Barbell Shrugged - 58- CrossFit, Bodybuilding, Sumo Wrestling, and Cheerleading... How Broad Are YOUR Domains?

Episode Date: May 1, 2013

On this episode of the Barbell Shrugged Podcast the crew is joined by former Bodybuilder and Cheerleader and current International Sumo wrestler Robert Daniel.

This week on Barbell Shrug we have guest Robert Daniel, international sumo wrestler and former bodybuilder. We will talk about the top three things that CrossFitters can learn from bodybuilders. Yo, this is CTP and you're listening to the Barbell Shrug Podcast, the number one strength and conditioning podcast for CrossFitter. If you want to check out the video version, which you should, go to fitter.tv and watch that because it's way cooler than just listening. And how do you spell fitter.tv there, Mr. Bledsoe? F-I-T-R.TV.

He's a good speller. All right, while you're there, definitely go and sign up for the newsletter. As part of signing up for the newsletter, you'll get a video that Mike made where he shows you the top seven snatch mistakes that you're probably making that are keeping you from hitting that next PR and lifting some big weight. Yeah, look at the seminars, tune into the show, and get ready to become a more awesomer version of you. We give you the tools you need to succeed.

You become a tool. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Mike Bledsoe here with Doug Larson and Chris Moore. Yeah. And our guest, Robert Daniel, sumo wrestler, extraordinaire, international competitor. You heard that right, by the way. First, I want to remind you guys to go to barbellshrug.com, sign up for the newsletter.

Just go over there on the right side of the page and put your email in. Go to our fan page, like us. Go to Twitter, follow us at barbellshrugged. Is that all you remember? My brain is full. Also, go to check out the Weight Gain Challenge. We have that going on right now. We're three weeks into the Weight Gain Challenge, and it is going really, really well.

Stupendously well. We were going to see how it went, and we were like, well, maybe we'll do another one in six months october time frame and we decided otherwise what we did was we put uh if you go to the shop if you go to the store on our website you can go in there and go to weight gain challenge if you click on that product link it'll take you to a product page where you can put your email in so if you're interested in starting the weight gain challenge in the future go there put your email in and doug's going to send you some information um he's going to send you a video about how to gain weight and you'll be on the list. He'll be able to notify you when we're going to do it.

We're probably actually going to launch that in the next two and a half months. We already have so many people signing up. We can only take a certain amount of people at a time. So we may be relaunching that again in shorter than six months just because of how much interest we've garnered on it. The last one sold out weeks before the cutoff date. So if you want to be on that list, again, go to the page Mike was just talking about. Go to the product page. Put your name and your email in because we're going to give the people on that list priority over the whole rest of our newsletter list as far as sign up for this particular program just because last time it sold out so quickly.

So get your name on that list and you'll get first crack at signing up for the next round, which we'll hopefully start hearing in the next two months or so. If you snooze, you lose. Thanks, Chris. All right, Robert. Actually, one more thing. We also got Justin Thacker's weightlifting seminar coming up here in the next two or three weeks. That's going to be a live recording of a seminar.

So it's not an actual seminar. Really, we're doing it for the recording. And we're going to let people come and watch the recording happen. And then also with all the people that are – with that small group of people that are going to be there watching, they'll be doing the lifts and just going to be correcting their form. And you'll more or less be a part of the product. So if you don't mind being on camera and you want to have a world-class weightlifter come and critique your form and teach you the lifts, then May 11th and 12th, starting at noon on the 11th and going to about 6 or 7 p.m.

and then starting at 9 a.m. on the 12th and going to about 4 in the afternoon. We're going to have a two-day weightlifting recording where Justin Thacker is coming down from St. Louis. Episode 34. Episode 34 was Justin Thacker's episode. How do you remember that? I know. It's on your palm.

Show me your palms. Well, they're hairy, but I don't see any numbers. Wow. Wow. I see that. Yeah, so if you want to I don't see any numbers. Wow. See that? If you want to learn a little bit about Justin Thackeray, we did an entire episode with him, episode 34, and he will be down here at Faction to do that two-day weightlifting seminar.

That's coming up here in a couple of weeks. If you want to come attend that live event, then, again, go to the shop. Where do we put that in the shop? Under the seminars? It's under seminars. Click on seminars and click on the Justin. Put the seminar under the shop. Where do we put that in the shop? Under the seminars? Yeah. It's under seminars. Click on seminars and click on the Justin. Put the seminar under the seminars.

Crazy. Genius. The Justin Thacker Weightlifting Seminar, if you're interested in coming to that live event. Yes. All right. Robert Daniel, you're an international sumo wrestling athlete, former bodybuilder, other martial arts, and cheerleader. That's right. All right.

You don't see that. All your bases covered. All right, good show. I think I'm probably the only one. Hopefully, I covered all the best points already, but if you want to take us through a short, maybe two or three-minute history of your athletic career. Yeah, well, in high school um actually i was playing football as a freshman and i was walking by a teacher's the lady that ran the cheerleading

squad and she said hey come here for a second let me talk to you and i said yeah and she said uh you're never going to play football uh in the nfl you're probably never going to play in college but you get a scholarship in cheerleading i was i my height right now at 135 pounds. I'm like, yeah. I've seen that picture of you. But she goes, she looked down at my feet and she goes, no, you're going to be a big man. I'm like, okay, whatever, whatever. Well, because I didn't think I was going to be large, I got into cheerleading. You know, all men, depending on their sexual orientation, get into cheerleading for the women.

That's the bottom line. I'll say it. It's the truth. However, can't believe it. You're surrounded by the hottest chicks in school for like every afternoon all year long. Right, exactly. But very quickly, but along with the hotness comes,

you know, the ego and the drama and all that. So very quickly you get into the athletic aspect. And so I did that all through high school, college, and grad school. She was right. I got scholarships, full ride to university kentucky sweet uh and then went to grad school university of hawaii and uh for two years to get my graduate degree so uh it went well i got and always wanted to bodybuild so right when i got done i stopped here in 96 started uh training

for my first bodybuilding show and did my first show a novice show in 97 and i've probably done i don't know from 07 to uh 2010 i probably did about 20 shows and then i did one this summer just kind of coming out of retirement kind of thing oh word just for kicks i'm assuming that when you did uh cheerleading you're probably hitting the weights pretty hard i mean you may you may have been doing bodybuilding that's not competitively correct preparation for that correct well yeah everything that i wanted to do was to get bigger i knew this when i would go to these cheerleading camps and i'd see the guys that could really put the girls in the air they were bigger stronger guys uh and so that's what i wanted physics being what it is but yeah they uh so i wanted to just get bigger so that's what i did uh and it's taken

me 30 years but i got it to 250 pounds so you know just kind of put it on put it on put it on um but after i got done uh bodybuilding uh started you know taking some interest in mma jiu-jitsu that sort of thing but when i lived in hawaii i lived in hawaii for actually 10 years and i would see sumo on the uh the uh the sporting news you know the five o'clock ten o' And I'm like, man, these guys are really scrapping. At first you think, oh, as Americans, we think it's just a couple of fat guys bumping bellies. Yeah. No, you're wrong.

They're going at it. Yeah. And so I was like, wow, this is a real deal. I'd love to do this one day. I could do this, that explosion. That's what I'm good at, that type of thing. And I was doing some stuff at Memphis Judo and Jiu-Jitsu. And I told Dave Ferguson, I said,

hey, man, I think I'm going to enter a sumo competition. He goes, that sounds like a great idea. That sounds like it would be perfect for you. I don't know if that meant because MMA is not perfect for you. You're not going to be good at anything else. You should do that. One time he told me. Your feet are too big.

He said, cardio-wise, it's just not your thing. He told me we were doing, I forgot what we were doing one day, but he's like, you know, if the UFC was decided, the heavyweight championship was decided by a one-minute fight with no rounds, you'd have a shot. That's what goes for every big guy. Right, after a minute, you're a punching bag. You get a minute into it and you realize all the strength in the world

is not going to save you from this ass-kicking. Right, exactly. I guess I had a thought, sumo must have a following in hawaii because we have a yokozuna from hawaii right there's yokozuna and quite a few i think two or three ozeki and some other top ranked guys what does that mean uh get with it come on yokozuna is sounds like someone did their research before the podcast right for the audience i meant yokozuna is actually the grand champion uh and then ozeki is the level these are people these are people yeah yokozuna generally there's

only two yokozuna at a time some sometimes one but uh and then there's there's then they have like ozeki so they have east and west divisions and you have yokozuna yokozuna that's what we have now and then there's like three ozeki on eacheki on each side. So you're a badass if you're the Yokozuna. Yes. Because if you watch these dudes compete, the top guys, there's one guy I remember who was like 350 pounds. I don't know his height. He may be six foot tall.

This guy was basically like the most intense offensive lineman I'd ever seen but doing sumo. He would explode out from that position, that three point stance and just take a 500 pound dude and launch them off the platform. So it was an incredible damn thing I've ever seen in my life. And I've seen lots of incredible damn things. And this is up there.

This is like top 10 of the incredible things Christopher's ever seen in his life. Yeah. Well, I mean, that's a, that's kind of the whole name of the game there. That,

that opening, that charge is called the touchy eye. That's 90% of the game right there. You know, that's kind of the whole name of the game there. That opening, that charge, it's called the tachi-ai. That's 90% of the game right there. You know, it's like in bodybuilding, that first look that they get at the competitors when they first, before you do one pose, you've got to understand that's 90% of the game. Same thing in sumo. You get a good tachi-ai, you get him backwards, his chin up, and he's back on his heels, it's going to have a hard time recovering.

But, you know, when we were at Memphis Judo and Jiu-Jitsu, they just, Dave got some guys together, Mike Ostrowski from Judo and Jeff Presley, wrestling, and got some guys to show me some stuff and I ended up,

my first tournament was the national championship in 09 and I got a bronze. And I was like, whoa, I didn't know, you know,

that was going to happen. That's encouraging. Right? That's incredible. Right? You know? I think I'll stick with this. All with Mike's help. That's right. From the That's incredible. Right? I'll stick with this. All with Mike's help.

That's right. From the video. Mike's apparently famous in the sumo world. That's right. That's right. I was very key in that bronze medal. Did you let him wrestle you? That was after.

No, that was after. That was when I was done. That was going into my second season. Well, you know. You did better the second season, right? Obviously. Yeah, I've moved up every season. Since I helped you. you did better the second season right well yeah i've moved up every i've moved up every season since i helped you that's right that's right but uh since i

allowed you to throw me around like a rag doll no i just i ran into my body into him as hard as i could so basically i didn't have i didn't have training partners right so as you know whenever i could get some type of training so i said man i just need somebody to run into me just get used to taking the hit you know just keep keep that contact and mike goes well i play football but i can run into you and i'm like well how much you weigh 180 or whatever and uh i said oh okay and so i don't know who was filming it might have been doug i was filming i was like i'll get the camera at the time i didn't know anybody was filming but you know we start 28 inches away in sumo right and then uh but he was literally three

yards away from me and so i'd say which means begin and he would i would just take my hands up and take a half step towards him he would run full speed and slamming my goal was to not be moved and he would move me an inch or two but we did it but we did it over and over and over and he was literally sprinting at me with his head first, like he was going to run a wall down. And so two years ago, I'm at Nationals. We're at the competitor meeting, right? And this guy, Kenna Heffernan, who's from Hawaii. And Kenna's our grand champion.

And Kenna goes, Rob. And he speaks in pidgin. He's talking to me. I was living in Hawaii. So he's like, hey, brah, you know, this video, there's a video we saw of you of a guy, little guy, running into you over and over and over again. He said, we stayed laughing and laughing and laughing. We kept playing over and over again.

So I'm like, yeah, that's pretty funny. I was like, that's my buddy Mike. I said, I'll remind him. And then I'd see you on it and think about it when I did. Then last year I'm in Amsterdam at the Dutch Open, and the tournament finishes, and there's a guy from Poland comes up to me in broken English

and basically says the same thing. Hey, in their video, you were some guy running over, it was hilarious. Are you more famous

for this or for the show? I might be more famous for this. When people come up to you in the street, sign this, please, run into me,

please. Huge fat guys everywhere I go, all my autograph. I think what they were doing was like, oh, well, this couldn't possibly. Because they're getting to do, at the time, I couldn't do any real practice. I didn't have a team. So they're doing real practice.

So this is what I could get. Man, let's have one guy run into me 100 times. That's all we had. So that, I think, was the funny part. And the fact that we did it and put it on video however many times that, however many times that was force equals mass times acceleration. That's what they say. True story. That's what they say. All right. So actually on that note, so that the needs for sumo, the sporting needs, you know, strength, power, speed, things like that are very different than the needs for a bodybuilder. So did the training for bodybuilding before sumo contribute

a lot to your success in sumo? And how is the strength training different for the two sports? Initially, I will say this. Being bigger and stronger, having a bigger muscle belly, and being in exercise science, you know this. The bigger a muscle belly is, the thicker it is, the bigger the cross section. Yeah, that too. For the viewers at home you have a degree in exercise science as well yes yes yes so but obviously i don't use it cross this cross-sectional area even if it's water uh it's got bigger muscles gonna be a stronger muscle

that's the way a lot of the part of the way creatine works right it just makes the water bloated i mean the muscle bloated so there's what's gonna be stronger so anywho uh that helped initially but as the competitors got better i needed to one be more explosive i mean i needed the same strength but with much more speed that's what you don't train in bodybuilding correct you change you try to be the least efficient possible in every movement so the muscle does the most work you get explosive diarrhea from the diet but you don't get explosive on your body. Yeah, using speed and momentum in bodybuilding is counterproductive for breaking down the muscle and spurring muscle growth.

Correct, yeah. And so for a sumo wrestler to train just like a bodybuilder would make them slow and not explosive, and for a bodybuilder to train explosive like a sumo wrestler, they wouldn't be able to put on as much muscle mass as quickly. Correct, yeah. And you would just be an injured sumo wrestler and injured body but if you try to do both they're so vastly different energy systems and you know from doing martial arts that you know when you're lifting

weights i can you can control the environment i can control how hard i go even with someone who's coaching me i can still control but if i'm sparring whether it be sumo jujitsu whatever i'm gonna go i'm gonna have to defend as hard as he's attacking or vice versa. So you have that variable, and then you try to throw some bodybuilding. In the beginning, yeah, I tried to do still some. That vanity stayed with me. Not that it's gone, but yeah, you just end up getting injured. Actually, on that point, before I had my shoulder surgery four or five years ago now, the last three or four times that I hurt my shoulder at mma practice was was after i did a ton of upper body training it wasn't necessarily

bodybuilding but i did a high volume upper body you know a couple hours before i went to practice and then when i was fatigued from that then i i my shoulder was not as stable and i ended up hurting my shoulder and it happened like multiple times in a row before i learned my lesson i bet you know it's that analogy of the spring you can pull the spring from one side and it'll snap back you can bring it from the other side it'll snap back but if you pull both sides together you're gonna stretch the spring out and that's what generally i think happens you know something like that two different energy systems at the same time training is gonna end up at an intense level so i think it's gonna be bad news analogies i love a good analogy and allegory springs allegory as well yeah i guess i the yeah i mean pre-fatiguing before uh an event

where somebody is trying to hurt you maybe maybe i'm not on the high list of things i would do yeah i could i could get away with that when I was younger, but I can't do it anymore. Oh, so much we could get away with when we were younger. You got the show notes, Doug. For some reason, I don't have them. You don't have the show notes? While these guys look at their phones. You didn't send me the show notes.

What the hell? I don't even know what to talk about now. Every time I look at sumo training, weight training-wise, I think about how similar it is to me to what I needed when I was an offensive lineman. I agree. What makes Olympic weightlifting so fascinating and unique? Well, one, it's really complicated. But two, you pick a weight off the ground, explosively extend the hips, and then dive, bomb underneath, and get driven down and ricochet back up. So obviously regular squats, doing that all the hips, and then dive bomb underneath and get driven down and ricochet back up.

So obviously regular squats, doing that all the time, it's a very specific activity. What's cool about being an offensive lineman or a sumo guy is that you're going from a state of flexed knees and hips and perfect stillness to unbelievable all-out explosion absolutely in the blink of an eye. So it's like a totally different sort of activity than, like on football, it's even different than what a linebacker, a running back,

or anybody else does because offensive, defensive, and linemen are just basically like sumo wrestlers. They're staring each other down. One side knows when they're going. One side doesn't, which makes it kind of interesting. Is that the same in sumo, though, right? Well, in the pros it is. Once they have three hands on the ground, they just start themselves,

and the ref yells, Hakioi, let's begin, let's get on. But in amateur, the referee waits until all four hands are on the ground, and then he says, Hakioi. A lot of people try to jump start because that's how you get the speed, right, on this guy. You get him going back, you go forward. And they do that because there's no penalty in amateur sumo for jump starting. They'll start you over 100 times. Now, the referee might scold you, but there's no penalty in amateur sumo for jump starting. They'll start you over 100 times.

Now, the referee might scold you, but there's no penalty. So why not go ahead and jump start? Yeah. And to me, it's a lesson in just how people always get caught up. What is the right and wrong list of exercise? And it's kind of horseshit because for Olympic weightlifting, if you did lots of wider stance box squatting, you'd be an idiot. That would not transfer at all to Olympic weightlifting. You would catch a clean and dump it immediately and not be able to stand up every

single time from now until the end of end of time but for sumo standing in your sumo stance hips far back on a box uh with a deliberately long pause and having somebody externally cue you to instantly squat as fast as possible for just one clean crisp rep is a highly effective way to actually train in a pretty close way. It's a fascinatingly different kind of activity. I agree. You're not the only person. I've had people say the only type of squats you need to be doing is box squats.

And these are guys that aren't sumo guys. They've just seen the matches on YouTube or Facebook, and they're like, yeah, that's exactly you need to have those hips back the feet wide the toes out and then come out of that hole yeah it might be inverse like usually you'd probably be better off doing some box squats in the off season and working into regular squatting if you're like a if you're doing crossfit or weightlifting some but in sumo it might be like to get a break you do some regular squats way away from your competition then closer you, the more you get more specific with wide stance, maybe even a bit of band, a deliberately low pause or long pause. You might even squat to high box if that's representative of where your hip angle is.

I'm not quite sure. I haven't looked at the video of those guys in position. But, yeah, it's radically different in a bunch of awesome ways. I'd like to see maybe box squat for being explosive from that pause, but then also doing maybe heavy cleans or something like that, being able to absorb a really heavy load as well, because you have to be able to absorb the hit as well. So I want to deliver explosiveness and be able to absorb it too. Well, yeah, like if you've noticed that I did the Olympic meet at y'all's place,

and my goal is I'd like to do, in addition to the sumo, if I have the breaks and the schedule, I'd like to do one Olympic. Everything in the perfect world I would be able to do. One Olympic meet a year, one powerlifting meet a year, one strongman event a year, and a bodybuilding event a year just for fun. The bodybuilding's fun. The other ones, the other three. I don't know if anybody's ever done that. That's hardcore, man. It's the Bo Jackson of strength sports.

Wow. Not a bad thing to be. But the goal is those other three are nothing but cross training for sumo. The whole point of me being a better Olympic weightlifter, strongman, or powerlifter is to improve my sumo game. That's a very good point. And the bodybuilding is just that, man, I get, I do like Jennifer, my fiance tells me, I get sumo bloated is what she says when it's all sumo technique practice and no cardio.

The spirit of sumo starts taking over. That's right. That's right. Is there a... Honey, pass the soy sauce. You're eating Cheerios. I know, but I'm looking to get bloated here. So I learned the other night that there's weight classes. And it's not just heavyweight and lightweight.

Right. How many weight classes are there? Internationally, right now, there's four. Now, they do them in kilos. But since most of y'all's audience, I'm sure, is American, I'll do them in the English system. You can talk in kilos. That's fine. Well, I don't know.

It's your covering. Right, right. You have the 187, I think is 85 kilos. 85 kilos and under is one weight class. Then you have 85, you have what's called under 115, which is my weight class. That's middleweight, which is people laugh because there's no way you're a middleweight. Well, middleweight and sumo is 253 pounds or under. So you get to think some of those heavyweights are 600 pounds so and by the way you

can call them fat all you want but they'll just jump right over you or go right through you an instant before you even have time to react so don't confuse being fat with slow and weak don't make fun of semo wrestlers yeah definitely don't do that not in an enclosed area where there's no escape route unless you got the skills skills to navigate that body for five minutes until the guy gets tired, then you can choke him out or arm bar him. If you can do that, maybe talk shit or something. Don't do it otherwise. I'll say the UFC, like UFC single digits four or five,

where the Sabate guy was fighting against the – Manny Yarbrough. Oh, yeah? Yeah, the guy, the sumo guy? Oh, yeah, fighting a sumo wrestler. Emmanuel Yarbrough. Oh, really? Yeah.

And he kicked him in the teeth? Yes. And his teeth went flying out? Out on camera? The sumo he kicked him in the teeth? Yes. And his teeth went flying out? Out on camera? The sumo guy got kicked in the teeth? Yeah. Yeah. Oof.

Yeah. So if you're that guy, talk shit. Yeah. He took a knee and the dude just fucking kicked him right in the teeth. Oh. Yes. Yeah. No.

Well, I think actually, no, I was wrong. That's another guy. But Manny was in one of the first ones. He did some pride fighting too. But he's the only Americans ever won world championships. Oh um he's 600 he was when i was like six foot eight isn't he i'm like six nine and when i i didn't wrestle against him he had to drop out of a tournament the the uh i was going to wrestle him in the open you're going to wrestle him yeah in the open division because this i didn't finish my statement i got detracted but um the uh the you

have the heavyweights is over 115 then we have openweight, which is anybody can throw their hat in the ring. And so I was actually going to meet Manny in the next match, and I got a bye because he forfeited because he'd gotten injured. And what had happened was he was fighting a lightweight and was going to fall on him and actually put his hand down. I was watching the match. He crushed his own hand? Well, no, just to keep – well, he hyperextended his elbow.

But just to keep him from – he would have killed the guy. The guy was 160 pounds. I mean, he literally would have – Oh, my God. It's like dropping a Volkswagen on him. Wow. He's a nice guy. He just stands up and moves forward, and if you can't get around him,

you're not pushing him back. Yeah. No way. Stepping with a guy that you're not pushing him back. Yeah. No way. Stepping with a guy that size. Oh, come on, Mike. Now, wouldn't you roll the dice a little bit and wrestle, getting there and tussle with a guy? I'm scared now in the moment.

You have the international. I'm scared sitting in this room, but in the moment, I might just do it. Remember during your wrestling match when that guy was probably like 350 and he was on top of you? You were pushing into a big, wet blanket. You couldn't get up. That dude was twice as big i was pre-fatigued i was only only i mean for me getting skinny is means i'm 250 or 245 that means i'm i'm compromised yeah but yeah i mean this guy got on top of me and it was just he had to be he was at least 350 and he was a big dude

he was tall too and i just remember like it was just like having the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man right in my face. You push and nothing happens. I put all my force into it and my hand just wouldn't meet bone. I couldn't exert force to move his mass. I ended up choking that bitch. I would have had it if I knew what I was doing. You remember. You were all there, too.

That was your novice thing. I think we have a video somewhere. It was my only foray into competitive fighting. It was fun as hell, but I'd never been so exhausted in my life. And afterwards, I'm laying on the floor of the Honor Classic. It's beautiful. Beautiful. Auditorium or whatever the fuck.

And Doug's like, all right, we'll take a little break and we'll put your gi on. You can do it again in the gi division. I'm like, no. You think I'm quitting here, Doug? No, I can't. You think I'm done? You are mistaken. Because now I'm pre-fatigued if i wear that gi i'm basically you know giving a guy a weapon to use against me so i'm like i don't know what the fuck i'm doing with this right

nationals is june 22nd in kansas city missouri this year so if you are in the kansas city area june 22nd you should go check it out independence missouri actually which is a suburb of course okay and we were we were talking we're at the bar on saturday sunday a lot of talking happens at the bar a lot of a lot of talking happens at the bar and uh you said hey they have an 85 kilo weight class and doug and i were both like we're 85 kilos right we've both been drinking yeah we both been drinking Yeah We've been drinking beer Since one o'clock

In the afternoon So let's make some Decisions Good decisions Shit yeah I'll sumo wrestle But you said That anyone can attend

And anyone can register For this thing Yeah you don't have To qualify You know sumo Is still small enough In the US Where you know

People can jump in And I see guys show up To the national championships Like I did When they've never Ever competed Like I've never seen Him in a national. And I see guys show up to the national championships like I did when they've never, ever competed. Like I've never seen them in a national tournament. And I go to a lot of the tournaments. And they just show up.

And some of them do really well. Some of them do well. Like my first one, I got a bronze. And you have that happen every once in a while. But, yeah, you just throw your hat in the ring and train for it. I am actually not sure if my schedule's open that weekend. Oh, shut up. You're always backing out.

No, no, no. What I'm saying is. I've got a wedding to go to, Robert. I can't. I've got to be at the thing. I feel like there's something that weekend. I know there's something the weekend after. But if that weekend's open, I plan on doing sumo for the first time.

Well, when I get back from my honeymoon here on May 10th. Well, I get married this Saturday, by the way. Congratulations. Thank you. But get back from the honeymoon on May 10th, it'll go into tournament mode, which is three practices a week, that type of thing. So I'm the guy that's there three times a week.

The other teammates once or twice a week as their schedule permits. Are there other guys in Memphis that are doing sumo right now yeah yeah but guys you know uh jason lacroix i mentioned earlier uh courtney smith oh yeah who is is excellent man he's really good yeah he is he's smart and he's athletic it's a dangerous combination if you don't beat courtney and i hope he hears this if you don't beat courtney off the line you're probably going to lose. Because if he gets a hold of the belt, he's going to judo. He's been doing a lot of judo training. He's good at that. So what I do when I fight him, I make a start

by holding the belt and what he's better at. So I have to just kind of... I've got two questions. One, if Mike shows up at this competition, does he have to wear the little thing? That's a great question actually uh here's the the international rules say uh if i'm not mistaken that you have to wear

shorts underneath your mawashi now have to you have to however i have never been to a tournament yet where they required you to have them underneath there i've always worn them uh that's the dutch open uh on the registration form it says mouache shorts are not allowed to be worn under the mouache well so i show up put on my mouache and without pants underneath it so it's the first time and you know i train at memphis judo and jujitsu there's women and children there i'm not going to wear that thing without sure that's what dave's only request when i first started training just don't wear it without the have your bait and tackle poking out the side exactly exactly so um you know so i show up to this thing and so i'm getting ready i look over

and the egyptians all have their dang shorts on and i'm like what well damn egyptians well every time it's because every time they sumo wrestle that's right they wear those fucking shorts yeah they're very, very good. By the way, there's a pro. By the way, if you ask me that, I'll bet there's no way in hell that anybody in Egypt sumo wrestles. I would just laugh at your face. There's a guy there right now in the pro sumo in Japan. He's the first African, being from Egypt, first African ever to be in pro sumo.

And he's doing really well. I want to say he's in the Jiro division, which is just like to two divisions below the very very top division and he's just kicking butt that's fantastic he's very impressive but anyway but they had it on and it was you know religious reasons they're muslim they didn't want you know you don't do that and i'm like well i'm catholic there's something written somewhere right i'm not no but you know you don't have to and actually in japan i've heard that they're letting kids do, and it doesn't get any more traditional than that as a culture and for that sport. That's their NFL and NBA combined,

and that's how those guys are looked at and that lifestyle. But they're letting some kids now in Japan wear the shorts because the kids don't want to do sumo because they don't want their butt to show. Well, I was going to say, is there a problem with the culture shifting, the art form dying, and kids being interested in it? Is it declining? Yes.

Yes. In Japan? Yeah, absolutely. Because that culture is radically shifting, right? Yes. The old ways, however you want to define that, I think have been washed away a little bit.

Right. Figuratively speaking, not like tsunami speaking. Don't get me twisted. I was going to say, I think the, looking back and respecting

the history of it has been sort of given away to like everywhere else, pop culture from other parts, including our godforsaken nation

sometimes has spilled over and distracted them from what makes them unique. Right. Well, you know, and a lot of that I've read that they blame it on

the Japanese playing on video games and baseball. The kids are either playing Japanese blame it on video games and baseball. The kids are either playing baseball. Damn baseball. Fuck you, baseball. They should outlaw that. All right, guys, we're going to take a quick break.

When we come back, we're going to talk about the top things from bodybuilding that has helped Robert be more athletic. Hey, guys, this is Rich Vroning, and you're listening to Barbell Shrugged. For the video version, go to fitter.tv and we're back shocking doug chris myself and our guest robert daniel sumo wrestler welcome back and uh since since you had such a uh awesome uh bodybuilding background we were going to ask you the uh top three reasons before we left top three reasons what we can learn from bodybuilding and uh basically any suggestions you have the new lifters

uh for putting on muscle mass yeah so what are those top three things uh was now exactly chop chop as uh as bodybuilding probably a plate uh applies to CrossFit. The top things you can learn is one, you don't need to move a weight like a bodybuilder moves weight. And I've mentioned this before, but bodybuilders try to be as inefficient as possible. Your joints, your tendons, your ligaments don't want to do any work.

Your muscle bellies, the middle part of your muscle wants to do all the work. So you need to do the most inefficient movement possible. Like a bodybuilding squat is vastly different than a power lifting squat or anything, or a front squat that you would do for Olympic lifting, anything like that. So what are those differences? Well, well, one, you generally, the speed is the first thing you're going to slow the heck down. Uh, and two, you're going to make your levers longer. It, whether it be your body, your arms or your legs, whatever's happening the

the levers are going to be you know you're gonna make it harder on purpose correct correct preacher girls that's that's right correct yeah that's that's a good example that or touching the bar really high on your chest when you bench press i guess that's another way of doing it that's stretching everything as much as possible yeah yeah yeah the more inefficient you can be the easier it is to work the muscle. Correct. We're not training the movement like we are on CrossFit. We're working the muscle, which is different. Right, which is also, are bodybuilders strong?

Yeah, I don't know any pro bodybuilders that can't bench 405 for reps with these, that cannot do that. I mean, they all go boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. In some cases, Stan Efferding is a pro IFBB card-holding bodybuilder who also is a current Masters all-time raw powerlifting champion. The guy squats 900 and belt and knee wraps, and he benches right at 6, and he deadlifts like 850, 840, 830. So it's not like they're not mutually exclusive.

So that's a good point. The only thing I would add to that is, 48, 30. So it's not like they're not mutually exclusive. So that's a good point. The only thing I would add to that is, again, you can train inefficiently like that to make it harder to gain muscle mass. And from that perspective, not a good thing for CrossFit. But on the other hand, you can do things in a slightly different way. Like, you know, why is it good to do like a deficit deadlift? Well, you make the exercises really hard and you can use less weight and that beats you up less and you might get a good training response but it also helps build

your regular deadlift that's that's making things hard is an interesting thing like do you want to go down super duper duper slow ever if you're looking to perform uh probably not ever but and there's other ways you can make things really super hard that cut down the wear and tear and let you be stronger and more explosive. So that's an interesting idea right there. We could probably do a whole show on that. Yeah. Well, you know, what I was going to say earlier is that even though bodybuilders are very strong, the major difference with CrossFit is they're not functionally strong. Like your strength per bodyweight ratio for a Crossfitter how many pull-ups can you say have

you seen bodybuilders do they do a lot of lat pull-downs don't they it's like how many breaths have i taken today it's so routine it seems doing that shit all the time right can you keep count lat pull-downs lat pull-downs lat pull-downs but you put a you know 300 pound bodybuilder and they're not gonna be able to do very many pull-ups but you go to crossfit and you do okay you can count the kick kip ups and all that stuff i mean mean, there's reps and reps and reps and reps. So you're not as functionally strong as a bodybuilder because you're doing that training that we're talking about. Now, there's no absolutes. There's probably carryover on both.

I look at the CrossFit games. Those guys are jacked. They are. Some of these guys could enter at least a physique competition, not a bodybuilding, and win. They could literally leave the CrossFit games, step on stage, and, you know, win with the physiques they have. Yeah. And, you know, that's just they have to be that lean to move that fast,

to be that strong and get all that done. So I think that, the inefficiency of movement. The other thing, well, the thing that could help the most is one thing bodybuilding gets right, and I used to, like you said, I have a degree in exercise science. i used to actually argue with my teachers but my professors were all uh aerobic oriented guys they were endurance jackasses endurance that's what they're also called it seems like most exercise physiologists really do kind of swing towards the endurance sports yes and it just makes me think you know why do they call people like us meatheads well

okay then what? What does that make you? Well, let's just say the endurance guys tend to be the guys with the PhD. There's very few Fred Hatfields out there, Dr. Squatter, those guys. But anyway. God bless Andy Galpin. But I would literally argue with these guys that protein sparing by increasing your carbohydrates doesn't work. Increasing your carbohydrates is not going to make your body use protein more efficiently for muscle. Now, it will keep you from burning muscle, of course, but that's just calories, period.

But what I was going to say is protein intake. And as long as it's not regular. Now, I'll be honest with you. I take about 500 grams of protein every day. Whoa. Hell yeah. Where do you get that from? Well, shakes.

What I do is I'll eat four meals. And here's the way. So for all of you who think you're eating a lot. You ain't shit. I'm trying to gain weight, but I eat all day. You're not eating 500 grams of protein a day. If you did, you might look like Robert. That's right.

This is fantastic. Tell us about your day as far as eating day. Well, if you did, you might look like Robert. That's right. This is fantastic. Tell us about your day as far as eating goes. Well, here's how it works. I have to get to work at 630 or 7. And so I get to work. Damn. And I keep. That's so crazy.

There's two of those in the day? I thought it was just PM. But I keep one whole drawer at work in the fridge is mine. And it's literally stacked with bags of flank steak and chicken breast chunks, like the Tyson. Not that I wouldn't eat those if I was getting ready for a Bible show. But day to day, it's cheap. It's quick. And it's also filled with like butter spray, mustard, low calorie, you know, stuff to put on toppings, blah, blah, blah.

And then I have about in my if you go look at my car right now, you'll find three cases of RTDs, protein RTDs. There'll be three cases in the fridge. Ready to go drink. Ready to drink. Yeah. There'll be at least three to four cases in the fridge that are out of their cases, just put in there loose.

And then there's three cases in the car. So I keep all the time, three cases of of work I try to keep that every month I just go restock and so what I do is I get up and I'll first thing the first thing I do when I get to work is I'll make myself for some breakfast and generally that tends to be oatmeal but the way I do it is this so I don't use so much energy on digestion and I don't get bloated i'll do 50 to 100 grams of carb at 6 30 then i'll do uh any 30 to 50 grams of protein um at 7 30 then the next hour is a carb hour and then a protein hour and they over then uh the meal after you're not eating carbs and protein together you're

alternating correct then the meal and that's just for me that's not that i got from anybody but i noticed that my body works more efficiently and i have more energy. Just the, the, the, when I stuff myself with both, if I do a hundred grams of carb, uh, and the protein together, um, I just get more sluggish, you know, so I'll have lunches, whether it be whatever it hit, whether it be protein or carb. And I don't do the system perfectly. You know, sometimes I mess it up. But the meal before training or after lunch will be both together. And I'll have to deal with a heavy stomach because I'm going to need that energy for training.

Because when you're halfway through a sumo practice and you're sparring and all of a sudden you hit the wall, it's not fun. Hit the wall hard. Yeah. So I think the protein intake. How many years have you been doing the high protein? I know the answer is probably a long time. The 500 grams, I would say two years.

Two years. And that has really made a difference in the composition of my physique even when i put on like i was saying earlier i'm 225 now uh july 27th when the world games are in columbia i'll be between 240 and 250 um and hopefully that will be a mostly increase in muscle mass well how do you do that well then i just up the protein and up the cars but i do still do the same thing i know what all those aerobic son of a bitch professors are saying right now listening to the show saying that guy's gonna be dead of kidney cancer before you know it this foolish man 500 grams of protein that's what the average american needs in a year

but they would say but you know pro bodybuilders they'll eat more than that you know uh and then so what do i do like how much i'm curious now i've seen i've seen pros with this i've heard But pro bodybuilders, they'll eat more than that. How much? I'm curious now. I've seen pros with – well, I've heard reports. Reportedly. Right, right. Outside of – I mean, they have to have – their muscle mass is so huge, and they're burning so many calories and metabolism is so fast

that they'll do 1,000 to 2,000 grams of protein. Oh, come on. Whoa. But I'm doing the math, right? And I'm going, Michael Phelps does 13,000 calories? Well, let's divide that by protein, carbon, and fat. And I'm like, how do you get that much in? So I think those are – but I would say probably 700 to 800

is probably what they're really – So basically every living moment, these poor sons of bitches are shoving down a chicken breast yes a shake and a chunk of meat and a chicken breast and a shake i mean one thing i i tell people like you can have your your issues with bodybuilding like i wouldn't do that shit fine neither would i but you gotta acknowledge how fucking disciplined bodybuilders are they throw everything in their lives on the fucking trash heap to do this thing and to do it the right way that means there's 800 grams of carbs it means training a lot and by the way like crossfit is hard uh bodybuilding strong and stuff is hard but i wouldn't say so hard i'd say bodybuilding training what they put themselves

through is is masochistic i mean they're trying to make themselves hurt as much as possible they're trying to burn as much as possible they leave they have another shitty meal there's their sleep patterns everything you know some of these top guys i guess blowing like 50 grand a year or 100 grand a year on drugs to i mean everything you could sacrifice upon the altar to get huge as possible they're doing it's like extreme uh jihadists of the fitness world they're gonna fucking do this thing no matter what no matter what you're gonna die prematurely i don't give a shit son i'm gonna be huge and they do it man you gotta give them credit for that it's hard how many shakes are you drinking a day and what kind of shakes are there there do you keep it changed up we uh you know i uh here's what i here's how i put my shakes my rtds or my bags of protein is i'll do the uh you literally take my calculator on my phone when

i'm going and looking at all the selection either gnc or sam's club or the grocery store wherever i'm at and i will calculate dollar per gram of protein uh-huh who has the most for what I'm paying, I will drink it. That's the one I'll go with. So let that be a lesson to all the supplement companies out there. More protein at a lower price, I'm going to pick your product. We've got to develop a low-cost product. I think they're probably keyed into that one. I think they're probably keyed into that one.

The whole business is based around it. Right, right. So for all the CrossFitters that are listening to this, that all they heard just now was carb, protein, carb, protein, carb, protein. And in the CrossFit world, meat, veggies, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch, no sugar. Protein, veggies, and healthy fats is kind of the way of the world in the paleo world. Maybe talk about that. Do you do any types of healthy fats intentionally added in?

Do you do vegetables? Yeah, well, that's what i was going to tell you after training or you know after that big meal that i'll have before i train every carb source after training is a vegetable source with the exception of my post-workout drink which is 50 sugary carb 50 50 sugary carb 50 protein that's that window of 30 minutes and that's something i used from bodybuilding yeah right that's i use that for bodybuilding from bodybuilding for everything i do now uh because i just get more my body recovers you know um and then after that when i go home uh for the rest of the night every carbohydrate feeding is going to be preferably leafy greens if i can get it you know are you still are you still keep alternating protein and carbs at that point you're eating just vegetables

no no that's a good point i will eat the protein with the because the the greens i just can't if i was to fill up on greens it would be you know so as far as right as far as the fats go are you intentionally going out of your way to get fats from maybe nuts avocados olive oil coconut oil would you do any of that well if i'm uh if i'm doing uh like bodybuilding yes but if i'm doing sumo training, I generally get enough nutrition because I can eat anything I like, then I'm going to get some of that stuff in there. For bodybuilding, you need calories, but you don't want the carbs. You're trying to have this favorable transition and body composition. Correct.

Sumo, you're trying to get huge. Exactly. You need to be more powerful. You need to be a bigger, stronger machine. But when I do a bodybuilding show, I'll take a multivitamin. But when I'm off-season from bodybuilding, off-season, I'm sumo, I don't take a multivitamin because I'm getting so many calories that I know those vitamins are there.

The chances of me having a deficiency are pretty slim. So that's kind of how I do that. So tip number two was to use the workout window that you just mentioned well let's just up your protein intake i'm thinking that if you want to do bigger muscles can't hurt you uh if your if your body weight stays low for crossfit i mean just judging everything i've seen on tv and seen at your gym it just seems to me like a gymnast body weight strength for body weight ratio is everything. Well, I tell people all the time, you know, when they come to me and, well, how much protein do I need?

And most of the time they're getting like half, you know, half of their, half the grams of protein per pound of body weight. You know, they weigh 200 pounds and they're like having a hard time getting 100 grams of protein. And I laugh and I'm like, you need to get at least 200 grams of protein and they think i'm crazy right you're eating double your your body weight exactly the talk is there was there like a i know like for me like as soon as i get around 175 grams of protein if i don't do that i'll feel like shit right um and i did that for like two years i was getting two little protests stop paying attention to, and I woke up and realized it. Were there any benchmarks of protein intake where you noticed big changes? Was it like, you know, oh, I used to do body weight,

and then I went to, you know, body weight and a half for grams, and oh, my God, it was amazing. Well, my first bodybuilding show I ever did in 1997 was the first time I ever logged any of my food. So I realized how little protein I was getting, that realization like you just talked about, Chris. And so I got up to where I was doing, I think, right before the show, like 700 grams of protein and very, very little carb. But here's the thing with body composition, how it works for me. The more protein I intake, the less appetite I have to fill.

I can't feel it. I'm, the less appetite I have to feel. I can't feel, you know, I'm feel I'm full. So am I eating less? I don't want to eat cookies. I don't want to eat junk. Generally, generally, you know, I don't want to do that stuff. You know, when I want sweets or junk food in the middle of the night when my stomach's empty, but when it's full of protein and whatever else, and I'm, you know, I don't want it. If you got a belly full of a big chunk of awesome steak

you don't really left wanting for anything that's right that's great advice for a lot of people out there that are trying to only exclude things that they like from their diet and they're not focusing on eating lots of good healthy food if you you're all full all the time from healthy paleo food then you don't have those cravings for anything else really right well i have room for it there's a i think there's some carryover for that that bodybuilders can use from CrossFit. And here's the thing, is that with all that protein powder, and like I said, I take a RTD and I'll dump it in the mixer, and then I'll take a scoop of protein powder and put it into the RTD.

So like I just gave myself a double. Ready to drink, asterisk. Right. So, exactly. And so, gave myself a double. Ready to drink Asterix. Right. Right. So exactly. And so, um, where was I going with that? And I'm trying to thought,

Oh, but the problem is what's wrong with all those powers and RTD chemicals. There's not, not natural things in there. It's a bunch of chemicals, chemically produced. Well, the difference that I look at the payload diet is you don't have all that.

So the more of those sources bodybuilders can get, the better they're going to feel. Their energy levels can be better, I think, if they can get enough calories in. And then the better they're going to perform in the gym, the more muscle. I haven't seen any bodybuilders. I haven't really looked, I'll be honest with you. But I haven't seen anybody who has taken on the challenge of doing a paleo type slant. It's just still grilled know uh grilled chicken breasts

and plain veggies and rice and that side of the aisle yeah i'd like to see a guy experiment with a amped up paleo diet to see if he could succeed on a high level bodybuilding i don't know i haven't heard of anybody doing a bodybuilder does paleo not not familiar yeah yeah that's an interesting realization maybe i will take on this experiment i'll get shredded and ripped and then we're gonna be in a bodybuilding show robert and i will i won't stay next to robert but we'll enter the same show and i'll see how it goes yeah yeah we'll see how i eat 700 fucking grams of protein a day we'll see what happens i don't think i could do it 700 grams a day no it could do it do it's not I tell you guys

it's not the diet it's not the how much it takes like as far as me being full or just this is too much protein it's the organization and the timing

and the I'm not a very organized person I set my alarm I set my phone alarm to go off an hour and the alarm will go off and go protein then when I take my protein

I'll put the alarm in for an hour from then it says carb that'll go off and now but I live I sit at a desk. Then when I take my protein, I'll put the alarm in for an hour from then. It says carb. That'll go off. But I sit at a desk all day. So I'm food, protein. It's a joke at work. If you go talk to guys,

tell me something about Robert Daniel. And they'll go, dude, he's constantly eating. He's constantly eating. What are your favorite sources of carbs besides oatmeal? Man, I love potatoes. I love them. Irish Catholic? There you go exactly i love uh this is i think from living hawaii but if i can get calrose not you

know they call sticky rice here it's all kinds of things but you go to hawaii japan and the rice they have there is called calrose rice and it's that's real sticky rice and it's not sticky because they overcooked it it's sticky because the glucose in it is greater there's a higher sugar content and it's delicious so i love i love white rice um have that in a big plate of spam you're ready to go that there you go that's exactly and i'm i'm not afraid to say i hate brown rice i just hate it i will eat it if i have to prepare for something um but uh preparing for sumo sky's the limit if i want a twix bar i'll go have it if that's what I feel like. It's my kind of sport.

Right. If my weight's within reason. So if you're trying to gain as much weight as possible and there's a Twix bar in front of you, you'll just crush that. Right, yeah, absolutely. Now, if I have to pick between the protein and the Twix, and I'm not going to go for the Twix if it's time for my protein feeding. Obviously, there's not enough protein in a candy bar.

Not by your standards, bro. That's right. Well, you know what's funny is I'll look at those like the the drinks they'll have at walgreens they call them protein drinks and about seven grams i'm like get out of here son and they take me 84 of these for feeding 500 later i've got my 500 grams of protein that's right how much you spend on groceries uh about 800 a month that's not bad that's not bad well dude what are you that for is that just for you or is that for you and your fiance that's just for me that's just for me that you are finding bargains because that's actually sounds pretty good oh yeah yeah well i'll go to like i said i

get sam's club is where i get my protein but see this is all i do is i get the protein powders uh and then the rtds i'll get the bags of rice, the 90 seconds. See, everything's already prepackaged. The need to carry Tupperware for bodybuilders to do that anymore is almost gone. Everything's prepackaged. So I'll get the Uncle Ben's prepackaged rice, the little things of prepackaged rice. They have these different brands. You just stick it in the microwave in a bag or something? Yeah, 45 to 90 seconds.

Some of them are 45 seconds. Some of them are 90. And I'll have two or three at a time. Jeez. You should see me at Kroger. You should get Uncle Ben's white rice. Yeah, yeah. They have flavors.

They have flavors. Chicken, and then there's broccoli and cheddar, and then there's all kinds of stuff. I've been cooking for myself. This is terrible. It's 2013. There's no need. I've been shopping at Whole Foods, and I should have been at Costco this whole time. If you go to Kroger or Whole Foods, wherever, they've got all kinds of shit wrapped in plastic ready for you to eat.

Wake up, man. Join Modern World. All kinds of treats and cookies and all kinds of shit. Well, you know what's funny, though, is that if you see me at a Kroger and I'm getting literally for the month, I'll buy everything for the month, so I'll take, I'll get 160 of those rice packets at once, and these little old ladies will look at me like, you selfish prick.

I can't believe. Excuse me, sir. do you have any more rice in the back these these were these rationed were you planning did you did you want to get some of these and and no i want it but they'll just look at me like i'm being awful i'm like i'm gonna eat all these i'm not i'm not i'm paying for them and i'm gonna going to eat them. This is America. If I can't buy all the rice in a store and eat it all myself, why did the Declaration of Independence ever get written? I promise you, Kroger wishes they had 1,000 guys like me. All right, so what's one more thing that CrossFitters can learn from bodybuilders hi um well we talk about how it's not necessarily a bad thing to

train a muscle like that's that's of a buzzy thing now like uh so i suppose people would maybe put the bench press sometimes that but certain like curls or maybe like a hamstring curl or i don't know there's lots of shoulder raises and stuff i guess you won't see that going on barely ever in a CrossFit box. I'll say this, though. I don't know if you know Jennifer Robinson. She's a physique pro here in Memphis. And every once in a while I'll train with her. And just like other pros, if you watch YouTube videos,

they're so damn creative. Or they've already learned from them. But the exercises they come up with, like she tries to kill me, not even meaning to. But her exercises are so inefficient and tough. So if you're doing anything that requires explosion from your lower body, working your hamstrings is never going to be a bad thing. I mean, you could overwork it, absolutely. But just those ancillary exercises that you do for these major performance moves

are going to help you. Yeah, so these exercises, you can even call it glute ham raise, basically just a glorified fucking hamstring curl, barbell curls, stuff like that. Yeah, I've definitely done glute ham raise for the hamstring. There's not a really impressive lifter I can name who doesn't do at least some things that aren't with a barbell and don't have direct carryover to competitive lifts. Like even really, really excellent weightlifters who 90% of the time they're going to do the lifts and their assistance work is squatting. That's what they do and that's what makes them great.

But they do, you'll see a guy do like the chinese team doing you know terminal knee extensions and hamstring curls or maybe you can even get a little close to other let's say you know barbell rows and or dumbbell rows and things that a lot of people say look you don't need to do that don't waste your time but successful people do it and get benefit from it so you know yeah building the ability for one part of your body to work more seems to have it's hard hard to measure, hard to really get your head around, but seems to have a carryover to the lifts that utilize that part of the body, but then you're lifting better. Like a hamstring curl, a gluham raise with a little bit of bandage has always helped me deadlift better. I can't tell you why, but I always feel immediately faster when I do that exercise. Maybe let's turn that around.

Instead of talking about how bodybuilding can help or what CrossFitters can learn from bodybuilders, where do you guys think CrossFitters have it on 100% spot on right and we should not be training like bodybuilders? Can I tell you one thing? Yeah. Go for it. Freaking pull-ups, man.

That's the best back exercise ever that bodybuilders could get from CrossFit. If that's what kind of you're saying, is that you're asking me or how we can touch on that okay well just the fact that the fact that pull-ups to get good at them you have to do so many reps and but when you first start physically if you're a bodybuilder you're 250 pounds and you haven't been doing you're gonna do one rep that's good and that's it and then you have to wait for 30 seconds to a minute and then do one rep. It takes patience. But the level of strength gain

and therefore the level of mass gain, time under contraction is super. Yeah, I used to do a lot of pull-downs of all kinds. I power lifted. Yeah, it's good. But you can get to where you can do a pull-down with like the whole stack for like 20 reps and you can still maybe not even do five decent pull-ups.

To me, it's like there's zero. It's's like bench pressing you can bench press all you want but it has zero carryover to like a standing strict press if you bench press 500 pounds okay let me see you do a strict press you may do 185 i don't know there's no there's no correlation really but if you get to where you can press twice your body weight or something overhead, you're going to bench press just fine. So if you're a guy who can do 45, 50 pull-ups with no problem, you got no problem when you get on a pull-up machine. You're going to be just fine. And your back's probably going to be V-tapered like a sum of bitch. Yeah.

Those top CrossFitters have physiques that feature a pretty damn good set of back muscles, if you ask me. It's probably from the Concept2 Rover. On that note, I actually think CrossFitters could do more strict pull-ups as well. CrossFitters do a lot of kipping pull-ups, and occasionally they do weighted pull-ups, but I think they could do more just straight-up dead-hang bodyweight pull-ups on the rings and on the bar. Well, you'd think it would make your kipping pull-ups feel so much easier. I think it'd have a mental benefit to that.

Following last year's regionals, I had the whole team for a month you know that it was like no kipping for a month just just to save the shoulders well if it makes y'all feel any better my kipping pull-up is way worse than my regular pull-up i want to see it we'll just have to watch videos and i go okay i could do you know and i told you it's hard these days you know i like to do the powerlifting the olympic lifting strongman and i said okay i'm gonna throw in some crossfit in there i'm gonna do these faction games once a year blow and so i go over there and i and so i'm in uh in the gym and i'm doing trying to do a kipping pull-up and i'm opening up my shoulders and trying to close and kip up and i'm like i look like an idiot it takes some practice man so yeah somebody discovered crossfit again

jackass in the corner right you need to set out a year and do that so you do crossfit strongman powerlifting weightlifting sumo and then maybe maybe you get crazy like try throwing like judo and a couple of things there just see you can maybe you set a record for doing the most crazy shit in a year we'll make a an artsy fartsy video about it right or one of those robert daniel the ar... What is it? The ultimate strength conditioning athlete. Yeah, you go to the Arnold and you're competing everything in the Arnold. I think it'd be more like

Robert Daniel, the most injured. The guy who sucks at the most stuff. Very mediocre at everything. Finished last in every meet. Jack of all trades. It's the Robert Daniel story. That's right. That's right.

Okay, let's go ahead and wrap this up. Doug, I'm going to let you go with your plug first. Since this is kind of a time-sensitive thing right now, we have Justin Thacker's Weightlifting Seminar coming up here in, I don't know, we're looking at two or three weeks. So if you want to come to that, you've got to jump on that right away. Again, go to barbellstruck.com, click on the shop, click on seminars, and then it's a weightlifting seminar with Justin Thacker.

What? How much? 797. 797 for that two-day event. Again, that is not necessarily a seminar. It's really a live recording. So the intention is for us to make a weightlifting product. So as part of that event, you might be on camera and you're going to be getting a lot of one-on-one attention from justin on that two-day seminar so if you want to be a

part of that again go sign up as soon as possible because that event is coming up here in the next two or three weeks all right anything you want to promote memphis uh maybe if anybody's interested in trying sumo uh just give us a call at memphis judo jiu-jitsu, and Dave Ferguson, the owner over there, can put you in touch with me. A lot of people say they are. If they show up maybe once or twice, come give it a shot. If I get rid of my belly, I may put that thing on. If anybody out there did any wrestling and football, those are the perfect people.

If they did both high school wrestling and high school football, they want to do something now, bingo. They should sumo. Yes, absolutely. Yeah, maybe if people are bored this weekend, if they're in the Memphis area, come by to your wedding. Say hello. Right.

Add them on to the 375. They're going to be there. Yeah. Whoa. Man. How many shrimp cocktails you got to order for this thing? I don't know. Yeah, but it's a big wedding.

Congratulations again, man. That's awesome. Thank you. What shall I plug? I don't't know man fall how about this follow me on the twitter my handle is that what's called your name on twitter i think twitter handle yeah at chris more excel shoot me a message we'll talk we'll in 140 characters at a time we'll regale each other with all kinds of stories about training and life and philosophy and whatever else you can think of and cruise on by the chris moore blog.com the chris moore blog.com the only chris moore blog.com blog on google all right um make sure to follow me on twitter as well

at michael bletso do not follow ctp we're having a competition right now do not get the most followers so follow me not ctp underscore faction what if we're both a competition right now and get the most followers so follow me not CTP underscore faction what if we're both already following you who should we drop who should we unfollow tell us your rationale right now so what

who should we unfollow if we're following both of you because you can also lose and win whoever loses the most will lose in us like if you lose 100 followers you have the advantage

why would I lose followers I'm saying convince people to defollow him or unfollow him. Everyone stop following CTP. Net followers. Yeah, net followers. That's what I meant to say.

Excellent. Make sure to go to barbellstruck.com. Put your name in for the newsletter so you can get updated on all the cool stuff we're doing. We've got a lot of stuff coming up. If you don't want to miss it and you're not able to watch every single show and hear about what's happening i set up for that plus we get very forgetful on the show but we're pretty good at the email or you know just just ignore everything we told you and hurt our feelings why don't you see if we care i'm gonna cry ourselves to sleep tonight that's all right thanks for coming on the show robert hey thank you guys