I use something simple for people listening but like if you like let's say you binge watch TV okay you like to sit and watch stuff just change what you watch you know watch podcasts watch documentaries you know invest in courses like video courses um and and When you figure out oh this is my learning style this is my teaching style this is this
and and you embrace it versus trying to do what someone else says you should do you know like um people I don't you successful people don't watch TV like it's not true like there's people who do there's people who don't but like figure out who you are and then say is this habit getting me closer to where I want to go or moving me away oh it's it's it's moving me away Okay how do I take this habit and just you know change what I'm doing but remain doing the same thing because I think often
like dieting is a big one right people go on diets they try to remove stuff but what if you just figured out what you should do and figured out a way to gamify it so it's like you still get to eat the food you want to eat but It Fits your Macros or something like that you know and I think those are the people who have the most Success because they don't feel like they're having a sacrifice and then they don't have the guilt and shame when they have their favorite candy or their favorite treat
and I I saw that through through my wife with her nutrition Sports Nutrition with her athletes it's like you know what's your favorite thing what's this and and she tries to build stuff in or create Alternatives that you know satisfy that that urge those cravings and it increases success rate Because they don't feel deprived and then if they do screw up they don't disappear because they don't have that I'm such a bad person and that self-loathing that you know um beating yourself up over the little things because it's like okay well I'm human move on
and um you know I've had to really take checks and balances on on who I am and like if it's negative or positive in terms of moving me where I believe I should go you know cuz the Vision I have for my life is mine and nobody else can see it it's really hard to [ __ ] explain um because people just they don't have that background that experience that you've gone through and I'm sure you've faced it with business so many times where you've just had a certain vision and everybody's like I no don't
see it like that's a waste of [ __ ] time don't do it and you're like no I and then it pays off you know and you're like I [ __ ] knew It well this this all kind of makes sense if if you're one Avatar like say when you're competing before and it's just powerlifting all this is you kind of wrap your head around but when there's multiple avatars you know so the competitor the Father the business person you know husband and all that then this becomes a little convoluted and mentally a little bit
challenging too because when you're given time to those other things you're not giv time To the what the main thing is so something seems to always have to Bubble up as the main thing that becomes that anchor yeah what would that be for you it is the gym it is the gym and we you know our kids come to the gym with us now we've got them little B Bells uh my son is learning how to do strong man stuff um you know with Med bulls and things like that and and every night he wants
to watch strong man on TV and you know when I grow up I'm going to be like World actually says I'm going to be luke stman um because he wants to be the World's Strongest Man and and uh it's just really cool to see like the other day we went to the gym and my daughter Harley um before we like even started warming up she took the little dumbbells and she was doing a bench routine and then she does pull-ups and and and then she has uh he has like a um monkey ba rig and
she'll do the monkey BS and like she'll just do her own workouts and it's Like she just fits in at the gym and everybody like loves them and so it's just really cool to bring that in and make that a part of our experience because um you know both being athletes in the past like you know our weekends were for the kids we were going places and you know we weren't we weren't finding space for us and I think that's one of the hardest things as a parent is not giving up who you are like
for your kids because what I I can't remember who Said this but it was like I don't want my like I don't want my parents to tell me that I can be whatever they want when they didn't become who they wanted to be and I realized I was like that's where the example comes in like be an example that there is no boundaries there is no barriers and then support them in whatever they choose to do like if my kids choose not to like if if Axel changes his mind and doesn't want to be the
word Str man it won't matter to me At all I will support him the same if he says I want to be a rock star or this okay cool what is the what do you see for yourself okay how can I fully support you because I know what it means to be all in so I know what it's going to take and so I can share some of that with you um but I also want you to realize like oh like you did this like and so there's a different level of respect there and I
think that that's what you pass on to your kids Because one of the biggest lesson Les I've learned as a father is you can tell your kids the dangers but my daughter has never foolen and so every time she climbs something like if she was in here she'd be on top of everything I'm like be careful don't get hurt and she says Dad you're scared not me and it's like because she's she she's her reality is she's never fell she's never gotten hurt she's 6 years old and I've been telling her since she Was like
one and a half be careful she now thinks I'm crazy like oh man why are you worrying all the time I'm fine dad and it's like but I know the the risk you're you don't have that your brain hasn't developed quite yet to understand that and that's I mean it's why we're seeing extreme athletes in the X Games at 12 years of age doing what took Tony hook you know his entire career to do they just don't have that Fear Factor um but it's like I want her to be like that And I don't want
to curb her conf like self-confidence because I think it's a beautiful thing to allow children to be who they are and just support it but do in a way where they are who they are because they're modeling a behavior that is is something that every parent is trying to install in their kid but often times they're doing it through telling versus showing so what does this look like when you're working with JM oh so we talk mostly about just like we're in Weeds in terms of you know philosophy and thought processes and things like that
and and usually he has an agenda for the cool cuz he's like he you know and we get going and we go off in all sorts of directions and from from the meaning of life to to to you know uh ways to deal with certain thought processes and he's just with his experience he's able to point me in the right directions and and provide me different thought processes he never Tells me this is right this is wrong he just presents something in a different way and I'll share how I feel and and then he'll say
well it might be that but this is my experience my thought process and so then I'll reflect on it and work through that and so um through different um sometimes it's a movie he gives me or a book to go thing it's to address certain issues on in terms of uh these different challenges that I'm facing because a lot of the times for me Especially as a man and a father and a live it's like uh there's all this pressure there's all this pressure that you create for yourself and um I was I've been uh
was listening to Richard Branson's um latest book which is a combo of his other books losing my virginity finding my virginity and just his whole career and what I realized is that really he's just a rebel he's always been against big corporations and So it's kind of comical that he is a big Corporation now and his brand is so big because his whole his whole career has basically been screwing the big guys like you're stuffy you don't do things good you don't have good customer service and we can do it better um and he's been
very successful with that but what I realize is he's a very cheeky man he has that naughty side he's fun and you know I spent some time on nekker island and and got to experience that With him in person but I started thinking as I'm listening driving I'm like I don't really have that like I was like have I ever had that like do I even know what just like letting loose and being silly and having fun and being and I'm like and so um I realized the only time I'm like that is when I'm
like super high and then I thought why is that and I was like because I'm present when I'm super high my brain can't think be on the current moment it like and I Go I wonder if this is how and I don't know I'd love to have the opportunity to ask him but I wonder if this is how he is all the time and so he doesn't have that fear of the future that you can create in your mind and um I Heard Jim car a video Jim Carrey made and he he calls it future
dreaming and he said most uh mental issues come from future dreaming and I was like yeah I'm pretty much always living in the future like comparing where I am to the vision I've Had for myself and even though I've continued to get closer and closer I'm still not there and as you know when you get there you just move the [ __ ] Goos it's like a never- ending thing and I'm like this is probably not a great way to be and so JM and his thought process the way he thinks like it it's all
right guys bear here uh Su performance therapy we're here at the lead FTS compound and uh we're utilizing a lot of element today this is actually my second packet We're near coming near the end of our deadlift session but it is hot out here in Ohio so uh when we're in a lot of this equipment we're doing a lot of overload work we're going to be taxing our nervous system and that's why we use this 1,000 mgrs of sodium in this one little packet it might seem like a lot but here's the thing we don't
have a salt problem we have a water intake problem you drink enough water don't worry about 1,000 milligrams of sodium So in here I've got some uh Gatorade but truth be told Gatorade is not enough sodium uh used to be in the '90s when they first came out and then everybody started drinking it while sitting around the office and they said hey why is everybody got hypertension well they're not moving around they're not drinking enough water and all they're doing is drinking salty goodness so but when we're moving around and it's hot we need that
salty goodness so we're just going To popop pop that right in close that up give it a shake if I can do it look at that and Down the Hatch oh that's good all right let's deadlift are you looking to boost recovery enhance your sex drive and improve performance in the gym do you think your hormones are out of whack and you're tired of getting the runaround from your doctor you know things like your hormones are just fine stop lifting Heavy weights Etc etc etc I know what that feels like as I been down that
road most of my life this is why we've partnered with mer Health mer health is a premium telea Health platform that specializes in hormone optimization and preventative medicine ensuring a better quality of life mer Health offers a TBL talk panel tailored for our listeners featuring comprehensive tests like total and free testosterone sensitive estradi and Advanced markers like lipoprotein a and igf1 these comprehensive panels of up to 84 carefully selected biomarkers allow you to identify areas of enhancement and maximize your physical cognitive and sexual performance it's much different than the panels you may get from your
doctor choose between self-service options where you can select lab panels based upon Decades of experience or opt for guided optimization with your own health coach start with a detailed Breakdown of your labs and receive personal personalized treatment options both overthe counter and prescription visit mer health.com talk and use the code tabl talk to get 10% off your first order mer Health isn't just about Better Health it's about empowering you to take control of your well-being very relevant to me because I can I'm seeing a different way to operate and it's not that my way is
wrong it's just that I Don't have all the pieces and he said something a couple weeks ago that most people probably would got offended by but with with our relationship like he could say whatever and I would just be like oh interesting but he said about me being delusional like you live in a delusional reality and I was like and so as I pondered that what I realized was is that he's it's right all these people say awesome [ __ ] about me right when I Speak at a conference you know even You intro me
you'll say amazing things and I'll sit there and be like like I and it's my own accomplishments and yet I still don't take credit for it and I was presenting this in terms of business like what I've done and my disconnect and we talked about it a little bit last time I was here and he was like you live in a delusional reality where you don't see what everybody else sees and so I Started from that conversation I started to suspend my own thought process and St just like listening and paying attention to what other
people are presenting about me or just about things in general and I realize that like I have this like mental world that I've lived in that like nobody else is living in and I've created my own stories and my own you know thought processes that that aren't true to the rest of the world and so it began to unravel in terms of of that and And what it allows each each thing we talk about kind of opens my eyes and it's kind of like the first time I saw brand training I think he did a
900 for three reps like in his briefs the first day I train there and I'd never seen anything like in my life it shifted my reality and from that moment on I just had you know oh well I should be be able to do this too right and so all JM really does is present new ideas to me that I've not thought about or or spent Time really you know pondering and from that it creates a new reality a new thought process and is allowing me to shift without beating myself up or thinking something's wrong
with me right it's just oh I've never thought of it in those terms before um and he just has a really unique way it's funny because like sometimes I'm like where are we going like you know he's telling me a story and I'm just like where is this and then somehow it comes around and it All makes sense and so um I really enjoy philosophy I really enjoy mythology I really enjoy like all of these things and so with his his his um things he enjoys it kind of aligns really well um and and I
really cherish our time that we spend uh you know well he's coaching me but we connecting because like he shares things that like my parents like they're not in this world they've never been in this world so they don't understand what I'm saying well I'm Thinking about like after the Arnold where I benched the Thousand I was like maybe I'll go for a 600 roll bench right like do I really need to go heavier and um you know JM doesn't say that's a right choice or wrong choice he just said well what do you want
to do what do you think you can do and then he's like what if you allowed yourself to do the thing you want versus do the thing you think everybody else wants I said wow that's that's an interesting question Right well how do you process the thing you want because like what is that what is the I think it's the itch it's the thing that doesn't go away it's that voice in your head that's like you can do that right and so it's like I I don't think I'll ever beat Jimmy Culp right like it
just I I I'm not willing to be 400 lb and that's what I think I would have to do in order to be able to get up there with him um but at 308 at 275 at 242 can I bench a th000 in each of that Weight class could I break the alltime record at 308 you know it's 12007 I think right now Tony just Tony Koo I think that's how you say his name he just broke it and then but the full power bench is only 1050 or 56 or something like that so could
I do full power and and take that alltime record so I was like oh you still want records you know you don't care about the 600 bench where did that come from and it was like well you know Roar lifting gets More attention maybe if I do that like and I was like that's not for me like I've I've never really cared about a 600 bench you know it's it's it's one of those things if I can do it I can do it um but I I've been added shoulder press um shoulder pressing into my
uh trading because I've never done that before I'd rather do 40 five on a shoulder press than worry about a 600 bench it's just you know it's interesting what we gravitate to what we we attracted to so Um yeah just things like that you like I just I'm like okay what's my intuition like when I sit back remove the noise and like don't make a rush judgment if I just listen to myself you know spend time with that do I really want that and then you know assess what that means and am I willing cuz
sometimes you want things and then when you look at what that means you go I don't [ __ ] want to do that [ __ ] well elaborate on that yeah so like the the you know beating Jimmy right Jimmy's end goal is 1500 right so if you can go 1505 you're probably going to beat him because he's decided his end goes 1500 now when he gets there we'll see you know you never know we'll see um but he's really truly pushing his body he's really doing everything he needs to do you know living the
life you know um and and so me knowing I'd have to be 400 lb knowing the gas that i' would have to take to get there the things I'd have to Do I'm pretty sure I'd be shortening my lifespan considerably you know if I made it to 60 I might be lucky right I might get away with doing it in the next 10 years and and then losing all the way to my 50s but the long-term damage is there and so when I look at that I go no I'm not willing to do that I'm
not willing to push that way you know there's certain boundaries I've put on myself and at times I'll question that you know maybe I want to push the boundary and Then I think back okay what is actually important to me right and the number one thing that's important to me is being there for my kids um because I see the devastation when dads are taken early and it course it could happen right like you never know but like I don't want it to happen because of things that I could have controlled if it happens it
happens set everything up that they'll be okay taking care of you know in that sense but like they don't have a dad you know And nobody can ever replace you even if the best guy in the world comes along it doesn't feel that and so I'm like at some point it will happen but like I want it to happen late in life I want it to H I want to see them get married I want to see them have kids um and in order to do that I can't put I can't take my health and
say that's not important right now because it is you know wouldn't the safest route be then to just not do it at all yeah but then I Wouldn't show up at the I figured that out you know I tried it and so you know um people have suggested competing other things you know and I tried that when I retired I tried to CrossFit and then you know was training with Ryan fiser like three times a day and then I did the bodybuilding and it was like two you know 280 I could hear myself breathing again
so it's like I'm like okay well like at least with powerlifting Like it's just the thing I love and so you know I'll probably pull back on competing like I don't really plan to compete again this year unless s changes like usually I know when I'm going to compete again it will probably be the Arnold so like I'll just spend time to get down I'll probably do the onward at 242 or light 275 you know depending on how it goes um and uh thanks to the nutrition like my weight comes off easy and so I've
actually been struggling to Keep weight on because with the summer like and for the first time I don't really have an appetite I I don't know if if um so I I use an eptide B BP 157 um it's supposed to like one of the things that heals your gut and uh since I started taking that like my relationship with food has drastically changed so I you know um I'm not sure if I had leaky gut I know I had leaky guts so maybe it's healed out I I need to do some testing again to
see see what's Changed but um it's been interesting like all of a sudden like getting full um because I kind of broke that when I was trying to gain weight you know like I I if I didn't have food in my hand and you're the one who pointed that out to me where it uh in Lake George um you're like I was saying I struggle G weight and you looked at me go I don't see any food I was like what do you mean he's like if you don't have food you're not really trying right
and so took that to Heart and then I don't know how I broke my body but I basically broke the feeling full you know I'd eat eat eat and then I knew I was fool cuz I'd be puking it back up in my mouth a little bit um you know and so most people go what they think you're crazy but then when I decided I wasn't going to lift anymore I still had that problem where I'd eat my meals i' be like I'm hungry I just kept eating and so being in a different situation where
I'm actually Now struggling to get in my six meals that are plan and you know all the protein and it's like man okay this is this is a job but it's it it it's a job that fuels something else so becomes important um and I actually think I'm like I think one of the biggest mistake powerlifters make especially gaining weight is because we're not bodybuilders it's real easy to eat everything like see eat it right yeah anything everything and it's like for most people If they were just eating you know clean foods but often you
know I mean Jay Cutler was eating like 10 times a day and that guy was like 290 pure muscle like I don't see how it would not be a good thing for for power lifters and in fact um people who I've seen who did well in bodybuilding and powerlifting like they've always eaten like that and it's no wonder they look so good you know and of course they always have the option to gain weight if they wanted to Gain on health you know fat versus muscle but it's an interesting thought process I think that's probably
and it may be different today like I'm not as in tune with those in their 20s competing and how they eat and all those things but um I know when we were lifting it was like you know McDonald's red Rob like it was like every meal was out basically and then you ate food in between at home which was Oreos and a gallon of milk and pizza with oil on it You know you just found those ways and I think you know it may be why we don't see so many big lifters anymore because people
are more health conscious and and it's not as accepted in society because of social media but I definitely think that that's something that when I look back of it's like oh I would have liked and I did a little bit at the end thanks to Shane SWAT and and John wellborne I ate cleaner towards the end but it was like mixed with dirty right it was yeah You still have to get the calories in yeah half clean half dirty um and I saw huge huge you know uh changes in my composition and how I even
felt it just really how I felt um and that's kind of now the challenges with ag and you know you've gone through this and you have to change how you train and you know it's like oh okay it takes me 10 days for my elbows to recover like if I do this I know my shoulder's going to be like a lot of times after a bench Session heavy bench session when I'm going over a thousand like I know for two days I won't be able to lift my shoulder up you know so it's immediate into
like you know recovery mode with you know uh icing and and getting the band stuff like doing band movements to like break up whatever is just seized up in there um but it's like I'm learning I'm like oh okay sometimes less is more you know cuz cuz like I can get more bang for my buck um sometimes I Have to listen to my body and you know I'm not going to be benching heavy today I have to or you know make an adjustment and I think that these are things that like as you age like
it restricts you and so often times like you you feel like you can't keep competing like for some reason every time I go over 500 in a squad or deadlift my back's like my back is done and takes like 2 3 weeks for it to even loosen up um and I really need to go get an MRI and really figure Out what is wrong with it but I was like I can't keep trying to squat and deadlift if every time I do it it it breaks it so you know I use the belt Squad and
we got a lot of body mild machines so I can still train my legs um but I was like it's just not going to be something I can do three lifts right now I can safety squat bar I can football bar I can do these different things but you know you have to know what you can and can't do and um you know because Powerlifting does have age categories and all those things you can always compete and um you know I I've been judging a lot of meats and there's been 70 year olds and I
think there was an 82y old and I was like if I can even walk at that age I'll be happy like to see you competing and I was sat there and I realized like which I never thought when I was a lifting I was like if I'm a part of this sport my whole life for the rest Of my life that could be like another 40 to 50 years like that's wild you know like most of the people competing they were in and out in two to three years and I was like oh if if
you actually think of this as part of your life you know and something that doesn't have to end like that and that started to sink in a little bit where it's like like you're not going to the gym to compete you're going to the gym because that's who you are and that's and I'm Starting to understand that and like what that gives me so how does that work out when you don't want to go to the gym right because that's part of this is the longer we do it you know it's I mean you go
back when you're a teenager or your 20s nothing's keeping you out of the gym and you you know getting psyched up driving to the gym as things progress 20 years later you're like the whole you're still going yeah but the whole narrative is like [ __ ] yeah so what's interesting Is I have a home home gym you know um I have two rack squat racks benches reverse hypo glute ham you know chains bands and uh I realized pretty quick that that when you have a gym at home and you work from home it's real
easy to say well I'll get this done first then I'll go work out and then it's 2 3:00 and you're [ __ ] exhausted because you've been working since 5 and you're like you know what I'm just not going to work out so I figured out that I have to Go to a gym and um we moved about an hour from where we used to live we kept our kids in the in the school they went to is private school we decided not to move them at first and we'll figure out later and so they're
still going to that school and then the gym we train at is down there too so the drive to and from the gym it's like you know I like I use it to listen to audiobooks and things that I had stopped doing because I was working working working and so I wasn't Making the thinking time um so it's given me two hours you know on the days I train to get that stuff in or or get on phone calls I need to get on and so but having to go to the gym um and having
training partners that are counting on me to be at the gym that's what's made the difference and so I've started to build like my own little crew and then um you know my wife with her strongman training she has like a training partner and and and one other Who sometimes trains with them so she has a crew and because of that and because I'm programming for them you know it it's like there's a reason for me to be at the gym even on the days where I have to like de lo where I could just
stay at home it's like no no no cuz like they need coaching or they need my help um and so that kind of keeps me tied to the gym and I think for me like I'm starting to see the excitement you get in others so I got I got a a Military guy his name's Jordan drug-free guy um he wants to compete in the ipf he wasn't able to he was I think it was last year he was invited to compete but then it was found out he competed in usapl which is no longer with
the ipf so he couldn't compete in the this is wild right so he wants to compete in the ipf um but he's been using like um a slingshot band type thing and so I had a shirt that Rob sent me it was way too small so I give I said Give it a try he just benched 800 he's a 198 competitor drug free and so I'm like this is freaking cool and then there's an old school Lifter on bassan I don't know if you remember him he was a wpo lifter he used to train at
La lifting Club he he trains down there in San Diego uh Matt Smith shirt he gave me when I first started back um I I gave to him and so it's a two- layer band shirt he just benched 715 in that which is an alltime PR for him and so it's just Really cool and then I got a single guys I got a guy who wears a Karen stum so it's really cool to be able to like share my knowledge with them and then actually see them apply it right um for the first you know
year and almost two years uh it's only really in the last six months this has all started to happen but for the first two years you know I didn't have anyone like I had one training partner who soaked everything up for me and you know he's training Clients and uses the conjugate system he's more of a strength a strongman Enthusiast um and so like we've had great conversation but uh and and like he's gotten better but he has he doesn't wear gear he's no no plans to compete um and so now I have guys who
are it's like managing their training helping them figure out stuff you know it it just has given me something I didn't even know I was missing and I think that that was one of the cool things when I was at Westside is like I did Coach the other guys but I was still the truth is I was so self-centered that like I couldn't I like I can't remember hardly anything that anybody else did at Westside M cuz I didn't give a [ __ ] like the truth was like these are my brothers these are my
training Partners but like I didn't think about that at the time like I didn't know what I had you know it was just like I was there to be the best and like you know yeah you're my friend but I'm going to beat you and like I couldn't care less if you don't get your lift in the gym and it's different now like I actually genuinely care and I think I did back then I just think I I didn't allow myself to get too involved in their stuff because I had so much [ __ ]
going on with me um but like yeah like I look back like sometimes I'm like man I don't know why anybody wanted to train with me cuz like I definitely wasn't like a great training partner in Of like that stuff but I did coach and I did queue and I did those things that like you know especially when I was at Westside Louie was like really struggling to be out of train so I have a lot of foot footage of him training but it's like he would train and then he would have to take two
weeks off because he was I like what I'm experiencing now he clearly was going through that right and he would push it to he'd get sick right so a lot of times like he'd come In he'd be like like like nose would be running and be like just stay away like don't get rest of us but he was running his CN he was like beating himself self up all the time lowering his immune system um just so he could train again and so a lot of times he didn't want to be with us you know
he wanted to be on the other side of the gym and stuff like that and so because I always talk to him you know me I've always been curious I've always asked lots of questions and People have been so gracious to give me their time but with him it was like he loves that right so because he shared so much with me I would then I took it on my shoulders oh I got to pass that on to the other guys and so I got a little bit of it but I didn't get what I
get now and I think it was just cuz I didn't I wasn't trying to receive it you know was just trying to lead and like I knew that I would get better if the team got better cuz it would push me uh I didn't Really care about their numbers and what their goals were and I don't even know if I asked what their goals were you know it was just like I'm going to beat you so it doesn't really matter um and in fact like I had to use Hoff as my like person and we
didn't even train together like he was in the night crew I was in the morning crew cuz like that's where our numbers were um and you know Lou he's so good at playing us off but um yeah like that's what for me that's What the sport started to give me is like started to like being a to pass on the things that it was given to me so graciously and and for free you know um it's like a rare thing today and uh I'm just thankful I can do it because I think it gives me
more than it gives them um but it's just really cool to have people who want to learn and and who appreciate the stuff you know especially now with everyone has an online coach and things like that and Some of the guys do have their training programs and I I tell them you don't have to do what I do you know but like let me work on your Technique let me work on show you how to use a shirt and every single one of my guys of P since they started working with me and um Pat
David he just he was a bodybuilder military guy and they I didn't even know they did this but he was a bodybuilder in the military they funded him as a bodybuilder right and so He just got into powerlifting um never wore a shirt before showed up first day took 135 I was like he's going to kill himself like and um anyway he he um benched like four something and he went to APO Nationals and won APO Nationals and so you know just his second he's a national champ right um which obviously today is very different
than than it was back then but my point is is like these guys see themselves progressing and I'm able to help that and it just gives me a Lot of Joy how is the because when you're at wests side training with all those guys there it's a different demographic right and then you did a lot of seminars and conjugate you know with Crossfit and so forth so you're now you're moving into a vastly different demographic and now you're kind of back more with a more serious demographic but still not the same cuz I would say
the reason you know why you were there you were in that selfish state so was Everybody else right so they probably have no idea you know that they didn't give a [ __ ] about you either you know they did you know it's we can't explain that unless you were there so I'll just leave it at that you best friends and enemies it was like it was like simultaneous right yes and it's it's hard to explain that Dynamic but over that period of time you're going to find that certain things are going to work certain
things aren't going to work Because it's all Bas upon who you're working with so what is some of the how is your training template we just call it that changed yeah so one of the things I've had to do is just let go of my expectations of others right and understand that like just because I can see something for someone like if they can't see it like they can never achieve it it has to be like that's where self-belief comes from like your ability to see something That someone else can't see for you so when
when people question you like you can just laugh because like you no like yeah okay whatever but like cuz you know and so in the beginning with these guys I had like big thought processes you know like oh you need to gain weight to do this and you should do this and and and what I realized was like they don't want that like and so when I started to step back and be like okay at first it was in honesty at first I was like well [ __ ] you guys like that was my first
thought process like all right whatever you just show up you can just spot and load for me I don't get like I'll spot and load for you you spot and load for me but I'm not getting involved like I'm not going to like you want to like wear your shirt whatever you want like put it on every week I don't care and then I realized that was really a copout you know on my part like that's lazy leadership like it they were coming Because of me and they were clearly coming for something and so I
had to figure out what that was and it was it was the experience it was it was the knowledge it was the the ability to give them insights and and and information that they they haven't been exposed to and so you know what I realized was like okay I'm going to lead the workout and you can work you're going to work in I'm going to start cooling your numbers I'm Going to start like what do you want to do today okay and then I will tell you how you're going to warm up I'm going to
show you what you need to do after you know and and and some of them have to rush out of there they got families they got other things they got to go to and so like I don't get to do they don't get to go through assistance that would annoy me and then I realized you know what this isn't W side this isn't what these guys live for This is something they do for fun and you know you can be a there's there's no such thing as professional powerlifting but you can be a professional in
powerlifting right yeah you know there's an amateur mindset there's a professional mindset and it's very hard for Prof it's very hard for amateurs to understand professionals and professionals to understand amateurs because you know when you're willing to give your whole life for something like And someone else isn't you're like how can you not love this the way I love it but then they're looking at you and being like how can you think lifting weights is your whole life right there's more to life right and neither Nei is right neither is wrong um and so what
I realized was is like I've always thought like a professional I've always treated myself like one you know i' willing to move willing to travel do whatever it takes you know some people won't drive 15 minutes to train at a gym you know and so people will message me and be like yeah you should come train up at my gym and it's like why like why would I come to you so you can learn from me like it doesn't make sense to me um but it's where we are right and so I started to be
like instead of me having my like what is it they want and can I help them achieve that and then is that big enough victory for me or not and I can't do what I do without a team I need people There to spot and load for me so if they're going to do that for me what can I do for them and that was really when I started viewing it from that standpoint and and really asking them what do you want okay this is what you need to do and you know I've I've I've
given equipment to them that I've had extra told them how to customize their stuff based on what I've seen showed them how to put a shirt on differently than they used to put it on all of a Sudden they're going what is this like boom you know 50 PR because I just tweaked the arms tweaked the collar and you you see the joy that brings them and the excitement that brings them and then they become more enthusiastic and you know you realize like oh okay like if I just give without expectation right and and don't
get disappointed when they don't do the things that I would do like we can have a really good relationship here um and They can benefit from that so what advice would you have for people trying to get to that place because I'm I'm at that place as well right so though I'll be around people that may not be training in the way that I optimally think they should be training but the question I first ask is I'm not going to get frustrated about this because I'm not willing to do the work that it's going to
take to actually I don't want to do their whole entire program and be There set rep rep you know so it's unless I'm going to actually go that extra step then I'm not going to care but at the same time I'm not going to completely disregard them and say [ __ ] that you know they're kind of on their own where I know in in my g a lot of lifters are like that yeah where they're not looking for I guess it' be a compromise for lack of a better word you know on how they
can can help but not be frustrated with what they're seeing Which is kind of their ego you know it's and I've tried to speak in that term like you know this is your ego that's making you feel that way that doesn't work by the way cuz that just pisses people off right because if they got 30 years of doing this [ __ ] they're like no I don't want to see person get hurt or whatever it's going to be it's like well people get hurt doing anything yeah you know so what how did you get
to that place to where you were just okay with That because some people you're only going to be able to help with technique they're going to have somebody else doing their program and that's fine you know that's good because you just help where you can help and but to not be frustrated is a it's a bigger ask than what you're making it sound yeah um I still get frustrated as I'm sure you do so but what I realize is that FR ation comes from almost a projection of myself right there's almost a frustration that You
have the ability to do something that I no longer have the ability to do and so it's almost like I realize I'm like oh I'm projecting what what I want and I'm frustrated because like you have the ability to do it and I don't and and I feel as if you are um not living up to your potential and go back to what you said about ego what I realize is that's a very like it's almost like a God complex like I know better than you for you right and So I know how I am
when people try to tell me what to do right like sometimes there's a level of appreciation but if it's not done in the right way it's almost like you immediately want to do the opposite right and I get to witness that with my kids too right like telling your kids to do something is not effective right and so for me um what I've come to realize is that like you can only control you and so like how you you you can only control how you show up You can only control how you behave and so
I want to show up in the way that whether you're all in or you're just there for like I'm the same and I was very lucky to do the CrossFit uh powerlifting seminars with Louie and then get to travel and do them because Louie would say stuff and people would just look so confused right and I'd be like what he's trying to say is this just look at it like this like and take speed a cuz you know you read the Book of methods and there's like five different like speed percentages and especially for bench
press right I like you get don't understand just go to pin chart look at look at the optimal Reps for the percentage and as long as you do that you're good to go the idea is speed perfect technique right so when we say speed it's not move as fast as you can it's like create as much force as you can with perfect technique and so I'd break stuff down really basic but then But then because I was involved in the community I would get people coming back and saying what it had done for them and
what it had done for their gym and what I realized was is that like I was teaching them just as I would have taught another powerlifter who was all in but none of them none of them probably at the time had any plans to compete in powerlifting obviously it shifted and you know Sports grown massively because of that um because of You know that industry basically creating a bunch of people who appreciate strength but if I can just show you how to be the strongest version of yourself in best way that I know like what
you choose to do with that it's up to you and it's kind of like when someone gives you a gift like you can't be offended if they never use your gift because the idea of giving is once you give it's theirs but so like and I've done it where you give Something and then you know it doesn't get put up on the wall or they never wear it and you're thinking to yourself man like I thought that was a good gift and you get disappointed but it's like separating yourself that once you give someone something
it's theirs to do as they choose and that's the beauty of giving right if you don't want to give then don't um you know and some situations like the hottest thing for me is seeing people in the gym doing bad Technique I want to go up and help them what I learn is is most people don't want your help like they're not CU they they're looking at you like you're just some [ __ ] in the gym old man coming up to them to tell them what to do they don't know who you like nobody
knows who the [ __ ] I am in like in California hardly I've been judging RPF meets for year and a half now and at the last meet one of the spotters who has been at every meet I've judged that it's like I Just found out who you were like a week ago bro like that's incredible and you like question and I just laugh because it's like you know the new the the new generation has no idea who most of us are like who come from you know the the late 2000s and and on let
alone the '90s and the ' 80s right like they they have no clue um they're they're more familiar probably with the the late 70s ' 80s like the beginning of powerlifting cuz it was raw right so there's these Massive men and the videos are coming out on YouTube they're more familiar with that than they are with the 90s and and 2000s like and before 20 2010 right and so it's super interesting because when you realize like okay in this hotel room I'm really famous M but then I go across country and I can walk into
any meet and nobody has a [ __ ] clue who you are it humbles you a little bit but you also real I that like like it only matters to those that it matters to and Well it's an interesting thing for me with a lot of the lifters that I know because they're super introverted you know so isn't that what you want right ultimately isn't that what you want like just to be left the [ __ ] alone it's perfect you know but it's it's on the other end of the spectrum they they would like
their strength to be respected you know and the work that they did to be respected but it still comes down as you were saying a little Bit earlier it's the self-respect that matters every body else can respect you for a million different things but if you don't respect it yourself and Lou would tell me that all the time and it's like funny there so many things Louie would say like little little quotes he would you know because he repeated himself so much there's so many things but um it's like now it starts to make sense
to me you know and one of those things he would always talk about and This is kind of going back to to to your question about who do you know and like how do you deal with it like I'm always kind of waiting for the person to show up who's going to go all in right but I understand there's some Buy in there right it's real easy to tell me you're gonna be a world record holder the first day you meet me I did the same thing right um but are you here in a year
do you show up regularly you know if you're missing workouts within the first few Months like consistently I know you're probably not going to make it so like I've gotten better at like being there for them when they need it but also like not trying to overshare or overstep boundaries if they don't ask like even if I think there's something I should share like I've just realized like unless people welcome the advice they're not going to hear it so you're kind of just wasting your time and so like I've kind of over time slowly like
give them What they need when they need it and hope that they get to where I think they can be and then because I can keep giving them that and it's the same with business advice I've learned that like you know most people don't need a book or a course they just need to know the next thing and so if you're trying to give them you know something to do do that's so far away from where they are now it doesn't really make sense to them and not going to probably do it right But if
you can just move them from point A to point B you might know what the plan is to get them to the ultimate goal that they've expressed at some point but you don't have to give them all of that upfront you know well there's there's a lot that gets lost in that if it's business or training though and you know to get from point A to Z you know there's there's B CDE e there's a lot that's in there and even in training most of what you do probably won't have An impact on the end
result and you just need to be okay with that in business you're going to fail 99 times out of every one time you're going to succeed and have to be okay with that um you can go back through all of your training you know from the alltime world record and then I can sit here and say now tell me exactly what had the greatest impact you know you can't point one thing right it's it's an accumulation of a lot of things and then when I follow up and say Now what thing do you think you
could have pulled out replaced with something else pretty much all of it yeah right so then it's like okay you know so most of it didn't help you get there yeah you know and that's a hard thing because you can have self-belief but without work ethic and the ability to fail more than you're going to succeed you're never going to get where you want to go yeah it's interesting um because just just about a week ago I was talking one of my Clients um their product is a long-term thinking product right it's all about retirement
but they want to get people young like in their 20s and 30s to start thinking about that and what I realized was and i' talked to a couple people I know who who have successful companies you know that take over a million a year in personal income who are in that range and the response was we don't [ __ ] think about retirement like we're thinking how do we survive the current Economic situation with the impending recession do we sell our real estate do we pull our money from like they're looking at cash flow and
what I realized was is that like if you have a long-term thinking product but all your people are short-term thinkers like you have to meet them where they are and that's Basic Marketing basic business like it's does your message match your audience where they are right now you have to talk that language and so again with Louie he would talk at a doctorate level but the people we were getting with Crossfit were like you know kindergarten guys yeah and so I'm like you have to be able to translate it down and meet them where they
are what do they need right now okay well they actually need to learn how to like the mechanics of a squat where we can use the box as a tool so then we don't really have to convince them to box squat we just show them how to use the box as a tool to learn how to Squat and then all of a sudden they get the they they understand why that's a good movement patent versus taking someone who's maybe lifted for 20 years and try to sell them on box squats they go I've never done
it I don't need it and so I'm like oh you have to like again it's sell them what they want give them what they need right and that's how I starting to see the parallels and all of the things where it's like okay like you say you want to break a word record Well that's cool but what are the daily habits right now that would set you up for that right and that's what we ended up with this client was okay like if we want to retire wealthy like what are the daily habits that people
should be doing now don't worry about retirement but like what would make them wealthy like having a budget understanding right there's certain principles right there's certain things you could same with the lifters right it's like first thing I Say is like like especally for the guys they bench and to go home I'm like do you train accessories right like what are you doing like what do your other days look like do you're not with me and I'm trying to make them understand that like there has to be rest and Recovery like there has to be
things that they're focused on they have to understand where their weaknesses are and and then how do we how do we get that piece stronger right um like we we don't just do tricep Extensions through tricep extensions right there's a reason and you might not need to do them the same as the other person based on how you bench you know when you bench and and one of the things I'm trying to do is like each person who benches has a different style and I try to break it down for the other people like oh
you saw how Dre his elbows flared like he's not he's not driving his hands out on the bar and so what he's doing is he's getting it up and his Triceps are basically not able to to like handle the weight so he's shifting into his shoulders to tr you and oh okay I say so what we need to do is work the the the way he's pressing so he doesn't go into his shoulders and like [ __ ] how we would do that and same with other guys like one guy goes straight back into the
rack every single time and I say he's got to learn to press in a straight line and when I say straight line I'm talking about anatomically Straight not straight up and down and you see it's like this not like this and and he comes from that the way he's driving his legs right and so I start to break that down for them so they can see what those like daily habits are lifting habits are that if they do that consistently over time then if they if they want to go for a record or they want
to you know win state or Nationals or whatever they're setting themselves up because what I found is like Anna Think it's that like who like how you do anything is how you do everything and so like you can say you can set whatever goal you want for yourself in life like there's no limits on what goals you set like you can say whatever you want because everybody who's achieved everything started from nothing basically um but like the next phase is like okay I've set the the vision for 20 years let's go all the way back
to like today Like is who I'd have to be to be that person who I am or not if I'm not then how do I change that what what what do I do on a daily basis how do I think what you know and just you just shift into that person and you're not a world record holder but you can train and act every day like a world record holder yeah well you're example of cash flow with a business so if you have a business and you want to do you know a million dollars in
a year and that's What you're looking for I can equate that to a lifter that wants to squat 500 lb and they SWAT 300 lbs okay cool you know there's that anchor but you know in business you're not going to get there if you have no cash right so if your cash flow is negative cash flow then you have a problem in training your cash is your recovery right and if your cash flow is a problem that probably means you need skill acquisition of something that you don't have or you're not Actually doing effectively and
training you have the skill acquisition of the lift and so forth so it all equates and we see the same thing in business as we do training they're looking way down the road what they perceive they want to have and then have all this anxiety because they're not where they want to be at that certain time but they're not watching basic metrics cash flow which is like the most basic metric of all then all of a sudden they're in the red And they don't have a credit line or they don't have a now after 3
months they're out of business so there's not going to be that million dollars and training you know if they're not paying attention to all that you know after their first meet everything goes to [ __ ] because of that or they never even make it yeah you know to the first one because they're not practicing those daily habits but knowing what those daily habits need to Be which are the most important where there's a lot of lifters this is true in business as well now I'm thinking this through they live in the market margins like
should I do drop sets should I do this should I do this should I do this but the basic fundamentals you have to train hard you know you have to show up you have to train weak points you have to recover all gets lost because they're trying to find the most optimal way to set up to be able to pull a bigger Sumo Deadli you know or whatever it's going to be that's in those margins where and content creators are kind of I don't want to say they're responsible but that's what they put out yeah
because that's the shiny thing is all the [ __ ] in the margin where the basic [ __ ] is boring you know if if you made a YouTube video on here's the basic rocks that you have to do to become successful and bodybuild just to get strong it will get like 13 views Well it it's it's like a little bit like um if you look at your Evolution right as a as a business right you essentially had a a forum type thing and people could submit questions and we kept logs and you know we
do articles and then like that's content creation but if you look at the actual what it was it's basically like writing right someone submits something and then everything changes and you're still doing content creation but in a completely different Way so the content creation piece is a staple of of of your pillars but how you do that content is constantly evolving you're constantly experimenting and then when something hits like like the podcast right um you say this is actually there's something here okay how do we make it better how do we make it better better
and go back to what you said earlier like you have to try a bunch of stuff to figure out what works especially for yourself it's the same in Training right there like there's lifts that I can do that will make me better that someone else does and it does nothing for them right be either because of their natural body type or because of the developments they already have where like if they have really big strong quads already like exercises that like challenge that are not going to make them better necessarily because it's focused on their
strength not on their weakness so how would they figure that Out honestly like for me like when I go from a straight bar to a football bar my numbers are so far apart that I know there's a weakness there right and so I go oh okay like if I like push my football bar up but it's like okay like can I take my accessories and do neutral grip accessories like because clearly like when I take my lats out of the movement it significantly drops so I go oh well that's that's the important Piece there that
people fail to recognize is they'll see the discrepancy but then not go that one extra step to know why is that discrepancy there you take the lats out for instance you know if uh that's essentially what an incline will do as well you go to the incline you basically take your lats out so there's going to be a difference between a flat and an incline but it shouldn't be you know 60% off yeah I mean it's like if You can if you can like raw let's say you can bench press 500 but you can't row
315 you know you have a front to back INB balance and if you got your back stronger there's a good chance that your your bench will go up right but if your chest and your back are as strong as each other it's probably not those that are going to make your bench go up so you have to then figure out is it my shoulders is it my tri like even forearm strength right So you have to you have to exercise and you asked me this question before about like how do you know what a tester
is what a builder is and I still struggle with that question right because it's like everything could be a tester everything could be a builder it's kind of the context but it's like if you took every exercise and and you you know you said okay like powerlifting is easier to do it with and actually with sports it doesn't Matter as much because like um like the test is not the barbell but in powerlifting the barbell is the test right squat bench deadlift so hopefully those three numbers are bigger than any specialty bar each specialty bar
essentially changes that load meaning where where where that Lo the the primary Movers change based on you know the barbell and so if you take a safety squat bar it's shifting that to a different primary muscle group and so When you start to understand that each bar actually allows you to expose weaknesses and then break down okay why like like what was primary secondary supporting what do I need to work on like you start to understand like what you can do to do that and so I give as an example with the man shirts for
me my shoulders get a beating um but the that that shirt fighting that shirt like is very tough It's you know because of the material and what I found is every layer You add it's like 100 to 150 lbs more you have to put on the bar and so you might not be ready for that right so that's a big jump and Rob has these half layers and stuff now um that make that are nice but like I couldn't figure out like why was like one guy opens with like 950 and then jump to 1100
and I'm going how you know and then I realized like oh they're adding layers to the shirt um to do that but I realized that the bamboo bar was like the greatest Thing to figure out how to like control an uncontrollable thing and so I didn't have to go in my shirt to work on my stability right I could use that Bell and work up and so um I worked up to um like two I don't know 220 230 something like that um for 20 uh regular you know bench and then I said okay like
I'm going to bring my feet up and I'm going to work this until I can get 200 without my feet cuz the feet give you the stability and I've done that now and so Now now I'm looking okay what what can I do next with that um but that's kind of how I approach like my training is looking at like and you mentioned earlier but you can replace everything it's constantly because all I do is look for a weakness and then figure I got to get better at that um and if I like acquire the
skill I'm going to improve and because of conjugate it's more of a theory so it's easier to to substitute stuff in cuz I'm not stuck on movement Patterns or on barbells or certain things like it's also easier to find the discrepancies too yeah and when when Lou switched to 5x5 for Speed workor and the reasoning you know be behind that was that the guys were taking too long because the groups was too big what I realized was that like in reality is that you need like 24 25 reps like dynamically in order to train that
modality so you if you wanted to you could do three sets of eight or Eight sets of three like you're right in there so so uh with the strong man strong women that I work with like I mix that up all the time because like we never know what's coming in a competition you know they use axle bars they have they all sorts of stuff so it actually like the specialty bars and everything like it all makes more sense for for that sport because there is no standard like even even like uh the same uh
thing can be like a Yol walk can be Completely different because the the size there's no standard to the size of the Yol that you're going to pick up um and so like that's changed my thinking because what I've seen is them constantly make progress with me playing with the system in so many different ways but understanding that really it's just rooted in in print's chart in terms of optimal training right as long as you have maximal effort um repetition effort and dynamic effort you've got the three Things that get you better right now you
can do two and get better I would argue that you always need some form of maximal work in there um but the the like for me all three are the best right like you have all three you've got all bases covered and so it's like oh okay as long as I have those in the program doesn't really matter if it is a single or a five rep max like because in their sport they do rep Maxes all the time right in our sport we don't so there's a Reason not to do reps in if you're
a powerlifter literally because you want to practice a see you practice technique better if you're doing it like you would in in competition right when we go with light now we can do repetitions cuz we're mimicking time on detention um but it's things like that they're like just Lou honestly Lou changing the speed workk at the you know for the for the last group that was in there kind of gave me a whole different perspective Cuz when I went there and and they were doing different stuff when I asked Louie he didn't know why it
was basically like because that's what Greg wants Greg's the best Greg likes to work up on like do speed work five six sets and then ditch and go up heavy right and GRE never really maxed out on speed day but everybody else did trying to keep up with Greg right so while Greg was going somewhat heavy for him other people were basically killing themselves and I'm Going this isn't working like it's not working for me it wasn't working for Matt it wasn't working for Tony and so I convinced those guys to go back to the
original template and but like with Lou even when we switched the bench where me and Dave stopped doing three- we waves because you know uh it was either Kenny or George that like lowered their percentage and their bench went up we were like let's just stay low I think we ended up around 35% with accommodating Resistance let's just change the bar every week like let's just keep it like real basic and our numbers went up right so because I did have Dave with the bench where we experimented and then you know I'd seen Greg do
his own stuff and Greg's theory was like he watched all the videos he's like none of those [ __ ] guys know what bay intention is like it's like they don't [ __ ] they just training their asses off um like I suddenly realized it's was like oh this Is way less like the Articles it's like more about the Concepts and the ideas and if you have these I guess Big Blocks in the program and you're trying to and you you hit all of them you can't really go wrong you know now there's going to
be movements that you go [ __ ] we should never do that one again like I had um you know there like elephant bars the strong men you use and so we did um uh all right guys bear here uh Summit performance therapy we're here at the Lead FTS compound and uh we're utilizing a lot of element today this is actually my second packet we're near near the end of our deadlift session but it is hot out here in Ohio so uh when we're in a lot of this equipment we're doing a lot of overload
work we're going to be taxing our nervous system and that's why we use this th000 milligrams of sodium in this one little packet it might seem like a lot but here's the thing we don't have a salt problem we have a water Intake problem you drink enough water don't worry about 1,000 milligram of sodium so in here I've got some uh Gatorade but truth be told gatorade's not enough sodium uh used to be in the '90s when they first came out and then everybody started drinking it while sitting around in the office and they said
hey why is everybody got hypertension well they're not moving around they're not drinking enough water and all they're doing is drinking salty Goodness so but when we're moving around and it's hot we need that salty goodness so we're just going to pop pop that right in close that up give it a shake if I can do it look at that and Down the Hatch oh that's good all right let's deadlift are you looking to boost recovery enhance your sex drive and improve performance in the gym do you think your hormones are out of whack and
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just about Better Health it's about empowering you to take control of your well-being we have silver dollar Attachments and we did that with a kabuki bar so it's higher with the Kabuki bar cuz they're using that in strongman now a lot too and um there was like a 200 pound difference then off the floor and um someone got injured and I was like yeah we can't do exercises they're going to put us two 300 lb over our Max you know so like we're not going to be doing that one if we do we'll do it
with the standard power bar so that it'll be closer right cuz that Kabuki Once they start once it gets it's like the weirdest bar ever like up until about 500 it performs the same but it's almost like like you could miss 700 but jump to like 800 and get it because like it bends more and more and so then your start point is higher right and I think that's why we're seeing like a lot of guys doing the nine and a thousand now with that bar is because like theyve figured that out that that that
like you know that bar is going to bend more with More weight so they take those jumps um but um my point with that was just basically like that's how I figure out what exercises should stay or not stay is you know is it so far off of what they can do full range with a regular barbell and if it is it's probably not a great thing and so even with reverse band stuff right um like I don't want bands that are taken 200 lb off right I want it basically to be full weight at
the top but maybe 50 to 100 pounds off At the chest right build their confidence but also get them to handle lockout weight they wouldn't normally be out of handle um and it works good you know so I I'm learning that the the further it is away from like you know the the what we would consider main core movements like the the better it is probably not to do that right you want stay pretty close and um you know not not have the body have to adjust a s that's completely going to be a shock
to It right we want to lower the the uh risk to reward ratio now when you were at your I guess I'll frame this as neuromuscular Prime okay so and do you think you would have been able to do five reps dynamically with as much force is the first one that I probably would have passed out like cuz that was the first thing that hit me when that was coming around is man after like two there's a reason why there wasn't three On the squat and there was on the bch I don't think I would
challenge majority of people that never saw a Westside B Dynamic workout that they have no clue what dynamic workout means because even with the folks I train now like I have to do a clock I'll say like you got to go back to back to back to back now on the deadlift it's easier for them to do that but like on the squat you know like They'll walk away they'll go to the bathroom they'll take their belt off and then you know and so they might get to the barbell pretty quick but then they take
forever trying you know and so like I'm like it's been like two minutes three minutes and you know like they'll they'll get done if I'm not watching them you know run in this de mono 45 minutes I'm like how you still squatting this is a 20-minute workout like what are you doing and so like they're not Used to moving so they're moving faster than they've ever moved before but they have no idea the pace they're supposed to be going at so back to the fives I've actually started telling my guys and um that they need
to work on breath work um I work with Brian McKenzie and um he he did a lot with me with breath work but when I was working with him it was more for um emotional control right I was in a very stressed part of my life and it was to to for me to be how to manage Stuff and so we did a lot of breath work especially in the morning to like get myself back to neutral like calm my system down um and then I've as I've gone I'm like oh like this is why
I'm able to hold my breath so long h under a barell uh especially now with those band shirts to like it's you know the the more layers you have the hotter it is to touch just like that but like you know most guys they can't hold their breath very long and so I started telling my Guys like you need to focus on breath work and you know they don't have to do a lot of stuff you you know breathe in count and breathe out and over time keep bumping that up so what does that look
like when you started so usually it's like a 4 second in 4 second out and then you want to you know and then you go to box breathing four four so breathe in hold for four breathe out 4 second out and then hold for four and then breathe in so if you get that down then you go To five and then you go to six and and you just continue to build it like that and um what I tell my folk guys is is like you want to breathe every rep but you want to breathe
at the top of every rep yeah right I had one guy coming down you know breathing in on the way down and breathing out on the way up and I said look uh from I don't I don't know from uh you know a health standpoint if this is healthier or not but I do know from a power standpoint if You blow your air up as soon as you get to your sticking point you're done you got nothing if you hold your air you get to that sticking point that air almost acts as an accelerant right
you can just you use it as a as a and um he's like oh I never thought of that but then when he tried to do it he struggled because he's never done it right and so it gives him something else to work on but I started realizing like oh I wonder if this is why so many People have trouble hitting depth in the squats you know and and especially like there's a lot more questionable squats now than there ever was and I think over time like every generation has kind of got that way right
where it's like you know Mike Mill is 1200 now looks pretty deep you know but I think a lot of it is because we've gone to the extremes with the gear and it has gotten like you pointed this out to me when we were using um the Metal gear because it was essentially four ply right it was two PES melted together with another two PES melted together then sewn but that thickness when you had the suit on and the briefs now you had eight ply and so you'd go down it's like a tennis bow in
your hip and it was like how do I push my knees out and sit but like and you oh this is too much I got to go with thinner briefs in order to you know and so but I think that that's what we're seeing is is that The the thickness of the gear prevents that but also the ability to hold their breath and so they can't stay in the hole they can't push out and so you know like mindset of something that like you know I not think a lot of people did when I was
there but it seems like very a lot more people talk about mindset now and training mindset and visualizing and things like that but like breath work is still not something I've heard talk much but I think it's a really important Piece for powerlifting because being able to hold your breath and control your breath is like a massive like skill set especially with those heavy weights like even from a standpoint I think of it like a shooter right like if you if you're if you're shooting a Target like you have to calm yourself completely before you
pull the trigger like any any like like a higher hot beat or anything like that can affect that shot with with Lifting if you're going up to the barbell and I get worked up you know not like Chad AES used to but like I get worked up and every now and then I do have to let a little yell out because I got so much build up I got to get a little bit out but like if you can't calm yourself down before you take the bar out the rack you know it's hit or miss
and um you know I think when you look back right like you were a very like erratic kind of like crazy gu but I Think like looking back you could say well if I maybe brought it down a little bit I would have had more I guess consistency not necessarily or more energy as well you know but even with myself it still changed as soon as I got braced under the bar or locked into the bench because you you can't you just can't cuz you're you're going to miss you know and you learn that from
you know mistake I mean you learn that from screwing up yeah I mean I remember at The WPC 06 and you were there um everybody had bombed so all I had to do was pull a deadlift to to take the title that was it so I dropped my deadlift to 405 and I don't know why I did this but I took two ammonia caps and like I think I was trying to look cool you know like because it was a WPC worlds but then there was the wpo qualifier simultaneously right so they had split the
flights and it was one of the best meets Ever every the best in the world Were there was incredible apart from having to warm up in the basement and walk up like 20 flights of stairs in your squat suit that was Nightmare but um but I I hit the two capsules and like Rush the bar my eyes are watering I grab the barbell I go to pool and of course I'm way off center so I come up with one side and drop the other side and Karen kid I can't remember exactly what he said but
it was kind of like like um it wasn't very nice what he said it was a 405 you know and it was just I don't know why I got so worked up but I missed 405 and I think my best deadlift at the time was like 7:30 or something and uh yeah I just like I was like oh okay there's there is such a thing as too much ammonia and too much like getting worked up and so there's a time and a place for everything but um yeah that that arousal control is so important especially
when you're getting under those big weights because like the room Kind of goes dark and you're just you in the barbell and you have to feel it through every millimeter of the movement like you're const like there people think that you just go down and up but if you if if if we zoomed in and like really studied under a microscope no lift is is a straight line every lift is like this m you know and your body's constantly adjusting underneath to keep it balanced and the more balanced you are the better it's going to
be um but Like most people don't think like that they don't they don't they get under that bar and it's kind of they let the barbell take them for a ride you know that comes with time and strength too because there is that that tactile feedback you know as you're going down you know you're you're expecting to feel tension in certain places and if it's not in certain places you have to shift yeah which you have to be in the right mindset to be able to do that the the Bracing cues on the squats like
I know you guys you do you do those um intenses when the guys come in you work with them and I'm curious but like like I've been showing people how to like push like squeeze their feet into the ground and then spread the floor and they're like I have never felt this before and I'm like what like you've lifted all this time and you don't create tension like that the concept that now for bodybuilding it's the complete opposite I would't say That but for powerlifting power every every lift do is a full body lift the
only reason it shouldn't be if you have a lagging weakness in a muscle group that you need to Target specifically right other than that like when you're trying to move the most amount of weight you need to recruit the most amount of muscle tendon everything so every single lift is a full body lift and so if if you're and I say this on the squats the biggest one you see it right people's Hands are just resting there or their elbows are like this and you could like flap them and you go where's the tension and
when you drive up on that barbell your bicep is FL in if you're doing it right you know and they're like what and then you show them and that's how you add 50 lbs to someone's LIF in one day because all you do is show them how to recruit more muscle mass once they get that they it's like opens a whole new world to them and now they can see that They are a chain and they have to find the weakest link in the chain and if they get that stronger it'll create another weakness but
it's constant it's a building block right you're just building one after the other um and so it's really cool seeing people get that stuff because you see the EXC it's like new to them and so it's like being a beginner all over again and they're like oh [ __ ] right and then they go how does that apply on my row how Does that apply on you know and so again unless you're specifically training one body part and to increase it because it's a weakness like moving weights is moving weights and you got to recruit
as much muscle as possible that's the one thing that most people Miss is you know the I the feet for example I mean you're what you're trying to do is to display Force right if your feet are moving around and your feet are what's on the ground you know the Anchor Point Then they need to be locked in you know and rooted and then when I'll coach I work from the feet up and when you start with a bar it's great because they don't have the weight you know you start with a plate or two
plates or three plates now they got weight that's kind of pushing their feet down yeah but make it just the bar you know then once they'll figure that out they're able to to display the strength they already have right so it's not 50 pounds on it it's Strength they already had they weren't they weren't able to display then once they learn that you know then why not do it on push Downs why not do it anytime you're in a standing position and the odd thing is if you tell them you know they're they're not squ
they're just standing don't let me push you you know just lock yourself in they know what to do right so it's they're just haven't been given permission or told this is what you need to do on the squat bench Deadlift right it's soft feet I mean in reality everything came from bodybuilding right bodybuilding was there before powerlifting right and Olympic lifting was there before powerlifting powerlifting is like a later sport I mean even strongman odd stuff was there's a history that goes way back before I powerlifting like started in the 70s and um there was
some someone said I think it was George Fran or someone talking about his biggest Meat and it was an aaou meet in San Diego and I was like oh that's cool I wonder how many there was 11 lifters there and Bill West was one of those and I go this is like the biggest meat of ever and it was like 11 people right so the sport really has is a newer sport compared to these other and so everything's come from bodybuilding so every movement has a body pot that it's associated with and I think that
that when you learn like like not now I don't Know how these kids learn now I honestly have no clue probably Instagram right but like I was learning from Flex magazine cuz that was the only magazine out there so I'm reading body pot splits and so like if your mentality is is like the bench press is a chest movement you don't think about how to use your triceps you don't think about how to use your leg drive and so like when I you know I watch people and their butt comes off and you go you
do realize that if You fixed your leg drive like you said unlock you're unlocking strength it's already there your potential is Way Beyond where you're at you're already stronger than that so if if we can transfer that power instead of leaving your hips transfer it through the barbell you're going to see a massive change and when they when they experience that it's like oh that's what it should feel like they're like it feels so light so easy And it's like yep that's how it should feel you know and and you go ah now you see
the difference between Elite level lifters and beginners it's the ability to recruit more muscle on every lift and then the understanding that every muscle contributes to that lift well it's the first step in being able to diagnose weak points as well because if if everything's tied on a squat bench or deadlift and then something gives out that leakage is what I would call that And then you can see okay here's where it's leaking but if you don't start from that Foundation that everything's got to be tight from the first place then everything's leakage yeah right
and then the counter to that if I'm if I'm to look at the counter argument is well if they get stronger it fixes all that and there's some truth there too right because it's I fall more on the technique side you know because it is a sport and there's skills associated with The sport but I'm not so stupid to understand that if somebody can only squat 95 lbs and then they get up to be no squat 200 lb they're probably going to look better with 135 than otherwise but you're still training the whole time you
know regardless of how that plays out and if you're training the whole time then why not work on the most proficient skill that you possibly can yeah right I think that's just kind of like a lazy answer Like well I don't need to worry about technique they'll just get stronger and I suppose if it's a complete beginner whatever it's going to be but going back to your point of the magazines with that bodybuilding at that time we are also being you know taught that there needs to be a mind muscle connection you know the chest
is the the the bench is the chest and that was a good skill to acquire I think everybody should acquire that skill because as powerlifters Because there's a certain point in time to where you have to think if it's a lock out do I need to pull it apart you know what has to happen with that so it's it's a critical step but it's also a step that can fundamentally ruin your ability to use the whole body for these main lifts because you're reinforcing to where that's why there's accessories and that's why there's strength movements
in the training program you know as you work lower into The training day I like to see those lower-end accessories be bodybuilding directed yeah and and the thing is is and we talked before the podcast briefly but you know this concept of powerlifting is squat bench deadlift so therefore you should just do squat bench deadlift right excess like that's the biggest thing I've seen change is like almost this like negative thought process towards sucess is like well you just squat bench deadlift and like You've said it before and my thought process is why doesn't a
football player just play football or basketball player like they all do their Sport and then they [ __ ] GO train right so if you your what you're saying is true and you want to PR uh practice barbell proficiency treat it as the sport and have your daily practice but then go train right because the training is what improves that like like people don't get faster just by running right because They have to be able to produce more power per step well if your muscles don't grow how do they produce more power right so there
has to be a stimulus Beyond just the basic movements and I think that that's something that like it's odd to hear that like people are thinking like the strength and conditioning coaches did in the 90s right where it was like you know just basic Sports specific stuff we work on this and then over time they realized Actually we work especially like baseball players and you know rotational Sports it's like oh if we work the other direction it actually helps you like and so it's just interesting to see that like with all the advancement we have
like it's almost like we're going backwards in terms of of the training and it's strange because I don't know if it's just the rebellious side of of society where they constantly want to go against what is Popular but you know training goes through the seems like it goes through these rotational Cycles but it's like interesting because everything that they're saying doesn't work has been built off of the things that people tried originally and it's like 20 years on and they were like okay well it worked but it only worked for a period of time so
we had to you know and then and then we realized well we don't need to start saying that's going to Stop working let's just do it the whole but it's fascinating to me this concept that like you don't need to train to get better at the thing that you do because it's like well no sport in the world just does that and there is some people who still think like that but it's like there's a reason Michael Jordan had his own strength and conditioning coach there's a reason that Kobe Bryan hired the same person and
Dwayne like they saw the benefits and they're the best Players in the world you think the best player in the world needs to get stronger like they're already the highest skilled person the thing that made them better was strength and conditioning yeah well people don't think they need to think one layer deeper than they currently do because if the using the example of football or any any sport that has skills they're going to break down those skills into or those main technical components into skills Right so in wrestling say it's a drop step or something
like that or in fighting it's how you're going to throw a punch or whatever it's going to be and they're going to practice that skill but as soon as that skill starts to become diminished the good coach says you're done because they don't want to reinforce bad technique right and then when they're practicing their skill they're not doing it at full speed all the time otherwise the football players Would be practicing at full speed for pads full pads all week and they rarely ever do that all the rest of it is breaking it down into
skill acquisition right where in the powerlifting World they'll they'll have heavy and light days but the light days are still sub maximal at 80% like apply that to any other sport that's doing technical practice and that they're going to go imagine MMA we're going to Spa today you're going to go about 80% but feel Free to hit me in the face just 80% or any of those other skills not doing any strength and conditioning or any you know rehab recovery or anything like that so if they just think one layer deeper you know it's it's
all right there you know which it's amazing and and you may be right like it it may change some of the like if you are doing the barbell stuff that often like you may not need certain things but like to say you don't need anything is just to Me it's just baffling because like I said like I can't name a sport that couldn't benefit from some form of training right it might not be with a barbell it could just be basic dumbbells or kettle bells or something like that cuz you don't want to load the
spine or something like that but I couldn't see where it wouldn't help the only time it becomes a negative is if people and and again it's down to the individual but if someone that becomes more important than The actual sport right so they're they get too big or they they you know they're focused on pushing their bench press up at the at the negative of of something else right because and so the question of i' I've heard and been asked is like when when is strong strong enough well it depends depends on is it still
benefiting the thing that you originally did it for and if it's not then you probably shouldn't do it you know and I'd kind of like if you have an Exercise in Your Arsenal that you know it's 2 300 lb over your max effort uh you know regular movement it's probably not going to carry over because clearly there's some Advantage there whether it's leverages or something like that that that you're not able to take advantage of without that you know Reverse band or whatever you have on there so you know people have that 10ft rack and
they're putting a blue band on it's like takes 200 off at the top you Know so um yeah again you've got to look at how you you know if you're a roar lifter it's going to change like what you need to focus on because you know you don't have the aid of the gear out of the hole so you got to have you got to have stronger bottom and movements um and so you might be doing pauses or you may be doing you know assistant exercises that are working those muscle groups that don't get the
support but it doesn't mean you have to change the Entire template and it it's just it's fascinating that people just throw the baby out with the bath water you know it's like well you know those guys those guys will train for gear and I'm like well that's funny cuz like really it was only my generation that like had the advanced gear in all three categories right when deadlift suit still doesn't give you anything but you know um you know I think what 2000s the canvas came along but the Phenom didn't come along Um and the
rage X Phenom that materials that stff didn't come along until the late 2000s like you know um but like when even when I was at Westside Lou told us to get out of our gear like we lit the only gear we wore on a weekly basis was our briefs but everyone constantly says it doesn't work for raw lifting and then you know lo and behold you've got you know Panora now doing a bunch of stuff with raw lifters and they're getting better it's like Surprise surprise like it's it's it's not it's it's not like how
you compete it's how you look at it and say what do we need what are the what are the core things this type of lifting needs and raw single multi unlimited three different sport Sports in terms of training right template doesn't have to change but specifics within the template are going to change based on you know where those weaknesses are what's going to get you better what's going to get You stronger how's it been hosting meets cuz now you're on the other side brutal it's like The Wizard of Oz right you never you never want
to actually see who the wizard is I mean when I was out here and I hosted meets it was great you know cuz like this the community out here especially for gear liting is massive and so you know one of the things being involved wanted to start running meets out there the the way I knew how to run them you know monoliths squat bars bench Bars deadlift bars there's a lot of meats that use the mon lift but then they have a rinky dink you know standard barbell which is fine for the majority of the
lifters the Sport's so big now I mean it's rare to see a a 600lb squat out of meat on the weekend but there's a meat every weekend so you know but when the big guys do show up you know they're trying to squat 800 and that boss is flexing and I'm just laughing because it's like again going back to the 80s Right so that's what I you know I I I decided that's what I'll do is I I'll run meets they're open to everybody but I'm going to focus on providing the equipment that a geared
lifter would want right from the monolifts to the bench presses to the to the bells um and there's just not a massive scene on the west coast and with the different with so many events now why do you think that is um I just think that you know you had you had medon crew yeah la Lifting club that crew back in the day um and then you had like pockets in Washington and things like that but I think that as the sport exploded crossfits was born in California right so I think the the only thing
I can think of is that the all of these new people were introduced via not necessarily CrossFit Gyms but CrossFit style gyms which minimal equipment racks they they they're not been exposed to like they if when we were powerlifting If you wanted to powerlift you had to find a powerlifting gym and then you would travel to a powerlifting gym now you can find a Hardcore gym but it doesn't mean it that has the equipment that you necessarily see and so I think they're they're not used to having all of that they're used to the way
their gym is they will have to walk out their squats like even with the monoliths I would say 80% of people walk out their squats and I'm sitting there thinking What a waste of energy why would you do that and then you realize well they do that because that's what they're used to doing and they they don't want to screw it up right um and so I think that that that's the the shift is is that that they just using the equipment they have at the regular gym you know and people are training for powerlifting
in 24hour Fitness now you know because it's it I mean it's not where strongman is where like every like it has a massive fan Base but competitor wise it's pretty on par with strongman the difference is is we have 76 federations you know strongman has two in America that I know of right if there's more I'm unaware of them I'm sure there's a few more but there's two main ones and the one um the one that's associated with the Arnold and the Olympia um they just sold to the Giants live group with OSG so really
now you have like one Federation that's tied into the World's Strongest Man and all The World's Strongest Man finals uh and then you have the other Federation which in the past has been like lighter stuff like had more of a broad they've gotten heavier if they've gone and it's pretty comparable um but it's kind like UFC versus you know one of these other leagues where everybody wants to go to the UFC and the other leagues are for those that you know don't necessarily see themselves doing that or they they're not interest or they want two
Titles um but with powerlifting it's like you know you can have um 100 lifters in the Nationals and 97 first place medals right and I when I first started that was the way it was too so it's not like it's changed in the 20 plus years I've been LIF in there's just more f ations now so there's even more national champions even more so you know like my vision again you know I'm working with the APO right now because it's the path to to me it has the wpo The APO is the path to get
there so it's a path to professionalism um it's a path to what lifting that I love um and those kind of things um but what I would love to see is like kind of like raw Unity used to be where you have a unified Nationals and you have a unified worlds where if you're the national champion you you get invited to the World Championships if you're the state champion you get invited to Nationals and so now you can invite every state Champion to Nationals but even then I still don't know if you'd have many people
in the same classes CU there's so many classes I mean running the meets just setting it up it's like you know for like the lightest weight class it's like 64 categories and when you get done you have like 2,000 3,000 categories just for your meat and I'm like this is crazy but it's because you've got the weight classes then you've got raw no like raw no wraps raw with knee sleeves Raw with wraps single moldy unlimited and then you have you know each weight class each age class it's just crazy so that's the only thing
like for me I'm trying to bring something different than what's in California because there's tons of you know wrpf usapl USPA um wdls out there there just a lot of federations but none of them are geared towards geared lifting allow geared lifting it's not that they uh discriminate against it but they're not Really set up for it right they don't have the equipment the judges don't necessarily aren't familiar because they just don't see it and in fact I had a bunch of Judges from other feds come to to ours um to to see how the
judging is and they said we just want to learn more like we we don't see this kind of lifting so I think that's great that that they're willing to you know do that but I also think it's for the sport we have to provide these different things And I look at it like I've always said this like it's like RAC race caring you know like drag racing never draws the same crowd as NASCAR but they both have a place you know and I know if I Was a Race Car Driver I'd want to do drag
I'd want to go as fast as possible that's me that's I'm an extremist like I'm I'm old and I'd be trying to do that but that might not be for you you might be more of the go around the lap 70 times I don't know but the the point is is that Like you don't drag on the NASCAR track right and so I'm like if I can bring something different tied in with the wpo which is at the olymp now um so there you know hopefully over time it grows and and you know bring back
kind of the the way it was at the Arnold that would be really cool you you've got Danny with the xbc with the Arnold which is phenomenal I support that too um but if you can have a path to that and you can have an allinclusive Federation and Slowly build up each division um you know maybe we get to a point where like there are these unified events and and people do want to compete it we we have it in raw but that's where the money is and I was saying to someone the other day
the truth is money would solve every problem but the problem is whoever's putting up the money can never stop putting up the money that's the problem it's always had in powerlifting and it's the problem the sport has still is that The ra probably still has that too oh absolutely it moves around yeah and so whoever has the money will bring those will bring the unity right but I don't know why I've never really understood why but powerlifting is a sport that even though we have even with geared manufacturers even with supplements that are gained towards
strength not muscle even with all this there's not a lot of sponsorship money and the only thing I can think of is There's not a return on investment the sponsors can see in a manner that makes sense right and so you know when you run a meet and you do a live stream and you have 3,000 viewers and then the sponsor doesn't make a single sale it's hard for the sponsor to want to give a lot of money right it's not necessarily trackable in that way and and and there's there's better athletes they can put
on their you know ads and stuff like that from an aesthetic standpoint and Things like that um but it's interesting and it's it's interesting to think about that stuff as a meat director and be like okay what can I bring that's different so I can attract those lifters build a home for them so they they have somewhere out here because most of the guys who do compete like um um there the crew in Vegas there a crew crew in Arizona so there's Crews and you know hopefully they'll come and do the meets they want to
and you know it's just Logist scks and timing but like right now most of them fly to the West co uh the east coast to do big meets over here um the invitationals IPA meets things like that so I was like you know if we can bring that to the West Coast maybe you know twice a year they don't have to travel to the east coast because you know we do the sport because we love it but the truth is is that unless you have a business around the sport you're not making much money as
an athlete right Like you might make a thousand bucks here maybe 5,000 you know Hoff might walk away with 10 if he's if it's the right meet um but like that doesn't feed you for a year right and so I'm like can I bring something and then what I truly believe is that cuz most things are cular um that that we'll see more Roar lifters crossing over even if it's just to prove that they're stronger than the multiply guys um but uh you know that Phil from nit And bobell um I know he just got
hurt so hopefully he recovers but like you know second meat or something he squats squats that massive 1200 right so you go okay like there is guys out there that can come and and challenge Dave I don't think they're quite there yet you know and if Dave continues like they will catch him but you know I mean he has nothing to prove after decade of being number one nobody's come close to him even with the band shirts right um in Fact I'm the only guy other than Dave who squatted 12 benched 1 th000 and deadlifted
eight we won't mention that Dave does it in the same meat but but like you know uh it's these rare clubs that people once you've accomplished something you know once you've broken the raw records then what it's really hard when you get to the top to motivate yourself you need new challenges you need new goals you need competitors to Chase and if there's no one there for You over here you stop looking over here a little bit and I think we'll see guys you know for longevity purposes but also for just purely to challenge themselves
and to prove that they are the strongest um they'll put the gear on you know it's harder for a a gear lifter to take gear off especially when you've done it for a serious amount of time because you have big weaknesses that you're not focused onh right because your shirt allows you to not have to have depressing power That you'd have to have raw so you focus more on your top end strength than your bottom end strength um and like I said it would probably take a year or two to build that up it's a
lot easier to put a shirt on and oh man it gives me 400 lb like in you know you just have to get used to handling the weight making you know you're strong enough to do but if you're if you're squatting a thousand raw you probably could squat 12 without much problem you know and that's how I Look at it and I think we we'll see that is is people chasing the alltime world records that haven't been broken in a long time you know a lot of the multiply records right now where the raw records
were Forever Until Stan eord and said I'm going to break that and once he did it the little Bridges got into it then green got into it and so all of a sudden you had big Ro multiply lifters because of stand going well we want to try that and I think we're getting to the other End where we're seeing people and the only reason I H feel like that is because I get a lot of people telling me Oh I want to get a a band uh you know like you reckon a slingshot or you
know and I'm you know I push everyone to the the f8 stuff because just Rob's been so good to me and like it it does give you a lot more you know it depends on how much you want to get out of the thing but if you want something comparable to like a shirt just start in one of his Slingers but um you know if you just want a little bit of help you know the sling shot's great so it just depends on what you want but I'm seeing people go from raw no wraps they
went to knee sleeves now they're in knee wraps and you know the knee sleeves they're pushing the technology on that I mean in is you can put a 45lb plate on on the sleeve and it doesn't collapse I've never been able to do that with any of my equipment right like I put a plate on My squat suit and it collapses so I'm going man why is he not making a suit out of this material like but uh I mean that's how we think right but but these guys that's how they're thinking too it's like
well these KN sleeves give me 100 pound like I'd like the Le sleeves so some purists exist and we're always going to have that right you know and they think any equipment is cheating and we'll always have that like um but most lifters if they can squeeze A little bit more they'll squeeze a little bit more and I think that's why we'll see Crossovers and we'll see different people stepping over and maybe it won't be permanently but it'll be enough to bring new people into it you know especially people who have shoulder injuries or or
issues that that is preventing them to hit certain goals they have I mean most people will never bench four or5 raw you know but you put on a shirt And you bench four or five you feel freaking awesome you know so it's again that is ego that's ego lifting and you know it's only for yourself it means nothing but if it keeps you in the gym right if it keeps you in the gy it's good that's not the stupidest thing I've ever heard I mean it's a sport that you max out you get what I'm
saying like the sport inherently all right guys bear here uh Summit performance therapy we're here at the lead FTS compound and uh We're utilizing a lot of element today this is actually my second packet we're near coming near the end of our deadlift session but it is hot out here in Ohio so uh when we're in a lot of this equipment we're doing a lot of overload work we're going to be taxing our nervous system and that's why we use this th000 mg of sodium in this one little packet it might seem like a lot
but here's the thing we don't have a salt problem we have a water intake Problem you drink enough water don't worry about 1,000 milligrams of sodium so in here I've got some uh Gatorade but truth be told Gatorade is not enough sodium uh used to be in the '90s when they first came out and then everybody started drinking it while sitting around in the office and they said hey why is everybody got hypertension well they're not moving around they're not drinking enough water and all they're doing is drinking salty goodness So but when we're moving
around and it's hot we need that salty goodness so we're just going to pop pop that right in close that up give it a shake if I can do it look at that and Down the Hatch oh that's good all right let's deadlift are you looking to boost recovery and enhance your sex drive and improve performance in the gym do you think your hormones are out of whack and you're tired of getting the runaround From your doctor you know things like your hormones are just fine stop lifting heavy weights etc etc etc I know what
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I don't really understand like what what does that mean like oh ego lifting like well yeah no [ __ ] I think it just means that's the intent I think it just means it means nothing to nobody but you right like at the end of the day isn't that the whole [ __ ] purpose anyhow you know it's like I'm not training for somebody else yeah you know it's so stupid to me it's like I don't even know what this means like what does That mean you know and I like to throw that out to
people it's a is you know they say some [ __ ] like what exactly does that mean then they start [ __ ] bumbling around or you know critics and you just reply with a and and then they start bumbling around because they don't know what to do my favorite's when Jimmy like whenever he posts anything like he did a thousand how many reps was it like 20 like he just did it like he did it for ridiculous amount of reps And getting ready for this meet this weekend going in I wanted to take a
thous for two mhm and I took it for a single and then on the way down on the second the spotter thought he forgot that I was going for double so he thought I was losing it he grabbed it on one side and then um I tried it again and I got it for a single and then missed it halfway up right so I said well I did it for two but I know how hard that was right so so Jimmy does This he 20 second reps and uh comment what yeah but what do you
bench raw now if you subscribe to his patreon I think he's on YouTube now too you'll see that like a lot of the times he's working like works up like 600 plus for reps raw and he doesn't even mention it it's just like casually in the video and I'm like I would put I would put money that he benches over 700 raw yeah just money on it but when you're a gear lifter like and your goal are gear numbers the Biggest fear you have is hurting yourself [ __ ] raw MH that's the biggest fear
you have is that you'll [ __ ] yourself up with a lightweight cuz like I've taken 3 and it felt so heavy before you know and you go man maybe I don't have it today right and so it's like you're like okay well I guess I'll just put the Bandy on early and see how it feels and you know cuz sometimes you should shut it down but sometimes you just need to warm up right and you get Into it and once you loosen you're good but like that's the biggest fear you have when you're a
multiply unlimited lifter is you're going to get hurt doing the thing you don't want to do so you know you don't want to max out raw just for the internet like that's that's a new thing like most lifter who have been around for a decade don't quite like we don't really understand that like we don't understand how Hoff has you know 20,000 followers and someone else will Have half a million followers you know but like their numbers are they're not even top 10 but it's just you know it's I get it because it's the world
I'm in so I understand that um but like in if you step back and you don't look at it from the you know influencer and and you know that standpoint you just look at it from a skill standpoint you think shouldn't the better lifter be more popular and that's but it's not the way it is um but like yeah why why would you Know half try to take a, pound raw squat when his goal is to Total three three 3200 or whatever he's chasing well for the for the same reason the raw person is not
going to put on a bunch of gear just to max out to see what they can what they can do yeah cuz it's because it doesn't serve the end goal right and that's the thing I think when you're all in the biggest um thing you Learn is I have to remove everything that distracts from this thing and it's why so many people want to go oo in but then fail to be able to do it because the sacrifices you have to make may include relationships and family and like you know at Westside that was the
biggest reason guys quit was they they got a girl and their whole priorities changed right um you know powerlifting cost me a marriage right now we were young and like I had no clue How to treat another human being so I was probably good for her like to get out um but it was all me but the the thing was is it was because I was so focused on on my on my goal like so my relationship didn't really matter that much right my job did like I wanted to make money because I wanted to
fund my my sport but like I didn't like it didn't matter to me training was more important right so I was training at this time and everything went around That when I had meats you know sorry can't do that you know train in Christmas Day if it fell on a Wednesday is just the way it is right and so most people won't do that but that is one of the like if you look at across cross demographics across Nations cross gender cross type of lifting the commonality is is when you go all in that is
the most important thing and honestly everything else doesn't matter like it's the most selfish thing you ever do in your life And I think that's why most people do it in their 20s because you don't yet have a world view you don't yet have all of that and it's probably why it's so hard for people once they have children and things like that you you hear this that you know like midlife crisis I think I've already had three and I'm not even 40 yet um but like you hear this and I think what it is
is is like you feel cooled to something but now have all this responsibility and so the gamble That you would have taken on yourself starts to diminish because now you're not just risking your health or your livelihood or your security you're risking other people's um and so it's you know to have it all is so difficult um because like you have to be willing to push and pull but to be the best there's no giving when you need like if you need to sleep like you sleep you don't go out with friends you don't go
to restaurants if You're on a diet like there's all these sacrifices that most people would say like live your life but it's like when you accomplish your goal they're asking you how you did it yeah and so your ability to have delayed gratification your ability to sacrifice now for later is so rare that it's not a m in the it's not like looked up to in the moment it's only looked up to if you accomplish what you un accomplish so it's a very lonely Journey but that's the that's the Commonality that I've seen you know
you've done so many interviews with people and it's like none of us train the same none of us think the same but everybody who's accomplished something of magnitude they're just all in it's that and then the ab the the ability to Auto regulate you know and that becomes part of all that and the other interesting thing with the Allin is that changes because when when you're young and you're Allin you're really Allin With just the things you want to be Allin with right and then you'll make excuses on the things that you don't want to
be all in nutrition recovery and when you're younger you can get away with it that's the trick you if you get older you can't get away with that anymore so then your Allin becomes probably more Allin than it was before and it's a little bit of a mind [ __ ] because you know more then you're a little pissed because like why didn't I Do this then when I know now and you try to share that with other people and you run into that dilemma we talked about earlier is maybe they're not all in and
then you're frustrated at because you understand like [ __ ] if I would have done these things you know but they're not in that same mindset of that and the um with the sacrifice it's really I don't know how much we sacrifice as opposed to the people who are in our life sacrifice for us to do it that's a Beautiful thing right and if that shared if that sacrifice isn't shared there's problems yeah and I think that's why a lot of people struggle is because um you're taught from a young age that like you're supposed
to make other people happy and you witness a lot like your parents sacrificing their happiness for the other or for you right uh whether it's a job they hate that they just go To every day because they got to put food on the table or whether it's like their own life because they got to take care of you you know so everything they do is send it around you and and mothers do this so often where it's like they just everybody else is more important than them and so even if you're not told that as
a child that's your experience right so when you become an adult and something requires you to put yourself before everybody else it's such an Uncomfortable uncommon thing for you to have to deal with that it's very challenging to do that and you question your decisions a lot more than ever because it's like you sometimes see the pain you put someone else through knowing that they're they don't understand anything that you want but they love you and they want to support it and so um my mistake was in in that first marriage is that like my
ex like she didn't care anything About the sport of powerlifting and so in in reflection she must have just been with me cuz she loved me like the real me mhm but like I just assume she didn't like me at all because she wasn't into the things I was into and I just was blinded by that right you know she didn't want to come to the meets cuz they were boring like who wants to go to [ __ ] powerlifting me like like honestly like I'll go to meets but I never go the whole day
it's like so Exhausting to watch you know um and so like but back then I just sorted as oh you don't like me right when it was the opposite and I think that that's kind of you know the hard thing is that like success often comes down to like following your intuition and like your own guiding Compass but like in life you're you you you're just beaten into you from a young age that like you don't know best and that like you should just fall in line and should do all these Things and so when
you push against the grain you have less examples you have less support um you know and you also have a higher chance of succeeding because so [ __ ] few people want to compete with you um but you have to get over all of those like um beliefs and thought patterns that basically youve required your whole life through observation and things like that and it's it's like the the outside world never makes sense of any of this like All of like when you have success you become an enemy on your rise to success everybody loves
you once you get there all of a sudden you're a piece of [ __ ] like you you like I I saw it with you when you were growing the business and then you got to a certain point and I think the one year you you you you you'd hit a new Revenue record and I think you shared it on like online and from that moment on you were like this millionaire piece of [ __ ] taking advantage of like There was like all these people that just turned on you because of the success you
had had um you know and it's just super interesting seeing that but it's the same in in lifting right like on your rise up there's all these and then you get to the top and all of a sudden the haters come out on the comments and you know like that's why you can't read the comments but it it's just it's human nature you know and you see it in everything um but yeah it's One of those things where when you look at um changes you go through in life like it's very difficult to make a
living with what you love and some people have figured it out but for most people even lifting and work conflict MH and that was honestly when you look at the Brilliance of Louie one of the biggest accomplishments I would say he had was convincing a bunch of people to Center their whole life around Two training times yeah and if you were serious you'd be in the morning crew so there was always that thought there was always that like you know with the night crew well they're 8 hours behind us right that was always his thing
and but they were still dedicated people they just had jobs that like didn't allow them to train at 8: a.m. but for most of the people at 8: a.m. like everybody figured out a job that like worked around that schedule it was Non-negotiable and and you go man like you can't even get people to drive 30 minutes to train nowadays you know like the Gym's not around the corner it's like too far um let alone going and traveling to learn from somebody with years of experience it's just an it's it's not common and you go
oh it's just different people they just they just think different they taught differently and you know we live in everything's so much easier to get now like you know Even information like a meet happens and like you expect the videos online by the end of that day you know and and when I first started you know the you had a few cameras that people would have but a meet would happen and you had to wait for powerlift in USA to come out to to read about the results you never saw the lifts um and I
remember uh Lou would talk about all these lifts right one of the ones he talk about was in's deadlift that was oh there a shambles blah blah Blah blah blah well that's that's on YouTube now and like it literally there's it's a bench meet and then he has a separate stage that he deadlifts on but he has three judges there but they have fireworks and all this stuff so it it is kind of how Lou explained but like there's like tons of stuff like that that he would talk about like Nationals and all that stuff
that like he knew from powerlifting USA but now I can go watch the videos like and it's Just strange to think that like even back then things were filmed on these massive cameras and you know even that took like six months to get put onto TV for a short segment so um it really is a different world and but I think that those what I've seen from those that are are at the top especially in the raw the new lifters I would say is like they're just as committed as we were and they have training
Crews and they surrounded themselves with like-minded people and They're constantly chipping away at you know the different things and it's like they're no different yeah the big rocks are still the big rocks it's just different any topics you wanted to go over I didn't bring up um no I think like for for me like one of the things I am focused on moving forward is just like continuing to pass on information um I'm working on a a book for each lift right now just really for my own like I'm constantly repeating myself and so I'm
like if I can just put this into something and I've always thought before that like there's so much information out there who would want to to to like why would anybody want another and you actually had said something to me with Q&A back in the day you were like because I was like some of these questions you should [ __ ] Google for and you were like AJ you should look at this is that they trust you more than They trust Google and so you know I think that that's really key is that like each
person is unique for their own reasons and different people resonate with you and so what I've what I've like come to the conclusion is is basically like like I have to pass that on because you know at the end of the day there's a segment of people that won't learn it from anybody if they don't learn it from me you know and and so um I've had I've not put my Hat into that Arena the entire time because I've always been lucky enough to make money outside um but like that's kind of like moving before
that's what I'm working on and so um one no I'll share it on my Instagram when when they're ready but um it's like I I was going to write one book and then I realized that'd be way too big so I was like I'm just going to break it up and then I'll probably end up writing a book on programming too um and that would be The foundations of of like my thought processes because I was lucky you know I learned from Louie then I got to learn from John Meadows with the bodybuilding so I
saw how he had applied a lot of what he learned from Louie to that sport you know I'm playing in the strongman world now and seeing how successful it is with passport and it's like oh okay like you know I have my unique perspectives on the system that Louie you know curated and shared and um you Know I think that when you pick up a book about strength like you don't read about conjugate right it's always linear periodization or something like that like for me you know strength and power is synonymous now with that with
with the style of training we know and um I would like to share that Beyond just the the powerlifting world and so hopefully I can do that and and some people will get some value out of it but for me it's More of a legacy thing right like you know I have my own stories unique to me that I learned from guys like you and Dave and like there's so many things we've done and I'm like oh if I don't put this down it would just be forgotten with me so any final thoughts um no
I just I I like the way the Sport's heading like The more I've gotten involved with it um the more I see that like I think I've commented before on kind of like where the numbers are with Good geared lifting and things like that and the more I've got involved the more I realize is that like a lot of these guys are are newer to this like they're just getting into gear lift like that because there was such a void for so long it's like the people who were there before are stronger now and then
they've had to like build a new generation and the more I get involved the more I see the more I realize that like these people are just because their Numbers aren't where I thought they should be after all this time the truth is it's like they're just as committed dedicated and Allin as anybody else and and um you know I think that we're it's only a matter of time before we see our numbers that you know like it's wild to think that like I'm still top 10 in in in multiply um but there just hasn't
been the lifters because so many lifters are not in in that division now and then the younger lifter that are getting into It they have a bright future ahead and so I'm pretty excited for the sport because I'm I'm starting to see more unity and I think you've said it multiple times is that like when you get away from the internet MH it's not real it's a whole [ __ ] different sport it's not real and people are awesome right people are like the people in this sport are incredible and I would say this sport
has more people that volunteer and give Their time even owners like nobody understands what goes into running a gym like nobody has the appreciation like um gyms that have the equipment like you have in here like I know this is not a public gym but the equipment the the the time it takes to to get this kind of stuff the investment it takes people just don't have that appreciation they don't understand how lucky they are to have specialty bars like that was such a rarity back in the Day and and to have all the equipment
they need and have all of that stuff um you know I I just think that this sport has some of the most selfless people in and most helpful and the most giving and like it's it's I'm I'm really honored and happy that I chose to step back into the sport um not just as a lifter but as someone involve running meets and hopefully you know passing on stuff in the future because I just really think that like you know smelly says it all The time like strength is never a weakness and if I can help
people become the most powerful strong version of themselves I truly believe that the foundation that lifting gave me is why I've been able to be successful in life it's why I've continue to push myself and Def re redefine my character and seek help it all came from this Sport and if I can shape someone or give someone as a tenth of what I had like you know I know What a difference it can make and so um I'm just like really happy to be back involved and like it's great like I said when I came
back from the out side I had a lot of opinions that probably weren't just or really researched but a lot of it was from online stuff and again like you said once you get into the real world it's a whole different [ __ ] world and it's awesome what's the best way people can find you Instagram AJ Roberts power and uh you can hit me up There yeah all right well thank you for coming out again uh good luck this weekend thanks you know and I think it will go well for you I'm interested to
see how the meat plays out so with that we're done all right guys thanks for watching this video to the end make sure to like And subscribe to the channel and click here here here or here for more videos