Barbell Shrugged - 68- Louie Simmons of Westside Barbell Shares Tips For Success In CrossFit and Weightlifting

Episode Date: June 26, 2013

We traveled to Westside Barbell in Columbus Ohio, the mecca of powerlifting, to talk with Louie Simmons about getting strong for CrossFit and Weightlifting.

This week on Barbell Shrug, we go to Columbus, Ohio and hang out at Westside Barbell, the Mecca of powerlifting, and get to hang out with the coach and owner, Louie Simmons. 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.

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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. We've traveled to Columbus, Ohio to watch the CrossFit Regional Central East and

we decided to drop into Westside Barbell and hang out with Louie Simmons. Good little training. If you don't know, Westside Barbell is the mecca of powerlifting. The strongest guys in the world come out of Westside Barbell. We're sitting here with the coach, Louie Simmons, and owner of Westside Barbell. We're going to talk a little bit about strength. So, Louie, we're going to talk about strength in regard to crossfit a little bit uh what do you think crossfitters what do you think their

biggest weakness is uh basically crossfit at lacks absolute strength that means that you know being absolutely strong in all lifts with no time limit the stronger you are uh the better you are at any sport explosive sports or endurance frank for instance, the more reps he could do with 100 pounds in a squat, the faster marathon times he had. Yeah, I think we make that point pretty routinely that if you're going to do a thruster with 95 pounds, if you can make your absolute strength go up, well, that 95 pounds for time is going to feel a whole lot easier. That's the golden rule, right?

What do you mean by absolute strength without time? It has no time limit. When you lift a maximal deadlift or a maximal clean and jerk there's no time limit the object is a lift as much as possible you know when people look at lifts they don't really examine things like i do if you look at benny magnuson deadlift 10 14 time the time that is he starts to bar off the ground until he stands up wrecked. If you take the time of the largest clean R8 in the world, take that time, the time he cleans and stands up. You'll be surprised

that Benny stands up a wreck faster than he does. His lift at that Texas meet or whatever he did that 1018 where it was, maybe the most impressive thing I've ever seen anybody do. I mean, he pulls 1,000 pounds plus off the ground with no straps, just a little belt like it was not a very hard repetition.

He holds it for – we hold it like 10 seconds at the top. Before that, I thought the strongest thing I ever saw was seeing Andy pull 1,000, Andy Bolton at the Honor Classic and wherever he did that. Maybe it was in New York. I think it was 1,003. He locked it out, and it was kind of a shady lockout but to see benny just manhandle a thousand pounds i mean even compared to heavy like 250 pounds or 250 kilo plus cleaning jerks i've never seen anything like that that was nuts and do it so fast so there's a big misconception in sports

and general training in all uh the general public that olympic lifting is explode builds explosive strength it does not olympic weightlifting is a speed strength sport the average uh bar speed is 0.8 meters and the average weights to train between 75 and 85 percent for speed strength over 50 percent of the time all right explosive strength is jumping jumping plyometrics jumping off land depth jumps drop jumps and that's where explosive strength is built. Explosive strength, the velocity is fast. You know, fast velocity builds explosive strength. Intermediate velocity builds speed strength.

Slow velocity builds strength speed. And, of course, isometrics has zero velocity. What percentage of, say, a one rep max would you work with somebody to build explosive strength? 30 to 50. So 30 to 50 percent would be the range for the explosive strength. And Olympic weightlifting is probably in the 70 to 80 percent of, say, a one rep max deadlift. That would be what you'd be cleaning? In Olympic weightlifting, if you look at the charts, off 780 highly qualified weightlifters overseas because there is none here, 50 percent of their training is between 75 and 85 percent if you look it's it's you can be found in the management

and training of the weightlifter now that's that's actually kind of a hot topic you just kind of brought up is uh we don't have any elite weightlifters here but why do you think that is why do you think the rest of the world well maybe not the rest of the world but there's definitely certain countries that uh clean the floor with us lately in the last you know 20 30 years in weightlifting why is that well there's two reasons one we don't have qualified coaches okay okay uh they have the athletes if a coach wants to tell me they don't have athletes you're kind of insulting you know a sport is only a team is only good as a coach bella carolla came here years ago women's gymnastics was a total joke.

The first year he spent here, he had women on the weight training program. Then he competed. Now American women are so strong that they do technical events that the other women in the world can't do. That's why they score so high, and that's why they win. That's due to their strength.

Due to their strength. That's a good point, because even if you look at China's crop of gymnasts who are amazing, the things they can do, to see, yeah, interesting comparison to weightlifting, that we do so well in gymnastics, given that's a huge sport in China as well, as is weightlifting.

We haven't quite got there yet in weightlifting. I think maybe the momentum now is shifting. I think, like Gunn-Pillen is quick to say, I think CrossFit is now creating an environment where a kid like Kendrick Ferris, who maybe thinks about playing football, maybe gets into fitness more, and maybe we get more of a talent pool we can draw from,

and maybe develop some good weight lifters. Because there's tons, the kid can take a football, run down a football field and score a touchdown, he could be very good at weight lifting if he wanted to. But if the pressure's not there to excel at that sport, maybe he doesn't even want to. There's a lot of reasons weightlifting's not good.

There's no heroes. NBA, NHL, NFL, MMA, you all have your hero. Who's your hero in American weightlifting? Children have no heroes. And a big misconception, this is where American weightlifting go wrong. They believe it's speed and not strength, which is ridiculous because that's basic physics. If strength didn't matter, a weightlifting coach would tell you strength doesn't matter. Technique and speed does.

If that was absolutely true, then why do you need weight classes? Why want a 123 lift when a super heavyweight does? That's true. Right. You train any weightlifters ever? Anyone comes to you wanting to go to the next level? No one's ever sent anyone qualified to come here to lift weights. I have a CrossFit that she does CrossFit certs, Abby Grove.

She came here with a 155-pound power clean for over a year. In two months, no power clean. She power cleaned 205. From 155 to 205 in two months? That's right. No power cleans. One thing, you must use bands on a bar. Weightlifting in general is a very – the bar has a tremendous deceleration.

That's why you have to jump under the bar. So one of the major aspects of weightlifting is the squat under. If you put bands on top of bar, you have to jump under much faster. So it increases the squat under time. That's essential in weightlifting. Secondly, full extension of the torso. Well, because when you pull the bar up, the bar just stops. You have bar deceleration.

With bands, accommodating resistance eliminates most bar deceleration. That's interesting. I usually think of I'll use bands to pull the bar higher and harder. But the fact that it's going to be ripped back down and you've got to get underneath it. If you're slow to get under, which the Chinese weather is probably really good because they're fearless in getting under. They pull this big weight up and they are instantly underneath it. You cannot compare Chinese. I read a book that emailed me about Chinese women, how Chinese women can't front squat as much as Russian women, but they outclean them.

But look at the structure of Chinese females. Their legs are straight out. Americans and Russians, their knees are up out every americans and russians everyone's their knees are up in the air they're biomechanically built different that's the only reason i mean weightlifters always got this dream they're going to find one in a billion and they're going to follow that one in a billion if i'm going to invest money i'm going to put all my money where everybody makes money so not weightlifting i want to put that's right i'm gonna i'm gonna put my money in oil when it's already been hit not one they're digging for yeah yeah so for general crossfitters that is trying to

get stronger that already do squats and deadlifts and kind of normal crossfit type stuff what would be a big change that you would suggest uh like a competitive but not world-class crossfitter take on one thing that i'm going to ask you a question. Mathematically, how tall is a pyramid? How tall is a pyramid? Mathematically. Mathematically? I don't know what that means.

As tall as its base. Okay. Crossfitters don't have a base. You have to have a wide base to be good at any sport. First thing I would do, they do an enormous amount of sled dragging, pushing wheelbarrows, walking with straw man yokes, and so forth. Lots of reverse hypers. You know, you have a lot

of lower back injuries, a lot of shoulder injuries. So you have to complement the training so they don't have the injuries. Downtime, you're not getting any good. More heavy carries is a big thing you think CrossFit is going to do? More heavy carries, like strength endurance, strength capacity type movements. So they may do a bunch of that stuff now, like that's just moving, but doing it heavier.

I think another thing that a lot of CrossFit programs leave out is the assistance work. That's kind of what you're saying right now. I think they kind of shit on it. When you say things like reverse hyper, that's something that doesn't get done very often in the CrossFit world. What other than reverse hyper should CrossFitters be doing, you think? Well, let me just put it this way. No gym the world has two 2700 pound totals i have five all right a 2960 for instance starting down to 2705 but 80 of our training is spatial exercise only 20 of the training is with a squat bench or, or deadlift, both 80 and above. I've also trained a heptapalon girl that trained the very same percentages

of spatial exercise to classical exercise. So you're saying 20% of the training is based on practicing what you're going to do in competition. The other 80% is preparing for that 20%? It's building up the base. You saw Josh Conley squat in there. Josh just squatted 1080 in a contest. What was his best squat today?

We had a gentleman in there box squatting. Is that the shot putter? No. That fellow, the shot putter, came here three months ago, had a 700 squat. He parallel box squat 860. Yeah, we just saw. 160 pound increase in three months.

But Josh Conley's normal squat workout is 12,000 pounds of squats. All right? And his reverse hyper poundage in one workout is 12,000 pounds of squats. All right? And his reverse hyper poundage in one workout is 48,000 pounds. So that's the amount of work he's accumulating over the sets. It's four to one.

It's four to one directed to the lower back, glutes, and hamstrings. All right? So there's something that's a little bit different about your gym. A lot of people say that you shouldn't be using machines, you should't be using machines. You should all be free weights and whatnot. But you guys have a fair amount of machines, and it looks like you take advantage of them quite a bit.

You've got to be smarter than the weights. But also we do 200 leg curls with 20-pound ankle weights. And you go count the steps when you push a wheelbarrow or pull a sled. We're not making one trip. We're making several trips. A lot of times I'll push a 630-pound wheelbarrow for 45 minutes straight i'm 65 years old so that'd be something that's very counterintuitive for a lot of people that that think you guys are training for absolute strength if you're doing 200 repetitions with 20 pounds that doesn't sound like a very intuitive thing to do for that sport well without

a plan you plan to fail and programming programming is everything. Organization is everything. Like I talk about Josh. When he does 12,000 pounds, I'll give you a – you add this up. He does 12,000 pounds of squats on average because he's a 1,080 squatter. All right. On max every day, the other day worked up to 765 on a regular deadlift, you know, with no gear or anything, conventional. He's a sumo puller.

All right. You add this up. If you start with 515, add this up, and then 625, so you're in 11-something, right? Then 715, so you're 1,800, and then 765. So you're 2,500, 2,600 pounds. You see the ratio, very high volume on speed day with moderate intensities. And the other day is maximum intensity, all-time record. That was a 30-pound record for him, very low volume. They have to crisscross every 72 hours.

You can do extreme workout every 72 hours. And if you can't, then you're out of shape. So do you think crossfitters would benefit from taking on more of a speed day? Absolutely, because they have to. Why do you do that? What does – why do you do – what does dynamic method do, do you know? It develops a fast rate of force development. Okay.

It's like first gear in your car. All right? Yeah. Okay. I could have tried to answer that, but I feel like no matter what I said, I would have been wrong. No, I have no idea. Tell me.

You'd have been right, hopefully. Yeah, so, I mean, you're kind of describing the conjugate method a little bit. A couple days of the week? The West Side System is constantly conjugate. All training is conjugate. Everything is connected. Even your clothing, during the week you change clothes. You know, you go to a different event.

It's very zen of you. You wear an outfit for every type of activity that you do. But all sports are conjugate. Fighting is conjugate. You know, here's my, if you think about CrossFit and they always want to do the wads, they want to run a mile and deadlift. This is incorrect. They should do all back exercises on one day,

all running events on another day. And because, and I'll bring this up because if you look at MMA, you're all, you, you, I guess did some MMA. All right. You go, you go do grappling. You do some submissions. You do some Mu, did some MMA. You go do grappling. You do some submissions. You do some Muay Thai. You don't just get in a cage and fight MMA. You do all these activities. It didn't make you an MMA fighter.

You can't just do the wads and become a crossfitter. Why? Because it's a law of accommodation. You do the same activity over and over. It's a biological law. You become worse at it. You guys trained Matt Brown here. and over uh bio it's a biological law you become worse at it so you guys train matt brown here and you were saying that you know he's a very talented professional fighter so obviously when he came to you guys when did he actually when did he come here just about two and a half years he was declining he was losing fights he came here

he's won five straight fights all by stoppage oh there you go so so a guy comes to you with a lot of experience already he's he's obviously as a professional fighter, in good cardio shape, and you guys basically took him, kind of like you were saying earlier, and you added a lot of absolute strength to his programming, and now he's been destroying people. That's right. We just left the gym Matt was doing with his jiu-jitsu coach, like lunging good mornings, leg out in front good morning,

so that's how you do a single or double leg. Matt pulls heavy sleds for a half a mile or a mile at a time, carrying a 100-pound med ball. And that will fucking toast your lower back. Right. He also pushes. He'll carry a strongman yoke or push the young strongman yoke or do it in bursts.

Push it forward, walk, do it. Push it forward, walk, do it. Push it forward, walk. I really like that for fighters, actually. Right. That makes a lot of sense. Okay. And see, Cross walk, do it, push it forward, walk, do it, push it forward. I really like that for fighters, actually. That makes a lot of sense. Okay. And see, CrossFit, because all combat sports like football, it's just combat. CrossFit, in a way, is like a combat sport. They don't have

the deadlift 700 and anything, but they have to be, all their body has to be generally stronger and maintain dexterity, flexibility, and so forth. And earlier you were saying, it's all in the ass. It's all in the ass. It's all in the ass. You've got a strong ass, you're a strong person. That's right.

If I take anything away from today, take that. Use your ass. Hashtag. Well, you probably saw the girl from England walk in a bell squat for five minutes straight. Matt actually walks in that bell squat with 365 for five minutes straight. While we box with him or actually grapple and pull down on his arm then we'll run matt out of there i don't want to tell too many secrets but then we'll we jump on the mat with him then you got to roll right back in and do that again or we'll sit him down walking

with a 100 pound med ball come back and he's got to jump for a couple minutes how how integrated is his strength training with his mma training it sounds like you're you guys are getting some mat work done i know a lot of times strength coaches for MMA fighters don't really, you know, get on the mat with him or anything like that. Like, is he doing a lot of fight training at Westside or? No. No, but we want to grapple with him why he's fatigued. You don't spar with that, Louie?

No. No, I've done that before. You fatigue him with a sled, med balls, all that stuff, and then he gets down on the mat. Then he has to do skill work. Okay, so he has to do skill work under fatigue. So we go from general training to specific training in the same workout, which is a lot of people have never heard of it,

but, well, he's not doing too bad. And years ago I trained Kevin Randleman. He was UOC heavyweight champion at the time. Who was a monster. I trained two gold medal Olympic sprinters as well. A lot of people don't know this. I trained a 70-10 shot putter. Came to Ohio State throwing 59 as a freshman.

Trained with me the entire time through 70-10 as a senior. From 59 to 70? 70-foot 10. This mic is giving me trouble. It's popping. Son of a bitch. CTV, can we shut this thing down or something? Do I have to use this?

Hey, guys. This is Rich Vroning, and you're listening to Barbell Shrugged. For the video version, go to fitter.tv. So you say that a conjugate method, I mean, we're all conjugate method all the time. I mean, you can make the same argument. You know, everyone's doing CrossFit all the time because it could be anything. But, like, the methods you use here at Westside, how can they be applicable to a CrossFitter? Do they need to be just – I mean, maybe you already described it.

Well, everyone should box squat. The first 800-pound squatter, 1970, Pat Casey, no gear. The only 1,000-pound full squat in the contest is Wilkinson out of Mississippi he's a box water the two largest watch the world 1267 1265 or box waters Donnie I've got two 1200 pound squatters I trained Vlad when he was here it's quite a 1250 but I didn't count it because he went back to New York for five months Laura Phelps is a box water this is the greatest method of training you know people argue with me but they don't even know how to box squat. There's only one way to box squat. We box squat a

lot and I work on the posterior chain. Lots of inverse curls, lots of reverse hypers, lots of leg curls, lots of power walking with the sled and so forth. A lot of work because of strong grip. When you grip, you use a lot more muscles when not gripping. We do a lot of that. High rep deadlifts for sprinters, for instance, I use high-rep deadlifts. And if you read a book by Barry Ross called Underground Secrets of Running, Barry Ross describes the same type of training, high-rep deadlifts. Fast eccentric phase, you know, with hardly any resistance, optimal eccentrics. When you lower weights, you know, you hear about how you can lower 50% more than you can raise.

In my world, I have to raise weights. I don't care. I take 1,000-pound squatters so he can lower 15. He has to come up. It's all wrong. Never did a test. No test ever showed that a heavy slow eccentrics made anyone stronger. Well, of course not.

But overspeed eccentrics do because then you Well, of course not. But overspeed, eccentrics do. Because then you create a force that's ever not recognized. I term it a virtual force effect. When you have a collision on that box, it's not a perfect collision like two pool balls. When you hit a pool ball at 20 miles an hour, the ball takes off at 20 miles an hour. But when you set on there, part of your kinetic energy is absorbed into the box like a collision between two cars. So it takes part of your kinetic energy away and causing you to squat up

with less kinetic energy but all hip flexion, and that's why you can full squat 15% more than you can power squat. Basically, you can't bounce out of the bottom is what you're saying? That's right. Now, you watch Olympic lifters. There's no eccentric training in Olympic weight lifters here in America. They fall down in the squat. They drop bars off their back. They drop bars overhead am i correct yeah okay overseas all the books and

tapes i have they do um not only do slow pulls up they also do slow pulls in reverse they lower them slowly because they did no eccentric work they don't they don't do isometrics here in america um you know the critical portions of the face is between the first and second pole and so forth. If they would do isometrics, the coach can easily analyze their technique at that position. It is so fast. The bar's moving 2.2 meters, 2.4 meters at the explosive portion. How does a coach actually analyze that? He can't.

But if isometric holds, you could. So you're saying set a bar at different points in the bar path and do maximum isometric pulls? Well, no one knows anything about weightlifting. They pull from four different positions. All right? But I don't see it here in America. They use – you know, one of my pet peeves of American training is

they think they're Bulgarians. They're not. Bulgarians primarily did front and back squats, power clean, power snatch, classical clean, and jerk, and snatch. Not a lot of exercises. That's right. But they did do, NAM did 35% of spatial exercises.

They think they only did six things. It's ridiculous. Alright? And weightlifting. What exactly does that mean? Can you explain that a little bit further? Here in America, they think you can get by by front squatting back squatting uh power clean power snatch classical clean jerk and classical snatch only right like not doing no one that would be the model athlete to do nothing but six lifts and succeed you would have to be a model athlete bulgarians had model athletes there was a height weight index for every freaking one of them

america's not like guys like you, 6 foot tall, 175 pounds they wouldn't let you in the door they wouldn't let you in the door now if you look at any formula in Russian training Russian, Romania

Eastern, they use an average 64 exercises so why don't Americans? Well, yeah, you see that bleeding into what China does, bleeding into other ex-Soviet. Oh, yeah. Like the Chinese, you remind me, they'll do a heavy, heavy pull. Get it up there, and they'll hold it in a position,

and they'll lower it down. They'll even do a couple of reps to throw it up. They'll lower it down to an inch above the floor and then go back up. They'll also do a bunch of cool shit. They'll set those crazy squat recs up, and they'll do quarter front squats with 200 pounds more than they squat just to feel that crushing load. They do a lot of cool shit.

That's for the jerk overhead. And people laugh at them. They're like, oh, look, they're doing knee extensions. They'll do anything that helps them prepare for this activity. If doing ab raises and one-arm kettlebell rows helps them get in a better position for snatch or tolerate that training better, they'd do it. It's like sort of anything to help their progress

is what they're going to consider. Well, they sold Russian training. You see them doing dumbbell rows. You see them doing chin-ups. You see them doing side bends. But Americans, they don't do that. I mean, if it's good enough for the Chinese right now, it's probably good enough for us.

So as a novel exercise for crossers that emphasizes that eccentric portion of the lift, doing like a clean or a snatch pull and then lowering it down through as similar of a bar path as you had on the way up and then right before you get to the ground, going back up and doing like a triple with that, would that be something more novel? No, I would do one rep. Singles? Yes. Okay. It's probably a very good point because i think max effort keep volume low yeah so as a quantify that can you

the okay when you go to concepts how many attempts you get you get three in weight lifting or power lifting so when you when you work on max every day your first attempt you know should basically around 90 like if you could deadlift you uh pounds, then you do like 540, 90%. Then maybe 580 and 605 for a record, you're done. Or go 540, 605, 610, you're done. You don't have much more juice to do more times. You have no more. You have no more.

So after 25 years of experiments here with, you know, I've had 74 people squat at least 800, okay? After 25 years of experience, three lifts, you're done. You know, a novice could come in and maybe make a couple more, but within six months, it's not happening. So that's optimal training. If you look at people asking about Circa Max, I asked Mel Sef how to do Circa Max. I was doing seminars with Mel with Super Train.

He says, I have no idea. I said, well, Mel, it's in your book. So you'll have to cross-reference books. Circa Max weights, in case you don't know, are percentages 90% to 97%. have no idea i said well mel it's in your book so so you'll have to cross reference books circa max weights in case you don't know are uh percentages 90 to 97 percent if you look at the management and training of the weightlifter weights at above 90 are four to ten four minimal ten maximal seven optimal so on our circa max phase the the guys will do two decent doubles on the way up and three singles, seven lifts. Just like those experiments that they did, that's how

we do that. All three lifts go into a contest. It's just not the squat. All three lifts are there because we use delayed transformation. Do you know what that is? No, I don't. Delayed transformation. You know what delayed transformation is? Yeah, I mean, basically there's a taper, then optimization of

before the meet. That's right. Before the meet. My taper is what NAMS – my taper is 35 days out. We train about 50 – it's all based off the squad. 50%, like if you're a 1,000-pound squatter, you do maybe six doubles of 500 and some band resistance. Next week, 28 days out, same thing. 21 days out, you take the biggest weight possible. That's our circuit max weight.

Like the guys that do roughly 700, squad 1,100, 700 and 440 band. The next week they do 510 and 440 band. The next week they do 420 and 140 band. They go to meet, and Josh went from 1020 to 1080. Yeah, so that band tension and bar combo is putting you at loads that are right there at your max, what you want to hit at the meter, maybe even a little more, and then you take the load back. Well, it's just a tester. For us, it's a tester.

Now, you know, you hear me say that the Soviets used 50% of their training between 75% and 85%. Now, if you recognize what I do, which a lot of people don't, I say for contests we train at 50%, 55%, 60%. Yeah. With 25% band tension for speed strength. 50% and 25% is 75%. 60% and 25% band tension for speed strength. 50% and 25% is 75%. 60% and 25% is 85%.

We follow the very same loading that one group of 780 highly qualified weightlifters. I said, why would I be so arrogant to think I got a better way? They've done it for years. I follow their guidelines. And so you think band tension is much better than chains? I know people use a pair of those together. Yeah, we use both. You saw the guys that one group used 200

pound a chain. But why is bands better than chains? Because of the acceleration. That's right. Overspeed eccentrics, more kinetic energy. You know, anyone listening to this broadcast and saying, well, that guy, he's crazy. Why wouldn't you lower your weight slow? Any coach out there, they do plyometrics, even though they're not really expert at it.

But we know how fast. It's dangerous in the wrong hands. When you jump off a box, how fast are you moving? Speed of gravity, I guess. Which is what? 9.8 meters per second squared. That's exactly right. You know they work?

Is there any argument? They work, right? Yeah, that's the rules. Okay, then why would anyone lower weight slow? Well, you're not going to do it in sport. You're never going to move slowly in sport. You get your ass handed to you. You move slow, you're sitting on the bench. Yeah, or in fighting if you move

slow. That's right. You do that example. Pull that punch back slow and see what happens. And also, people do plyometrics. I hope you listen to this broadcast. This is all the recommendations of Yuri Vrashansky, which I highly... Russian sportsansky, all right, which I highly, you know.

Russian sports. That's right, for years. I've done this for 32 years now, all right. If you want to build explosive strength and you do jump, jump, depth jumps with a rebound, you use boxes between 30 and 35 inches. If you want to build absolute strength, you use much higher boxes up to maybe six feet.

And can you tell me why? Because you have more kinetic energy on the way down? Jumping off a six-foot box? Yeah, we're doing depth jumps here. Six foot will build. I'm not doing that. I'm too fat to do that. Oh, you're right.

Six foot. I mean, that's extreme. But six foot will build absolute strength. The shorter height drops will build explosive power. Do you know why? No. Automization phase. The shorter drop.

That's right. It takes you longer why? No. Automization phase. The shorter drop. That's right. It takes you longer to reverse yourself. From a higher drop, just like heavy weights, it takes longer to reverse yourself. You're going to reverse 800 like you do 500. So for a weightlifter who's trying to improve their clean and jerk and maybe isn't focused on their squat, would you recommend doing the shorter ones or maybe have phases of training where you're doing the taller ones?

But you have to push the squat up. You know, I have people come here with a 360 clean and a 370 front squat. So I ask you, what is the odds of going to a contest, getting a record clean and a record front squat at the same time? It's slim. You need a reserve of strength. If I, you know, like, you know, a guy, well, you look at wildlife. A lion doesn't jump on something and thinks it's going to get its ass kicked. It's got to reserve a confidence that's going to kill that.

A shark, a shark bites and then lets the thing fall to the earth. It doesn't struggle with it. That's a good point. Like, what's Kendrick's best front squat? Kendrick being one of the best weightlifters, a pretty legitimate weightlifter. I think he front squats, what's his body weight? He's a 94 kilo now. So he's like two, what?

Two of seven, two of six. Yeah, so he'll squat 600 raw for a deep, pretty solid triple. So Kinnick's one of these guys who he's now realizing what it takes to take an American weightlifting up. He's got a squat that's now as good as any of these Europeans, but he just needs that. It's that hero thing. It's that lifestyle thing. It's that lifestyle thing.

It's that realization of the dream thing. Once he sets that example and breaks through, I think other people will follow. They do it backwards. Here in America, they want to follow the amount of squats you do while you're clean. It needs to be the other way around. You take weightlifters that are built like most of you,

three out of four guys here, thin, thinner, more athletic, because you've got to be flexible. All right. So, thin people can deadlift more than they can squat. So you have to push up the squat. When the squat goes up, the cleans go up. Right. I know the way that I train and program is we have phases of training

where we're working on strength. Maybe we spend a month really focused on the squat and then a month really focused on the clean and jerk. How do you feel about that? Louie's got an opinion about that. Because I've got the wheels turning now. I was like, maybe I should be doing really high depth jumps when I'm trying to push my

squat up and maybe I should do shorter ones when I'm trying to get my clean up. Well, you're way off base. It won't be the first time he's been told this. Okay, what you're doing is you're doing long-term block periodization. Okay, long-term. Block one will work into block two.

Block one will never work into block three. Why wouldn't you do what Westside does? Every week I know how fast you are, and every week I know how strong you are, and every week I build up your weakness. That's why Westside is successful. For all the crossers out there that don't really understand what you do, can you give us a one-week block of kind of how you guys work? Let me start on Friday because this is Friday.

Today is speed squat, dynamic method. The bar speed averages 0.8 meters per second, that speed strength. They do high volume, you know, do eight doubles with band resistance, you know, some type of chain resistance. So you have high volume, moderate intensity, 50% to 60% with 25% band tension on top. Isn't that golden range of like 70%, 75%. It's basically, you know, what did I say, 75% to 85% at the top.

All right. Then the next day we speed bench where we use 40% of our floor press. All right. I have 11 people of 800 in the bench, two of the nines. I've had six guys raw bench over 600. I had a Nick Winters 700 roll bencher. That speed works again. Fast rate of force

development. That's what weightlifting is. It's a speed string sport. Then on Monday is max effort for the squat or dead. That way we break an all-time record. On Friday, I can watch you and see how fast you are squatting. On Monday, if we're doing high pulls or snatch grip deadlifts or even a power clean, I can monitor how strong you are.

And then, you know, so if we go to the Olympics, that would be the end of the story. But then on Wednesdays, our max effort bench. So we're constantly testing a floor press record, a band record, whatever, you know, and then. These are testers to monitor where guys are at. It's different every week, isn't it? It's different.

You're not going to repeat an exercise for weeks on end. Well, if you do the same weights at 90% or above for three weeks in a row, you will go backwards. It's a biological law of accommodation. So Westside is smart enough to realize we switch to max effort exercise each week. Right. And is that mostly squatting and then deadlifting on occasion? It's my understanding you guys do more squats than deadlifts.

No. Is that not true? You're wrong. No. You're wrong. Okay. At Westside, they do an extremely heavy rack pull on pent. You want the plates 2, 4, 6 inches off the ground,

either with real weight or 250-pound of band tension or 350-pound of band tension. And they'll do a max deadlift off the floor with either 220-pound of band tension or 280-pound of band tension. And they'll do a max deadlift off the floor with either 220 pound of band tension or 280 pound of band tension. So that's two of the four weeks. The other week is a squat or good morning. The other week basically might be heavy war barrels and heavy sled pulls and heavy inverse curls, back raises, glute hams.

So actually let's talk a little bit about that. Crossers do not do a lot of good mornings. Rarely, rarely, rarely. So talk a little bit about why you guys incorporate do not do a lot of good mornings. Rarely, rarely, rarely. So talk a little bit about why you guys incorporate good mornings into your training. Because you're going to get bent over. I watch CrossFit, and a lot of their deadlift form is really radically bad. Radically bad, I like that. Okay, if you're going to be in radically bad positions,

you better build your back up for those radically bad positions. So it takes an enormous amount of abdominal. And just because you've got a six-pack don't mean you have a strong stomach. It just means you're on a good diet. So you have to have a very strong stomach, a lot of exertion squats, carrying 100-pound med balls. The med ball thing sounds crazy, crazy fucking hard. Right, a couple hundred feet at a time.

Do that. But you need to bend over, arch up, bend over, arch up, because that's exactly the way they're going to be. You're going to be bent over. For most CrossFitters, Lou, where would you stick that in? What kind of weight and reps and sets would you do for a good morning? I would stick with, you know, whatever my best clean is, I would use, which is not much, you know, for the most.

I mean, maybe a lot of them, I've seen some do 335 and stuff. 70% of that, I would follow the recommendations of Russian weightlifting. 70% of that for a good morning? That's right, for fives. For fives. For fives. I think the good morning part, that and the RDL, I mean, I think a big problem with CrossFitters and a clean, Mike, you know more about it than me,

is you want to be strong in the hips and back, so as you pull that bar up, you can keep it where you want it. Whereas just pulling wildly and the bar ends up wherever the fuck it's going to end up, you're going to clean bad if you don't put it where you need it, right in the pocket of your hip. I definitely see the biggest problem is on the end up. You're going to clean bad if you don't put it where you need it, right in the pocket of your hip. I definitely see the biggest problem is on the way up. Yeah, getting in a bad bend of a position.

If you do good mornings with 250 for sets of 10, you know, when you do your clean for 300, you're going to put the bar where it needs to be. Your back's going to be able to hold the position. You're going to be able to scoop the bar in and you're going to stay on your heels. In case you don't know, the major problem for missing a snatch, for instance, is total body, you total body incline. You never get your backwards.

You don't get. You lose it. You don't finish that pull. So why? Why do you do it with light weights, but you can't do it with heavy weights? It's a strength issue, for sure. Exactly. It's not a speed issue.

It's definitely like hamstrings, hips, giving out. If you're not in position, you're not going to get where you need to go. You know, I mentioned Abby Grohl a while ago, went from 155. Oh, I'll give you another example. 155 and come here for over a year. That was it. And two months, no power clean. She does 205.

All right. How'd she do it? I had another guy come here. He wanted to qualify for nationals at like 165. What it is now, 169. What the hell. Okay, he had a 270 clean jerk. 169, yeah.

270 clean jerk. Best he, yeah. 270 clean jerk. Best he's ever done. In two months, he did 319th in nationals. Nice. How did he do it? By placing bands over the bar. Dr. Medvedev said in the 60s, you must use bands or cords over a bar. All right.

That's over the bar on a clean? On top. That's right. You have to eliminate bar deceleration. Which band are they using? Are you talking about getting the bar all the way to your shoulders, or are you talking about a clean pull? I'm talking all of it.

You should try that, Mike. How about push jerk overhead? Why wouldn't you use it in a bench? Why in the world wouldn't you? I have used bands for push press. And what happened? You increased your push press? I really liked it, yeah. It will also increase your pull.

Yeah. That's what we did with Abby. That's what we did with the guy. If you bring me a weightlifter, a real weightlifter, you bring me one and give me three months. Who can we nominate? You. I don't have the time.

Come to Columbus. What kind of weight? I'm not a full-time athlete. You're not a real weightlifter then. No. My total is. Your squats look good. What's your clean?

What's your clean, Drew? About 310. I'd kill that. It's easy. Aren't you motivated now? I'm extremely motivated. Actually, I trained here this morning. I felt re-energized.

Are you going to be here tomorrow? I could be here tomorrow. You could be here tomorrow. Are you in shape right now? No. No, actually, today I'm –. Are you in shape right now? No. Actually, today I'm not. You boxed in shape for what? I just came out of a hamstring injury.

Today was actually the first day I've squatted heavy in three months. We did a box squat slew with the green bands and 315 on the bar for a fast double weighing, what, 100 and – what the fuck do you want? I threw 10s on there, too, so it was about 345. Yeah, very fast doubles. He looked great. Looked better than me. Shit. If I put bands on the bar, if you were in shape, I would leave money.

When I did CrossFit seminars here, I don't have time. That's why Laura Phelps and her husband and A.J. Roberts do them. I would bring CrossFitters. I'd put eight CrossFitters out there. They'd break a clean record that day. That's worth the visit to come here. Also, the deadlift. That day, they broke their record.

Even if you did the bands one time, and they showed you just how fucking slow you are Getting underneath If you just did one time for the awareness You raised your awareness Oh shit I'm so slow Maybe it'd work What time should I come back tomorrow morning?

Come here at Anytime past nine I'll be here after nine CTP will be ready with the camera I'll put you over there I'm going to show you how I do it A person like you I would have two phases

You only one band You put a mini band Don't double it one over the bar one under the bar and i'd work you up and if you're strong enough see for max effort i'd put two strands over okay all right and then you would do max effort work there so once for speed once for max effort you establish sets with the one band max effort with the other band. Take off the freaking bands. You'll break your record immediately. This is exactly what I should do coming off a hamstring injury. You know, people will criticize me and argue with me and tell me I'm nuts, but weightlifting is a very easy sport.

It's one, your ass is higher and your hands are wider, and that's primarily it. As long as you're flexible and mobile, you could be a weightlifter. You just have to build an enormous amount of lower backs. If you look at the Soviets, look what they looked like. They had muscles. David Rager in Strength and Health. Oh, he's such a badass, man.

He said he back-squatted 675 for 10 reps. You know, Victor Saltz. weighing what? What was David? 198. Yeah, that's insane. Or maybe 220 to most. That's fucking insane.

You know, a Saltz press. Yeah, yeah. Victor Saltz. Sitting at the bottom and pressing. How much do insane. You know, assaults press. Yeah, yeah. You know how much. Sitting in the bottom and pressing. How much do you think he did? Oh, Jesus. So, audience, that's where you're in a bottom squat position.

You're holding the bar overhead. Like, I couldn't even fucking do that and do a bar. It's really hard. He pressed. Yeah, I don't. I think I can. My best size press is maybe 70 kilos. His is 363.

Okay. That's. You can't. I can't. It's strong. He's pressing from a front rack at the bottom of a front squat. He's in the bottom of a front squat, and from there, presses the bottom of his head.

A strict press while staying squatted. In the bottom, 363. Wow. So just for record, if you could do a standing press with that at any body weight, that's insane. Do you know what a web is? A web? A web.

Like a spider web? No, you should know. You're a weightlifter No, you should know. You're a weightlifter, so you need to know these things. If you're a weightlifter, for instance, a 242-pounder, and this came from the Soviet Union. I got lots of criticism. I come out of weightlifting and fitness for life. Bargoy, Bargoya.

And a 242 weightlifter had to back squat at least 628, had to front squat 578, had to do so much tonnage and the cleans and all this stuff. And I put in a magazine and i got a kind of criticism that's the americans weightlifters problem they have no base like i talk about okay uh they i won't say who but they sent me two weightlifters here uh with the very same system they were supposed to be ballgreens one had a enormous lower back no upper back the other had a big upper back and no lower back because they're not built the same in america you have to use the conjugate system you can't use a generalized system and you know like for instance if you both you guys squat 600 pounds which one of you are doing of a speed rely on speed and which one brute strength you can't tell but i can tell the one because i use enormous amount of bands i'll put like 500 400 pound of

bands and let you max out whoever's strongest at the bands is the strongest person because they're going to move the barbell slow if you use a small amount of band and a large amount of weight the speed the speed strength guy would do more that way so that's how you can determine if two people lift the same which one is stronger and which one's faster. So if you're the faster one, I'm going to make you stronger. If you're the stronger one, I'm going to make you faster. See, I'm going to reverse it. You know, in lots of studies, the Soviet wrestlers,

they had to do one great endurance, one great strength. So the endurance people, they put on a strength program, and the strong guys, they put on an endurance program. They both made adequate... It sounds a lot like what Max talked about last week, right? We have a CrossFit athlete who is... He ran a half marathon, Mike McGoldrick. Was it a half? It was a half. And he came into our gym

and he loaded a 400-pound strongman stone after running a half marathon. He had this exceptional potential for this explosiveness. Under 200 pounds. Weighing like 190. Yeah, he had this huge potential for explosive, but he was so explosive in CrossFit and so amped and high force that he would sort of burn himself out on these events where he had to be strong and keep grinding.

For a long time. The Buffalo style. And teaching him to back off and to settle in and suffer a bit and be comfortable and dial back was exactly what he needed. And he just fucking made the CrossFit Games this year. Well, you know, I talk about football teams, too. If you're going to go to a D1 school, we'll talk about the big food chain here. What do they look for?

They look for quickness and speed. So, what do they train the four years you're there? Quickness and speed. How about training what you don't have? Because, invariably, a player will graduate from the school after four years here, and they run slower than they came. Why is that? Just absolute strength went down is what you're suggesting?

Absolutely. You were saying you had to get out of here. What time do you have to get out of here? I don't want to hold you too long. What time is it? It's 12. Yeah, I need to be going pretty good. You know, can I just say one thing?

I just don't want to. Oh, yeah. CrossFit, you know, it took me actually a while to actually fully understand CrossFit because I've always been trying to be good at one thing. And I finally realized, talking to Abby Grove one day, CrossFit is general fitness. The goal of CrossFitters is to be generally fit. But remember what I said.

You have to have a plan. That's why long-term block periodization does not work because you detrain yourself. All right? So CrossFitters need to examine themselves or their coaches and say, where does this person lack? And work on what they lack. For running events, I had the third best Olympic triathlete girl here in America. I've trained two Olympic gold medal sprinters.

All right? I've trained all kinds of people. I took a girl that never qualified for the nationals in six years in heptathlon. In nine weeks, she qualified for the nationals. Broke 10 records. By December 10th, she broke 10 records from the 60 and the hurdles to the shot. She never broke a record.

Last year, she broke two records all year, and the first was in March, and she didn't qualify. Okay. All right. And, again, that's from raising absolute strength. Raising absolute strength. The pause to your chain. That inverse curl I got is the greatest hamstring machine in the world.

Reverse hypers. Build everything they don't have, okay? And everything will go up. Wise. So you're saying that for general fitness, for sport, no matter what, strength is the base for everything. And so raising absolute strength is the first thing you always should be focusing on. If you don't have that, then you don't have anything. The Chinese say without strength you have nothing. And so raising absolute strength is the first thing you always should be focusing on.

If you don't have that, then you don't have anything. The Chinese say without strength, you have nothing. And they're right. You know, I believe. Find that in a fortune cookie. I believe there was a CrossFit event where you power clean for five reps. Then you deadlift for five, you power clean for five, and you press for five. Is that right?

Was that King Kong or something? BT. Okay. The record was like five minutes at a time, five minutes. So I've got a guy in my gym. I said, well, let's give this a shot. Three minutes and ten seconds first time. Damn. He's a linebacker.

He was cut from the Vikings because he hurt his back. He ran 4.62, 38 vertical. He comes here. I fix his back. He ends up deadlifting 700, squatted 800. Raw bench 490. He goes to Houston in a pair of trucks that ran 442. And Chuck Taylor's run 442? That's right.

One run. He wanted to run a sub 4-4, but he did one. They said, I don't want to see no more. And a 44 vertical. Okay. What's that guy weigh? 237. Holy shit. That's so fast for a 237? That's right.

These guys aren't human, man. But this is some one pro camp, not here, and come here, and that's what the second pro camp. And it's easy. It's very, very easy. It's absolute strength. You can mercifully chase out and fix your weaknesses, humble yourself, do the things that you're not good at,

and balance yourself. That's like 80% of the game, or maybe 90% of the game, right? If you can master those things, then all the other things are just bonus. So for that guy, he's doing max effort once a week and then – He actually trained with me. He trained side-by-side. Everything I did, he did. I mean, absolutely everything.

We worked out side-by-side. He was much stronger than a raw bench. But we were equal on the other two lists. Okay, so he's doing a heavy day once a week and a speed day once a week. Exactly what we did with a lot of extra sled dragging. If you watch my GPP tape, it shows actually Laura Phelps and Phil Harrington. Laura uses 330 and 140 band, and Phil uses 420, 140 for a double with 40-second rest for 10 doubles.

And then in 30 seconds, she pulls 275 with 220-pound of band. He pulls 325 for six doubles. That's 16 plays on the football field. Yeah. All right. Then at that point, when I would do combine here, if they were out of shape, I made a push or prowler. 10 seconds all out, 40-second rest.

If they were weak, I made a power walk with the sled to build up the posture of your chain. And the higher you jump, the faster you run. They brought Rudy Silva here and he was 292 pounds and Johnny Parker was here to see this and they said he ran a 5'140 and he said if you could knock a tenth

off, he'd make a lot of money. And Johnny said he'll play both ways. You fucking knocked a tenth off. Yeah. Do whatever you gotta do. They said knock a tenth off. I said okay. You know, I'm laughing at this. In two months, he ran 4.77 at the pro camp. He went from 8.9 to 9.8 in a long jump. How did I do it? Absolute

strength. Large men have, you can't do 50 chins. He probably can. But you can out-squat about 200. Fuck, I can't do 5 chins. Exactly. Large men lack absolute strength. And small men, I mean, relative strength. And small men lack absolute. So you have to trade. See, always what you don't have, that's what you have to have. Barter. Okay. Well, since you got to take off and you just mentioned your GPP product, and we happen to be in your warehouse right now where you have all kinds of products. We're in the heart of the operation.

Can you recommend one solid product that CrossFitters probably get the most out of and then maybe let us know where they could buy all this stuff? I think maybe two DVDs is basically because it's for general fitness. A GPP which is general physical preparedness and explosive power training tape. It shows a Greco wrestler who they

sent to me who just won the nationals. He searches 440 off the floor. Oh shit. That You know, he searches 440 off the floor. Oh, shit. Yeah, that's not so easy. 440 off the floor. That's not easy to do at all. Right.

He just won the Greco Nationals, and he pushes a 480-pound world bar, I believe it is, a quarter-mile nonstop on tape. By the end of that, your hands probably don't feel so good. Yeah. But, you know, we talk the talk, and we walk the walk. Literally. With 480 pounds, you walk the walk. That's right.

Where do I go to buy that? Online? You can buy it online at Westside Barbell or call Westside Barbell.com. Westside-Barbell.com. Yeah, or you just call the office. Cool. It's worth it. There's a lot of good resources here.

Lou, I think I want to close with – Can I say one thing? Oh, do it. There's a lot of good resources here. Lou, I think I want to close with – Can I say one thing? Oh, do it. Okay. My box jump record in the gym by an intern is 63 1⁄2 inches. All right? I'm coming out with a jump book. It's ready to go right now to be produced.

Yeah. All right? And I think it's – I literally think it's the greatest jump book that I've ever seen. Because I have – This is the fucking world. I have jump books that you can't buy. The Poles are very good at jumping and so was Verfrischansky.

What I did was, and this is what Mel said, no one had done. Mel said I have credit for this. If you look at the super training, I'm credit for combinations method training. Verfrischansky used absolute strength, very heavy weights and he used jumping. So absolute strength, very heavy weights, and you used jumping.

So absolute strength, explosive strength. I use mechanical power. I use intermediate weights. Mechanical power is developed at one-third maximum velocity. That's what speed squatting is with the bands. That's the key. And that's why I can take a guy and just blow him up in the jumps. The record in my gym for on your knees and jumping on your feet is 275 pounds.

So you're on your knees with a bar on your back, 275, and you jump off the ground with a bar on your back. And land on your feet. Yeah. Try it. Give it a shot. It's sparking my memory. That's what you would do.

You mentioned Phil Harrington. Yes. Didn't he go through a period where he blew up his raw squat by jumping crazy amounts? That's exactly right. In every conceivable way, right? Well, you know, we wear gear because I didn't make the rules. I don't see a football game without gear on. So they bad-mouthed him. So Phil said, okay, I'll take off the gear,

and he's caught a 755 and 98 raw World Record. And what's his body weight? He was 198 there. The 198-pound guy squatting like 700, 750. 755. Getting deep enough for it to be very fine. It's a contest. The guy can do box jumps and all kinds of crazy-ass jumps for days, right?

So that's a good lesson. Yes. That's probably something I need to bring back in my training. Well, listen, Yuri Varshonsky had almost a 12-foot standing long jump. He also has the highest vertical of all time with 50% of his body weight. Measure from the ground to the bottom of his feet is 25 inches with 50% of his body weight. So are the ground to the bottom of his feet is 25 inches with 50% of his body weight. So are jumps important to weightlifters?

Obviously. So maybe if you're a weightlifter, you probably ought to do them. You know, I've seen good morning machines in tapes I have from Poland and Russia, and I have a good morning machine, but weightlifters don't. And one thing, I don't want to criticize weightlifting. I love the sport. It's a great sport. But, you know, it seems like weightlifters train for the county fair.

They don't train for the Olympics. They don't have a reverse hyper. They don't have glute ham. They don't have a box belt squat. They don't have a plyo swing. You need these things. You know, I'm going to close with this. If it's not an advantage, it's a disadvantage.

Wow, man. I like it. And the other thing that Louie always said that always, like if you could put this on a slide and say just fucking do that, is train optimally. Don't burn yourself out. Don't under-train. Find the optimal zone for you.

Find these ranges that work for most people most of the time. Start there and then find that. But that's going to give you the bulk of your benefit. I have a chart over here. I have 74 people over 800. I have 74 people over 800. I have a 12 and a 12.5. 19 over 1,000. I could show you a chart on CircaMax with the weight ratio and the band tension.

It only varies fucking three. I'm sorry. It only varies 3% from an 800 squatter, the weight percentage and the band percentage. It only crosses 3%, up to 1,200 asking about well where's your scientific evidence well where's your 74 guys a squad 800 they don't have that motherfucker sounds like scientific evidence get out of my gym i i i there's a lab right down the road that's your that's west side barbell i said if you publish that if you look at car if you look at car technology, it comes from race cars. It doesn't come from standard automobiles on the street.

Race cars is where roll cages, safety devices, power steering, power brakes, transmit everything. Before that, it came from moonshine runs. That's exactly. It was very extreme. Get in this car. Cops are chasing you. Drive down a fucking mountain 100 miles an hour and see what works

and see what doesn't. If you run up in the ditch, you've got to figure out something better. That's right I want to ask you this on this I got nothing to a training but kind of does I heard your parable in there? The girl was doing the machines like the ham and the hip flex and hip flexor stretch Look both look torturous and fucking dangerous and I need to stretch fit then go on it and try it We'll make Mike do it tomorrow. He told her, she asked you how much should I do, and you say, you can just snatch the pebble from my hand, you're done. I love that shit.

What is your, you do this all the time, what is your, right now, your favorite kung fu, martial arts, samurai parable? A quick little story to motivate the audience. You know, you've got a bunch of them. I always like the story of the Ronin, because I'm taking on more of the Ronin personality myself, venturing off without a master on your own, facing the world. Well, the Shogun Assassin is my favorite movie.

Which I've seen. It's fucking great. Okay. And when the ninja come in to kill the Shogun's assassin, he's not there, and he hurt his wife. And so she comes in, and she had a bad dream about this, and she comes in and says, you know, my bad dream has come true, and she picks up the baby, and she goes, you've got to take care of Daggerow, and she puts his hand and blood, smears blood down his forehead, and then she dies, and so, you know, the Sasson says he's going to get revenge on everyone, So the next scene, you see the baby. The baby is like five months old, six months old. He's got him there. He's in a ceremonial robe. He takes a knife, and he takes a sword and sticks it in the ground,

and he puts a pretty ball here. And he goes, Dagoroh, you cannot understand my words, but you must choose. If you choose the ball, you'll join your mother in death. If you choose the sword, you'll join me in the road to vengeance. And Dagoroh comes over and looks at the ball, but he touched the sword. And he grabbed him up and he said, you are my son. And he went on the road to vengeance. And so in my gym, you either choose the ball or choose the sword.

You choose the ball, get up. I have no need for you. What better possible way could you end this show? I like it. All right, guys. Thanks for coming out, Louie. Thanks for having us. Thanks for having us. Yeah, yeah. It was fantastic. Thanks for coming out, Louie. Thanks for having us. Thanks for having us.

Yeah, yeah. It was fantastic. Thanks for hosting us in your office. Great to be back. Great talking to you, and we really appreciate it. I know our audience will love it. We'll come back. Yeah, we'll be back up here for the CrossFit events and interview some more.

Yeah. I'm looking forward to you beating up Mike tomorrow. I'm going to drop in tomorrow. Bonus footage for this video. Probably get, yeah, it'll be very comical for everyone at home, I'm sure, because I'll screw something up. Mm-hmm. All right.

Thanks, Louie. All right. Cheers.