Barbell Shrugged - From Olympics to Bodybuilding - Playing on the Biggest Stages in the World w/ Christian Thibaudeau - The Barbell Life

Episode Date: October 13, 2019

Christian Thibaudeau is a Canadian Olympian and strength training coach from Montreal, Canada. He gained fame in the late 1990’s as a contributor to the online bodybuilding magazine, Iron Mag.   Christian has long been one of the most respected coaches and online writers in the business. He’s trained athletes in 26 sports, written hundreds of articles and has competed at the Olympic games.   After a serious injury which ended his competitive lifting career, Christian began to move into personal training and online fitness writing. He also began to train for purely aesthetic reasons for the first time.   Trading the Olympic platform for the competitive bodybuilding stage, Christian has become a well-respected personal trainer who’s advised a number of athlete’s on their progression.   Christian Thibaudeau on Instagram   Travis Mash on Instagram   Please Support Our Sponsors   Savage Barbell Apparel - Save 25% on your first order using the code “Shrugged” at savagebarbell.com/shrugged   Organifi - Save 20% using code: “Shrugged” at organifi.com/shrugged   Join the One Ton Challenge    Registration is LIVE   12 Month Strength training program to increase your snatch, clean, jerk, squat, dead, bench.    Add them up to find your One Ton Total.    The goal is 2,000 pounds for men and 1,200 for women.    http://onetonchallenge.com/join   “What is the One Ton Challenge”   “How Strong is Strong Enough”   “How do I Start the One Ton Challenge”   --------------------------------------------------- Show notes: https://shruggedcollective.com/tbl-thib ---------------------------------------------------   ► Travel thru Europe with us on the  Shrugged Voyage, more info here: https://www.theshruggedvoyage.com/ ► What is the Shrugged Collective?  Click below for more info: https://youtu.be/iUELlwmn57o ► Subscribe to Shrugged Collective'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 Shrugged Collective is a network of fitness, health and performance shows that help people achieve their physical and mental health goals.  Usually in the gym, but outside as well. In 2012 they posted their first Barbell Shrugged 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. We're also dedicated to helping affiliate gym owners grow their businesses and better serve their members by providing owners tools and resources like the Barbell Business Podcast. Find Shrugged Collective and their flagship show Barbell Shrugged here: SUBSCRIBE ON ITUNES ► http://bit.ly/ShruggedCollectiveiTunes WEBSITE ► https://www.ShruggedCollective.com INSTAGRAM ► https://instagram.com/shruggedcollective FACEBOOK ► https://facebook.com/barbellshruggedpodcast TWITTER ► http://twitter.com/barbellshrugged

Shrug family, I'm in Halmstad, Sweden, and we just wrapped the One Ton Challenge at CrossFit Halmstad. If you have never been out here, go hang out with them. They're the coolest, strongest people in the game, and we just put a whole ton of people into the One Ton Club. Life is so good. Got to spend 48 hours hanging out at a Laco barbell. If you have never lifted weights on a Laco barbell, you're just missing out. It's the most beautiful, most well-built. I can't even believe the amount of engineering and attention to detail that goes into this barbell. Perfectly balanced.

If you've ever grabbed one, the knurl is just, it's beautiful. It's butter. Every time the barbell just gets into your hip and what's so cool about it, their whole purpose to making it is to be best in class, which means that to them, when they grab the barbell, they want it to be an extension of your body. You don't want to be thinking about how this barbell is designed. They want it to feel like a piece of your body, which is just so epic to me. It says, as soon as you walk in the door, best in class. That's incredible. That's such a good goal for a company that makes such great products. Before we get into this episode with the Barbell Life, I want to thank our sponsors over at Savage Barbell.

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Get your micro vitamins or micronutrients. The vitamins, the minerals. Everything you need. Organifi.com forward slash shrug. Friends, we're going to get into it. The Barbell Life. Coach Travis Mash. You're listening to The Barbell Life. On this episode, we talk with Christian Thibodeau. Now, he is well-known around the strength world as an author and as a coach,

and he joins us today to talk about the realities of the strength coaching world, how a lot has changed over the years, and what he thinks it takes to be a truly great coach today. He also goes off when he's talking about brain chemicals and how our children today are so adversely affected by the way that many people parent. So give this one a listen for some fascinating discussion. Now, Christian is probably most well known for getting people really strong and getting them jacked. Now, putting on some quality muscle not only has aesthetic benefits, but it also improves your performance in your sport and on the platform. The MASH Mafia has used dedicated muscle gain cycles to take them to new PRs.

We do it time and time again, and you can do the same. You can read all about it in our guide called MASH Jacked. It's all about gaining muscle. Learn more about it at www.mashelite.com slash mashjacked. That's mashelite.com slash mashjacked. And now I'm Loren Penalas joined by Crystal McCullough and Travis Mash as we talk with Christian Thibodeau. Welcome back to the show, guys. Today, we have someone that I am truly honored to have on my show.

It's someone that even when I was probably, all you young guys listening, when I was your age, I was in my early 20s. I was at the Limit Training Center. I started reading this magazine called Testosterone Nation. I started meeting a bunch of strength coaches. Charles Pulligan, and a name that kept coming up over and over was the Christian Thibodeau. And today we have him on our show. Welcome to the show, man. Well, it's great to be here. It's funny because you mentioned that you read my stuff.

Well, I've been using your stuff for years myself when I was training lots of CrossFit athletes. I used lots of your squat programs and even used one of your Olympic lifting program for myself when I got back into lifting. So it is just the same amount of honor for me as it is for you here. I mean, for all of you listening, I know you guys don't even know like, but what that means to me, it's like, you know, it'd be like, I don't know, like becoming Yoda, you know, like what's up to yoda now he's yoda it's like it's like jimmy hendrix calling you and saying he used your guitar licks guys i used to when i when i talked about christian or charles pulligan i literally peed my pants i was

such a fan boy and like and when i realized that t nation was in colorado springs like i mean i was a girl even though i was at the Limit Training Center training, it was like a dream come true because I didn't know that someday that my business would be strength training. And so it was everything I ever wanted was in Colorado Springs. Well, let's do this. Just in case there's like three people listening to this podcast who maybe don't know who Christian is, which is crazy.

Christian, could you just give us, what's the Cliff Notes version of your long and storied strength career? Well, I'm pretty bad at everything. So I became decent at everything. I was never excellent at any part of the strength game. Most people see me as this kind of body composition guy, because that's the way I was branded by T Nation because their target audience is mostly younger guys who wants to look jacked. But in reality, I'm first and foremost a strength coach. I had really two careers. When I started working as a strength coach like 21, 22 years ago, the first 12 years of my career was only spent training athletes. Even when I was 19, I was training pro hockey players and Olympians.

And that's how my career started. I had a friend of mine who was handling all these great athletes. He just passed me the baton. So I was super lucky. And for the first 12 years, only working with athletes. And it's when I moved back to Canada from St. Louis, because I lived in St. Louis there. When I moved back to Canada to get married because my wife doesn't speak English, she doesn't want to move to the US. That's when I

moved to a really small town, which had basically no athletes or no athletes making enough money to pay for services. So I started working more with general population clients. So that's when I began working mostly with body composition clients, bodybuilding clients and stuff like that. So I've kind of seen it all from a strength training perspective. As far as myself, I come originally from football. I played football for 10 years, coached high school football for 12 years. I was never a good player. First, I'm not tall enough.

I'm like a 5'8 linebacker. That's not a great physique for the job. But that's why I began lifting because I needed an edge to be able to compete with more athletic, more gifted guys. And really fast, I learned that I actually loved lifting a lot more than I loved playing football. So after two years of college, I began focusing only on lifting because I needed to be admired for something physical because I have very low self-esteem. My self-esteem is down the drain. It's always been low. It's the way my brain is programmed. I always had a great childhood, so that's not the problem. I naturally have lower self-esteem. I needed to be respected for

something physical because I'm average height. I don't look that great. I was not a big guy. So I felt, well, you need to be good at something physical. So I'm going to get into lifting. But my deadlift sucked. My squat was okay. But I could not compete with the powerlifters. But Olympic weightlifting, well, back then in Canada, we were in like a down point in the history of Olympic weightlifting, well, back then in Canada, we were in a down point in the history of Olympic weightlifting

because after 1988 and the Dublin Inquiry, the whole Olympic lifting program took a dive because of the Ben Johnson thing and all the Canadian team admitted to using huge doses of steroids and they stopped receiving government funding. So the programs were not a drain. And because of that, we had very few lifters and the scores So the programs were not a drain. And because of that, we had very few lifters and the scores, the results were pretty low. So I thought, well, you know what? I can actually be a pretty darn decent Olympic weightlifter compared to the numbers being posted because there were so few lifters competing.

So I trained for six years and competed as an Olympic weightlifter. I was never a good competition lifter. I've always was bad under pressure. My body, my brain is extremely responsive to adrenaline, which is why, for example, when I present in front of a crowd, I morph into an alpha version of myself because my brain goes firing on all cylinders. But you don't really want that when you're competing because it actually hinders your motor patterns like there's this inverted u hypothesis curve right your brain needs to be at the right level of activation for you to perform and the more fine motor skill the more coordination you require the less that activation will help you especially for example on the snatch if your brain is firing on, the problem is that it will create muscle tension.

At first, if your nervous system is just not fully awake, it's not activated enough, your capacity to produce force and speed decreases. You're lazy, you're not coordinated, and your muscle contraction strength is lower, your muscle tone is lower. So as your brain gets more activated, you can produce more force, more power, more speed. But if you get over-activated, instead of producing more force, what happens is your muscles become tight and tense. And this especially affects the flexor muscles. So your hip flexors get tight, the pec minor gets tight, your snatch is being pulled two feet in front of you. That's what happened to me. Last time I competed nationals,

my best snatch at the time was 142. And I knew I was bad in competition. So I'm going to open with 115. And 115 is a weight I can power snatch without a warm up at that time. And I missed all three attempts. It was pulled at least a good foot in front at that time. And I missed all three attempts. It was, it was pulled at least a good foot in front of the slot. And then I went back to the warmup room and I was crying. And while crying, I did a set of five reps with one 15 on a power snatch. That's how bad I was in,

in competition. So after that competition, I just decided to like, uh, and my lifting shoes and just focus on coaching. So I was always decent. I had like 440 bench press, 315 snatch, 385 clean and jerk. Not huge numbers, but decent.

But I was never excellent at any endeavors. I also did bodybuilding, which really is not my forte, but I did it just because I love being in the Speedo. But that's pretty much it. You know, I feel like I'm talking to Charles Polican. I mean, just the way you explain science and your knowledge of anatomy and the fact that you know that the flexor muscles are the ones that are hindered the most from overactivity. And really, that's the reason the most from overactivity. Really, that's the reason why most athletes choke under pressure. It's because their brain gets so much wired because of the adrenaline that the tightness and the flex your muscle changes the mechanics.

So even if you have a lifter, for example, you tell her or him, finish your extension. Well, if the psoas are tight even if you tell your brain fully extend well you're still going to shorten the pull so it's much and then you're trying to amp that lifter up like come on let's go and that just creates even more problem more shortening you know it's like um it's almost trying to do a vertical leap at the nfl combine if they have tight hip flexors they're not going to jump as high because they can't stand properly. Totally understand this. So let's talk about like, I would like to know, you know, is there a connection between

you and Charles? Obviously, there was a brief period where he was also with T Nation because you guys do sound so much alike. Well, we're both French Canadians, so that helps. I knew that as well. I'm a bit more proper than Charles was. I do swear sometimes, but I don't tell as many sex stories as Charles did. I know a few of his stories.

The guy basically hired a stripper as an accountant. I mean, who does that, really? Charles. That's like the worst movie. And he lost like $400,000 because of that. That was his downfall. You and I both know he was

probably one of the smartest guys in this business, but his downfall, he loved women. Lots of them. Loved the ladies, huh? A ladies man. And for some reason, they actually loved him back. Oh, they loved him back oh they loved him like i met i wish i could remember her name she was in the uh when i first met him in colorado springs like he had a girlfriend he brought from montreal and she was so pretty i remember thinking

she's the prettiest girl ever and like in him you know he had like 10 of them on the side too and i'm like man you're greedy you know like well like but i tell you this i respected him so much like they started like arguing and she started flirting a little bit with me and i was like absolutely not like i respected charles so much and so pals before gals at pals before gals no exactly all right so let's talk about this let's talk about um you know instead of the typical like weightlifting and powerlifting which we're let's talk about this. Let's talk about, you know, instead of the typical, like, weightlifting and poundlifting, which we're going to talk about, I want to know the history of, like, I know that it didn't used to be T Nation.

For a lot of you youngsters, it was Testosterone Nation. And I think you were involved early on. So let's talk about how that evolved. Actually, Testosterone nation was first started by Charles Pollock it so two three guys started testosterone nation together Charles Tim Patterson who's still the owner at the moment and TC Luoma was still part owner and also the main editor so the TC was of course the editor of muscle media 2004 which for whom Charles wrote at the time.

And they started this Ashland Nation and Biotest together. After a while, they had some disputes and Charles left to pursue his own thing. And that's pretty much when I came in at first. I actually had my own website with a guy from Sweden who ended up being editor for Muscle Mac in Sweden and actually made fun of T Nation in articles I wrote. But I said, you know what? I'm going to send them an article just to see if they're going to publish it because secretly I was in admiration of T Nation

because it was at the time the only real serious strength training magazine online, right? And you had Charles, you had Ian King writing there, like lots of awesome coaches. I really want to see my name up there. So I sent him an article, and two weeks later, I see it on the website, and I receive a paycheck, which is weird because I had never given them my address.

I have no idea how they got the address. I'm kind of scared even to this day of how they got it, right? So I'm going to send them more articles, right? I'm going to send them more articles. I'm sitting in college, and that's going to be like a decent living, right? So they refused like five articles in a row. So I went back, and I read all the old articles, the most popular ones to see what kind of writing style they wanted to see.

And I sent another one and they picked them up and I received a paycheck. I sent another one, they picked it up, also received a paycheck. And after a while, I'm at my parents' house. And Tim Patterson, the owner of the San Juan Nation, calls me at my parents' house. Again, I have no idea how he got that number. It's crazy, right? I'm pretty sure there's an NSA involved in there. And he offered me a job to be a full-time writer for them.

And I'm actually shaking at that moment. And the first thing I did when I hung up the phone, I went on a website to see the price of a used Porsche. And that's the first thing I did. But instead of using the money I made to buy a car, and I'm another car guy, I decided to write my own book and self-publish my first book. There were no e-books back then.

It was a black book of training secret. And that actually helped me gain a lot of credibility because even at that point, I'd been training Olympians and pro athletes, but I was in a small Canadian town at the start of my career. Nobody knew who I was. And that book actually gave me the credibility to gain even more of these more performing athletes.

So that really helped me. So that's the story. And what happened with Charles is that I was in San Diego, I'm thinking at least 15 years ago. Charles has been away, I've been away from T Nation for about five or six years. And I'm sitting in at a cafe with TC Lu, and we were talking about Charles. And because I was friends with Charles at that point, which happened like two years before. And I told him, why don't you just bring him back as a column writer?

Question of strength. That's a great idea. So Charles came back in and he wrote the question of strength column for about three or four years, and I picked that up this year, replacing it. That is awesome. How long have you been with T Nation? 20 years.

20 years. Tim Patterson is actually the guy i first met like i got to know him when he was still it was they had a part of champion health it was like you know dr leahy the guy who invented art or at least the guy who you know patented it who that's none of my business a lot of people invented art and actually tim Patterson helped him package it into a teachable format because what Dr. Lee did was all instinctive. He just had the greatest feel for muscles, tendons, and stuff like that, and he just did that instinctively.

But you cannot teach instinct. You cannot teach the touch. So they had to build protocols, and Tim helped him for that. And for that reason, or for the duration i was there dr lee he would come in twice a week just to give free aarki treatment to the whole staff that was he gave me like i was an athlete at the otc and he had a the weightlifters then had a deal where he would work on them for free too so i get that's how i got to go there all the times i would go there and it was amazing like imagine this all you guys listening in this one building this is my dream there was dr lahey like literally arguably the best chiropractor of all

time there was t nation so there was tim patterson guys like christian tc luma downstairs charles Guys like Christian, TC Luma. Downstairs, Charles Polkin had his own strength and conditioning little lab. All in one spot. So I would train and go straight. I still know the address, 10 Pikes Peak. Like, I know. I love that place. That's crazy. That era, like you talk about it, like everybody was in Colorado Springs.

You know, I like. And it's near down there also. I have no doubts. Now, this is going to be, I'm going gonna look crazy. So Christian might not agree with my views I'm about to have right now But I have no doubt that God was in control of that moment because he put me right there with everybody Yeah, so you call it call it fake call whatever you want But all I know is I ended up in this I mean who knew color was me head paradise

It was mehead paradise and like everybody i was reading about because i loved testosterone magazine because it was he's right it was the only place i could go to get the truth like you know what's the truth about drugs what's the truth about like real strength training what's the truth about all these things you're hearing about because it was just now the internet was just now blowing up with you know health and fitness this place was where you go to get the truth. And Christian was a big leader. Yeah, it was awesome.

And it really, honestly, I attribute a lot of my, I would say my seminar career to the success on T Nation. Because the success as a coach, that's fine. I mean, I probably didn't need them to get that because I was already training pro athletes. But when it comes to being known internationally, being able to make a living teaching people at seminars, I think that T Nation is a big reason for that. All right. Here's where I want to get to today. But I have one more question that's super selfish.

But the place I want to get to today but i have one more question that's super selfish but like um the the place i want to get to is like is like training youth you said that that's a passion of yours and that's definitely where i want to go well i mean i'm curious a guy that you know you really were the pioneer of this whole new internet era with getting to write for t nation with you said this new era of seminars and strength conditioning. I mean, heck, in the 90s, nobody would have paid $200 or whatever dollars for a seminar. Now, with the internet, with CrossFit, with all these things that have happened, people are interested in the barbell and strength. So tell me, as a business person, where have you made, business know business wise where have you been the most

successful has it been t-nation has it been seminars or what i would say that at the moment if we look at uh my business at the moment or the past three years or so because we've basically been doubling our our income pretty much every year, the business income. And it's been, I would say, half and half between online coaching and training programs because there's just like you have, you can actually hire you as a coach or we can hire just by programs that you design and you buy the one that fits your needs the best, for example. So that's been about, let let's say 50% of the business income. And the other 50% has been teaching, which includes both like the in-person seminars, as well as the online courses. So it is really a pretty even match between both.

Of course, what I noticed, it's not at all the same clientele. People who will buy online coaching are mostly athletes or people who just want to get in shape for themselves. What I noticed, those who actually buy online programs, the programs that are already made, like a 12-week progression, more often than not, they are coaches. They don't even want to do the program. They just want to see the logic behind the programming. And that's great because that's what I want. And I want to teach coaches to be better coaches. Full disclosure here, I never considered myself to be a great coach. I'm a good in-the-trenches guy.

I'm great at giving feedback and fixing issues. But I'm not the best at coaching someone over the long term. I can do it, but it's not my main skill set. Many guys are much better than I am. I would say that my greatest skill set is taking a very complicated topic and making it easily understandable by anybody. So what I want to do mostly is teaching. That's where I really separate myself from the pack, if you want to call it that. That's where I'm at my best. So the teaching is the part I personally want to focus on. So it's taking a greater and greater proportion business-wise.

And as far as if you want to look at successful business practices, seminars are not really good in North America. The U.S. and Canada, really not a good seminar market. People are either flooded with options when it comes to seminars. I mean, at any given weekend, in any given weekend in the US or Canada, you're going to have one big name presenting. And what happens is that people in the US or Canada, they don't travel to see seminars or not travel very far. I gave a seminar in Seattle with Dr. Russin, and we had, honest to God, more people from Slovenia, Slovakia, and Croatia than from the US.

That's just crazy. When I go to Europe, if I present in Poland, for example, we're going to have people from Germany, people from Slovakia, people from the Czech Republic, people from Belgium. So they travel from across the whole European Union. If you go to Australia, you're going to have people from across the whole Republic, people from Belgium. So they travel from across the whole European Union. If you go to Australia, you're going to have people from across the whole country, and it's a big country. People don't realize that it's a very big country. So if you want to go with education, if you want to teach seminars,

people in Europe, you're going to fill a room with 40, 60 people at 1,000 euro per head. In the U.S. and Canada, you're going to get 20, 25 at 500. I've known very high level coaches in the US not being able to sell more than 20 spots at $100 for a seminar. If they go to Europe, they're going to sell the same seminar for $1,000. That's the thing. And it's not just about money. But what it tells me is that coaches in Europe, coaches in Australia, coaches in Asia put a lot more value in education. In North America, Canada, it seems that people want to do their own thing.

They really think that they are the best at what they do. And for them, going to someone else's seminar is like admitting that they don't know something. You know what, dude? I'm still going to seminars. I still go to seminars. I have three. I'm going this summer.

On my off weekends, I'm attending seminars because I don't know everything. And even if it's a topic I know a lot about, I still want to know how you are doing it to see if there's one element I can add to my own material. Amen. Yeah, but you know, the reason I joined Stronger Experts

was to be a part of you guys. Like, yeah, you know, maybe I will make some extra dollars, but I mean, I'm definitely not looking to get rich from Stronger Experts. I'm looking to meet you, to meet, you know, Jay from Australia, to meet the New Zealand All Blacks coach, like, you know, to get closer to Louie Simmons. That's the whole reason I joined Stronger Experts. Greg Knuckles, which he was my intern and now I look to.

But you're exactly right, and that's the big problem in American, Canadian, you know, Canadian strength conditioning. They're afraid. These coaches are more worried about everyone thinking they know everything than they are actually knowing everything. The ego is getting in the way. It's a big problem. And with social media, it's getting even worse. And I'm not talking about the Instababes and stuff like that.

But people now, everybody needs to market himself now. Like back in the days, when you were smart, when you had knowledge to share, people would naturally flock to you. Now what happens is that everybody is trying to be his own celebrity. And with social media, it actually allows them to do that on par with people who've been in the trenches for 20, 20, 25, 30 years. I mean, you've been like, for example, you, Travis, it is my honest belief that at the moment, you are the best strength guy in North America and top five, if not top three in the world. And I'm telling you that from an honest evaluation of everybody who talks

strength around the world. What you are accomplishing with young kids, nobody does that. Nobody does that, not in the situation you are in. So a guy like you who's been putting his effort in the trenches, now you earned the right to make a living from your craft. You learned the right to make a living from your craft. You learn the right to influence people with your craft. But now you actually have people who've been training for a year, posting videos on Instagram, and just because they look good, just because they get it, they can actually have as much pull as you do, which is crazy. We didn't have that back in the day. You have guys who are like 165 pounds

who bench press body weight now they actually have more people listening to them than louis simmons how much does that make and you know they're the people that are like you know actually talking bad about louis simmons yeah disagreeing with you cannot bench 225 and even mention his name like you're not allowed to mention his name. Unless you can bench this much. If you can't bench 2,000 body weight, you're not allowed to say Louie Simmons. But I just want to say, man, that was the biggest comment of my entire life. My mouth just – I'm like a little boy.

His eyes got really big. I was shaking when I was telling it. I appreciate you so much. All right, so – When I say that, I was telling it. I appreciate you so much. All right, so. When I said that, I actually follow your training program. So me, I've been in this field for a long time. For me to do the program from someone else, it's because I have 100% trust. But recently I've been seeing the videos from your crew, and it just boggles my mind because i've been an olympic weightlifter i mean like chasing that 400 pound clean and jerk for my whole life and i see like

16 year old kids doing it nowadays i'll be 16 next month yeah you know let me say this about canada though you know you guys hold a guy bodeie, who is unbelievable. I actually competed against his father. Oh, yeah. Dallas, you're talking about? Dallas, cool. Let me tell you, this is, okay, so this will give you an example of how I feel like I've been able to improve as a strength coach. Like, I see Bodie, and like, guess who I talk to?

Like, we're going to be in Lima here in a few days, and I'm going to go right to Dallas and be like, what are y'all doing? Because Bodie is getting so strong and like they, they must be doing something right. So instead of being like trying to pretend I'm better than Dallas, who like, who literally cares,

I'm trying to find, like you said, you, you hit the golden goose. I'm going to find that one thing that maybe he's doing that I'm not doing that I can then bring back to my guys and therefore give them that slight edge. I feel like the bigger your toolbox is, the better you can be. I'm telling you, look, Christian, like I have told all my athletes

and all my fellow coaches, the moment I say, okay, this is my system, I'm not changing anymore, is the moment that I hope one of them sits me down and says now it's time to retire and that's absolutely correct yeah it's so good you talk about louis i mean there is no such thing as the west side system even though it's called that oftentimes it's more of a philosophy right because you don't there is like a template but even the template gives you so many options. And it actually, and you look at the material that Louis is putting out now with the Conjugate University, for example.

And they are doing tons of exercises or training methods that they were not doing 20 years ago. Like they have more plyometrics now. You have even like some instability training, many training methods that are actually added to the system because you know what? They try it. If it works, they're going to keep that in. If it doesn't work, they're going to throw it out. And that's fine.

And that's what being a strength coach is all about. If you are truly passionate about training, truly passionate about learning everything you can to get stronger and more powerful everything you can to get stronger, more powerful, you need to experiment with every training method that you can find, even if they sound completely stupid, because sometimes a method that makes absolutely no sense on paper can actually deliver results. And you never know until you tried it for yourself and with athletes. And that's what being a coach is all about. Personally, I always, I think, I reason that the reason why I was such a bad athlete

was that I had the mindset of a coach. Always wanted to try things different. And when you're an athlete, you can't do that. Because if you don't follow the plan and you go completely off script when you're preparing for a competition, well, it's going to hurt your progression. If you make a bad decision, if the experiment doesn't pan out, it sets you back months. But as a coach, those mistakes make you grow. Those experimentation makes you a better coach.

As you mentioned, you have a bigger toolbox to pick from when an athlete has a problem that needs to be fixed and traditional methods don't work but if you've experimented with many many different methods maybe one of those methods even though you don't use it frequently maybe it's the method that's going to allow you to overcome that sticking point and that's really what a coach is all about a coach the job of a coach is to guide an athlete through tough periods. Anybody can coach an athlete when things are going great. Anybody can pretend to be an amazing coach when he has athletes making progress because for some reason they are either gifted, they are in a good place in their life, they are at the beginning of their growth curve. But really what sets apart the fake, the wannabes

from the great coaches is how do you react when an athlete is stagnating? How do you react when the athlete is losing confidence because his training is quote unquote not working anymore? How do you react when an athlete feels he's losing it? That's what sets the great coaches apart. I'm with you. You know, when I was a power lifter, I did much like you. I experimented so much. I think I got lucky, though, because I stumbled onto something that worked. I used a lot of, even though I call myself like a conjugate type when I was power lifting, I used a lot of bands.

But really what I was using was post-activation potentiation. And I would work up, take the bands bands off and hit prs all the time so like i experimented on myself to the point where i broke all these world records but not having a coach to guide me i got hurt so so i still learned a lot from athletes but also learned what not to do but yeah like it helped me because i got lucky i stumbled on the right thing at the right time for me. But I also learned, as an athlete, you don't want to do what I did. I was talking to Dave Tate a few years back. I was at his compound in Ohio.

And he told me, you know, nine times out of ten, as a coach, you need to hold someone back not push him forward because most of the truly driven athletes those who have what it takes to be the best mentally their problem will always be they're going to injure themselves right because these guys have a super high pain tolerance they are goal driven and they will do anything to achieve their goal. They will not let go until they achieve that goal. And by the way, we don't see that nowadays quite often. I believe that the way we are bringing up our child, our kids,

and I'm not even talking about like organized sports. I'm talking about what you do as a parent. The first two years of your child life completely messes up the nervous system what when I what I I'm building actually a new seminar is gonna be called your kid sucks and it's your fault because that's gonna bring people in it's a clickbait for seminars. But the problem is that motivation, that mindset of being able to overcome anything, the willingness to suffer, to deprive yourself, to gain a greater reward at the end, that works via the dopamine system. Dopamine is the reward neurotransmitter.

When you activate the dopamine receptors, you create a pleasure response. And the more sensitive that receptor is, the greater the pleasure response. So when someone has a very, very effective dopamine system, very high sensitivity, every time they achieve success, they win a competition, they just are successful at a lift, they are successful at doing a new movement they win a competition, they just are successful at the lift, they are successful at doing a new movement they never did before, it gives them that pleasure sensation. And what happens, they want to do it again. Now, when they're trying to achieve a new goal, and they are stuck, right? Well, you know what, they will overcome it, because they instinctively,

subconsciously know how pleasurable the reward is. But what happens is that dopamine receptor is no longer sensitive. What happens when you have the receptor that produces very little pleasure response once you achieve that goal? Well, now all of a sudden, like all that effort, that deprivation just in hope of achieving something, it goes away because the pleasure is not high enough to justify the suffering, right? That's why the kids we have nowadays, in my opinion, I'm going to explain why that is. They don't have that capacity to overcome, to delay gratification. And they're like that not just in sports, in their relationships. Like they have fast food relationships. As soon as the first three months of a relationship is over,

they switch. Why? Because the first three months is like a honeymoon. Everybody just shows up the best side of them so that they will be liked by others. It's great. It's awesome. You only spend time with each other when doing activities. But now, let's say you're moving together or you start to see each other more. Now you see the other side. It's not as pleasant anymore. But instead of working to get a relationship that's worth it, they're going to move to another fast food relationship because they don't have that capacity to delay gratification and handle when it gets hard. It's relationship, it's studies, it's sports. And my opinion, what does that is what happens with your child from the age of zero to two years of age.

For example, you know that television, iPhones, tablets, they all emit blue light, right? Blue light is how the screen works. It projects the images by projecting blue light. Now, blue light actually creates a very, very, very strong dopamine response. That's why it's addictive. That's why you can't stop looking at your phone because not only is it cool to look at big lifts on Instagram, you actually get an additional pleasure response from the dopamine spike from the blue light. Now, that's why it's addictive for us. And for adults, it's already bad because if you overdo it, you actually can desensitize your receptors. The good news is that it actually can be reset

after one week of not looking at the screen. But what happens if you do that with a kid? You have a kid who's less than a year old, and when he cries because you had a tough day at work, because you're tired, instead of spending time with your kid, stimulating him because he's crying because maybe he needs some pleasure sensation,

you park him in front of a giant screen TV. All of a sudden, he stops crying, right? We all notice that. Why does he stop crying instantly? Not because he loves the movie, not because the pretty pictures are moving, but because the blue light creates a very strong dopamine response. The problem is that the brain of a child is not fully formed. And if you overstimulate dopamine receptors at that age, you can actually permanently damage them, make them permanently resistant.

And now when that happens, you have that children who is not motivated anymore, will actually suffer from anxiety, depression. Explain to me, why would a four-year-old suffer from anxiety and depression. Explain to me why would a four-year-old suffer from anxiety and depression? Since when did that become a thing? I don't remember having anybody being depressed

when they were four, when they were kids. That doesn't make sense, right? It's a neurological issue from all the overstimulation that we are giving our kid when they are growing up and forming their brain. So in my household, televisions are never open. And just, I don't want a kid anywhere near the iPhone because he gets mesmerized. Even if I'm on my iPhone and he just catches a glimpse of the screen, he gets mesmerized.

If I give him a iPhone that is turned off, he doesn't have the same reaction because he's attracted by the pleasure sensation of the screen. And desensitizing the dopamine receptors will make that kid unmotivated, lower self-esteem, not capable of handling failure, not wanting to overcome and delay gratification, and turning to fast food relationships, program upping and training, and not being able to stick to one study program or study field. That's a big problem we have. This is the coolest thing.

I mean, I've never heard this information. Luckily, my wife, she won't, if I wanted to, won't allow me to park my sons in front of the TV or I'd get in trouble. So this is good because we play a lot. We ride bikes. Playing with your kids, literally, the mindset I have, and sorry if I hijacked the whole thing. When you're a parent, you are really a coach.

And I don't want people to think of the extreme like the Todd Marinovich thing. Remember Todd Marinovich, the quarterback that played at USC? His father wanted him to be the greatest quarterback ever. He had a quarterback coach when he was six, a nutritionist when he was six, personal trainer, just like crazy. The guy just completely broke down. What I'm talking about is when you are a coach, you care about your athletes and you want to make sure that they learn as best as I can. And you want, you do offer them support. You do give them affection, even though it's not the same love as you give a child,

it's still affection. You care for your athletes when you are. And when you are with your kid, of course you love it. It's obvious. But you actually need to plan the teaching. You need to put your kid in front of many different stimulation, have him practice many different movements. So you actually should structure a period where you are teaching your kid to do stuff. I mean, routinely, I have my kid walk on his hands. He's 10 months old, and he's going to walk on his hands. Just to acquire a new movement pattern,

you need to give them as many different sources of stimulation as possible, visual and tactile, because they need to develop the visual, the proprioceptive, and also the vestibular system. So I'm throwing my kid around in the air. People would freak out. I can actually throw him like two feet in the air and actually adjust his throwing my kid around in the air. People would freak out. I can actually throw him like two feet in the air and actually adjust his

body when he's in the air. I do the airplane in the air. You have to force him to adapt to changing body position to perception of the inner ear and visual system. And when you do that, when you have great visual system, great vestibular system,

great proprioceptive system again uh that that has the foundation to be able to be a great athlete when we talk about a great athlete we talk about what we often call natural talent right natural talent is given by the parent and it's not genetic natural talent is a combination of two things. First, it's the quality of the visual, vestibular, and proprioceptive system and how well they work together. Like the eye coordination, feet eye coordination, and feet coordination. All of that comes from what you do when a kid is growing up. How many different PlayStations you have. How many different stimulation you give them.

And, of course, sometimes you stimulate your kid, but more often than not, you need to let him play, giving him as many options as possible because that's the second thing. And the most important thing for what we call natural talent is creativity. When you look at team sport athletes like football, basketball, hockey, stuff like rugby, what separates the good players from the great ones is creativity. Good players can become good players simply by applying a system, right?

But the great players, they play slightly outside of that. They will pull out a move that nobody's seen before. I compare Barry Sanders to other running backs. Barry Sanders could do things on the field that nobody could do. Michael Jordan, same thing. Just creativity. You're going to pull out a move from nowhere. Now, creativity depends on brain chemistry, especially like the acetylcholine system, cholinergic system. That's why you need to feed your kid eggs when he's growing up, eggs every morning, because high choline is going to develop the cholinergic system, which is the foundation to memory and also to motor skill acquisition and creativity.

But more important than that, creativity depends on three things. First, having a large baggage of experience so that in your brain, you have stored tons of information, information that you can access anytime to create new solutions to problems. So maybe you're playing soccer and you've never seen a certain situation before. But when you played hockey, when you played basketball, something similar happened and you tried a certain move and it worked. So your brain can compose that adaptation of that move for the soccer pitch. So now you can actually create new strategies. So that's the first thing. But without that wide base of knowledge, experience you cannot be creative well that's one of the problem

with like early sports specialization but even it even goes further than that when you are a kid you to develop your creativity you need to be in as many different situations as possible, different environment, different option, and having to play by yourself, create your own game, make your own choices. So that's the first important thing for creativity. The second thing is the visceral need to experience stuff.

You need to want to try new stuff. So there's nothing worse than a parent who's too rigid. Like, don't do this. Don't do that. Stay there. How can you be creative if every time the kid wants to do something, you tell him not to do it? You know what? If he gets hurt, he gets hurt. He needs to learn by himself. But how you interact with that kid when he gets hurt will have a huge impact on personality. When I see a parent, like the kid falls and he cries, the mother or the father goes, Oh, are you okay? Are you okay? Oh my God, you look so bad. That's the absolute worst thing to do.

The brain will program this was bad and also the kid will actually feed off on the emotion of the parent or this is going to feel even worse. And the brain remembers that. And remember, memory works this way. The greater, the more intense the feeling, good or bad, when something happens, the more you remember it. So if you ask, oh, are you okay, are you okay? Dude, that's the worst thing to do. The kid is going to never want to try anything remotely dangerous or unknown ever again. When your kid gets hurt, you need also to act like as if nothing happened. Actually, I make fun of it.

And I will actually joke with the kid and I will do something that he finds funny. And now he will cry and laugh at the same time, which is actually quite funny. And after a while, he's just laughing. That means that he will not be scared of trying something quote-unquote dangerous again because he knows it's not the end of the world. So you need to have the deep-rooted desire to try new things.

So you need to give your kid a long time where he can actually just try to learn things and do things by himself. And lastly, the last component of creativity is the willingness to try new things and the willingness to fail. So when your kid, okay, I see parents do this all the time. Let's say your kid wants to learn to like climb up on the sofa or something, wants to stand up using a sofa, and he fails. He falls on his ass many times. After two times, the parent will actually lift the kid up. That's the worst thing to do. He learns that, you know, if I don't succeed, that's nothing to worry about because my parent will help me. He needs to figure out the situation by himself. And failing is okay. You can help him try to find a situation. You can demonstrate the

movement. You can assist him, but don't do the whole thing for him. Otherwise, you will never build that willingness to try something even though you might fail so that that is the the true source of natural talent very effective vestibular visual and proprioceptive system so your motor coordination is great you move great and also creativity and the way sports are being practiced in our society. The way our society works, it really is basically banning creativity. First, because we are being overprotective of our kids. And that is because coaches want to be more important than they really are. Let's say, take hockey, for example.

You have players who are eight years old and they are already playing the same system as they are in the pro. Just because the coach wants to show that he knows his stuff. But you know what? The kid, when he's eight, he should just be playing. There was a study conducted in Germany among the members of the national soccer team. And they wanted to see the difference between the members of the national team and the players in the third league.

So they're much like pros, but not as skilled, not as good players. And there were no differences in physical capacities, no differences in body types, no differences in experience in structured soccer. The only difference was the amount of time spent doing unstructured play, backyard soccer, backyard basketball, playing with different fields, no rules, you just have to come up with your own solutions. In fact, a member of the national teams spent less time playing structured soccer than the worst players, but they spent more time on structured play. Look at the Brazilian. Most of them learned soccer playing in the streets. Look at the top football players. They all learned playing on the pitch with their friends.

And the more of that unstructured play you do, the more creative you become because you are not forced to act based on what the coach is telling you to do. That's how you build creativity. But nowadays, you play hockey, for example, in Canada. You play hockey six months out of the year. Then three months, it's summer camps. And then the other three months, it's going to be prep camp. And it's all playing the same thing, superstructure year round. You never develop any creativity.

And being creative is the secret to success in life, in sports, in relationship, in being happy. No doubt. You know, some of the coaches, some of the athletes I work with, if they're an athlete who plays in a structured league year round, end up being some of the worst athletes I coach. Like they might be good at soccer, but athletically in general, they're terrible. in a structured league year-round end up being some of the worst athletes I coach. Like, even, like, they might be good at soccer, but athletically in general, they're terrible. Like, I mean. Dr. Bampa published, he mentioned a study in one of his books.

They looked at athletes who specialized very early versus athletes who didn't specialize. What happens is that athletes who specialize early in a sport actually become better in that sport than the others until the age of around 15 and it makes sense right if at first when you learn to play soccer or hockey if you play more soccer more hockey you're gonna master the game faster that that's obvious what happened though is that from the years 15 to 21 those who did not specialize became better why because by playing other sports they develop other motor skill they also develop the capacity to learn new motor skill and they develop creativity that's really important also the athlete who specialize early higher rate of injuries because they do the same patterns over and over and over, patterns overused.

Also, and that is really interesting, they became worse under pressure. And they couldn't figure out why. Why would someone who just plays one sport be worse in competition when competing in that sport? And the reason is psychological. If all you do, if all you do is platform diving, you are a diver, Olympic diver, that's all you do all the time. Well, it becomes your whole life, right? That's the only thing you have to validate yourself, to feel good about yourself. So when you're competing, it's your whole life that's on the line. That's so much pressure, man. But if you're diving, you're also doing gymnastics, you're playing hockey, playing basketball with your friends, you have many

things going for you. So even though a competition is important, that's not the end of the world. That actually decreases the amount of pressure, allowing you to stay in the zone better. Remember, athletes choke, not because they can't get in the zone, because they you to stay in the zone better. Remember, athletes choke not because they can't get in the zone, because they can't stay in the zone because of adrenaline. And the more pressure you put on yourself, the harder it is to stay in the zone. This is great. Hey, man, I think we're about out of time. Do you know Coach Ken, Joe Ken?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. He's coming next. He actually lives next to us. Hey, where do you live now? Do you live in Colorado Springs, Canada? No, no. I'm back in Canada. I moved back here when I got married because my wife,

at first she's super family-driven, which I respect. She wanted to be close to her family, especially since her mother has a fragile elf. And also she doesn't speak English. I always told her you need to learn but no that she has other priorities right it would since most of my business is like traveling doing seminars and uh doing my most of my coaching is online now i have like few olympians still so i just send the program like one is in trinidad one is in in the eastern or western canada so it's

what is in east port of Canada, for example. So athletes are around. So it's mostly online coaching. And what I do when I'm in Canada when it comes to coaching, it's more consulting work. So, for example, if someone wants to improve their snatch, then I will do a session or two or three sessions with them and fix that. That's why I work with lots of CrossFit athletes. They bring me in to fix a specific problem. Man, I can't wait to our paths cross, which I think.

I really want to discuss my new teaching sequence I'm using for the snatch. It simplifies everything. I'm pretty sure you're going to love it. I can't wait. I do have one more question. I know, but this is important to me. So now that you still write for t-nation so would you say that t-nation has become more of just the advertisement of Christian Thibodeau versus like a main source of your income uh probably I mean I think that's

one thing a lot of coaches they write for t-nation to get to gain visibility and that's one thing. A lot of coaches, they write for T Nation to gain visibility. And that's one thing that over the years that didn't sit well with the ownership, that some people who are nobodies, nobody knows them. They're actually just starting in the middle of the year. They write a few articles. And just when they start to get a following, they just leave T Nation altogether and start their own thing. And then T Nation spends a lot of energy building that person up.

And once they have enough of a following to do their business on their own, they just leave T Nation and then T Nation loses these followers. And to me, I have many faults. I'm probably the most loyal person you're going to ever find. T Nation, I've been writing for them for 20 years. I'm going to be writing for them for 20 more years if they still want me around. Just because I wouldn't be where I'm at today

if it were not for them. I would still be a successful coach, but I would probably be like one of these thousands of great coaches who are churning out great athletes, but nobody outside of their limited circles know who they are. I'm sure you self myself we know hundreds of coaches who are just as good if not better than the quote unquote

celebrities we see online but just because they never had their shot because nobody nobody gave them a break maybe they just like working in the shadows then they don't get known. But that doesn't mean they're not great coaches. Well, you know, sometime off air, I would love to talk about, I would love to write for T Nation. I'm never really, I don't know why I've never reached out to Tim Patterson and asked to write, but I love, I'm an OG. Just send an email. It's article at TNation.com. All right.

It would publish your article in a heartbeat. I will do just that then. Hey thanks for being on and um i'm excited about getting you know with stronger experts getting to hook up with you sometime in the near future and we'll talk about your snatch sequence which i'm super excited it's not like i think we going to see eye to eye on that because you and I are both similar. We are more strength coaches than technique coaches. Right. It is my belief that technique is important, yes, because if you have like obvious mechanical flaws, you're not going to be able to apply your strength and power properly to the barbell and you're not going to be lifting maximum weight. But it still is a weightlifting sport you need to be strong i mean maybe you can compensate

less strength by like great technique at first but to be truly truly world-class you need to be like super strong so the the problem is but what i'm seeing with these coaches and i think the coaches are to blame because they want it once again, they want to feel more important. More important. Yeah, exactly. So they complexify the technique. You absolutely need me to learn to snatch. You know what?

I'm going to show you my sequence. Anybody can learn to snatch if they don't have any mobility problem by themselves in two hours. When you look at the technique, it's's like 90 of what we would say like perfect technique but it is so simplified and now you don't have to think about it you can just because the more you think the more complex the technique is the less you can apply your force because you right i'm 100 with you man i 110 you know if you look at like um at the top dudes in the olympics right now like um i don't know ten tau or lose i was i love obviously i love the chinese and so um those dudes are super strong so like and their technique is like i mean there's a lot of flaws

i can pick out flaws and all their technique and guess what they're winning it's the Bulgarians when they were at their peak I yeah dude that was not pretty oftentimes I mean I remember Georgie Garda have like you know was doing front squats and his arm would fly forward because he just can't hold a barbell Armenian Armenian I mean you could go to any local meet in the U.S. and most lifters would have better technique than the Armenian. Yet the Armenians are among the top five countries in the world because they are super strong. I'm with you.

All right, man. Thanks for being on. Well, thanks so much to Coach Thibodeau for being on with us. I hope you guys enjoyed this one. For more podcasts like this or for our free articles, and of course we've got our e-books and coaching for you as well, all of that can be found over at mashelite.com. That's mashelite.com.

Well, thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time. Thank you.