Barbell Shrugged - National Champion Weightlifter and Team USA Coach Derrick Johnson - 279

Episode Date: September 27, 2017

Derrick Johnson has won 6 senior national titles, 8 American Open titles and is a world team member (scoring the most points of any athlete in over 10 years for United States at the 2014 World Championships).   Bursting with passion for the sport, with decades of knowledge to share, Derrick one hell of an athlete and may be an even better coach (the youngest Level 5 Senior International Coach in history and has coached weightlifters for the Olympics). Competing in weightlifting for over 20 years, Derrick is the American record holder for both the snatch (double bodyweight!) and the total in the 62 kg class.   He's as legit a weightlifter as you can get, enjoy the show! -Mike and Doug   ► 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

I've always been square with everything because that's how I was taught in wrestling to basketball to football you keep everything square so you don't create any muscle imbalances. So I look at weightlifting just like I look at basketball. So weightlifting if you look at my exact start which is square everything forward that's the same position I would jump in so that's my most explosive position and that's why always a lot of people they look at weightlifting and they just separate it from sports. Well, this is why people do Olympic weightlifting, to be more explosive, functional.

Functional is the major word there. Welcome to Barbell Struct. I'm Mike Bledsoe here with Doug Larson and D. Kenny Kane. We're at Venice Barbell Club here in Venice Beach and we're hanging out with Derek Johnson. What's really special about Derek, well there's a lot of things special about Derek. We sat down at lunch with him but I found out that he's not only an international athlete, but an international coach, level five USAW coach. That's very impressive because to get to that point, you actually have to produce athletes to get there. It's not like, oh, I just went to the seminars and I took the test.

I did so good. You actually have to demonstrate that you can produce athletes over time, which is really, really impressive. Yeah. Another interesting thing that we talked about this morning that I think our audience would love to hear about is, are your thoughts on training environment? What makes a really good training environment? What makes kind of a shitty training environment? Where do you need to be?

What's the environment you need to be like if you want to be a world-class athlete and have a really good training session? And one of the things, D, I'm really interested in, and we've talked before. I've had the luxury of interviewing once before, and one of the things that we didn't get to is the role of ego and the role of swag. And I want to kind of jump into that, knowing you and getting in there a little bit more deeply. Yeah. So, it's 2017, and a big complaint in American weightlifting is that we're not recruiting athletes early enough.

You know, it's like, oh, we're not, you know, a lot of other countries are getting athletes in, you know, when they're in their, before their preteens, right? And so you got into weightlifting really early, and you've also created programs for recruiting the youth into the sport. So can you tell us about how you got into it and the programs you've created? Well, I started Olympic style weightlifting 20 years ago at the age of 12 years old. So I was at this after school program in the inner city. It was just like a program to try to keep kids off the streets, just to give us something new. In the gym, you had basketball, you had kids lifting weights on the platform. I didn't know what the lifts were. I didn't know what a snatch was, a clean, a clean and jerk, like any of that stuff was.

But I'm a guy that played basketball, so with the hoop being in there, that was all I needed. And so after that, I was like, you know what? I could get bigger, get stronger. Well, here we go. I'm about to start competing in whatever this sport was. And also another thing with the program I started at, it was the only program of its kind in the United States. go I'm about to start competing and whatever this sport was and also another thing with the program I started it it was the only program of its kind

in the United States so it was this all it was just pretty much all black kids in there they're all come from poverty this is live for life so this is live for life gym in st. Louis and it was started in 1988 and I first came there in 1997 and so I began coaching there at 19 in 2004 and my ideal age of getting the athlete is eight years old seven years old my brothers who are twins the Barnes brothers they started at seven yeah and so they're damn good lifters yeah and so with that you can get the reps in you can really develop the technique when kids start later. Let's say you start in eighth grade It's kind of late for a sport because you're trying to go through all the development the older you are when you start

The more you have to work on mobility if I get someone at seven years old eight years old Their mobility is perfect. There's nothing you need to really work on All you need to do is just work on the technique at that point. But if you get them at 13, they might have been sitting around. Maybe they weren't active in sports. Maybe they weren't. So now you have to work on mobility. Get an 18-year-old, you have to work on even more.

Get someone 25, you have to work on that much more. You have to reverse some of the bad movement patterns that they've developed. Yeah. And one thing people don't really think about when they think about mobility, especially with what you're saying about starting sports at a really early age, it's like if you're 25 and you try to get more range of motion, your shoulder, your hips, your ankles, or what have you, I mean, it's very doable. You can get more range of motion. But a lot of people think of like, if I want more range of motion, I got to make my muscles longer, quote unquote, or like I have soft tissue restrictions. And they don't think think bones they think just soft tissue structures but if

you start a sport when you're like four five six seven eight years old and you grow up doing that sport it will actually affect your bone structure because some people can't get into a position because not just because they have soft tissue restrictions but because there's bony blocks like their bones aren't the right shape to achieve a certain position so what you're saying like about starting super early and that prepping you for the sport is super important in my opinion. But a lot of people don't really consider it. Well, imagine looking at gymnastics. Totally.

If you started gymnastics at five years old, you're too old. Find another sport to do, you're too old. You need to be in gymnastics at three to four because there's so many reps you have to get in. Basketball players, most of us, like when you start playing basketball, you start at four, whenever you can physically get the ball up there. That's when you start basketball. Pee-wee football is a big thing. Mm-hm.

You have to start early, and that's some pretty good contact there with kids. But football, there's those reps you need to develop. Kids are already getting recruited by the time middle school happens. So that's the thing about the professional sports. Basketball players, you know what guys are. Basketball players in middle school are getting scholarships for high school. These coaches are already on the playgrounds, the basketball courts.

They're already at it. So if you're talking about building the sport of American weightlifting, you need to be getting after it. And so right now I'm developing an after-school program, and it's going to be in the South Los Angeles area. And so the whole goal is, of course, I want kids 18 and under. I really want them 7, 8. And I'm not just going to wait for them to come for me. I'm going to be in housing projects.

I'm going to be at the recreation centers. I'm not just going to wait for them to come for me. I'm going to be in housing projects. I'm going to be at the recreation centers. I'm going to recruit. And I'm thankful that USA Wisdom is really excited about this venture I'm on. And they're all about it. And they're ready. And they're ready to help out. So you're kind of trying to replicate what you got. Because you started when you were 12, right?

I started when I was 12, yes. Yeah. And then this is a really unique opportunity and very rare. I mean, what you described, like black kids going to Olympic weight lifts, is not something that you hear often in a sentence. No, no. So I remember going to trips that, once again, we would show up in like two bands, two light bands, and it would

be 30 kids. 30 kids hopping out the band to go to these remote areas in Missouri and Illinois and around the Midwest, and people would, like, we were a sight to see. Shake it up a little bit, man. Not that we were doing, we weren't doing anything. We were just kids. Yeah. But it was a sight to see where you, oh, hey, let's stay away from them.

Yeah. We were just kids trying to compete. Yeah. so that was like one of the things that we had to adjust to but uh wait real quick before before we dig too much into that story for people that still don't really know who you are like like who are you in the world of weightlifting like what are your accomplishments what have you done like why should someone listen to you regarding weight who had gotten there yet so that's a great question so I've been competing for 20 years. Once again, I started at the age of 12 years old.

I'm the current American record holder for the snatch and for the total. World team member. I won the national championships two months ago. I've won six senior national titles, eight American Open titles now, junior national titles, collegiate world team member, junior world team member, youth world team member. So I made all those international teams. In 2014, I scored the most points for the United States at the world championships in a qualifier in over 10 years. I'm also, as a coach, a Level 5 Senior International Coach.

So that's the highest level there. I became a Level 5 coach at 27. So I was the youngest Level 5 coach in USA history, the first African-American Level 5 in USA history. I'm the only coach in the world to have three different senior world team members from three different countries, United States, Canada, and Brazil. I have a guy that has competed at two Olympics now, and so of course I'm the age of 32 now. And so even if you eliminated everything from an athlete accomplishment, just okay, let's look at the coaching.

I started coaching at 19 years old, and I've coached hundreds of kids throughout the St. Louis area. At 24 years old, I created a Olympic weightlifting program at a university. So it was the first of its kind. And not only was it, it wasn't a club sport. It was actually an official sport, meaning that lifters there can get grants can get scholarships we pay for memberships entry fees travel to competitions meal stipends and so that's what i created there at lindenwood university a lot of that was getting created around the time that that i discovered weightlifting the 0607 yeah so all this is before so like the social media yeah yeah uh and it was just because i have a passion in the sport,

and I feel like the sport, it made with me to see the world. I feel like that answers the question pretty damn well. You got a lot going on. You're easily one of the most experienced, decorated weightlifters in the United States by far. You're a tip-top guy, which is why we're here hanging out and talking. So you're not just an athlete, though, as you said. Like you're a super experienced coach.

And I know just from hanging out with you this morning, like I can tell you're a natural coach. Like talking to us all day, like you're constantly coaching us, like on everything from weightlifting, of course, to nutrition, to how to interact with your athletes, et cetera. So I'd love to hear more about your perspectives on coaching and like, how do you deal with your athletes? Like how do you build somebody from a young age, you know, seven, eight years old and build them up to be in the ranks so they can be, you know, superstar in high school,

college. Well, just when I'm looking at athletes and I was talking to you earlier and I try to keep like saying things so I can expose people to things because when I was learning about nutrition and learning about corrective exercises or movement prep, it was only because the idea was sprinkled into my head. And once the idea was there, I was able to look into it further.

And so when I'm looking at, when I'm coaching someone one-on-one, and let's say we had a good week of training and the next week they're kind of sore. So now my question as a coach now would be to roll out or foam roll, what have you eaten the past few days? Because something you ate three days ago could be the reason why you're inflamed in a particular area today.

So now we can start, hey, write it down or just tell me how loud. So now we can start making an adjustment, and now you can start the healing process because I believe healing is done through food and not through chemicals so I want everything to be natural as possible, so at the same time you're Switching how you eat and reducing the inflammation in the food you eat You're recovering for training and getting better for the next day When you say healing is done through food, but not done through chemicals. What does that mean? A lot of times, especially with athletes,

by the age of 17 years old, I was taking Vicodin, 800 milligrams of ibuprofen each day before training. I was taking muscle relaxers if I needed that after training. I was taking more Vicodin after the workout if I needed that. Of course, that

every chemical has a reaction. Every single chemical. Whatever prescription pill pill whatever over-the-counter medicine that you possibly want to take there are a whole list of reactions well we want to do natural things like turmeric ginger bone broth or eating foods that are lower in or inflammation the typical American diet is inflammatory. The typical diet. So if I asked a normal person, just pulled them off the street, and they gave me a list of what they ate today, it would be inflammatory.

Everything from, maybe it could have been, you had a lot of dairy in there. So dairy is high on the list. Grains are high on the list. Sugar. Lagoons. And I would start with things like that first. So I know if a person is eating those list of ingredients, they're going to be inflammatory. That could be the reason that their hip is hurting on the squats. Because the inflammation, of course, is created in the gut. Well, that tightens up the hip, tightens up the hamstrings. So there's a lot of things going on once inflammation

is present in the body. So now we reduce that, now I can get more results out of the athlete I'm talking about. So if I get somebody younger that's avoiding all the inflammation, seven, eight years old, So you mean to tell me they're not going to be running into those issues because all injuries happen around the joints. Inflammation is stored around the joints. So we can reduce the rate of injuries by reducing inflammation. And so that's if I was working with a seven year old, an eight year old or a 30 year old, 70 yearold. These are the same conversations I have. And this is a part of my Olympic weightlifting coaching.

This is not me just randomly bringing up gut health or the gut microbiome. Yeah, you're not just coaching the athlete on technique. You're coaching the athlete on all aspects of the sport. All aspects of life. And then from that point, after I talk about nutrition, then I'll talk about corrective exercises. I'll talk about movement prep. I'll do 10 minutes of corrective exercises before I train. So it's no stretching, no foam rolling. It's all

activation, loosening up the joints, getting the body ready for movement. It's funny, you're 32, and by some measure, 32 years old, and Olympic lifting can be considered starting to enter the dinosaur realm. And based on your energy and our brief conversations recently, it doesn't seem like you're feeling like a 32-year-old that's been lifting for 20 years. And I'm assuming that a lot of it is because of the way that you're handling this stuff for yourself. Well, and it's funny. I remember when I first moved to Los Angeles almost five years ago.

I was just moving here to coach. I competed for 15 years, and I've had so many cortisone injections throughout from 18 to 26. They're delicious, aren't they? Yeah, so tasty. It was a normal report. So that was a report I forgot to add when I brought in the painkillers, the muscle relaxers, the ibuprofen.

I have to mention cortisone injections, which is, over time, not the best thing for the tendons and all that. I've had them in my back. I've had them in both knees so many times. You had two knee surgeries, right?

So I've had two knee surgeries. I've spent so many hours getting MRIs to where it was just like, you know what? I'm gonna move to Los Angeles. I'm starting over. I'm just gonna coach. And it was because I was exposed to these different ideas. It was just like when I heard about the elimination style diet,

it was just like, it just doesn't make sense. So you're saying if I eliminate these things from my diet, my knee that always swells and I've had the medial, the lateral, and the medial meniscus torn multiple times, you tell me if I eliminate these things, that that inflammation, that swelling, that just a normal part of my life is gonna be gone? Nah. I'm a competitor though.

So now I'm researching these things. It just doesn't make, everybody's talking about nutrition. Everybody's a dietician, especially in Los Angeles. Everybody knows what they're talking about. I noticed. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, everybody's an expert.

And so now, of course, I'm the guy that just loves research in general. Just whatever I'm interested in, I'll spend the day doing it. I'll read the book on it. I'll read the book on it. I'll YouTube video. I'll YouTube video from politics to my Lakers to gut health to movement prep. So at this point, before I, and I'm still not switching yet. I'm still eating fast food here. This is five years ago. Less than five years ago.

I'm still eating fast food. I'm still going, eating my regular way I've learned how to eat in St. Louis. The processed foods. I'm doing movement prep this time. So I've eliminated sit-ups and crunches because I came across this idea of this guy called Stuart McGill. And Stuart McGill is a big proponent of eliminating sit-ups, crunches because I came across this idea of this guy called Stuart McGill. Stuart McGill is a big proponent of eliminating sit-ups, crunches, Russian twists, leg raises, anything

that isolates muscles in the core because the core is defined as the shoulder joint to the hip joint. So I don't want to isolate any muscle group in the stomach. So now I'm feeling a little better. I'm able to squat without a belt on because my back, I've had so many cortisones in there, I've taken so many sedatives, muscle relaxers for the back, so I'm moving a little better. But now this gut health, or this elimination style diet thing is saying that my joints can feel better. So I said, you know what, after this Super Bowl, I think it was like February 6, 2013, I'm trying. And so at that point, and I was not going to compete again, but I was feeling so much

better. I remember talking to my mother a week later after I tried it, and I lost close to 10 pounds. I was in a heavier weight class when I was competing. So I was probably, when I moved to Los Angeles, I was probably 160 almost. Yeah. I competed in the 136.6-pound weight class. Of course, I do a weight cut, but I'm in the 62-kilogram weight class. And so, and I remember people saying, like, okay, when you do this, you'll probably lose 5, 10 pounds.

How's a guy that's 6% body fat already? Right. pounds. How's a guy that's 6% body fat already? I've always loved the look of muscles and being lean there. How's a guy that's 6%? That's probably more, probably 5. But how am I going to lose 10 pounds? It's not possible. Where's it going to come from? In five days I was so light that at this point, I think I could compete. And I was talking to my mother, I was like, I haven't felt like this since I've been like 15 years old. Because the knee issue started of course at 16, 17. Back issue at 16, 17. Which of course creates the condition of me taking painkillers to

get through all the sports I was taking. Of course, I would have my first knee surgery at 19, 20. So real quick, we heard what you decided that you weren't going to eat anymore, all the pro-inflammatory foods that you had mentioned. What did your diet look like when you lost all that weight? And what does it look like now? Like, what does a normal day look like? So actually, it's pretty similar to what it was then.

I would go to red meat. I would go to the, like, higher fat, low carbs, which also scared me. So once you brought up the word keto, I remember a person that was telling me, was like because once again I was researching and keto depending on who you search for online to give you some results that you don't want to know about keto a lot of propaganda out here but uh so I started looking into keto and I came back and I asked the guy I was training in Santa

Monica at the time and so i was like so you like really like like high fat and low carbs i was like keto then i was like and he's like he's like yeah what's the problem with that and i didn't expect him to just say that i expected him to be like oh like make some long excuse to like make me comfortable, I guess. So anyway, red meats, low carbs, and I mean low carbs like nuts, every here and there, green vegetables. So the vegetables need to be green. Avocado's my only fruit.

And so that's a big part. I know a lot of people do like the fruit, the juices, but my number one thing is inflammation and keeping the blood sugar down. So I go off fat, so I'm pretty much like this all day. So a lot of people that do the blood, I'm sorry, the carbs, or even the fruit, still is going to break down the same way and create inflammation at the end of the day. So all of it gets broken down the same way, whether you're eating an apple, a slice of wheat bread. It's still breaking down the same way. So how many grams of carbs are you eating in a day? I guess whatever two avocados is, whatever a little spinach is. So not much.

Yeah. So I'm trying to make sure I'm keto. Like at lunch today, you had like a burger patty. A little spinach is... So not much. Not much. Yeah. Yeah. I'm trying to make sure I'm keto. Like at lunch today, you had like a burger patty. Yeah. You had a bunch of lettuce, leafy greens. Avocado.

Avocado. Like everything you're talking about, you ate at lunch today. Yeah. And so... You're not making this shit up. Yeah. And everything's about fueling the body. And once again, so if we look at every single...

So something like fruit, processed foods, grains, sugars, like that's gonna create a blood sugar spike. So now that. Did you go through a period of time where you didn't feel well? Because I heard about this keto flu thing. It was more like the first like three days. I mean, you couldn't talk to me.

It was like my body was like, where is that stuff at that you've been feeding it for 27, 28 years now? It's like, where is it? And then it was just like, it didn't like, as you kept feeding it fat, the body was able to switch over. So it's like once you get through those initial like three days, two, three days, maybe, I don't know, five for some, I guess. Yeah. So you started feeling better. Yeah.

You go, well, fuck it, I'm going to compete. Right. And so you started competing. So know well it i'm gonna compete right so i hadn't competed nationally in like a year and a half yeah or going into the national championships in 2013 i hadn't competed in a year and a half nationally and so at that point it's like you know what let's start let's start making youtube videos show my progress hey i'm coming as a 62. I called up a person I knew in this, or I messaged a person I knew in this sport for a long time, Ursula, who's my coach, Papandrea.

And so she's also a senior international coach. She used to lift in the 90s. And so she's been in the sport of Olympic weightlifting for, I don't know, over 30 years. She's the current president of USA Weightlifting. She's also the vice president of the International Weightlifting Federation. So she's on fire this year. And so, but she wasn't any of those things in 2013. It was just a coach that I've seen absolutely put in the work.

And I messaged her. I was like, you know what, I'm thinking about competing again. Will you be my coach? And I was like, you know what, I'm thinking about competing again. Will you be my coach? And she was like, yes. Also, I'm thinking about competing in the lighter weight class. She was like, let's go. I think it's really interesting to note that, like, you're a super accomplished athlete. You have lots of coaching experience.

Like, you are fully capable, if you wanted to, to write your own programming and to manage yourself as an athlete. But for a lot of people out there that, like, they want to write their own programs and they don't want an athlete but for a lot of people out there that like they want to write their own programs and they don't want to get a coach I think they can do it themselves like you're like as experienced as yet and you still decide to get a coach like why why is that I was actually writing my workouts for about a decade because I was I would have I was coaching so many people that I would do the workout that they were doing since I'm the coach of course I wrote it but

it's about building that support system so in sports you have to have that support system and so she's gonna be my ride or die at the competitions cutting weight like I've had a competition where I cut close to eight pounds on the day of my best company one of my favorite, like favorite competitions. I think I broke the American record three, four, five times in one competition. I was like breaking my own record at that point. But it was that day I cut 7.7 pounds. And her weight cutting, and I didn't know, I wasn't like a weight cutter like that, but she has, once again, she's been in the sport for so long, she's going through the process

of cutting weight. She's been at these international weightlifting competitions. And who better to have her? And it wasn't based off her being a woman or a man, but based off her bio, her accomplishments, because a lot of times I get the question, and I'll say, oh yeah, and people ask me about my coach I say oh yeah she's blah blah yeah what'd you say you said you say her she and most time is this women they usually like

accident to two or three times honey your coach your coach is the one yeah yeah awesome yeah yeah we found out about your training, your diet, and your approach with youth weightlifting. And let's take a break. When we come back, I want to get into the ego question. And we're back with Derek Johnson, probably the most accomplished athlete slash coach I've ever met. Somebody who's done both athlete and coaching to that degree. Really, really impressive. In the first half, we covered what you do for your diet, how you got into weightlifting, youth programs for weightlifting.

And now we want to dig into, what are we digging into, Kenny? Well, I think one of the big things we want to dive into is the role of ego and the role of swag. For you personally, in coaching, and just the sport of Olympic weightlifting. Well, just honestly, see ego and swag. Ego is something that every athlete needs. If you don't have any ego, you better go find someone. But it's all about having respect.

If somebody is arrogant and has a big ego, well, you're going to rub some people the wrong way. But my thing is always respect. I would never do anything to disrespect someone's platform, disrespect someone's environment. Swag. Like, you know that you put in all the work. You can, like, you'll see me sometimes when I'm in between the sets,

I'm in here dancing, I'm feeling good because I feel like I'm putting in all the work. I'll sometimes, let's say if I'm getting ready for a workout, once again I've been doing this for 20 years, two knee surgeries, sometimes I'll come in and I might do the Norma Tech for 20, 30 minutes. I might do STEM, I might, there's been times where I do Epsom salt baths, ice baths. I might go see, go get laser therapy.

I might go see another chiropractor. So these all, all these things I would do if I was like sore and this is a back to back, let's say it's Monday and I'm coming here Tuesday and I'm just sore, there's no way I need to work out. Oh, I'm working out. There's no way I'm not, oh, I'm gonna be on that platform

and I'm doing the percentages that the coach put on there because I'm gonna, if I have to come in here and work out at 10 a.m., I'm going to be up at 7 a.m. starting the process of getting ready for the workout. And so now I know when I don't know how I was able to squat today, but I'm in here snatching, hitting the deepest bottom position, and now I'm in here dancing between the workout, feeling fantastic. But it's also just helping out the environment. And that's the swag factor.

That's the ego factor. But it also has to be respectful of anybody around, though. Yeah. You just mentioned environment, and at the beginning of the show, I was wanting to hear more about, like, what makes a good training environment. So can you expand on that? Like, what makes a good training environment so someone can train in an optimal setting? Yeah.

And with me, I've trained around a lot of guys. I've trained around multiple guys that have been at the Olympics, senior world team. None of that matters. That's cool. It doesn't matter if you've just begun the process or training in the Olympic weightlifting. As long as you're having a great time, you're bringing the energy,

turn it up. Give me loud music and somebody that's ready to work. It doesn't matter if you've been doing it for six months or 16 years. Like that's the atmosphere to me. Like just music that we all, that most of us like or enjoy. You're not gonna get music that everybody loves. But some songs here and there,

and that's the environment that I want. Because I'm going to bring it. I'm gonna be in here grunting and yelling and dancing when my song comes on. Just making it enjoyable, making it fun. So that's the optimal setting. But if you have people in there, and I've seen some situations where you got somebody constantly missing lifts, getting upset, throwing weights, crying. That's a poison atmosphere. That's poison. There's no crying in Olympic lifting.

When you see that, you're just like, I got to be that. Now, if you even had that thought in your head, that's not a good environment. And so this morning when I was training with you guys, the music was up, the platforms, it was like 10 platforms in here. All the platforms filled, the weights were hitting the floor. Everybody was just, just working on their positions, getting better. And to me, that's what a, a atmosphere is. That's what I've always tried to create in all my 20 years. I was that guy at Live for Life when I walked in there at 12 years old.

Like, oh, all these guys are bigger than me? I'm about to get them all. Not saying that, but that's what I'm thinking. Going back to the ego. Like, you better start thinking it. A lot of people can't even say something out loud. So you... Oh, you're probably not going to.

Yeah, back to what you were saying earlier about, like, you've got to have the ego if you want to be the best. Like, if you want to be the best, you've got to believe that you're the best. And you've got to have an ego to do that. But you still can be respectful without, like, telling everyone else that you fucking suck and I'm awesome. And then everyone doesn't know we like you anymore. But on the platform, you've got to believe you're the best. And that's just not allowed. That creates a terrible atmosphere even someone like me that's a world team member i would never say

any of those those things to people to make the atmosphere better i would say hey you should hey test this position out hey you know your hip is tight you do any glute work today so i'm trying to make adjustments with the people so I'm always having Even though for as a weightlifter athlete first, I don't want conversations around gyms or gut Because I'm trying to reduce the information the person can move more less inflammation more range of motion So there's all these things that that I'm trying to do to like better than Everybody's better around me, I'm better. And so even when I was, so I started coaching,

even though I was at a national championship level already, you know what, if I bring all these guys up, this atmosphere is gonna be better. Even with my younger brothers, being nine years younger than me, they got to the point where they were 14 and they would come on Saturdays and train with the older guys.

We had a great atmosphere. And now, you know what? So at 24, I created the college program. We had a great atmosphere. We had guys from Brazil, Canada, Ukraine, and, of course, all throughout the United States. So we were creating. That was a really nice atmosphere there. Yeah.

One thing I noticed is you never stop coaching. Like, you are a natural coach. When I walked in, you were coaching subtly. And you slided in. And we're having, like you were saying before, we're having lunch. You're just, that's your nature and who you are. And I find that to be really, really interesting. Because I guess that's why I started coaching.

Because I'm passionate about the sport and I think that I have the the mindset to be patient with someone. So imagine we're coaching that, I would coach like so many eight-year-olds, the eight-year-old boys and eight-year-old girls, imagine them laying on the platform and you never and you always stay impatient and so you're like okay we're gonna get it we're gonna roll she's playing're gonna roll. She's playing They're doing this and doing that you have kids running all around the place Okay, okay. Let's get back over here. Let's let's keep

Hey Focus now, but but even stuff like that and I know we always had the patience to go Because of course you're dealing with all different other personalities. I mean you're it's a It's a psycho-emotional job. Yeah. Basically, like, because it goes well beyond teaching someone a movement. Being an instructor is one thing,

but being someone who goes, oh, I can tell where they're at. Yeah. I can tell what they may be thinking or feeling, and I know exactly what to say, or even the body language to use in order to communicate with that person. And I find that to be, you're especially good at that.

So I just wanted to point that out. I'm a political science major. And so the program that I started at was, of course, an after school in the city program. And so most of us came from single family households, violent neighborhoods. So for me, I'm one of seven kids. Are you the oldest?

I have an older sister that's about six years older than I am. And I was the first mill, I was the first of the family to start lifting and all the rest... Oh, you used to take care of kids and... Yeah, so yeah. I would watch my younger brothers alive. So I was all around, yeah, I was always around kids. And so now with the program that I started coaching at, that I started lifting at at 12, my brothers would be a part of that program. And so it would be, I'm sorry,

I would have a sister under me, a brother under me, another brother, and then the twins. So even if it was like some lifting, do you know all of them won, like, national championships in their age groups? All of them.

And so, and I saw the rest of the kids, it's like brothers. But going back to that political science thing, it was like,

this is the way I can impact the community. This, like, from the people that I consider heroes, they impacted

their community in a certain way. Or I could do it this way through weightlifting. Weightlifting was just like my route to impacting the community, from like my story raising millions of dollars for that program, to me doing fun, like being at all the fundraisers and charity events. So any donor board member that came through, you came and you learned my story. I was a as a coach lifter young kid throughout the whole entire process when the news media came it was always I would be the one because I would I took

it as serious as you can take any sport yeah because once again I was a guy that would or I was the guy that I would dive in volleyball like whatever kickball come on we can do better this we can beat this team and so I just said that competitive drive always and and when I started coaching at 19 it wasn't about winning it like my win was going to be judge based off us judge based off the kids graduating from high school because in that st. Louis area you got a graduation rate especially for black males probably less than 50% yeah and so now at this point okay I've graduated high school I'm attending college now

I'm changing I'm changing like my whole structure here because my mother has seven kids and only three of us graduated high school so these are the conditions I'm from the neighborhood I was from was nothing but games so you had to be from my neighborhood to even be able to walk in the neighborhood yeah so it was just I remember just like the my fourth grade year my house was shot and shot up in a drive-by. A lot of friends got killed this particular year. This was just like okay I'm what am I 19 years old? Okay this is this is life. This is how I thought all Americans were living. I didn't know it was just certain certain people live in this particular way. So

it was just like this is the daily things you see on the daily basis. And so it was just like, this is the daily thing you see on the daily basis. And then even going to Live for Life Gym. So now you got, I'm from the south side. The gym is located on the north side. South side and north side, people kind of have a, we're kind of not on friendly terms because this is the ghetto. So everybody's in desperation mode and every you're trying to be that one to make it out the ghetto and so so if I neighborhood I'm kind of safer than what I am because now the gym you have people from the north side people from the west side people from the south side you have blood you have crits in the gym in the gym so the gym is more dangerous than the neighborhood that I live, the street that I live on, even though the murder rate is higher on the street that I live on. I'm sorry, not the street, but the area that I live in.

So because there's, you pretty much know the people in the neighborhood, or somebody in the neighborhood, but at the gym, the blood doesn't get along with the crittin', and then it's kinda like, everything is divided. The Southside person, I don't have to interview anybody, but the Southside person, since we were further away from the gym, you were at more danger because you were less in numbers. So the Northside people had bigger numbers,

and the gym was actually surrounded by one of the biggest housing projects at the time and then more housing projects. So we're like the poverty rate is incredibly high with the kids that attend the gym. And so you got the, you got strong, you got tough. It was like almost either or. And so fights every day,ights every day in the gym. See Coach trying to help Ken sit down. This is when I was a kid. So it was fights every day and it was just

like you would be on the platform. Your back couldn't be toward people. You had to face the people while you were lifting because you didn't want someone to run up on you or do anything to you. You better be fast under the bar. I like basketball. I like weightlifting. Nothing's stopping me from that. Come on with it.

Come on with it. I got a question. Change directions real quick. I got a question about your lifting style. When I watch you lift, change directions real quick. I got a question about your lifting style. So, like, when I watch you lift, like, you don't have, like, in all the ways you could have a prototypical weightlifter body type. Like, you're obviously super muscular, you're relatively short, you're super fast, et cetera. But, like, you have a relatively short torso compared to your leg length, which if you were to stereotype a good weightlifting body type anthropometrically, you would have a long torso and legs right so a lot of guys with short torsos they tend to widen their stance a little bit they tend to toe out a little bit and that makes it where they can be a little more vertical but but i see that you don't do that you do feet straight ahead you're relatively narrow stance

like you they're not hard and fast rules you have to do those things but a lot of people choose to do them and i see that you currently don't so the question is like how has your like your setup how the way you approach the bar the way you lift how does that change over time like what have you tried and what have you kind of settled on why I've always been a athlete so I've always tried to do like things functionally especially knowing the body and having injuries I've always been square with everything because that's how I was taught and from wrestling to basketball to football you keep everything square so you don't create any muscle imbalances. So I look at weightlifting just like I look at basketball. So weightlifting if you look at my exact start which is square everything forward

that's the same position I would jump in. So that's my most explosive position and that's why I always a lot of people they look at weightlifting and they just separate it from sports. Well, this is why people do Olympic weightlifting, to be more explosive, functional. Functional is the major word there. So, if you look at my stance, everything is square as if I was jumping because that's my most explosive position. So, why wouldn't I start my snatch or my clean and jerk in my most explosive position? And if I were, like, coming off a box jump and if I were landing, that's exactly where I catch the snatch at. That's exactly where I back squat at.

So it's functional to all of my movements. And so when I do my seminars and I'm asked a similar question that you posed there, this is how I answer it. I keep it like sports. Exactly like sports exactly like sports and so so actually when I'm looking at someone turn their feet I'm looking at you want you want to demo some of that while we're talking yeah and so so let's say so let's say I was jumping and I would jump here and let's say I came and I and I jumped not win okay so let's look at my and I jumped and I landed. Okay.

So let's look at my clean. This is exactly where I jumped. This is my most balanced, most functional, most explosive position. And I catch the clean. This is exactly where I land. Exactly where I would land on that jump. Yeah.

Cause I'm not creating any muscle imbalances. So imagine if I'm doing like a toes out position, I'm creating a muscle imbalance. Once I created muscle imbalances, a muscle imbalance, I'm going to start to compensate. So the same reason you're in basketball and the coach, if you come into the basketball practice like this on day one, push you over. You're going to push over because you're not as balanced. But the next thing when you're sliding laterally you're at more rate you're at a higher rate for injury yeah because your muscles are not balanced now you're causing one group to do more work and one group to do less yeah and so now we're building a bad motor motor pattern and so that's how i look at things in 2017 2018 as a

coach these are the things i'm trying to learn. I'm really trying to be functional. Going back to sit-ups, as I was saying earlier, functional. I don't want to train one muscle group. I don't want to create an imbalance. I want to train the entire core, the shoulder joint to the hip joint. That's functional movement. Me lifting with my toes forward, neutral, square,

whatever you want to call it, that's functional. I'm lifting completely balanced here. Every muscle is working how it should work. And so I believe that's definitely like even making those like adjustments like that and really watching, really I'll watch videos, especially the heavier lifts. I'll watch a lot to really make sure I'm not doing anything. I'm watching for any shifts. Why am I shifting? Why am I doing this? Why is that?

So these are the things I need to work on. You watch a lot of slow-mo video of yourself lifting? I don't watch too much slow-mo now, but I'll just, maybe I'll post something, or I don't post it, I just watch it. And then every time you watch it, you see something different. Yeah.

Oh, okay, I know what I can do for that. Or let me find out what i can do for that all right oh let me find out what i can do for that right yeah why do you do that i'm not giving enough ankle dorsiflexion oh let me work more on that yeah yeah what's your when you see that when you see that there's a micro flaw in your technique are you like emotionally are you aggravated or like more like a scientist like i need to go fix that more like a scientist it was more like so this is the process of my life yeah like winning the process right you're gonna feel a lot to win yeah so we'll fix it right so it's like I needed more I needed more ankle dorsiflexion on that I'm too far back in my hips and now I'm putting more load on my lumbar spine.

Everything for me is about protecting the joints. If I'm stable in every joint, mobile in every joint, now I can feel strength. So I have to have those things first. And so when working with somebody that's younger, that's the foundation I start with. Stability, mobility, and then strength. Yeah. So being a coach in 2017 and what we were talking about, you covered nutrition, talking about looking at the joint by joint type of approach to movement and then we were also talking about core earlier. How do you, I think most weightlifting coaches are, they just say, hey, do some core or do some sit-ups or it's not very well-rounded. What are some specific things that you prescribe to athletes for core?

So, once again, going back to the work of Professor Stuart McGill, he's the world's leading spine biomechanic. So when you get into your worst accidents, your worst athletic injuries, and you've seen doctor after doctor and they can't do anything, this is the guy you go see. And he goes back to rebuilding that movement pattern, especially working through the core,

because everything is through the core. The transference of power from the lower half to the upper half is through the core. If I want to squat more, you know what? If I do more core work, I could get a bigger squat. And so I put that on my social media a lot of times. If you increase core strength, I increase overall strength. Or even saying something like, if I increase gut health, I could get stronger at lifting. Yeah.

What is he? What? Hmm? And you're at lifting. Yeah. What is he? What? Hmm? And you're defining core. Right. I want to reemphasize. So core is functional core. I could be talking about anything from a bird dog, a dead bug, a slide, bear falls, animal

movements, baby patterns. If you're not familiar with DNS, look at a lot of the exercises that DNS put out there. Craig Liebeson, a chiropractor, but it's functional movements. Research all these things. Stuart McGill, Craig Liebeson, DNS, and you'll see a lot of these

functional movements. And as I mentioned in the beginning, eliminate sit-ups. Or do me a favor and read Dr. Stuart McGill's research. What you were talking about earlier as well is if I'm programming for an athlete, I actually stop using the word warm-up. I don't say this is your warm-up and this is your workout. You're doing the same thing.

You're just prescribing. This is what you're doing today, period. Right. So when I'm working with people, I'll write movement prep, which we can call warm-up. They're pretty much corrective exercises. Core work, glute work. And once again, the glute work would be banded, banded,

monster walks, lateral walks. They could be diagonal sits, side bridges. So if somebody's not doing this, what are they risking? What are they leaving on the table? So the great part, like even when warm-ups were created decades ago, the idea was to reduce the rate of injury. So instead of you doing something cold, you would reduce your rate of injury. The thing about with most warm-ups, they're not activating anything. So the reason why I would prescribe core in there, if we activate the core, we can take the load off the hips. If I activate the core, I can take the load off the lumbar or the low back.

I'm reducing the rate of injury. If I take the load off my hips, my glutes can do more work. The glutes are the strongest thing in our lower body. They can take the load off my knees, my quads. They can take the load off my hips, my glutes can do more work. The glutes are the strongest thing in our lower body. They can take a load off my knees, my quads. They can take a load off my ankles. So a lot of people that can't control their feet, I instantly think they have tight hips. The core is connected to the hips.

Or we can also do glute work, which can open up the hips and allow us to do more, which also takes load off the low back. I can open up my mid back, my T-spine or thoracic, whatever you want to refer to this area as, and now I can be more upright because most people are more here. And now they put more load on their shoulders, they have more load on their elbows, more load on their wrists, more load on their lumbar, which is going to put more load on the hips. So just all type of bad movement patterns and compensation. So that's why you would want to be doing movement prep if you're not doing that. And only do 10 minutes of it. Only 10 minutes. Just enough

to get everything going off the bed. I save all my static stretching, my foam rolling, lacrosse ball, that's after the workout. A lot of people say, well, okay, why don't you do foam rolling? Well, imagine, so if you're, let's say you're foam rolling your IT bands because they're inflamed. You feel the tightness. If I foam roll too much there, I can risk inflaming them more. And my idea, and let's go back to the IT band, so let's say the IT band is tight. Well, I know your hip is tight. If you're talking to me as a coach or athlete,

I know your hip is tight. If we open up the hip, get the glute to do more work, that's gonna release the IT band. And you throw an avocado at them. Yeah, they might need more fat. Right, right. If they come in the gym, they don't have the energy, oh, we gotta get some more fat right they come to the gym they don't have the energy oh we got to get some more fat in you is there anything else that you see

that's that's changing you're on the cutting edge of of coaching and weightlifting right now you're doing a lot of things other coaches aren't doing is there anything else you you feel that we could be doing better I mean we covered a lot of itrition, movement, life. So I feel like if we're talking about a way to coach and we're talking about performance, if we really believe in those words, if we really believe in the functional, I would look at everything from, like, the gut health.

When you advise your athletes not to take these over-the-counter medicines, allergy medicines, allergy medicines, whatever pharmaceutical, let's keep it natural, functional medicine, let's keep it there because all those have an adverse effect. So we're gonna cut down on the inflammation by not putting those things in our body, by doing it naturally.

So if your athlete is constantly getting sick, a flu, because I run into that a lot of times, oh, I had the flu, I was sick. Well, that's not an excuse for me. If that's an excuse for you, I'm not gonna push the issue. But if you're talking about being the best, training, or just trying to build the best team ever,

you don't want athletes getting sick. Like, if sick it gets up to a week two weeks to recover a bit sick and if you constantly come in there and train which most people do when they get a cold you're only impairing your immune system or you're only doing more to slow down healing you So I know people think they can sweat it out. It doesn't, no, no, it doesn't work like that. So gut health and really with the focus of keeping the inflammation down, from eliminating the chemicals from how you clean, how you do laundry, like all that.

That's what I mean, not just eating, not just from the gut microbiome, but the skin microbiome. You gotta be a hippie too. You gotta be a full hippie you gotta get full of hippie getting the chemicals out of your deal i stopped using uh body soap at all like uh three and a half years ago for that reason you don't care about skin biome right yeah you don't want to like even using like soap just so often which nothing wrong with being, wanting to be clean, but,

because I don't want to be just like some, anyway. Can you stop wiping in the night? It's okay, it's okay. And I'm 110. So even something like, just based off, and I'm just trying to get sports performance, and once again, it's spiraled. It's all these little things.

Yeah, so I keep, and I listen to this doctor, I listen to this doctor, I listen to this doctor. I listen to this professional. And I get more, and I get more. And one in particular, Dr. Chutkin. And I wanted to know more. She's a gastrointestinal doctor, like world class. And then I was listening to her. I was like, oh, this is great stuff.

Yes. I can use this. And then she introduced me to the skin microbiome about soap skipping the skin of good bacteria. Yeah. The chemicals, the shampoos, the conditioners, stripping that good bacteria in our head, which affects performance. Yeah. Derek, man, thanks for allowing us to come in

and hang out with you, train today. Definitely. Man, if I learned anything, if I want to change culture through weightlifting Eric, man, thanks for allowing us to come in and hang out with you, train today. Man, if I learned anything, if I want to change culture through weightlifting and make an impact on lives, I should talk to you first. For sure. I really like the piece that you mentioned about ego. I feel like every time I hear the word ego, it's someone that's saying ego is bad or you should reduce your ego. You got to get rid of it. But you were taking the fact that you have an ego and that's just a part of life in a lot of ways

and you're utilizing it in the best way possible by thinking like, I have an ego, I fucking think I'm awesome, I think I'm the best, but at the same time you have a lot of respect for other people, which I think is a great way to do it. Taking that one step further, I appreciated the same thing that Doug did and just the fact that there's some clarity around what ego can be in a healthy way and the thing that I

learned again from you was that if you put in the work it's alright to have that ego because like Doug says often we're very judgmental. Gym owners people like oh ego ego ego is the. And it can be because it can be self-destructive for people if they let it and if they're not doing the work. But if you're doing the work, then get at it. And that's what you embody. So thank you for that, D. Where can we find out more about you if people want to find you?

So you can follow me at 4Derek on Instagram, on Twitter, and on Facebook. So that's the number 4Derek, D-E-R-I-C-K. Yeah. And if people want to come train at Venice Barbell, like you guys take drop-ins if people are in town or if people just live in the area. Absolutely. Come on by. Go to the beach first or go to the beach afterwards.

There you go. It's only about a mile away. Thanks for joining us. And make sure to go to iTunes. Give us a. It's only about a mile away. Yeah. Thanks for joining us. And make sure to go to iTunes, give us a five star review, positive comment, subscribe there, and subscribe on YouTube, because we're always putting up great new videos. Boom.

Thanks, Derek. Thanks, T. Cool, dude.