Barbell Shrugged - SPECIAL EDITION- Barbell Shrugged's Appearance on Jon North's Weightlifting Talk Podcast

Episode Date: March 12, 2013

Hey guys, this is Mike Bledsoe with Barbell Shrug. This is going to be a bonus track from Weightlifting Talk that we did with John North at the Arnold Sports Festival last week. So this is not Barbell Shrug, this is a podcast from Weightlifting Talk, but John North was nice enough to let us post it on our site as a bonus to you guys. So enjoy. And if you haven't heard his podcast, go to Spreaker.com

and search for Weightlifting Talk or John North, and that's where you'll find all his episodes. Peace. Tater tots. When you're a competitive athlete, you learn very quickly how strong you are, how energetic

you are, all of those things. But it could very well be that there's a lot of people who have an equally as good a body as you have, that performs just as well, that is as muscular, that's in bodybuilding, that's exactly the same kind of proportions and all of those things. So the question really is, what puts you over the top? It is the mind that really creates the body. It's the mind that makes you really work out the four or five hours a day.

It is the mind that visualizes what the body ought to look like as the finished product. Hello everybody. For the last two years, I've been doing exhibitions like this all over California in various institutions, in prisons, in hospitals, and so on. And I've been having a great time, and it's a very satisfying thing for me to do,

to spend one day every month to come to one of those places and to help the guys with their training and so on. When I used to do seminars on how to become a champion, I would always ask people, why do you want to be a champion? Or what do you want to accomplish? Why are you training? And if a guy would get up and he would say,

well, I want to train because I think that if I get muscular and I feel like I'm getting the kind of definition, then I maybe can enter a bodybuilding competition, I said, sit down. I said, if you think this way, you're going to be a loser. You're never going to make it because there's no maybe. You've got to get up and say, I want to be a champion. And I do whatever it takes.

The amount of hours it takes, the posing, the this, the that, the visualization, looking at training footage, looking at motivational books, reading this, reading, whatever it takes, I would do. That's the answer I want to hear from you. All right, guys, we're back on Weightlifting Talk. Sorry about the dead air. I don't know really what happened. That sucks.

We were on a roll-like there. We had Jeff Whitmer stopping by live here at the Arnold, talking to him. He was the man to beat when I first started weightlifting. He wore the crown. He was the national champion. He yelled the title. I looked up to Whitmer for many, many years before I even started competing. Back then, there was a USA Weightlifting magazine, so I would put up all the pictures and want to meet Whitmer. I've actually never met him, so I just met him this weekend. That was pretty badass it's funny how sports work full circle because he just was on weightlifting talk uh sorry that you guys missed it and we were chatting about uh trying to get

him out of retirement because he retired in 09 and then he actually coached the Brazilian last night that went 80 18225. Olympian. Where are you going, Jared? I have to go into the expo to eat a booth quick. Jared, don't go anywhere. Jared Enterton is with us right now. We've got Barbell Shrug guys. We've got Doug, Mike, Chris. We've got Jacob Tipskin.

We have my teammate James. James, what's up? What I was saying, we had the Brazilian on the show. He's an Olympian. He won the gold in the Pan Ams last year. I got to see him lift live. That was pretty sweet. Really nice guy.

So we gave an Attitude Nation shout-out on air, but we missed it, obviously. Really frustrated with that. But, yeah, Jared Anderton, what's going on? I don't know if they got that last part, but you had a good meet yesterday. You got the crowd going crazy yesterday. You went 42-77. Put up a pretty solid total. I know you thought you could have done a little better.

Talk to us. What's going on? It's weightlifting. That's the one thing I think you've taught me over the years is every time you expect to have your breakout meet, the weightlifting gods tell you no. So it's usually on its own time, and you kind of got to be patient with the sport. It's one of those things that whenever you think you're the most well-prepared, for some reason you don't perform.

But, you know, it wasn't horrible. It wasn't great. Kind of right in the middle. Yeah, you're saying that, you know, weightlifting is just so hard to predict. It is. And that's the tough part. You know, you can go in feeling great and then do bad or go in feeling kind of crummy and do great. I mean, any advice, you know, you've been in the game for a long time.

Any advice for people out there that's either just starting out in the sport or, you know, at a high level that just wants to get better? What's your advice? Yeah, my advice would be don't ever take the lows too low or the highs too high. So, I mean, try to ride a level wave and try to kind of, I guess, handle the highs not quite as high and the lows not so low so you can kind of be an even keel because they're going to come you're going to have bomb outs you're going to have breakout meets but neither one of them are probably going to be a good sign of where

you're headed toward your next meet so yeah definitely and it seems to me that you've been getting the crowd into it more and more the last few meets you've been getting a little crazy i like it a little attitude nation-esque button. Yeah. I'm getting more, I get more amped up each meet. You know, I kind of get more confident on the platform and the more national meets I do around bigger audiences and stuff, I get more comfortable. And, you know, I like being in front of people too. So I think as time goes on, I kind of picked up a little John North in me. Now, does that help you compete, getting fired up like that? Absolutely, yeah. Yeah.

I think so. For me, every meet I've done it at, I've done a little bit better. And the meets I go up there kind of being like all old school USA weightlifting prim and proper. I usually do. Yeah. You know, I always miss a lift or do pretty bad. And you're at the OTC now. I am.

Yeah. Oh, well, that's cool, man. And we're live at the Arnold, guys. We're sitting right here in the middle of the convention center in the weightlifting area who knows who's going to walk by we'll get them on the show we had Jeff Whitmer on the show I know you guys missed it and I apologize about that we had the Brazilian the big guy himself but yeah barbell shrug guys I just want to say again thanks for having me on your guys's show the other day on your guys's podcast. That was a ton of fun. And that airs Wednesday, right? That's right, Wednesday.

Don't miss it. We practically made John cry on the podcast. You guys did. I was crying in tears. It was crazy. Well, I have to admit. I felt like Barbara Walters. It got kind of deep.

It did. It got deep pretty fast, too. It got way deeper than I thought it would be. You started telling me things, and I I was like is he fucking serious? But it was pretty cool. I learned some stuff. It was good. I don't know if it was the coffee you guys served me. If you guys put something in it.

You sprinkled a little something in that coffee. You guys sprinkled something in that cinnamon. It's that French press. You're not used to it yet. Ten minutes into it, Mark, 10 minutes into it, I started opening up. And I'm sitting there going,

what the hell am I saying right now? I'm giving too much information out. It's because I'm such an empathetic guy. You can just open up to me. It's like being on the Oprah show. Yeah. She's really good at making the guests feel comfortable. You do look a lot like Oprah. You know what?

You're the second person. Just the other week, they said I was the Oprah of weightlifting and CrossFit, you know? So Jared, I want to ask you, what's your weight class? That's a great question. Well, my last three national meets, I've actually competed at three different weight classes. I was one year ago at the Arnold, I was a 105. Okay. Three months ago at the American Open, I was an 85. And then this meet, I'm a 94.

So, yeah, I think 94, but long term, if anything, it'd be an 85 probably. When are you just going to go to the Supers? Yeah, I will. You've done it before. That's about all I got left, yeah. I got a question. So, for me, I've competed in 77, 85, and normally when I've competed as an 85, I wasn't a high 85.

I just didn't feel like cutting weight. But I feel like I need to go to 85 to be more competitive. Like, any advice in, like, changing weight classes? Are you timing, you know, like, timing during the year? Like, my next competition will probably be the American Open. So, like, should I just try to go 85 between now and December? My advice to that, in a very general sense, is I like to go the lower weight class. Only because body fat doesn't contract, in my opinion.

That's not in my opinion, obviously. That's pretty well established in the literature. Not in my opinion. That's pretty much science, right? So the leaner you are, generally the better. Ah! Okay, sorry. Sorry. Deep breath, John.

Deep breath. Oh, my. Yeah, can't do science around John. I have no idea why I said in my opinion. So in my opinion, the lower weight class is always the one to go to. But again, if it's not a huge meet or it's something you just kind of want to go and compete where you're training at, that's fine too, and you always can go the next weight class up. I'm probably the wrong guy to ask for weight class advice just because I've been bumping all over the place.

But generally, I say the lower weight class. Well, but there's something to be said for what you're built for. I mean, if you're 5'10", you're probably not going to make a very good 77. Right, absolutely. So, I mean, that's another thing to take into consideration. How big are you? I'm 5'8", and sometimes I feel like I'm just probably too short or too tall to be a 77, really. I don't know.

Do people really cut in weightlifting that much? At all, ever? Like, do people really cut weight in weightlifting? I do mostly MMA now. I haven't competed in weightlifting in years, actually. But we cut a ton of weight. Is that really prominent at all in weightlifting? Certain people, yes.

I mean, for the American Open, for example, I dropped 14 pounds on the Friday before the meet, and I bombed out. Most people don't. Most smart people don't cut that much weight. They'll train like two or three kilos over body weight. Jared, you have a wrestling background. I do. And that's why I thought I could pull it off. You know all the tricks.

Yes. Maybe not. Yeah. I think I do. Yeah. Apparently. I think every athlete is definitely different. I mean, I usually come in about three kilos over. I'll cut three kilos about three days before.

Nice to cut a kilo every day. And, you know, at the American Open, sometimes you plan it wrong. I came in weighing like 98, way too heavy. And I'm sitting there two hours before the meet running in circles with like 17 sweatshirts on, sweating. I actually took a shower with Glenn Penlay. This is a true story. Glenn's not here to defend himself so if you're if you're in the shower with glenn it just makes it hotter it makes it hotter because of his beard and his manliness no but seriously there was 30 minutes before weigh-ins and i was still like 0.5 over i just

could not cut and he threw me in the shower, butt naked, hot water, like, stinging my skin. It was rubbing my back to try to make me sweat. That's a catch. Of course. Of course he had his cargo. I'm not going to get to see that with my athletes. Of course he had his cargo pants on that he always wears. But, no, I think, yeah, people do cut.

I notice he's not here to defend himself. Can you bring this up? I don't know where he is. We're looking for him. I don't feel comfortable cutting more than, yeah, people do cut. I notice he's not here to defend himself. You bring this up. I don't know where he is. We're looking for him. I don't feel comfortable cutting more than, like, six pounds. More than six pounds for weightlifting because of the two-hour weigh-in. Yeah. And then, like, when I rehydrate, I get miserable.

So I just pound, like, BCAAs and some Gricos. And then, like, my stomach just – I get real bloated, which I actually think helps on platform, is to be a little bit bloated. Well, it helps for powerlifting. It might not help for a snatch clean and jerk. I don't know. I got a tiny belly. If I can use all the bloat I can get. I mean, he was telling me about bouncing the shit off his belly yesterday.

Yeah, the double bounce. The double bounce with your belly. Yeah, belly to thigh and butt to calf. That's why I squat with such a narrow stance. Hook grip is here. Holy smoking biscuit guys. We got a hook grip is in the house right now. Come grab a seat you son of a gun. Jared, you coming back though? I'll come back in like 20 minutes. Alright, hurry up and get back. Let me grab hook grip here. All I know you as is hook grip. What's your actual name? My actual name is Nat. Nat? Nat.

N-A-T? N-A-T. Well, thanks for being on Weightlifting Talk. The famous photographer. You got your website, hookrip.com. Yeah, it's actually mainly a Facebook page at this point, but there is a website there, and the website is actually going to launch really soon. Oh, is it? Yeah. Well, first of all, I think everybody at the table and everybody in this convention center wants to thank you for a growing the sport of weightlifting with your awesome photos pictures and posters that you put together and just you know taking pictures everybody it's awesome to be able to go somewhere and buy some awesome technique posters celebration celebration posters, and then even you as a lifter, you can go grab pictures of yourself and frame them.

We didn't really have that before, so thank you so much for doing that. I mean, you're welcome. I love doing it. I love watching lifting. I love photography. I love travel. So it's just the perfect thing to do as a hobby. So this is no longer a hobby. This is a full-time job now because you're traveling all over the world to the Olympics, to the World Championships, I mean, to the Pan Ams, to Junior Nationals. You're all over the place. I've gone to a lot of meets.

It's not a full-time job, but my full-time job's a little different. But it's a very, very involved hobby at this point is what I'd call it. Very time-consuming. How are you able to fly all over the world? You must be doing really well as far as sales. You're balling out of control hook grip. It's more so just I find ways to do things for really cheap. When I went to the Olympics, I booked a room on Airbnb. I basically stayed in someone's apartment for a week. That was really cheap. What got you into getting in the weightlifting world with photography?

Well, I loved photography before I got into weightlifting. I started weightlifting in 2010 when I went to a John Brose seminar in Las Vegas when I used to live there. You went to John Brose's seminar and not an Attitude Nation seminar? I didn't know about Attitude Nation seminars at the time. All right, Hooker is no longer on the show. We're going to get to... I'm kidding. Yeah.

Just, you know, I'm like one of the typical came over from CrossFit people. It's kind of embarrassing to admit, but I did CrossFit for about a year and a half. That's not embarrassing to admit. It's not embarrassing to admit, but it's, you know... Hey, I did CrossFit, bro. Dude. It's fine. It's fine.

I think everyone at this table owns a crossfit gym that's probably true I own one too sorry no just kidding but uh yeah no I came up from crossfit and just got into weightlifting and just progressively got more and more I have to say I have to say because I'm a big believer well not even a believer because it's pretty much a fact that crossfit is helping grow the sport of weightlifting. We can all admit that. Absolutely. But here's another aspect of it. You're not a CrossFit athlete that's competing in weightlifting and growing the sport, nor coaching necessarily. I don't know for sure if you do any coaching.

But here's a CrossFit guy in the world of CrossFit that has come over as a photographer to weightlifting to grow the sport taking pictures and making posters, which all love so dearly so that's just another awesome It just seems like weightlifting is is bringing in all these different aspects besides just coaching and athlete athletes That's so fucking awesome. Yeah, if it wasn't for CrossFit, I wouldn't be into weightlifting Say it again if I were to go to hookgrup.com, what would I find there? Well, right now, almost nothing. Just a couple blog posts. You've got to get on that. Well, there's a reason why.

It's a really long and involved reason, but it was stupid. But the reason that I couldn't really launch the site actually is no longer relevant as of three days ago or four days ago. So now I can actually launch it. The site's actually done. I'm on the test site every day working on it. So if I'm going to buy something from you, what do you offer? What is it that I can buy from HookGrip? Well, there actually is more of a website at store.hookgrip.com,

but right now it's just T-shirts and posters. Or people could email me if they want to post it it's not listed there but that's pretty much it right now but the long-term plan for the site is to make it a very very extensive weightlifting information site with everything from database of results to pictures to products to reviews to articles videos. Can you make a poster of me? Can you make a poster of Mike Bledsoe? I need one.

Absolutely. Let me tell you something, all right? Once that site goes up with the demand of HookRip, it's going to be game over, in my opinion. You're going to be like the next Facebook. I'm excited for it. I mean... I'm planning on it.

Let's be honest here. Get the site up up you son of a bitch so I could go on hook group and buy some awesome posters of Ilya you know crazy man John North and put them on my kitchen wall absolutely so that's exciting let us know and keep us posted when that site launches I think everybody listening and obviously everyone at the table right now is excited for that launch just gonna be hooked up calm obviously all right man I gotta go take more pictures all right get out of here that it was pleasure to meet you thanks

for joining the show all right well we had Jeff Whitmer we had the Brazilian beast that I think our viewers missed because of a bad internet connection and now we had hook grip on here so the guests are coming through we're live at the Arnold we're looking around here people are walking by checking us out hopefully we'll get some people on the show so why didn't you lift yesterday well I said this earlier but it didn't catch because of the reception but first I just want to apologize to the attitude nation and all my supporters out there i feel horrible um you know i've had a back problem ever since

americans and even before that but i've been able to train and compete in pain with it very tight but i was able to to you know tough it out and i was worried that this would happen yesterday and I'm on the bar and 50 kilos and 70 kilos and everything's feeling good. I mean the back's tight, but it's doable. I mean I'm lifting in pain, I'm on a bunch of Advil, put 90 kilos on. You know, look, we were going to open at 160 last night and we were going to take two shots at 66 for that American record. And I'll tell you one thing, maybe I'm drunk off coffee and a little confident right now,

but I'm in the best shape of my life, mentally and physically. So I was ready to go and salute the nation. Put 90 kilos on the bar, mid-Superman pull, I should say. I fell. A sniper might as well have shot me. Oh, James. Holy shit, I didn't even know you were right next to me. We've got James Tatum on the show right here. I want to talk to him. But a sniper might as well have shot me in the back. I mean, it was probably the worst pain that I've ever felt

in my whole life. And I just hit the floor and I couldn't get up. The paramedics were in the back. I tried to get up, but I couldn't. to carry me out to uh to another area of the convention center and you know they thought I had nerve damage and I couldn't feel my legs because they were tingling and to be dead honest with you it was actually a very scary experience but I'm okay well not okay I don't know when I'll be back I'm going to get x-rays tomorrow and going to the hospital tomorrow so hopefully I'll be ready for the Pan Ams in a few months um I'm going to get x-rays tomorrow and going to the hospital tomorrow. So hopefully I'll be ready for the Pan Ams in a few months. I'd like to do collegiates because I don't need to be in college for that because it's the last Pan Am qualifier. So they let non-college.

That explains why Kendrick's lifting. Exactly. That's why Ferris has lifted and a few other guys. So that's what's, and I actually just found this out a few days ago, but four weeks away, I don't know, guys. It's pretty bad. You know, the doctors are saying right now to just stay off it for a month, but what do they know, right? Probably not much. You know, I gave a speech.

I walked out between Snatch and Clean and Jerk. Due to your guys' help, I appreciate that because so many people are wondering why I didn't come out to Snatch. You guys came in the back room and said, you know, hey, people are asking, it's time to address the nation. Like, maybe you should go out there and get on the mic. And I said, that's a good idea. So I walked out there and I got on the microphone and I just apologized. I said, I'm just sorry. I let a lot of people down and a lot of people drove out here to watch me lift. And I mean, obviously other people as well.

And so on the microphone right now I just want to say the same thing I apologize I'll be back stronger than ever you can't keep the Attitude Nation down and you know this is the first national meet that I've missed in six years looking back I mean I haven't missed a meet ever since I made my first nationals so it was tough to sit back and watch all those guys snatch a clean and jerk without me. So it's a feeling that really hit home. James Tatum's on the show right now. Hey guys. James Tatum, everybody that's listening right now can probably agree with me that you are a freak. What do you have to say to that? Well, I don't know about that. I just get pretty excited during competitions and

it's really just my motivating factor. What I love most about weightlifting is competing and getting up there and going all out. I mean, yeah, so I had a good day in snatches yesterday, and then it paid off. It was a lot of fun. I tell you, you went six for six. No, I didn't go six for six. Oh, no, you didn't. Mike Zella went six for six. I went three for three on snatches, finishing at 141,

and made my opener on clean and jerk at 60 and missed the jerk twice at 65. But you got a PR competition snatch. Yep. And a PR competition clean and jerk. Or was that an all-time PR? No, that was just a PR competition snatch and a PR competition total. But total, that's all that matters. So you got a PR total.

Yeah, 301. So I was going for 304 or more. Yeah. But 301's still good. Broke that 300 barrier, which is always a... That is a huge accomplishment, by the way. Yeah, thanks. That really is.

You know, I think no matter what weight class you're in, trying to break that, getting that 300 total is like a huge deal i mean that's one of the biggest goals for i think any weightlifter yeah i've been going for 300 for a while in training and competition both and uh so i've been hitting it in training a little bit so it's nice to be able to get that in competition too because i mean competition is where it counts so yeah you know the 300 kilo total in my, is like the 140-kilo snatch. There's something about 140 that no matter what weight class you're in, no matter how much you're lifting, it's always hard and heavy,

and it seems like the first kind of big wall a weightlifter hits. I was stuck at 140 for God knows how long, and I was stuck trying to get past the 300 total for God knows how long. I mean, I snatched 166. You snatch over 140 now. But no matter what, 140 is heavy. 140 is heavier than 150 for me. Is that kind of you?

You got past. You hit that wall at 140. You know what I mean. Yeah, I definitely did. I hit 137 over a year ago as an 85. Yeah. And I haven't touched it again until just maybe a couple months ago. So that's just 140, getting back to it and being consistent at it.

So I've hit it a couple, maybe six times now, maybe a little bit more. But it's just once you get there, though, and just keep it, keep hitting it, and then you go on to your next barrier. James, just give it to me real here. This is kind of a really interesting story. You're a fascinating story. I mean, you're in the sport for one year. The last two national meets, you've just killed it.

You're the number one ranked 77 in the country you're on the pan am team right now we're going to be on the world team with this total you put up because this was the first world team qualifier and all you know smoking prs you're going after soon american records we're talking one year in the sport of weightlifting i mean mean, just express, how do you feel right now? I mean, do you still think you're dreaming or what's going on? Well, I set goals. I started weightlifting and I got hooked, did my first weightlifting meet and I liked it a lot. And so I was like, all right, let's set some goals. All right, first, let's get a bar a weightlifting bar to let's get a coach that's it that even helps more doesn't so and then I said my my goals of what I

wanted to hit I said within a year I wanted to snatch 140 and clean and jerk 160 and freak so and that it that never really ended up happen until I went and got a coach and started training with Glenn and get the I just got more consistent with my numbers my journey got better any which on north yeah I started training with John North no that really is it that was another one of my goals was to have good training partners because before I moved out here to Muscle Driver I was training by myself I was out there in the gym by myself with YouTube on my computer watching weightlifting so I could make it feel like I have training partners but you know for all the people out there that

live by themselves those garage lifters that everyone knows I'm a big fan of like yourself like me I was one of those as well. That's a great tool to use. Yeah. There's tools a garage lifter can use, like putting on YouTube while you're training, music, all these little things that can help you elevate your lifting to another level. Yeah, just hearing the bars slamming down in the YouTube videos was like, oh, all right. Now I have a little bit of extra motivation

to train. It's funny because you don't feel alone. Yeah. You know, even though that they're not there, you feel like you're training with them. You're like, you know what? They're going through the same pain I'm going through. They're lifting like I'm lifting. You know, you just, you feel like you have a team. It's interesting. Yeah. It makes a huge difference. That's probably the biggest difference I've had so far is training with other lifters and training with people better than me that's the most important thing yeah uh and then having a coach to be there to watch you and yeah make sure you come in and do it and like if i made my own program i'd be like uh i don't think i want to hit 135 today i might only go to 120 but then you got Glenn in there he writes 135 down you're like

really I got to hit 135 at 12 o'clock and in the afternoon and then he's like yeah you should hit it no problem Doug what escalated MMA you're in the sport of MMA highly it seemed MMA yeah so smooth. Well, we're talking similar because I think the number one thing that helped grow weightlifting, not CrossFit, not Facebook, not Twitter, you know, not TV, YouTube. Okay. I would like to get your opinion on that, guys. I mean, just like that's why my ADD might have kicked in,

but that's kind of why I transferred from James saying that, and I want to get your advice on the MMA side. But YouTube. I know for a fact that when I was partying hard, before I found the Iron Game, I found bodybuilding on YouTube, and it saved my life. I mean, if you guys want to hear more about that, go to the bar, listen to the Barbell Shrug podcast. It comes out

Wednesday. I go pretty in depth with that. I get pretty, pretty deep into that, I guess. So I'm starting to kind of like be scared of what I said. But I mean, it was YouTube. And then when I got into weightlifting, it was YouTube. And I started seeing, I learned a lot from watching YouTube and I wanted to get in the sport because of youtube what because it seemed like mma was an overnight success what escalated mma to what it is now because you're seeing this escalation in weight lifting and of course crossfit did youtube play a part was it facebook was it money was it what what's going on i think the big thing that that m that MMA had and still has that weightlifting doesn't have is that reality show. That reality show was the big turning point for MMA because it took MMA guys and it made them not just athletes,

but it made them real people. People actually got to connect and see these guys aren't just barbaric thugsugs that just beat each other up they train hard and they're real athletes if weightlifting had something like that where they could see weightlifters training on a daily basis and how hard they work and it's not just being it's not just being a kind of the same thing not just being a thug that lifts weights but actually it's like a real athlete that that'll go a long way so what you're saying is somebody needs to follow john North around with a camera at all times. John North needs a documentary about him. Absolutely. James Chaney, are you listening right now?

James Chaney, he's your man. He's the one that produced that video that just posted on YouTube the other day. Did you see the video of him that got made the other day? Yeah, it was a good video. We need James Chaney to follow you around. James Chaney is going to quit his job

and follow John North around for a year. After your back gets better? No, we'll do a big comeback story. That's even better. You'll be like Zach Chris, dude, with a big comeback story. This was actually planned. I did this on purpose. This is all just one big publicity stunt. He and Jessica hit him in the back with a baseball bat right before he got on the final. I hired a... Harder! Hit me harder. I hired a mafioso to hit me when I wasn't looking. Shoot me like in the Tony Soprano episode when he pays the guy to get street credit. They shoot him in the butt so that when he goes to the hospital, he can make money off getting shot, like 50 cents.

You're so right. I think you're on to something. I'll tell you, I don't know if I'm allowed to say this on air. I don't know if this is under wrap. You should probably say it then. I should probably say it. Greg Everett might call me and get mad, but all I'm going to say, I'm not going to go into detail,

because I don't know if this is going to be released yet, but word on the street, well, I know what I've talked about. I'm just going to say Catalyst Athletic has been secretly putting together a really cool weightlifting documentary. Really cool. I've heard a little bit. I talked to him on the phone a few weeks ago.

The things he was telling me gave me goosebumps. And I think that you're right. This is going to escalate the sport. We need more of that. They're going to come out with theirs. I'm going to be in it. So I got invited, which was an awesome honor. But then I'm going to one-up theirs and make a better one with James Chaney.

There you go. I'm all about that. I think we should do it. By the way, I'm on board now. I'm going to executive produce this. You know what? Let's do this. And then we'll the way I'm on board now I'm gonna I'm gonna be I'm gonna executive produce this you know what let's do this and then we'll follow anything but my name's on the credits well we need to follow James around too and and Jacob tipskins with us today is no no no he's been saying it wrong for a year and a half I'm over it James tipskin is Jewish James yeah my

first name wrong this time that's good explain James and a half. I'm over it. James Tipskin is Jewish. James, you got my first name wrong this time. That's good. James, explain to me. James is right there. I'm sorry. Jake. Why am I calling you James? I don't know, John. Jake. Yes. Why are you Jewish? My mother. It's her fault. Yeah. I don't know what you want me

to tell you. The guy walked on water. What more do you want? What more proof do you want? Jake. Okay, I'm getting that look. I don't know what you want me to say here, Jonathan. Oh, I know. I hope I don't offend anybody out there.

My best friend, my best man at my wedding is Jewish, and I'm a quarter Japanese, and we go back and forth with each other all the time. What does that even mean? Well, we just, you know, throw racist stuff at each other. Good. Good, right? Stellar.

But Jake, you own your own gym. You're a CrossFit coach. You're a weightlifting coach. You're all over the place. You're making a name for yourself in the weightlifting world. You help out in the back room counting cars, the team muscle driver. I just want to go ahead and say thank you for that. Yeah, thanks a lot.

That helps. Oh, it's my pleasure. Like I said, I was lucky to train with you guys thank you for that. Yeah, thanks a lot. That helps. Oh, it's my pleasure. Like I said, I was lucky to train with you guys when you were at Cal Strength for about six months. Learned a lot from you guys and from Glenn. So whenever I'm around, I'm more than happy to help out, do whatever I can. Yeah. Let's talk about some performances so far at the Arnold, guys. I mean, anybody that you guys have seen that's really stood out?

Actually, I do definitely remember you lifting yesterday very impressive I didn't know who you are before yesterday but no I'm pointing at the guy that I'm talking to but we're used to getting video our podcast is all video so I'm used to having a camera on me but yeah but yeah James uh very impressive yesterday I definitely remembered that thank you so much I appreciate that if you had lifted we could have talked about you no James James I have to admit was one of the highlights of the whole meet boy those snatches wrong point he's got a you know James you have let me tell you something 99% of weightlifters okay okay, the pull in weightlifting is supposed to accelerate and progressively

get faster, right? I always like to say it's like a Ferrari. You got it in first gear, and we're going to go second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth into that finish. James Tatum, on the other hand, is this 1% that doesn't accelerate the pole because from the very start of the pole to the finish, it's all blazing fast. There's no acceleration. It's extremely fast and then finish. But I'm serious though, it is interesting. You don't really gain that much speed

because the whole pole is so fast. I mean, you literally get in the Ferrari, you put it in sixth gear somehow, and then you just go. And that's why you're winning. That's why you're the number one rank lifter in the country or top three or top four. And that's why you're beating these rookies. What does that come from? I mean, is that something that you try to do? I mean, a lot of people like to stay tight and kind of lift the bar slowly and build the speed but you don't where does that come from yeah I guess I I don't know I got a stronger back than I have legs so that's kind of my strong point so I can still control my back I can keep it tight I can keep everything in the right position and still go fast which I think

is what helps me be able to go fast from the floor and I knew coming from powerlifting background 140 kilos is relatively light as far as pulls from the floor so when I started weightlifting my snatch was like I like this a little lightweight I can pull this off the floor fast so relatively to what I was doing it was easy to pull the bar fast and so I just kind of stuck with it and then as my technique got better I could still keep the speed and so I went with it. What were your powerlifting numbers? Powerlifting, one of the reasons I actually got into weightlifting is because my squat was my powerlifting squat was so bad.

It was 455 pounds as a 181-pound lifter. I benched 365 in competition and deadlifted 575. All raw lifts, USAPL. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've been saying really bad things about powerlifting lately. This is a a place to say that there's a lot of geared power lifters who are much bigger than you yeah this place quick at what I'm running away I can run away yeah I guess I get a couple of punches in and I'll take off let me look let me ask you a question let me ask you a question.

Let me ask you a question. I think that if we advertise this and we do promotional stuff and do pay-per-view, Rich Froning, John North, in the cage, fight. I think we could organize it. Can you tell Rich? He might be listening right now. Is Rich listening? I don't know. Who would win in a fight, me or Froning?

Probably. It depends on your strategy. So, John, if you go all out for 10 seconds, and if you can take him in the first 10 seconds, I think you could win. Really? If it lasts longer than 10 seconds, you're done. Would he go to the floor or stay high? I think he'd try to keep it classy at first.

You're a very good friend with him. You guys are real close. He's on your podcast a lot. He's a pretty classy guy, so he might try to keep it standing. See, I probably would do a bite the ear or hit him. Yeah, for you, you need to take him down. You need to bite dirty. I would probably fight cheap and dirty.

Tighten hips and tighten teeth. He would probably stay classy and still beat me. If you can make it past 10 seconds, which I think he would. And listen, you have to go super intense. His endurance is just obviously so strong. It's inhuman. But see, he has something. He kills two birds with one stone.

He's strong and has the endurance. I'm just strong, and then I'm just a college dropout. That's it. I'm just a loser. I mean,'s it. I'm just a loser. I mean, that's all I got going for me. And didn't you earlier say you're only strong in the snatch and the clean and jerk? Only strong in the snatch and the clean and jerk. Whoa, whoa, whoa.

Is this fight going to happen on a platform? Because if it happens on a platform, you might have the... Mud wrestling. Mud. Yeah, he's definitely going to win. He's a country boy. Let's go where I'm from. He's from a place called Cookville, Tennessee. Did you say Cookville?

Oh, okay. It doesn't go well. I want to bring him to the hard streets where I'm from of Eugene, Oregon. We'll fight back at my middle school by the playground. Meet him on a tetherball. If he's not listening right now, I'm going to shoot him a text and tell him that he has to download this immediately. He travels a lot, so he gets to listen to a lot of podcasts. Are we going over on time?

Okay, there's two things. Either A, a fight to the death. Wait, I thought it was mud wrestling. Well, a fight in mud. Mud fight. Or B, a pose-off, I thought it was mud wrestling. Well, a fight in mud. Mud fight. Or B, a pose-off. A bodybuilding pose-off. I think he also did a pose-off followed by the fight. Or C, acting.

A five-second acting clip. And we would get judged by acting judges. I think you might do well with that, actually. Or D, a fashion show. Because we all know Rich Froning is a good-looking man. Yeah, but you're wearing a V-neck right now. I'm wearing that tight-fitting, it's all a V-neck, John North, at theattitudenation.com. Where did you get a V-neck, man?

I saw your V-neck. Theattitudenation.com. No, you get a V-neck, man? I saw your V-neck. Theattitudenation.com. No, you went in Arnold one. Or was that last night? Oh, no. You want to fight? Come at me, bro. Come at me, bro.

I want one of those. Like a hog in a zoo. I want one of those. What does that mean? What does that mean? Weightlifting talk, baby. We're live at the Arnold. Is anyone going to call in?

People have probably been calling in. We've just been ignoring them. How about a... All right, we have a question. Twitter question. At Attitude Nation. I'm drunk off coffee, baby. We need some more, though.

Someone needs to go get me some. See, I need a manager. I need a producer. I need a whole camera squad to do all this shit for me. Attitude Nation, Joe, Joey. For someone who is 6'3 and 180, would you recommend lifting heavier, few reps, or lighter more reps hold on here or keep it varied I'm assuming you're saying six three hundred eighty pounds yeah wait say that again sounds like somebody who needs to gain weight so I would say shitload of squats yeah high volume yeah five sets of ten. Back squat. Heavy.

Snatch, clean and jerk, and squat a whole lot. I mean, 6'3", 180 is not going to cut it. 6'3", 180. Okay, let me tell you something, Joey. You need to eat some food. It's called food. What you do is you take it, you put it in your mouth, you chew, and then you swallow it. A few hours later, you probably have to go to the bathroom.

Also, it's called liquid. Whole milk, chocolate milk, right? Actually, if you watch Barbells for Rugged or listen to Barbells for Rugged, you would know that the key to being big and strong is raw goat milk. So you're a big believer in that. Huge, huge believer. The hashtag goat life is trending on Twitter because of me and my goat milk antics. Yeah, for sure.

I'm changing lives through goat milk. Now, why? What's good about goat milk? Oh, I just like it. It's comparable to cow milk. I personally just can't drink cow milk, but I like it raw. So I think the raw component is extremely important because it has things in it that help you digest not only the milk, but it also improves your digestive system so you can digest other food you're eating better so you can use those nutrients to build muscle mass.

I see, I see. Interesting. Now, do you, you don't drink normal milk, cow milk at all anymore? No. I'm actually, I'm personally allergic to the casein which is one of the proteins in cow's milk so. Wow, I see. I had to grow up not drinking any milk,

and that's probably why I have a hard time gaining weight. But since I discovered goat's milk, gaining weight has been no problem. Now, my wife says I go, bah, in the middle of the night sometimes. Now, why though? Why does a guy that's 6'3", and only weighing 180 pounds, why does he need to gain weight?

Why doesn't he just stay at, you know, an 85 kilo lifter at 6'3? Why does he have to go up? Jacob? He needs better levers. 6'3, 180, you know, you don't have enough mass around your joints to manipulate those levers. You got to be bigger if you want to get the most out of your body. 6'3, 180, you're a big long guy and you don't have a lot of power to move those joints. Yeah, I would agree. I don't know. If you are decently strong at 6'3", you might be good at something like some jiu-jitsu or something. You've got those long levers that will, I don't know, used to your advantage rather than against you

in something like weightlifting. But I agree with like five sets of ten on squats and I would say form is more important. Stay upright, don't let your butt shoot back and then if you can't do that just focus on pulls to start with. Keep the reps high, big complex movements, get strong and bigger. Yeah, it just seems like a guy that's 6'3", that's only weighing 180 pounds, it seems to me that if he's training correctly and weightlifting and he's pushing those heavy weights, that he should automatically be gaining weight. With time. With time, with muscle bulk.

If he was squatting like Mike Bledsoe said more often there's no way he's only gonna be 180 because he's gonna he's gonna build he's there's no way that means he's that that's just a clear sign to me that he's not squatting enough and not training enough because if he was squatting that much a he would automatically put on that muscle mass and B he would have to eat more food to recover because you would be hungry more often right? Your appetite would go down. He says he hates me. He's probably mad at me. He's probably mad at me. Attitude nation.

Laugh my ass off. Okay he's laughing. He's laughing. you son of a bitch. I'm on a half gallon milk right now. I eat a ton, but trying to gain. Okay, so he agrees with us now that we found that out. Now the next question, panel. We lifting talk. Deep breaths, John. Deep breaths, sorry. I'm getting jacked up right now, baby.

I can't wait till Pan Ams with that USA singlet. Come back. Fuck a back injury, bitch. I'm coming back, baby. I'm the damn champ. So for a guy that wants those kids, I'm sorry, man. You think this back injury is going to hold me down? You don't know who I am.

I'm the champ. I got crazy energy, and nothing can keep me down. You should see me. Ladies, you should see me. I move like Ali. All the bodybuilders that are walking by, all you other sports sons of bitches, this is weightlifting, baby. There's no better sport. We're freak athletes. Keep walking. I'm going to get my ass kicked. All right. I went on a little bit of a rant there. He's going to watch over our shoulders for us.

Yeah. No, there's this guy's mean mugging me. Turn the camera over there, dude. That guy's mean mugging me hard right now. That guy just walked out. There he is right there. They're coming back. We're about to get into a feud right here. I don't know why he's so mad, though. Because you're ridiculous. Okay.

You're calling us. Hold on, hold on. Let me tell the guy something. Hold on one sec. Get off me, bro. There we go. All right. So for a guy that is trying to gain weight, guys,

I know on Barbell Shrugged you guys talk a lot about nutrition, which is really cool, something I don't know a lot about. What's your advice for Joey to gain more effing weight? We get this question a lot on our show. And just like he said, reread that tweet he just said. Okay. Which one is it I eat a ton but trying to gain weight so that's the kind of question we get all the time or the kind of statement we hear all the time people say I eat a ton

but I'm not getting bigger well your opinion about eating a lot doesn't really matter it's the outcome if you're not getting the result then you're not eating enough food even if you feel like you're eating enough food, you're not handling on the level. You're not handling that problem on the level that you need to be. So even if you're eating a ton, quote-unquote, you need to be obviously eating more if you're not getting bigger. So that's my first piece of advice. If you're not getting bigger, you're not eating enough. No matter what you think about how full you feel all the time or how much food you're taking in, how much food your girlfriend says, you eat too much, you feel all the time or how much food you're taking in. How much food your girlfriend says,

you eat too much, you eat all the time, you eat so much. If you're not getting bigger, it's not working. I'm going to add something to that. You know, weighing and measuring gets a bad rap, but most people really have no idea how much food they are taking in. A lot of the time we get way too much fat, too little protein, too much or too little carbohydrate. If you think you're eating a lot, I want to know what you're eating, how much protein, how much fat, how much carbohydrate.

You might surprise yourself. Weigh and measure for a week. Find out how much you're actually eating and then tell me you're eating a ton because a ton is not a measurement. If you don't know, then you don't know. Make sure you are actually eating what you need to get in. Well, I've had people record what they're eating, and I look at it, and it's like less than 3,000 calories a day. And if you think that's a lot, then you're just wrong. If I want to gain weight, I'm eating like 5,000 to 5,500 calories a day,

and that's paleo-esque. It's mostly meat, veggies, some fruit, nuts, and then tons of goat milk. So in my opinion... Hashtag goat life. Bah! Bah! So like a gallon of milk is like 2500 calories. So if you're putting, in my opinion, a half gallon of milk is what I like to drink in

a day to maintain. And if you're training a lot, do a whole gallon. John Wellborn, I think he's a football player, and he founded CrossFit Football. He put on a lot of muscle mass and just a lot of mass in general at one point. I think he put on a ridiculous amount, like 45 pounds in a few months. But he was drinking a gallon of milk a day and eating nine sweet potatoes. So that's a lot of protein that's causing some growth. There's a lot of fat and carbohydrates in the milk,

and then a ton of carbs in those sweet potatoes. And he put on, I mean, it was like, you'd think someone was on steroids if they're putting on weight that fast. But if you're not doing experiments, see if you can eat nine sweet potatoes and a gallon of milk a day, you would be, it's going to feel terrible, but it'll work. I gained 30 in nine, what was it? No, two months, two and I gained 30 in two months.

Two and a half months, 30 pounds. Doing a gallon of milk a day. Something I think especially you get with people coming from a CrossFit background is that people, even when they're trying to gain weight, are just deathly afraid of carbohydrates. If you are trying to grow, you need to eat. I personally don't care if it's strict. You want to eat some rice. You want to eat some white potatoes. I don't care if it's a strict diet. You don't want to eat something. You want to eat some rice.

You want to eat some white potatoes. I don't care. Get the frigging carbs in. Stop avoiding them. It shocks me how often I get people who tell me they're trying to gain weight. And they're like, no, I'm just eating steak and vegetables. It's not going to cut it. Guess what?

You need that insulin response to gain weight. It's anabolic, all right? I'm going to cut you guys off really quick. We're live at the Arnold and the meat director himself, Mark Cannella, just stopped by. Legendary Mark Cannella. What's going on, Mark? We're currently wrapping up. We've got one more session to go.

And as you can see around you, you have people, volunteers, great volunteers that are getting everything ready to ship out tonight. Thanks for putting on a great meet. How do you think it went this year? I mean, you always put on a great meet here at the Arnold. and we thank you because the Arnold is the best meet of the year. How do you think it went this year? I think it went great, so thank you for the kudos. The thing that was really neat this year is the two qualifiers and then sandwiched with some of the good lifting. We had the two guys at the end that both hit 225 clean and jerks.

That was the most that's ever been lifted here at the end that both hit 225 clean and jerks that was the most that's ever been lifted here at the arnold so a few years ago we had dimitri cloak off do 220 but seeing those two back-to-back 225s were pretty impressive plug it go plug something go columbus weightlifting is what we're going to plug we're worldwide and we've got workshops and courses around the world so that's what i'm plugging you owe me money for that. All right, Mark. Son of a bitch. Thanks, buddy. Get back to what you guys were saying.

We were talking about gaining weight. You need that insulin that carbohydrates are going to provide in order to grow. You have to have it. You can't just think you're going to eat enough protein and fat, and your body's just going to magically use that the way you think it should be used. Yeah. Eating meat and vegetables and keeping your carbs low is what most people need, most people, especially in a fitness setting,

because most people are overweight and they're trying to lean up. They're trying to get back in shape. If you're an athlete, you're lean, you already have some muscle mass, and you're trying to get more athletic and get more muscle mass and get stronger, then having those carbohydrates are only going to help you put on that extra muscle mass. Especially if you're trying to get bigger, you need them. You got to make sure. So the big thing is weigh and measure.

You know, I mean, listen, go find some ideas about, you know, what kind of total intake you need and weigh and measure. Find out what the numbers are because I bet you're eating less than you think you are. You got to be willing to say goodbye to those abs. Every hard gainer I know, they start putting on weight and they go, oh man, I don't know. And that's why they're hard gainers

because they freak out every time their abs start disappearing or they have a low appetite. Abs on skinny guys don't count. Yeah. We've got another Twitter question, guys, that is pretty much

on the same topic from Mark Robinson. Mark, Attitude Nation salute, buddy. We're Twitter friends. We talk a lot. Like Joey, I am 189 SM. Centimeters? SM. What? CM. CM. I know what a CM is. That's embarrassing. Can we talk technique soon?

Joey, like Joey, I'm 189 centimeters, and I weigh 105 kilos. But I've been told that I should be 130 kilos or more. What are your thoughts? 130 kilos? I don't know about that. That's humongous. What's 189 centimeters? How tall is that?

How long is that? The only metric conversion I can do is kilos. Somebody figure that out. Yeah, I mean, that's so... Two meters is 6'6". Oh, my God. We almost died. I can't believe we survived that.

We blew out everyone's ears. Are you okay? I don't... I'm guessing that's right around 6'2". Yeah, I don't think you need to be 130 kilos. I mean, 6'3 is a 105. That's maybe a little smaller than you could be, but I don't think, you know. First of all, if you're a highly competitive weightlifter, that's one thing.

But if you're just having some fun, I think you can compete as 105 and be fine, or maybe go 110. I think 130 is, you better have a real good reason to go 130. That's a big boy. That's humongous. That's a large human being. Well, guys guys anybody that wants to give us a call in the number is 803 not what 810 1551 that's the number what's the area code 803 give us a call we're live at the auto right here yeah nobody knows what number yeah so I thought that you guys

see some of the the bodybuilding guys I mean have you guys walked around the Arnold at all and seen any of the cool sports? I was watching fencing earlier. That's always badass. I usually get my way up to the ping pong. I love ping pong. Those guys are crazy, man. My favorite thing to watch here at the Arnold is the 10-year-olds boxing.

Because it's vicious. Those little kids go out there and just slug the shit out of each other like way more aggressive than any other any other age class that I've seen they don't they don't scare this walk out there and just start slinging punches it's fantastic no form just out there just street fighting out there form good form it's amazing they're better boxers than me and all my friends I like actually watching the little kids with the jiu-jitsu. It's like little kids choking each other. That's kind of cool to watch. The kids are all encouraging, making it up when the little kids get choked out.

This is like my fourth or fifth year here and if you don't know anything about the Arnold Sports Festival, there's a ton of sports you're never gonna see anywhere else in the Olympics or something. Yeah. All right, welcome to Weightlifting Talk. We got a caller. What's on your mind? Hello?

Yeah, you're on Weightlifting Talk, buddy. What's up? Yeah, we were just listening to the podcast. Oh, hell yeah, man. What's going on? Not too much. We're on the road back from Columbus, and we just turned in to hear some John North, and we're going to ask him if he'd ever do a strongman competition.

Oh, yeah, baby. He asked if I would ever do a strongman competition. Absolutely. The only reason why I've been intimidated to do a strongman competition is because of the weight classes. There's not really weight classes. I could be – oh, there are. There are weight classes. Oh, I see. Well, I would love to. I would absolutely love to. I mean, to be honest with you, I want to do – I've always wanted to get into strongman,

but I always thought you had to be like 6'5", 400 pounds. Have you ever done any lost wrestling or anything like that? had to be like six five four hundred pounds yeah yeah yeah let me uh well we cut him off because i was having trouble hearing him a little bit, but that's a good question, though. Do they have, like, Strongman, like, seminars that you can take? Because I would love to get into it, but I just don't know how to do it. Rob Orlando does them. Yeah.

He does them, but I think he gears them towards CrossFit. But he'll come in and teach you how to do stones and axles and logs and all that kind of stuff. Last year, I actually competed at Nationals for Strongman. Oh, really? There was a meet locally. I was like, fuck it all. Sign up.

I went and signed up. Won my weight class, I think, because I was the only one in it. Were you under 200? No, under 175. It was like the first year they had under 175 at Nationals. So I qualified to go to Nationals, and then Nationals happened to be 45 minutes from my house. So I lucked out.

So I went and competed, and I didn't finish last. So it was a lot of fun. Actually, one of the guys I traveled here with was competing in the 175s, and this was the first World 175 Strongman Championship, and he took sixth. But, yeah, John, you could easily cut into the under 200s. I got to admit, guys, I might have to toot my own horn here I think I'd be good at it and I think it would be fun it's really painful yeah well see that's the problem though I think that obviously I would any other sport that I got into I would

just have to train you know what I mean I'd have to stop smoking I'd have to start doing some protein cigarettes yeah start doing some cardio I mean I'd have to stop smoking I'd have to start doing some protein cigarettes yeah I have to start doing some cardio I mean I just have to train for that sport it's a tough sport it's a tough sport I mean it's a tough sport oh my gosh speaking of powerlifting I don't know Jesse you doing strongman and or you just did powerlifting we got Jesse Murdoch nerdics in here or verdicts I'm sorry I spaced you out a little bit come around here we got a big-time powerlifter in here Tanya seems like we're getting a more powerlifting

audience here which is great Jesse how you doing I'm great how are you guys you're welcome to weightlifting talk thank you very much guys glad to be here yeah man so tell me a little bit about your your your background and your achievements in the sport of powerlifting I'm a former division one baseball player once I got did that I went to semi-professional baseball then I chased a chick out to California retired from baseball and needed something to be competitive in found powerlifting been powerlifting for about 10 years. My best squat's 909, best bench is 622, and best deadlift is 815.

Holy shit. My best deadlift is 816. Oh, really? One more pound. Man, that's weird. Yeah. He's measuring in ounces. He's measuring in ounces?

That's good. So you're still competing? Yeah, I'm still actively competing. My best pull is in November. So probably next meet will be in May right now. Because I had a root canal and shit that I've had to deal with. You didn't compete at the Arnold this weekend. No, I did not.

Sadly, I did not. The XPC was yesterday with some big lifts. And then there's also a big meet in Cincinnati going on right now. You are jacked up. Thank you very much. You are huge. It's all about being jacked and tanned. People don't understand that. Oh, are you tan like me? Oh, don't we always? Oh yeah, baby. Finally, I got somebody on my side, man. You have to tan, you know what I mean?

You look good, feel good, right? You know what? People don't understand. I mean, it's nice to be strong, but it's okay to look good too, you know what I mean? People are scared of that for some reason. It is, you know, people think think bodybuilders aren't strong when you have people like Ronnie Coleman who did a front squat with 700 pounds for a triple, deadlifted 800 pounds. Sam the Rhino Efforting who just went deadlifted 905 raw, pulls about 850 raw benches over 700 pounds raw. And these guys are just chiseled out of granite. So it's okay to look good.

It's nice to think about leverages and being strong you know and and that helping you out but a bigger muscle is always going to be a stronger muscle so you always want to have that there so it's okay to you know do some concentration curls and look pretty no one's going to shoot you you're not going to die you're not going to go to jail bodybuilding is a very very effective way to train especially for the assistance workout i mean especially for guys who have a couple of really big lifts sorry I'm yelling a couple of big lifts there and just be able to do some stuff later on flesh the body full of blood and kind of just help restoration as well you add bodybuilding into your powerlifting program absolutely after you know after the first couple of big movements everything else is just a

bodybuilding style of stuff called accessory movement or the rep effort method. So what are you doing? Anywhere from three to five sets of 15 to 25, just trying to get jacked and tanned, brother. Wow, that's interesting. I did not know that. Well, you just said I look jacked and tanned. You do. It's working.

You look good. Thank you. Who is your role model getting into powerlifting I had a strength and conditioning coach at a Canoesius College his name was Paul Childress well we got a full let's take this phone call Travis I want to get back to your strength coach it might be for you for me it might be Paul is it from Buffalo I don't know if it's from Buffalo welcome to weightlifting talk with Travis Mash or Jesse what's going on what's going on my man how you guys doing bro I don't know if it's from Buffalo. Welcome to Waylifting Talk with Travis Mash. Or, Jesse.

What's going on? What's going on, my man? How are you guys doing, bro? Oh, good, man. Thanks for calling in. What's on your mind? Everything's going good, man. Big fan of you guys here in Texas, man.

Love you guys, man. We can't get enough of you guys at my box, bro. Thanks, man. Lone Star State. Yes, sir, bro. Actually, we're not considered part of the Lone Star, man, because we're at the very western tip, bro, right? Oh, okay.

But we're home of the only NCAA Division I men's basketball team, bro. Yeah, baby. You know what I'm saying? They actually made a movie about that. Coach Barrett John Haskins and all that. But anyways, man, who cares about that stuff? John, would you ever do a bodybuilding show, bro? Oh.

Well, thanks for the call, buddy. I'll answer that right now, man. Attitude Nation, salute. All right, I'm going to answer that question. I thought it was going to be for Jesse, but it was for me. It was a question of would I ever do a bodybuilding competition, but I want to get back with Jesse about your strength conditioning, coach. Go.

As it was Paul Childress at the time. He was the number one super heavyweight and 308 at the time. I think he squatted 1165, benched 750, pulled 840 or so. And, you know, I was reading the muscle rags and everything, and I thought I knew everything about strength and conditioning. Ended up putting myself in the hospital a couple of times, just over-training. And finally I said, hey, what do I need to do to actually do this right? So he kind of took me under his wing and taught me everything and then I immediately left Buffalo But then kind of called him back and he's helped me kind of through the process introduced me to Louie Simmons introduced me to

Jim out in Northern, California Dave Tate Jim Wendler and the rest is kind of history kind of went from there. Wow. That's great that you have that man I was very very lucky very lucky And that's why we're trying to give back doing seminars and putting out stuff like the power project and power what calm and that sort of stuff trying to give back what we were given yeah man I've you know I've always wanted to do a power to me just like I still want to do a bodybuilding meet and you know I was thinking about actually getting into a powerlifting seminar to learn a little bit about it yeah we'll

be we'll be on the East Coast we'll be December, or we'll be in DC at the end of April. So I know that's a little bit further closer to you than California right now. So if you're ever willing to come out, I'd love to have you. So you obviously do low bar squats cuz that's the sport. I think there's a confusion about low bar, high bar. I just put it wherever it stops. I squeeze my shoulder blades together and I just rub the bar down until I have a shelf. I have no idea if that's high bar, low bar, high bar. I just put it wherever it stops. I squeeze my shoulder blades together and I just rub the bar down until I have a shelf.

I have no idea if that's high bar, low bar, mid bar. And it's just wherever I squat the most. I really don't care. I'd squat it on my forehead if I could squat more. It doesn't matter. That's so interesting you said that. That's so interesting. It doesn't matter.

I mean, I think people get, they pay way too much attention to it. I don't, I never rant about high bar squats. I promise you. I don't, you know, I think it's stupid it's stupid. Even the people who are doing the high bar to try and mimic a front squat or a catch and a clean or something along those lines, they never actually look like they're doing that anyways. So they're just tipping themselves over, dumping everything into their lower back, which as far as I know, isn't the real reason to do a high bar squat. So I don't know. I just put it wherever I can. I heard you say the word overtraining.

We just had a show about that last week. You believe in overtraining? No, I think everyone who's under-recovered. But I personally, I gave myself mono, and then I got right out of the hospital and ran five miles and then tried to do a two-hour workout. This is a wealth of information. I had to check my producer aka my wife aka

the president of the Attitude Nation to make sure we are getting this live on air because you're a bad mother effort aka the boss right absolutely no one's under recovered I mean if you if you program properly you can keep training oh you know every day for the rest even as a you know a clean athlete like absolutely absolutely there's no reason why you can't train properly every day yeah i mean are you going to be able to do you know a bulgarian system are you going to be squatting three times a day at 90 plus percentages probably not i talked about that you know physically i broke down sure i did that i trained with abu jay evan yeah exactly

but i'll tell you one thing. It made me mentally strong. Well, sure. I mean, but there's always something to do that. I mean, you look at how can people survive the Army training or the SEAL training or something along those lines. They always adapt. And when you come on coffees. No, look.

They have coffee in the bathrooms. This is great. I'm ordering Mike Wetzel around now. No. Oh, that's great. They have coffee in the bathrooms? This is great. I'm ordering Mike Wetzel around now. Ohio is great. They have coffee everywhere. Yeah, I think it'll make you mentally strong, and it'll show you that you can overcome some stuff and do some things that you never thought you could do before.

But, I mean, how long can that last? Buddy Morris, Coach X, he's the world's famous strength and conditioning coach, said the best thing about this business is that everything works. But the problem with this business is that everything works. So you've got to understand how things work for how long, and then you can kind of program them through max effort work, dynamic effort work, rep effort work, percentage work, et cetera. However you want to program things, it can be done properly, but people get caught up in one thing

for too long too often. That can hurt people, and that's when you're over trained. If you're hurt, I've been lifting competitively for over 10 years, and the only time I ever had to take was a fucking toothache, and I had to go get a root canal.

They told me not to lift, or I'd blow my tooth off. Just get that gold grill, put them in your- I was trying, they don't have them, they don't do those anymore. They don't surgically put them in you? No, I was pissed off. I was like, I want like a silver or a gold thing don't have them. They don't do those anymore. They don't surgically put them in you? No, I was pissed off. I was like, I want like a silver or a gold thing.

They're like, we don't do those anymore. I was thinking about getting all my teeth gold. I think you should. I think that'd go well for you. Just attitude right there. Well, I tell you the best thing Weightlifting Talk has ever done for me is how much I learn. Sure. Every time I have a new guest on my show, I learn so freaking much.

I just absolutely love it. And this is just awesome. Well, good. I mean, that's what people don't understand about the people who are in the top of this business. We're all here and we're always consistently learning. We talk with everyone. That's why things like this are good, the Arnold, etc.

You see people get to talk to people, get to learn from people, and any little bit could put you over the edge, could get you that next kilo, could get you that next lift and it's worth it you know i mean i read everything that i can possibly get my hands on because who knows where that secret is there's a saying you know if there's a rock garden i put a million dollars underneath there how many rocks you can overturn i'm going to turn all of them it may take me the rest of my life but i'm going to find that million dollars and that answer is out there somewhere are you you a part of the Dark Orchestra? The Dark Orchestra? Is that a metal band? I should have talked to you before we went live, Jesse. Is that a Swedish death metal band?

Kind of, actually. No, it's my blog. It's your blog? I don't know your blog. I'm sorry about that. The Dark of Soul Attitude Nation. That's for sure. If you ever want to drink coffee and play violins with your skeletons in your closet

and cry tears of salt water how is that going to interfere with my Dungeons and Dragons we can we can bring them together you can work that in for me and what about Magic the Gathering is that all included I have no idea what you're talking about

it's the card game shut up I used to play that used to I know i'm sorry come on really that's still cool i have you know what i want to get back into i want to bring back pogs what about pokemon pokemon see here we go pogs would be good though you don't really need much of anything it's great i bet if you had a bunch of pogs you can get some money for them you know you should have a pog booth here at the ar next year. Announce it right now, John. Commit to it right now. Hi, my name's John North, and

next year at the Arnold, I will have a pog booth. There we go. You're Jackson Tannen, you're one strong motherfucker. Thanks for having me on. I really appreciate it, guys. You guys are awesome. Attitude Nation, boys. Woo! Thank you, brother. I appreciate it. Thanks, man. Take care, guys. Well, that was just a wealth of information.

That was awesome. Awesome. I just love, you know, we were talking about powerlifting earlier. It's just great to get other people from other sports in the Iron Game together and just basically bounce ideas off the wall. How did you guys like that? I mean, Barbell Shrugged, you guys are known for being a jack of many different trades. You got the MMA side, you got the strength conditioning side, you guys got obviously the

CrossFit side. And now you guys obviously, well, you've been for a while now. Mike Bledsoe started out in weightlifting. So I mean, really, you guys are good at so many different things and you have your foot in so many different sports. It seems like that would be so hard to not only learn all these different sports, but to compete in these different sports and then coach all these different sports and then have a podcast that talks about all these different sports. How did that come about? It's pretty much the fact that we're geniuses. It's the only way we can keep all that information in our heads.

That's what I've got actually that's i i would say that we actually did start a lot of different sports uh and we we've dabbled in a lot of different sports but as we've gotten older we've actually tried to narrow it down a little bit because we find ourselves so spread out uh we've we've had a lot of really good experiences, which we bring to the podcast, but as of right now, our focus is mainly CrossFit, weightlifting, and then Doug definitely focuses on his own MMA training, but we don't put a lot of effort into training MMA fighters, really. Maybe in the future we'll branch out again a little bit, but right now we're trying to be as focused as possible.

Now, I want to get back to and ask Doug a few questions about his MMA, which I find fascinating, which I actually have always wanted to get into, but I couldn't because of my concussions in football. I didn't really connect those two things together. But someone walked by. I think she's actually training right now. Yes, people, the Olympian, multinational champion,lly mangold welcome holly the weightlifting talk hey how's it going actually never national champion what yep i'm an olympian but i've

never been to a world championship and i've never won a national champion now that is odd yeah that might actually be a first i'm not i'm not that cool well I'll trade you I'll give you my title for your Olympian I think I'm good you're good good yeah sure I keep that about a crisp 20 no it's like the night at the Roxbury's how about Benjamin Franklin wants to join the party that might be too how old are you what i'm that might be what is wrong with how old are you i'm 27 i'm like oh sorry i'm not a child well i might feel like donnie shangle god dang it john i'm about to turn 28 i'm getting over the hill starting to hang up these weightlifting shoes on these kids these days donnie you're 28 you talk about these kids

these days you are a kid well now he's 30 and he acts like he's 50, so it makes sense. The day that he turned 30 is now he's saying, God dang it, John, I'm almost 40 years old. That's awesome. He upped it by 10 years. How are you feeling? I'm feeling good. I'm a little tired and just trying to work it out.

Kind of frustrated I couldn't lift in this meet. What happened? You're coming back from your wrist surgery. It's healing. It looks kind of gross looking at it, but you're lifting again. Actually, I find it very sexy, so let's not be crazy. No, everything's going well. I'm healing.

I'm lifting now. But until I get back to the numbers that I want to be back at, I'm not going to compete. Until I'm at some decent numbers and actually feel like a weightlifter I'm not going to go out there and have like a 75 girl beat me that's embarrassing so you're but you're training are you easing back into it or would you call you know you're in the depth of hard training I'm pretty much in the depth of hard training I wasn't supposed to lift until about six months out it's like five and a half now and I started lifting a month and a half ago. I saw last meet you did not compete with the Americans, obviously,

because I even think you still had your cast on, but you were doing one-handed snatches and cleans. Talk to me. Zygmunt had you doing that. You looked good at them. I found it mind-boggling how good you were at that. Do you train that exercise even when you're not injured, or is that just an injury exercise?

That's just an injury exercise and I look good doing anything I'm doing. So, that's just a given. But, yeah, he just had me do that

and I never want to do them ever again. They're not fun. Spencer Mormon. Out to Nation Salute. Oh, the Wolverine baby. Cal Strength.

I got two strong mofos on my show right now all a man going Spencer a good job yesterday Spencer with that 95 thank you very much that was a I was a PR clean and jerk as a in them in my new weight class as a 105 very excited about you look fast thank you thank you look fast so good job you got into a pretty good battle with Kevin Kevin clutch Clutch Cornell. Yeah, man. That was insane to watch, dude.

That was probably, besides James going nuts and hitting that huge 141 snatch, that was probably the highlight of the meet, in my opinion, was you and Kevin going at it. Yeah. That was awesome. Kevin hyped up that battle pretty well throughout Facebook, and I think he put it up on Twitter. Oh, I didn't know that.

He was texting me all kinds of crap. Yeah. So he kind of boasted about it, and I know he's pretty proud of himself now and today. Yeah. All right, Spence. Well, thanks for stopping by. Absolutely, John.

I'll see you later, buddy. Absolutely. Good job yesterday. Thank'll see you later, buddy. Absolutely. Good job yesterday. Thank you. Pauly. Yes. What is, so you never do one-handed snatches? No.

Okay. Are you able to do snatches and cleans with both wrists now? Yes. Okay. Awesome. Yeah. That's really awesome. No, I'm back to. I ran out of words to say to say thank you I'm back to regular lifting I don't ever want to do that again a hard person to interview

Holly I'm back at me with something I can't not when you say stuff like that you're not helping this but unfortunately I do have to get going okay it was wonderful to yep be on this one thank you all angle the United States of America nice shirt and we'll see you later. Thanks. It's always a pleasure. Always got to wrap. Can I get an Attitude Nation salute in the mic?

Attitude Nation salute. Thank you. I'll pay you later. You should. MMA. Do you fight? Do you coach? Talk about it.

What are some carries over with MMA and weightlifting? My last fight was maybe four months ago. I had my first loss in my career in a title fight in Memphis. Yeah, I'm seven and one right now. I just had my first loss. Weightlifting carries over pretty well, actually. MMA, it's kind of a diverse sport.

You gotta be strong, gotta be mobile, gotta have good cardio, a little bit of everything. All my cardio pretty much the sport specific all the strength stuff we do you know weightlifting powerlifting even some some of the strongman sports really play into my my overall fitness for MMA quite a bit but I don't really I don't do any MMA specific coaching all all fitness coaching for me, and then I go to a separate gym for my boxing, my kickboxing, wrestling, jiu-jitsu, and what have you. But for the time being, I'm taking a little bit of a break, just to kind of relax for a little while.

After that loss, I figured I'd take a few months off and just let some injuries heal up. My athletic background is in martial arts, and that's where I started doing strength conditioning for a jiu-jitsu team. So I'm curious, what kind of conditioning you feel carries over best to your MMA, to your grappling? What kind of stuff have you done that you feel really is taking it to that next level? For conditioning specifically, not counting just basic strength stuff, for the most part I do all 100% effort intervals.

I'll do 30 seconds max efforts, sprints, a 30 seconds max sprints prowler work hit the punching bag you know just one two one two one two just straight punches as hard as fast as I can and that's up I feel like carries over the best but like I said before the majority of my conditioning is is grappling and wrestling and sparring and doing pad work and actually fighting. We had a lot of our guys, especially the grapplers do a lot of barbell complexes, a lot of time under tension and that stuff seemed to carry over really well to having to move another body around especially for the guys who are wanting to take it to the ground, put a bar

in their hands and make them work with it for a full minute. That'll take you there for sure. Yeah, we used to do a lot of stuff like that when I was in high school when I was wrestling. Anymore, I do most of my barbell work heavy, and then I do most of my conditioning, I focus on being fast rather than moving something heavy. Yeah. I have a long history of strength sports, and so being the stronger guy in the fight is usually the case. Moving very quickly, moving very fast for the full three minutes is where I kind of struggle.

Towards the end of the round, I'm not quite as quick and light on my feet as I would like to be. So most of my conditioning, I'm trying to move very quick for a long period of time rather than moving heavyweight for a long period of time. Usually if I'm throwing fast punches for the first two minutes and then in the third minute, I'm kind of slowing slowing down but then if we end up grappling I feel comfortable you know trying to move you know move someone who's you know at my same size and strength level my conditioning there is pretty good so. You said you actually we don't really coach any guys doing MMA but there are a couple guys that we coach. We do their strength training.

You primarily handle their strength programming for some jiu-jitsu guys. And one is a world champion. So you should probably mention that. Come on, Doug. Don't be modest. Doug, don't be modest. Right. So when I said I don't coach MMA, I meant I don't coach grappling and I don't coach boxing.

I only coach strength conditioning for MMA fighters. So that's the component of their training that I handle. I don't coach boxing and kickboxing. But we do train a couple of MMA guys, a couple of high-level grapplers. Alex Meadows was a world champion at one point. A couple of other guys, Tyler Stepp has done really well on the national level lately and they've been training at our place pretty consistently for the last couple of years.

Doug, let me ask you a question. I'm the type of guy, and I still do this, and I know I'm a douchebag for it, but I'm the type of guy that sits on the couch when I watch UFC fights and I sit there, I'm eating my popcorn and eating my cheesecake in my pajamas, you know, and I'm the type of guy that says, I could do that. I could get in that ring right now with no coaching, with no training, and just kind of kimbo slice it, you know, kind of just street fight. Because I'm not going to lie, before I got into weightlifting uh back in my younger days of partying and being an idiot i was uh i was a good street fighter i'm not gonna lie i've had my run-ins with many street fights and i've actually never been beaten up the only fight

i ever lost was i got jumped by five guys and i was? I was actually put in the hospital for it. But I have to admit, I connected some blows even on that. So, I mean, I'm obviously kind of kidding right now. I mean, I've been in some mini street fights. What do you say, Doug, to a guy, an idiot like me, that thinks he could go into a cage and really just start swinging, start throwing your foot around? I last a second it was a lot of guys out there feel just like you and they go sign up for fights and they beat the shit out the other guy cuz

there's athletic Mike's brother Matt's actually a great example he he was doing just what you're talking about he's saying like fuck I could fight these guys and beat those guys up and we said we're we're going to sign you up for a fight. Put your money where your mouth is. And he was like, alright, I'll do it. And Mike went and really signed him up. Yeah, my brother was talking shit watching UFC and I was like, I'm tired of him talking shit.

I'm like, dude, I'm going to sign you up for a fight. He goes, okay. I'm like, no, seriously. I'm going to do this. He goes, okay. So I signed him up for a fight and then it was funny because he doesn't have a lot of discipline. So I think he maybe showed up to train. It was like five weeks out. He showed up to train like maybe four or five times.

And I had him train with a kickboxing coach. And this guy did MMA as well. He's a really good coach. And basically he just got the shit beat out of him every time he came in. But then he went and fought. And he beat the other guy senseless. Beat shit beat out of him every time he came in but then he went and fought and he beat the other guy senseless like he pinned down both arms just like wailing on his face I mean it's actually really cool blood everywhere dude's mom was crying I think now he didn't fight again because he got that win and he knows and afterwards he laid on a couch in the and

backstage he threw up lay on the couch couldn't get him off the couch for 45 minutes he was like he's breathing so hard and then he threw up again and then like he was done you know but after that he's like fighting's hard i don't want you know he didn't want to sign up for anymore if i can make an analogy saying watching ufc and saying i've won some street fights I can hang with these guys it's kind of like having the best power clean on your high school football team and watching you know the Olympics going impressive I mean high school kids are like oh yeah I can power clean 300 pounds yeah you know it's it's

it's similar well I I understand people are probably sitting back going John's a freaking idiot for thinking he could walk into a, you know, I don't want to, I'm not trying to be disrespectful, of course, to MMA. I'm just saying that I understand I'd get my ass kicked, but I'm yelling at the TV. I'm like, come on, charge him, go, punch. I almost feel like, but let me tell you something, though. I have to admit something, okay, because I'm sitting by a 701 fighter here.

I feel like it's similar to weightlifting or even any sport. I feel like there's some fights. There's some fights that I watch that they're almost being too technical. Just like in weightlifting, people are trying to be too technical. They're, they're, they're, they're just like in football. Like when, you know, a running back is trying to pivot the correct way. No. Move. Be an athlete. Instinct. Russell Crowe, gladiator type shit.

Now, I feel that that can benefit you. I feel that's a double-edged sword because you're getting amped up. You're going in for it, but then all of a sudden, pop. Next thing you know, you're laying on the floor because the guy, your component, actually is focusing a little know, is focusing a little more on technique and then you're dropped. Am I talking too loud? Opponent. Opponent. I'm sorry, sweetie. My producer corrected me.

What is your opinion on that mentality, Doug? You ever watch yourself on videotape doing a lift and you looked at it and you said, God, that looks so easy. But then you remember what it felt like when you did the lift and you remember it feeling heavy as shit and you felt slow and it didn't feel like it looked like. Does that make sense? Yeah. It's kind of like that in MMA too.

I'll watch my own fights and I'll be like, what are you doing? Get him! Like, what are you? And I forget sometimes that he's trying to beat me up too. He's not letting me, right? So good fighters have a have a knack for making other pretty good fighters look like they're not very good right that's so interesting i've always wanted to ask that question to a fighter like yourself i always wondered that but that was a great example yeah the best example for that is uh the anderson sylvan forrest griffin

fight by the way i just want to say that yeah anderson sylvan is my favorite fighter he's a bad motherfucker i'll give him that uh yeah, when he fought Forrest Griffin, Forrest Griffin was a former light heavyweight champ at the time, and Anderson just made him look like he'd never fought a day in his life. So good fighters just have a way of making other really good fighters look like they don't even know what they're doing, and that's often the case when you're yelling at a fighter, telling them, like, what are you doing? You got to get them. Attack, attack, attack attack and they're not attacking they could be scared i mean you get that happens like people get scared like even if even if they're competent

they're still like a little timid about rushing in and getting hit in the face one more time hey let me just say something right now i might even go off on a rant like this hey griffin if you can't take the heat get out of the kitchen and quit pouting that he that there's a bunch of controversy that spider silva kind of mocked him and made him look bad. Well, guess what? Throw a pair of balls. And all you fans out there that are mad about Spider Silva being too, I don't know, what? What is it?

Arrogant? Disrespecting the sport? What are you talking about? If you come in unprepared, you're going to get mocked. You're going to get punched in the face. And you're going to get some Ollie shit done to you. I just can't stand when people say they don't like Silva because he was moving to the side and kind of mocking him a little bit. You know what, Griffin?

You should have never been in the ring, even though I do like Griffin. I know this is weight lifting talk and I'm in the UFC somehow. I feel like Joe Rogan right now. But you know what? Quit driving a Prius and quit voting Democrat and grow a pair of freaking balls, Griffin. I feel like Forrest Griffin might actually be here in the building somewhere. We are at the Arnold right now. I did just see Cain Velasquez like 30 minutes ago. There's probably tons of UFC fighters here in the building if we want to go grab one for the show. Well, let me say something. I actually don't know if Griffin was saying that he thought Silva was

being unsportsmanlike. So I was, I'm kind of just on a rant. I have no, I'm blind about this. I'm actually talking about the fans of Griffin and the people that are upset with Spider Silva. I find it the same people that are upset with me, how I slam bars and yell and get the crowd going it's like you know what um quit telling someone how to fight what is your opinion on Spider Silva on that fight be honest with me now Doug I mean do you think he was a little over the top no he's just doing what he can to win the fight you know Glenn Glenn Penlay is here by the way he would have been on the show with us but he's been extremely busy I'm glad he could stop by. Coach, how are you doing today? I'm doing good.

I want to go home. You are so tired. Last night, the meet got over about 1130. You've coached about 500 people. Thankfully, you've had some help with some people. You were sweating, and you looked right at me, and the first thing you said was, I'm going home to sleep. I only coached 499 people, actually, not 500. But, yeah, we were actually thinking about going home tonight sleep. I only coach 499 people actually, not 500.

We were actually thinking about going home tonight. I didn't know that. I guess we've got to talk about this. I guess so. That is nice that we drove. We do have that convenience. We can go wherever the hell we want. I'm curious what the driver did and are you mad at me for not lifting?

I'm furious at you for probably faking an injury so you didn't have to lift um no that's that's kidding but i think everybody did pretty good overall i mean uh other than other than you john with the injury but the people that really needed to improve their total to uh you know try to make the Pan Am or World Team did so. Travis, Mike, and James all had big PR totals, PR competition totals. So people could always have done a little better, but overall I have to say I'm pretty happy. Yeah, definitely.

Well, you did good coach you're a coach and son of a bitch I don't think you stopped working all weekend I stopped I stopped long enough to eat some subway some barbecue did you just say subway on air I ate those the only thing within walking distance that looked halfway decent yeah from here and so I heard you like Arby's a lot I do love Arby's what's your favorite sandwich well roast beef would like Arby's a lot. I do love Arby's. What's your favorite sandwich? Well, roast beef would be Arby's. I mean, you know.

Did you have a favorite moment this weekend, Coach? Favorite moment. What's the highlight, Coach? The highlight was just the third attempts of James, Travis, and Mike. You know, Mike's 155, I was a little more surprised and glad of than the 20 snatch. That's a big lift for him. Travis's 190 clean and jerk, I mean, I've really been waiting on that to happen, and that was an awesome lift.

And then James, I mean, the 141 snatch, no longer than he's trained at 70 at 77 kilo body weight that's it that's a legitimately big lift you know that's that's good so you know those three lifts are probably for me the highlight six for six and 18 excuse me 17 kilos higher than he totaled at the american open three months ago that's monstrous progress for three months i mean obviously that doesn't happen very often and i don't probably expect it'll happen you know again at his next meet but to make that big of a step up uh is is pretty huge well coach it's weird to have you on as i guess a guest here because usually you're the host um before we end the show though I do want to get Travis Cooper on here anything you want to say what the hell is the guy with a camera over there doing oh this is barbell shrug barbell shrug they're

doing uh I don't know everywhere where Mike and Doug go um there's a camera that follows him around it's kind of cool I think it would be kind of creepy actually. I think John needs his own. I got another guy. We got another guy, James Chaney. I think we're going to have him follow John around for a while. At all hours. That's exactly what John needs. Yeah, yeah.

That's exactly what John needs. For some reason when I think a camera following somebody around I think of the movie Along Came Polly with Philip Seymour Hoffman where he was a child star and then he's older and he paid his friend that says he's with VH1

making a documentary but it's fake. Oh, I think I might have seen that. Philip Seymour Hoffman's playing basketball. It's the Ben Stiller movie. Yeah. And he's like making it rain and it's like airballing and shit.

Yeah, yeah. Hilarious. Probably one of your top ten movies, right? Coach, we already got into movies. Wow. All right, Coach. Okay. Let's get Travis on here.

How much longer is this program? We're probably going to just go for a few more minutes. We're going to talk to Travis and wrap it up here. So far, a really good show, guys. It kind of sucks that the beginning cut out when we had Whitmer and the Brazilian guy on. But they actually got it on film.

So maybe we could do something of editing it in or something like that. But Travis Cooper. Bledsoe, don't interrupt me. Travis Cooper. I'm sorry. Travis Cooper, Bledsoe, don't interrupt me. Travis Cooper. I'm sorry. Travis Cooper, my fellow teammate, had a huge day. 190 clean and jerk, 142 snatch. That's a PR across the board as far as competition, I'm pretty sure, right?

Travis, what's going through your mind, man? How do you feel? Pretty good. He shorted me four kilos. I got a 146. Sorry. All right. Your back's already hurting, man.

You don't want to piss me off. Oh, damn. Travis is coming at me hard today. I'm just kidding. What's going on? All right, man. How you feeling? Talk to me.

Yeah, I'm feeling pretty good about that. You know, I've been waiting to hit those numbers in competition for a while, so it was nice to see hard work pay off. Finally, making sacrifices, moving to muscle driver, being able to train full-time, finally seeing this actually helped me. That was competition. It made your Pan Am spot. It's harder now to get you off the Pan Am team, correct?

Yeah, right now I'm ranked number one on the Pan Am and World Team meal that's again Wilson over that's true but uh but no it's a close race because there's a lot of 94s and a few 85s who haven't competed and so it's going to be interesting hopefully that total holds up the only way I would get bumped is if 285s total more than 336, which is unlikely. It would be very tough, but it is possible. There's a couple people who could do it. Is it six on the Pan Am team? There's eight men and seven women for the Pan Am team.

Yeah, I think it's funny. I mean, we're both on the team right now, but it is true. There are a few people that could bump us off. The chances of them bumping off you is way slim. I don't think anybody's going to bump you off with that total you're rocking right now. As far as I'm concerned, it's me and Ian right now, but who knows what could happen because Collegiate National is four weeks out. So it's kind of a scary time, but you definitely got a lockdown trap.

No one's touching that total well it just depends you know if if Kendrick is moving up to 94 staying 85 obviously that makes a big difference for for both weight classes and uh you know Mike Nicole he's a he's a bad dude so uh you know you never know there's a couple other people. Colin Burns, man, that dude snatched 152 and barely missed 57. He snatched 52 on his open. Yeah, so if he shows up to collegiate nationals and clean jerks well, anything can happen. You never know.

So trying to stay on my toes. Yeah, advice of the day from Travis Cooper. Go. Advice of the day? Yeah. Just have fun with it. If you're not having fun with weightlifting, then it sucks. Thanks, man.

Thanks, Coop, for being really our last guest. Matt, come over here real quick. We're going to get him. Last guest. Last guest. One more time real quick. No one knows who this guy is. He's a rookie.

But I want him to be on my show today because I know in a few years he's gonna be the number one ranked lifter in the country and then I could take credit for his success in any way possible this guy is Matt Bergener not Bergener but Bergener people might get that mixed up talk to him what are your numbers and you're just getting in the sport of weightlifting you're really buff well uh well one is Bergeron it's it's french so it's no one wants to say it right anyway it's an ugly language okay but uh right now my numbers are 125 for snatch and 155 for a clean jerk and i just got done here with like a 45 50 minute

session with uh coach pendlay and he cleaned me up real nice and everything feels super light now so I float between 94 and 105 I compete 94 on right now so I think that's where I'll stay for a while no it's good numbers you're an interesting point in your career where you're kind of you're not a rookie you know you're not a beginner you have solid numbers but you're still not at the top yet with the big dogs you're right in the middle um you know that's a that's an interesting spot to be and i remember when i was there this is when the weight starts to get pretty heavy and you got to mentally and physically break through some

big walls you're gonna hit any advice out there for people listening that's kind of uh kind of right in that middle spot of how to keep pushing through to get to the top because you're right there all right well thanks guys i didn't expect to be on this is a question man you son of a bitch i that sounded more like a statement so the weight's getting heavy how do you keep pushing through let the people know uh you just suck up and pick up the weight. That's what I tell my athletes. I trained back at Ball State, so you got to either pick up the weight or go home. That's what you got to do.

Train. Train. I'm wearing a Ball State hoodie here. Ball State. I actually have a Ball State weightlifting shirt at home. All right. Dr. Andy Galpin sent it to me a few years ago. You know Andy?

I know Andy. Yeah, I know Andy. He's on my podcast. About 20 episodes ago. Episode 19. How do you know Andy? When I started at Ball State, I did an internship there after my undergrad program at Ball State. I've been there a while.

He'd come down lifting the Olympic weight room and in between his sets, he'd start spouting off some, some crazy physiology stuff. So whenever I got the chance, I'd go down there asking questions like, what does this do? What does that do? And he just, he'd blow my mind every day. So shout out to Andy. And yeah, I just, just got done watching that episode actually. It was, yeah, it was, it was awesome. He's, he's doing some cool stuff out there. He, Doug, and I, we were training partners for a couple years back in 07, 08. So he was there when I first started weightlifting.

Nice. He was a great weightlifter. He needs to get his knee fixed and get back in it. So if you're listening, Andy, stop being a pussy. We actually went to undergrad together. So when he was first starting to learn about weightlifting, to undergrad together. When he was first starting to learn about weightlifting, when I was first starting to learn about weightlifting, we kind of got our start together and then

came to Memphis and started competing all together. Nice. So we had a big history. Good coach, too. He's a great coach. He's still coaching a little bit out in California now at Cal State Fullerton. They've got a good weightlifting team over there.

Awesome. Well, Matt, get the hell off my show now. All right. Thanks, guys. It's awesome being here. Awesome meeting you guys in person. Last thing, people might get to know you a lot more pretty soon because you're one of our top recruits,

and it sounds like by the look of things in the next few weeks, you could be on Team Muscle Driver. Yeah, I just got done talking to Coach Pendlay about starting out coming down there, maybe just doing some, helping out the team a little bit, work with videos, do some work in the gym, and in the meantime, train with you guys. Let me tell you something, Matt. Let me give you some advice. Don't dabble.

I don't want to hear this talk about I might come down here and there and do this here and there. Maybe do this. Look, get your ass down 100%. Make it happen. All right, we're going to make it happen. Come on now. I don't want to hear this dabble crap. In life, you've got to go for it.

If you have to live in a van down by the river, live in a van down by the river, motherfucker. You know what I'm saying? All right, well, if I can outlift you in three years, I'll do it. Never happened. All right. Plug time. Let's go. Jacob, you first.

Check out Juggernaut Training Systems. It's JTSStrength.com and 70sBig.com. Mike Bledsoe, Barbell Shrug. Go to barbellshrug.com. We've got a great podcast, Technique WOD and the Daily BS where we answer your questions. Mike, plug barbellshrug.com.

I'll plug the gym, Faction Strength and Conditioning. If you're in Memphis and you want to do some weightlifting, come to Faction Strength and Conditioning. We're actually right outside of Memphis in Cordova, Tennessee. Look us up online and come do some training. Great. Anybody other plug? I guess that leaves me.

Theattitudenation.com, of course. Get on there and book a seminar near you. We're all over the country for 2013, and we're starting to book for 2014. Some good news happening. We're looking to put up some seminars now for Saturdays instead of Sundays, so look out for the schedule on that. Get some awesome weightlifting apparel and johnnewart.blogspot.com, the Dark Orchestra. Thank you guys so much for tuning in here to Weightlifting Talk live at the Arnold. We had some great guests today. Thank you, Barbell Shrug for being on, Jacob Tipskin for

being on and all the help that you've done this weekend. I don't know how to pronounce your Jewish last name. You damn, he walked on water. And you still, he walked on water and turned water into wine, and you still don't believe the guy. That's why I never do a magic trick in front of you. You wouldn't even believe me. See, it's only because my best friend is Jewish am I allowed to. I'm losing seminars as we speak.

I am now flipping burgers at Burger King. Welcome to Burger King. It's your way or the highway. Your episode posts Wednesday, by the way. Oh, and Barbell Shrug. Check that out. It comes out on Wednesday. They go to barbellshrug.com?

Barbellshrug.com. I get pretty deep. This Wednesday, we're going to get super deep with John. You're going to see him cry. Did I cry? You're going to have to tune in and see John cry. It did get deep. Check that episode out. Hey, Attitude Nation salute. I love you guys. I again, sorry about this weekend. I truly deeply apologize. I will be back and Attitude Nation salute. Love you.