Barbell Shrugged - All-Time Total World Record Powerlifter Marisa Inda - 286

Episode Date: November 8, 2017

Marisa Inda is the current All-Time All Record Powerlifting Champion at 114 lb (all ages, all divisions)! Her best powerlifting meet numbers are: Squat 330 lb. | Bench 209 lb. | Deadlift 413 lb. etc. Marisa was doing hypertrophy training for 15 years before she stumbled upon a flyer for a powerlifting meet. Without thinking too much, she signed up and competed. She didn’t know the full rules and didn’t even have the legit belt for her first meet. Only afterward her first meet did she start properly eating and training for powerlifting. Marisa incorporates bodybuilding exercises, such as drop sets and partial rep ranges, into her training by adding it at the end of her powerlifting workouts. She likes to maintain a well-rounded, strong physique and finds these exercises beneficial for her powerlifting lifts. She's a world record holder in the total (all 3 lifts combined) and has much to teach you about how to be very, very strong! Enjoy! Mike, Doug and Team Barbell Shrugged   Subscribe to Barbell Shrugged's Channel Here- http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedSubscribe Listen to the audio version on the Apple Podcast App or Stitcher for Android Here- http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedApple http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedStitcher Barbell Shrugged helps people get better. Usually in the gym, but outside as well. In 2012 they posted their first podcast and have been putting out weekly free videos and podcasts ever since. Along the way we've created successful online coaching programs including The Shrugged Strength Challenge, The Muscle Gain Challenge, FLIGHT, Barbell Shredded, and Barbell Bikini. Find Barbell Shrugged here: Website: http://www.BarbellShrugged.com Facebook: http://facebook.com/barbellshruggedpodcast Twitter: http://twitter.com/barbellshrugged Instagram: http://instagram.com/barbellshruggedpodcast

My squat was just stuck at under 300. I would go up, go back down, and it's like I'm plenty strong enough, but why is this happening? So I decided to ditch the heeled shoes, went back to squatting in my Adidas shell tops, brought my stance in, and got the cue from Chad, knees forward just a little bit longer and it went from hitting like 292 at Worlds to 319 at Nationals and then 330 at the Arnold. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Mike Bledsoe here with Doug Larson, Dr. Andy Galpin, hanging out here in Irvine. Costa Mesa. Costa Mesa. Not even close. We're so far outside of Irvine. I was looking at the maps and it just got me thrown off. You're so unfocused right now.

We're back in the backyard of Chad Wesley Smith, the avocado trees, and we're here with Marisa Inda. You're one of the strongest women I've ever met in my entire life. And I'm really looking forward to having a conversation about how you got there. And one of the big things that I'm looking forward to learning about is what you may have found, because I assume that you train with a lot of men, what the training differences are between men and women. Yeah. I also know that you did bodybuilding for a number of years before you started powerlifting and I'm wondering how competing in bodybuilding prior to being a powerlifter influenced your powerlifting success. Okay I'm actually really interested in some of your lifting technique stuff I've seen a lot of your your videos and your squat and your deadlift

technique are unconventional we we'll call it. So I'd love to hear about how you develop those things and who you think maybe would benefit from those styles. Okay, definitely. How did you get started in the world of, we're talking about powerlifting and things like that, and we have bodybuilding that preceded that. What got you into fitness in general? Well, first of all, thank you guys for having me on. I love talking about lifting weights.

But what got me started in lifting just in general is I was a gymnast. I was always very active and that sport has a shelf life. I mean, obviously once you're over 16, 17, you're kind of not going to go anywhere in that. So I needed something to do. I tried track. I hated it. The worst sport ever. I did letter, however. And then I just wandered into a gym one day at 17 and just fell in love. Yeah, but you said it was before that, right? You were tricking kids out of money when you were 10 or 11? So my brother had that garage bench with the weights, the gray plates on it. Yeah, yeah. Classic plates.

Yeah, coming from a gymnastics background, it's a lot of upper body work. So I was always really relatively strong for a girl in upper body. So my brother would have his friends over and he'd be like I bet my sister could bench more than you like no you can't I bet you ten dollars and of course like you know I'm sure it wasn't like a power lifting legal bench but you know I hit 95 pounds at you know 12 years old and we would hustle with friends so do you do that anymore I mean you could probably still make decent money hustling I get some dms for that so I mean I guess I wanted to make some extra money I could, you could probably still make decent money hustling. I get some DMs for that. So, I mean, I guess I wanted to make some extra money. I could. Oh, you could probably walk into an average

bro gym and just like get, you know, find the guy with the tiny legs and all the body and then challenge him to something that you know you can beat him at. I might have to consider that if things get tough. Okay. So you didn't want to do track and field and you started lifting weights. So where did you go from there? So to answer your question, because I started out in bodybuilding. So when I first started out, I saw a girl in the gym and I just used to creep on her. She had a great body and I just would, everything she would do, I would go and do it right after her. And from there, I just, no shame, no shame. That's ultimate creeper status right there. You just lurk and then you just follow them.

And I... That's a good strategy. Yeah. So creeping is a compliment. It could be a compliment. I mean... Careful. Careful now.

Behave yourself, boys. Yeah. I mean, as long as they don't press charges, you're good. But yeah, I just started, you know, doing body part split training, which is like typical standard bodybuilding style training and did a bodybuilding show. I met up with some guys in the gym who were trainers and they're like, you, you have a decent physique. You should, you know, do a show. And I just started doing bodybuilding shows. And I did like, I want to say six or seven bodybuilding shows at that time. And I placed really well in the teen division because there was no teenagers at that

time lifting. And I would place about fourth or fifth in the open. And I loved it. The only thing I did love about it is as you get more involved into the sport, you know you're not going to do well if you're not doing drugs. So it just was taking that turn. At that time, there wasn't physique or bikini. It was just bodybuilding. And the women just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger.

And that just wasn't a path I was going to go on yeah it did get weird there for a while yeah and then yeah and that's what that's why i figure and that's what spawned all those other divisions and you know unfortunately you're kind of seeing that progression happen yeah even within those divisions definitely yeah was there height divisions because then men i think they used to have like under six feet now they do but back, it was just women bodybuilding and then men's bodybuilding. So at five feet tall, you were toast. Yeah. No way you were going to be able to compete.

No way I was going to be able to compete. And also, I couldn't attain that level of leanness at the time. And, you know, I was doing everything on my own, you know, trial and error with dieting and stuff. Yeah, all those girls are doing, for the most part, all those things to get lean. And again, like I was 17, 18, 19 years old, and I didn't have a nutritionist. I was basically, you know, in the Flex magazine going, okay, this is what Kevin LeBron is eating. I'm not a man of 280 pounds. So I took those diets, and like a recipe, I just cut it in half to fit my…

Good luck. Yeah, and then I kind of just trial and errored it that way. But I think spending, I spent probably, i just started powerlifting six years ago so i spent roughly 15 years in a hypertrophy block of bodybuilding and i think that's why when i transitioned over to bodybuilding i just was able to lift relatively heavy weights pretty quickly because when bodybuilding you're not neglecting any muscle you're hitting everything you're developing overall physique and muscle moves weight so I already had a pretty muscular frame and I compete in the 52 kilo class which is 114 pounds and under and if you lined me up against all the other girls I

compete against I'm one of the more muscular if not the most muscular 52 kilo lifter in the IPF up there. And I just think that that helped me tremendously because I also didn't sustain a lot of injuries when you're doing bodybuilding, it's all 10 to 12 reps. You're doing, you know, submaximal weight. And I think I was just able to develop stronger ligaments, tendons, joints. I wasn't pounding my body with heavy weight all the time. So yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. Sorry. i thought you were gonna go i was what else about bodybuilding did you really enjoy i i actually enjoy i know a lot of people think bodybuilding training is really boring because it's you're not maxing out but i think the best

part about yeah the best part about bodybuilding is just watching your physique change and being able to be the sculptor that manipulates that change that you can decide like okay my delts don't have enough you know pop no not enough capital i'm going to hit my delts harder so it's i think that aspect of watching yourself transform staying consistent it's is the funnest part of bodybuilding it's not necessarily lifting the heaviest weight like in powerlifting but it's i want to create the illusion of having a small waist getting those bigger thighs i think that's the funnest part. And I think that's the addicting part with bodybuilding. I think that's why people, when they first get into lifting,

that's kind of the, what they gravitate towards even before powerlifting. So we're going any further. I want to hear what are your best numbers? My best numbers. So, um, I compete again in the 114 pound class and under. I typically weigh in about 112. I've squatted 330 pounds. I've benched 209 and deadlifted 413. The current all-time total record, world record. All federations, you are the number one lifter. All ages, everything.

Open. Not too shabby, I guess. I feel like we should be putting you in a cage with a bear and just let you go. Charging admission to look at you. I tell everyone I lift heavy. That doesn't mean I'm functional for anything else. Just in this plane of movement. That's right. Just to clarify, you're how old? I'm 41 years old. So you're 41. And even compared to the 25 years out there, you still have all the world records? I still have the all-time total world record, which total is the only number that matters in powerlifting. Of course it is because you have the record. That's it.

But, you know, in powerlifting it is. I drove powerlifter city. Well, there's a number that defines how strong you are, and it's whatever it is that they're best at. But with it being the total. Individual lifts, obviously, it would be great to have a world record in each individual lift. it's whatever it is they're best at but with it being the total individual lifts obviously it'd be great to have a world record in each individual lift but at the end of the day you have to be good in all three to win the meet so how far are you behind on the world records for the individual ones um in the ipf the squat world record is held by suzy hartwig which is an amazing squatter i

believe it's 342 so i'm not like too far behind um and you know to answer kind of gets into leads into your question my squat was always lagging very behind until i changed my technique which helped it shoot up from the 300 to the 330 within you know six months so yeah but and then on the on the bench the world record on the bench is like 237 it's held in the 1990s so that's you know, bench is one of those lifts a lot of people complain about when they see it on TV. But the girl who holds the record has just great leverages, amazing arch, very short arms. It definitely lends itself to a better bench press. So, I mean, I take a closer grip. And, you know, even though people think I have a huge arch, I still have to travel pretty far on the bench.

So 209 is not too shabby. I just got to, got to get better. And from a leverages perspective, most power lifters aren't built for every single lift. There's usually one they're, they're great at deadlifting, but not great at benching or something like that. There's always a trade-off. Yeah. So there's always a trade-off. I think I've kind of in the middle where I'm not really built great for anything, which l that's kind of what I was asking. Which lends itself to be pretty good in everything. Total. Yeah, in the total.

So you got into powerlifting. What was that journey like? You've been in it for six years now? Yeah. So basically after I had my kids and I was still, you know, I've always trained consistently even through pregnancy. I was just kind of bored. I wanted something to compete in again.

It kind of gives your training a purpose, you know, because it gets redundant working out doing the same things over and over not having an end goal and I saw a flyer for a powerlifting meet and I had no idea I'd never been to one and I just jumped in I didn't even know you had to pause the bench press I learned that the day of the meet I didn't know I had the wrong kind of belt I had a bodybuilding belt so I had to shave my belt down because it didn't meet specs so I think that's a mistake a lot of new people make. They get all worried and they want to see if they're good enough and they start checking numbers. This

downside of social media and then they're scared. Well I've got to get better. I got to get better. I just jumped in and did it. Yeah. Liked it and and then from there I learned okay well this is what I need to adjust to be good in the sport because I was still training like a bodybuilder. So kind of like waiting to join a gym until after you're in shape. Yeah. I'm going to like, yeah, I'm going to lose 10 pounds and I'm going to join, but yeah. So actually I want to follow up on that comment. There is typically people that get far down into powerlifting or weightlifting for that matter. We'll look at bodybuilding principles and think like everything that they've ever done is

completely stupid. It's horrible. It's awesome. But you're pretty against this. So what I'm an advocate for incorporating both. I mean, if you even look at like a lot of bodybuilders, even though they're doing like partial rep ranges, they're muscular. And a lot of them, when they come over, they're strong as hell. Ronnie Coleman is strong. Johnny Jackson is strong. These guys, they're moving weight. Now, maybe they're not doing it to the technical requirements that power lifting requires, but they're strong. They have muscle. So I think the great thing about bodybuilding is you leave no weak links. You're hitting everything.

So what principles did you carry over and do you still use in your training, and which ones did you leave behind? I left behind, well, now because I do power lifting, I have more structured programming, so I have specific blocks because in power lifting, as you get closer to meat, you have to be more specific to the main lifts. But for me, my peaking block is three weeks, so that's not that much time to just squat, bench, and dead.

So I still incorporate all the accessory movements that I did before. I still do drop sets, partial rep ranges for things, even though people get so mad when you have a partial rep for a bicep curl. I'm like, it's a bicep curl. Right. Right. Right. I'm still about- If that's the only bicep curl. I'm like, it's a bicep curl. Right. I'm still about. If that's the only bicep curl you ever did ever, then that could be a problem, maybe. Yeah, but it's like you use a variety of things to enhance and tweak your physique.

Maybe, like, well, this will give you a really easy example. Why would you ever need to do a bicep curl? You're a power lifter. You deadlift. Why would you ever need that? So you can do Flex Friday for Instagram. Come on. Of for instagram flex friday we do everything for the gram absolutely everything we do is for the light unplugged yep no but i mean because i come from the bodybuilding background i still i don't want to look like the stereotypical power lifter i want to i still think you can

have a great physique and still lift heavy yeah And it's certainly also important for the deadlift, right? I mean, one of your hands is in that position, right? I think that's why people neglect doing triceps and biceps because they're like, okay, well, I'm deadlifting or I'm doing any pull movement that's hitting my biceps or when I'm bench pressing that's hitting my triceps. But I do it at the very end as just a finisher. And it hasn't compromised your lifts, obviously. It has not. It's helped. So if it keeps helping, I'm going to keep doing it.

So as you got into powerlifting, did you find yourself training with a bunch of men, or did you find women to train with? And how did you choose what kind of program you were going to do? When I first started lifting, I've always had male training partners. And I think the great thing about that is I think they tend to push you. You can do more. You can do more. I think the difference between men and women, women can handle more frequency. We can handle more volume. It takes us much longer to put on muscle. I think that's why women tend to be so

afraid to step into the gym. Like, Oh my God, I'm going to look like a man. Well, it's really not that easy unless you're injecting testosterone or you have some other issue happening, but it takes us 10 times longer to put on quality muscles so as far as training goes like like i said i've always trained with guys i could probably just always i would always do extra sets or more volume than they were doing and also more frequency when guys bench pressing maybe once or twice a week i could handle four times a week yeah so you think that's i mean not only because you're a woman but also because you have gymnastics background maybe you're used to more volume just over your entire life women in general can, not only because you're a woman, but also because you have gymnastics background, maybe you're used to more volume just over your entire lifetime? Well, women in general can handle more volume because we're not pushing as much as heavy loads. So where guys are, you know,

probably benching two, 300 pounds, most women, when they first start out, they're not lifting over 110. So, you know, you're there well under body weight, so you can handle more volume. Those muscles are going to recover much quicker. And you need the volume to build the muscle because, again, unlike our male counterparts, we don't have the same hormone structure. So it's going to take more time, more volume to build up. Do you find that relative strength is really important there? Where if you can only bench press one times body weight, you can handle more volume? Because if you're benching at 80%, then you're only lifting 80 pounds.

So if you're a 150-pound person only lifting 80 pounds, then that's just not that much stress on your joints versus someone who can bench two times body weight or three times body weight. And then leverage has come into play too because if you have a six-feet wingspan and the bar has to travel so much further, you're going to take more time to recover. I mean, usually even lighter male lif, you're going to take more time to recover. I mean, usually even lighter male lifters can handle more volume and more frequency than like, you know, a super heavyweight can handle. But aside from that,

like there's a special exercises only women should do. No, I mean, lifting is lifting. We all still have to, we all still have muscle and bone and joints. So two part question. Yes. So our friend Chris Moore used to always say that he felt that you needed a little bit higher intraset volume for the bench relative to the squat and deads. So, you know, if you're going to do like a max single or a double in a squat, benching might need triples or four or something like that. So first part, do you agree with that or not? And then second part would be, are those different for females? So you said females need more volume, but is that from more sets and reps, or is that more, sorry, is that from more sets? Or is that from more? Are you speaking to like to hit a one rep max?

Like if you're trying to improve strength. Or just in general, trying to improve strength. Yeah, I mean, I think it's definitely more volume, more rep ranges, and also more, benching more times per week. Also not getting hung up on the big arch and the technique. Like a lot of women think like, oh, if I get my arch really big, I'm going to be able to bench 50 pounds more. No, you need more muscle. So doing things like dumbbell pressing,

more accessory stuff to compliment the bench or more bench variations is going to be helpful. Right. Yeah. So maybe I'll ask a better question. Okay. Do you think, for example, women need more reps than the men per set, or do they just need to do it more frequently? I think you answered the frequency part. You think the rep ranges per set should be the same? Yeah, if you're in a hypertrophy block. A hypertrophy block is going to be the same for men and women.

The rep ranges are the 8 to 12 rep range. Cool. Perfect. Yeah, I like how we covered the bodybuilding, hypertrophy, the training with men and women. And I want to break and then in the second half, get into your technique. Okay. And when we come back, we're actually going to have you teach us how to deadlift.

If you're interested in improving your weightlifting technique, you can go to flightweightlifting.com to download for free our 54-page Olympic weightlifting training guide. It covers the snatch, the jerk, the clean, all aspects of those lifts from first pull transition, second pull, the third pull where you're pulling under the bar, etc. We have videos attached to it. We have two weeks worth of programming. It's a fucking awesome, awesome, awesome guide. Go to flightweightlifting.com and check it out. And we're back with Marisa. And if you're just listening, make sure you go over to YouTube because we just did a technique video where she showed us how to deadlift.

And she's definitely showing us things that you may not have seen before and made some points that, I mean, even though we've been around lifting for a long time, good reminders of ways to do it. And the way she does it is specific to her. So especially if you're a shorter person or a woman, you might want to check that out. Next, we're going to be covering, we went into about longevity as a piece and motherhood, and then talking more about the technique as well. So, you know, we just came out of like a technique piece.

So what have you found over time that you've changed, aside from just deadlift and bench we talked about bench a little bit with the arts yeah um i get a lot of comments on my technique for squat specifically everyone's like i can't believe it why is your squat stance so narrow why you need to widen your stance um coming from a bodybuilding background it was always high bar more narrow stance you know you think of uh um can't even think of his name right now, but crazy legs. He was always a very... Oh, yeah. Frank Zane. Frank Zane. And, you know, you mimic that. It's like the very narrow squatting. Arnold did it too. Yeah. So that's, you know,

what everyone thought was going to, you know, propel their leg development. So I had squatted like that for 15 years, close stance high bar. And so when I got into powerlifting, everyone's like, you need to widen your stance. It's the very geared lifting, like as wide high bar. And so when I got into powerlifting, everyone's like, you need to widen your stance. It's the very geared lifting, like as wide as possible. And, you know, I tried that. And the big problem that I had is I would always shift back. I couldn't, it was hurting. And, you know, my squat was just stuck at under 300.

I would go up, go back down. And it's like, I'm plenty strong enough, but why is this happening? So I decided to ditch the heeled shoes, went back to squatting in my Adidas shell tops, brought my stance in and, you know, got the cue from, you know, Chad, you know, keep your knees forward just a little bit longer. And I went from hitting like 292 at Worlds to 319 at Nationals and then 330 at at the Arnold so it just it's just stronger positioning for me and even though a lot of people think it's very narrow I'm not that tall I'm only five feet my squat stance is actually right outside of my

hips so you know for guys looking at it like that are six feet tall like oh that's so narrow but for me it's it's you know it's not like it's a couple inches apart you know it's it's right outside of where my hips are. So traditionally, and as you mentioned, powerlifting, you're going to take a wider stance so that you can clear your hips really easy. And so it shortens leverage there. In your case, you keep your feet narrow and your knees actually don't go really far outside of your feet. And so what happens is you have to sit sort of on top of your own femurs a little bit. That's what it looks like in the videos, right?

I think that's what people think it looks like. Even though I'm sitting on top of my knees, I don't have the valgus collapses happening. I actually try to open my knees a little bit at the bottom and then shoot straight up. So, you know, there are judges, specifically in the IPF, that don't like that squatting style, especially when you're smaller and the bar is sitting low. You tend to have more of a forward lean. So the head judge typically can't see if you're hitting depth, but I mean, so far I've been fine.

And you're able to do that though, what's tricky about you with, you can do that while still keeping your spine pretty neutral. Yeah. So you're not having low back problems all the time, which most people would have that difficulty being. So do you have really flexible ankles? How do you get away with that? Yeah, I have good ankle mobility.

So that's one reason that I ditched the the heeled weightlifting shoe what I was found found what was happening to me on that is it would cause unbalance so the weight wouldn't be centered over midfoot it would push me forward so to correct it I would shift back so when I was coming out of the hole I would shoot into a vertical angle and then I would stall out like I couldn't I couldn't recover especially when you have a max effort on your back so just moving my stance in dropping the heeled shoes I think that's I think that's kind of the the crappy thing about power lifting is when you start when you get involved

in it you have 20 different people telling you how you need to fix your technique and a lot of those technique things come from geared lifting because geared lifting was a lot more popular at first so you know you have people like you really need to tuck your elbows and bring the bar down to your sternum and you know I tried all of those things and I'm like you know that just doesn't work for me so even in my bench I'm an elbow flared bencher I'm a narrow stance squatter and I pull with a more narrow stance dead and that's what has worked for me and it's like I tell people you have to find what's gonna work for you where you're gonna be strongest what

works for me and for my leverages may not work for you and your leverages so um sometimes you have to it's trial and error that's going to make that happen so yeah it's hard not to get constant barrage with constant recommendations from people I've been doing this for three years I know exactly what you should be doing and it's you know it's an experienced coach or an experienced athlete that instead of coming in and making a recommendation to somebody, just like, oh, I learned this way from this guy and this is how I want you to do it. Is why do you do it that way? You know, and I'm sure you get recommended a lot, but I think a more mature coach goes, oh, why do you do it that way? And it's there to learn instead yeah and and anytime i've made a technique change i stick with it to see if is this going to work or is it is it something

that's not going to work for my leverages it's it's not a strong position for me and i just found that it worked so and i i stay i stuck with a wide stance for a few years and it just wasn't progressing so right yeah do you find that you you showed up into powerlifting with a lot greater quad development than most people show up into powerlifting yeah and that's why you squat the way you do as an example yeah i think yeah i think like i said coming from the bodybuilding background and having that more narrow stance my quads were already i mean my my physique in entirety was pretty developed already so i think that's just a naturally stronger position for me and it's just carried over a lot of people are going to be probably apprehensive to the idea of using your quads in your squat.

Yeah. We hear this all the time. This is a problem, quad dominant. So do you have, with your style, do you have excessive knee pain? Does it flare up a lot? Do you have issues there? Luckily, I'm 41 years old. I've been lifting since I was 17.

I don't have any major injuries or any major joint pain. So I don't have knee problems. I don't experience any of that. How is this possible? I don't know. major injuries or any major joint pain. So I don't have knee problems. I don't experience any of that. How is this possible? I don't know. You're a fairy. You're magic. I think part of it, again, was spending that time in bodybuilding and just really developing an overall good structure.

And also keeping the ego in check. When I've had things that hurt, I don't try to pull a one rep max so I can get 2,000 likes on Instagram. I pull back and I stop. How many likes are you getting on Instagram? I just, to me, it's more about, you know, in the long run, staying healthy and being able to do the everyday things like tie my shoes, pick up my kids, go for a bike ride. So I think that's one of the benefits of being a mature lifter and being in the game for so long is I know when to stop. And I don't let, you know, I let an RPE 7 actually be an RPE 7 and not an RPE 9. Yeah.

Weird. Do you find yourself having different practices in the gym or even out of the gym that other lifters aren't adopting that maybe you go, oh, this person's hurt all the time, but I'm doing something different? I stay in strength blocks. So a lot of times I see new lifters just get after that one rep max. I got to do one rep maxes all the time, or I got to be in that two rep max range. When I'm done with the meet, I go right back into hypertrophy and I'm back in that eight, 12 rep range. And I might toggle between a strength block and hypertrophy block, but I don't, I don't even think I pulled a heavy one rep max deadlift until like I was two weeks out from a meet.

And it wasn't even a rep max. It was beneath what I've done on the platform. So I save the big glyphs for when it counts at a meet. So if you had a meet, we'll just say 16 weeks out, what would a general, what do you do? Like eight weeks of hypertrophy, then eight weeks of strength, or how are those blocks? That's usually if I'm, like so right now, for instance, I'm getting ready for nationals,

I'm about eight weeks out. So the first four weeks for me were hypertrophy, and it was actually kind of work around hypertrophy work because I'm working through a little bit of a piriformis injury, which happened from my last meet. And so, you know, again, being smart, not trying to test it and pull from the floor then I'll go right now I'm in the strength block my peaking block is only going to be two weeks so but you've been doing pulls rack pulls and even from pulls on blocks right so again like it's like even when you're when you're having

something that's hurting to prevent it from turning into a major injury there's always a way to work around so since I'm puller, pulling from the floor was hurting just because being in that hinged position was not comfortable and I needed this to heal to be good on meat day. We changed to me pulling from blocks and then just pulling a sumo from the floor just to get some work in but not to injure anything. And it was actually very sub-maximal weight. I think from blocks, the max I pulled was 240, 245, so. So we've talked a lot about hypertrophy and those higher rep ranges, and then pulling heavy weights, of course.

A lot of people that follow Louie and on the West Side stuff, they have their dynamic effort lifts where they're basically doing speed reps. Do you do any speed training of any kind? No, I don't do any of that. I mean, I try to make all my warm-up sets look like my one rep max. So if I can speed it up just a little bit for my body and the way my tempo runs, that's what I try to do. But I mean, I just try to keep consistent instead of trying to work

through like, oh, this is going to be a speed day. Well, why not have every rep look the same? So that's just the standard. Every rep is as fast as possible. Every rep needs to be as fast as possible. Yeah. For me. During the demo, you talked about being pregnant. You're a mother of two. Uh, you, you did discover powerlifting after pregnancy. However, you were training bodybuilding and I know a lot of women are concerned about pregnancy and, and training. How did you navigate that? Yeah. You know, uh, when I was pregnant, it wasn't like as trendy as it is now with social media. See everybody, you know, it is, I think it is trendy now. Everybody's doing it. Just jumping on it.

You've been doing it again. I'm just trying to be cool yeah so i am not cool at all no you guys are not cool andy and i are lagging yeah you're three times better get on it but um yeah i because i was used to being active i wasn't about to like get pregnant be like oh i'm gonna sit home for nine months especially because at that time and again this was before social media to date myself but you know before social media and all of that um i would have people that i worked with for like oh now you're pregnant you're gonna lose all this now you're never gonna get your body back i'm just like you know that's that's that's your reality not mine so i because i was so active i just continued doing what i did before um my doctor was like well you've done it you'll be fine you just

have to listen to your body and you know i still my goal at that time and again, because I wasn't powerlifting, was just to maintain what I had. So not to lose anything. And I was able to squat bench and deadlift almost all the way through. I just switched from conventional to a sumo pulling to accommodate for the stomach. Ate regularly. I gained 21 pounds with both my kids. So it was just within the range and they're both healthy. Did you do a wider stance squat as well to get out of the way? Yeah, as I got bigger. I mean, I didn't have a stomach until I was about six, seven months, like a noticeable stomach. So I mean, it's not like I had to make huge adjustments,

but you know, you're still able to train. It's not a physique death sentence. You can still come back after having kids I I always caution women after they've had the baby is just to take it a little bit slow because you know things are Hate to say this because it sounds disgusting, but things are loose You know like things have been moved and stretched out So I think you see the new trend is as soon as the lady pops out a baby They want to get under that 225 pound squat again. It it's like no maybe you know get your body accustomed to movement again um i think that's also one of the reasons i don't you know pee the platform when i deadlift is because right after i had both of my kids i took

it easy i i just did full body really light stuff i didn't put heavy weight back on my back until i was about in probably about my my daughter was about five six months I started doing barbell work again so I kind of took my recovery the same way that I did with my pregnancy and trimesters three months doing this three months doing this and then three months getting back into the heavier lifting making sure that you know after you have a baby the hips everything the pelvis is kind of loose and stretched out so I just mainly just didn't want to be injured and I wanted to make sure that I was still able to lift heavy, you know, two years after I had my kids.

Did you do any specific core work or pelvic work or anything like that other than just normal lifting stuff? I did a lot more breathing and ab stuff. Again, after you have a baby, you have to just make sure the abs are not separated. Because if they are separated, then ab work can actually cause more damage but um yeah again just more full body stuff kind of just getting re-acclimated into lifting and getting familiar with my body again because after you have a baby it's not the same so you know hips kind of stretch out a little bit everything's not where it once was so how old are your kids now my daughter is 13 and my son is 11. How has it been?

I know a lot of women have a hard time getting in the gym. I've got kids. I've got to take care of them now because that's a huge shift. You live your whole life without children, and now you have to take care of one or two other people. How does that change your schedule? It definitely requires more schedule management management especially in the very beginning when you have a newborn and they're crying and you know you're tired i think i cried more than my daughter when i first had my daughter because she was the biggest cry baby she didn't sleep

until she was three years old and oh yeah i mean three daycares quit on me if that's any indication of how terrible she was but um yeah i actually it's terrible my kids fucking sleep amazing I actually was working a nine-to-five job at the time so I would go train during my lunch break because that's the only time I had and I know a lot of new moms kind of feel selfish like oh I'm going to the gym it's taking time away from my baby but 45 minutes to yourself to where you can like go okay, I'm going to the gym. It's taking time away from my baby. But 45 minutes to yourself to where you can like go, okay, I'm not going to strangle this child today. It's, I think it saves their life. It's good for everybody. It's good for everybody. Plus it gives you some semblance of normalcy just because you have kids, you don't need to live vicariously through them.

You can still have goals. You can still be competitive in the things that you like, be it if it's lifting or kayaking or whatever it is you enjoy doing. When your kids see you doing that, I think it puts them on a good path to have their own goals and to know that you can still chase your dreams and kids don't prevent you from doing that. If anything, I have a bigger cheering section or not. My daughter's very critical, but do your kids lift? You know what? It sucks because my daughter is amazingly strong. About two years ago, she wanted to go to the gym and, you know, she's, you know, I'm putting her through like full body stuff. She, she did gymnastics, you know, when she was younger and I was just amazed at how strong she is, but now she's 13. God forbid she get man hands. Mom, I don't want man hands

like you. I don't want people to think I look manly. I'm just like, Oh my God. But she's 13. So I just leave her. But she did the other day tell me she wants a bikini butt so whatever gets them in the gym yeah I feel like a lot of people are are weird or resistant to like to putting their kids into like a strength sport when they're like you know 10 11 12 years old like lifting weights is bad for you but like have no problem putting their kids into gymnastics yeah which is like almost all strength training depending on how you look at it. Yeah, I think gymnastics, honestly, I think is the best sport you can put your kids in

in the very beginning. Both my son and my daughter did tumbling, not even to be in the competitive route, but I think it teaches body awareness. It teaches you, you know, where your spatial awareness when you're doing the tumbling. And I think it's just, especially for girls, it's a very good beginning to upper body strength

development. Most girls cannot do a pull-up. I remember when I was in elementary school, we had the physical fitness test and we were doing arm hangs. But even for the boys, they eliminated that. You don't even have to do that anymore as a child. So I think for kids, gymnastics is a great sport to start out with. And I think it has good transfer into all the other sports that you want to have your kids do. And I tell my kids to do multiple things.

Don't just get stuck on one right now. Just, you know. Yeah. I remember doing something really similar. I did gymnastics when I was a little kid too. I was like four until I was nine. Yeah. It really did help me for the whole rest of my life,

especially with mobility and good strength and all that from an early age. But I remember doing the presidential physical fitness thing too when I lived in Arizona. We're outside. It's like the whole class is out there. And me and my buddy Ricky, who we did gymnastics together. I remember his name and everything. No kidding. Oh, yeah, dude. It's a very momentous occasion when you get that thing signed by Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Say what? Oh, the paper. The award, the paper. Yeah, the paper. It's signed by Arnold. Oh, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. Okay. Yeah, but like we were out there.

And I remember literally being confused because I, worked out with my class at school. Like, but I worked out with Ricky all the time because we were in gymnastics together. And all the kids, like, can barely hang over the bar. And then, like, I did, like, 10 pull-ups, and Ricky did, like, 18 or something like that. And we were just like, what is wrong with all these kids? Like, we were so far ahead because we had done gymnastics before. Yeah, like, again, I think it just is a great intro to just upper body development. And that's why I love calisthenics so much now, too.

You kind of can still lift weights, but I'm still able to move and do fancy tricks. Most powerlifters aren't doing calisthenics. No. Most people are like, if it's not a weight, I don't want to do it. And I'm all about balance and having fun. And I don't lift heavy just so I can lift heavy. I lift heavy so that I'm able to do other things and have fun. Yeah.

Thanks for joining us today. Thank you so much. Really impressed with your ability to think long term, you know, being 41 years old, super healthy, strongest woman on the planet. And that's due to the fact that you really taking care of yourself along the way i'm really impressed thank you yeah i like getting the reminder that that bodybuilding specifically like makes makes it where you don't have any weaknesses showing up all muscle groups are developed and that that's really important for your longevity and for like ultimate strength development as well as injury prevention yeah i was really uh interested particularly right now

with where i'm at in my life, of your advice for training when pregnant and the fact that you don't have to compromise your physique and that you can pretty much keep to what you're doing and small alterations and you can keep things going. Yeah. Where can people find more about you? Well, I'm on YouTube and on Instagram under Marisa Inda. I also have an eBookbook that just came out.

It's called Fuerza, A Female's Guide to Strength and Physique. So just how to combine the two and how strength is like a path to having aesthetics. And it talks about pregnancy, calisthenics, cardio, nutrition, a little bit of everything, kind of my journey through lifting. Excellent. Folks, go check that out. And go over to iTunes, give us a five-star review, positive comments only. Head over to YouTube.

We have a whole channel there full of really great videos we're putting out all the time. Subscribe there as well so you always get that update. See you next time.