Barbell Shrugged - The Future of Weightlifting - EP 186

Episode Date: July 15, 2015

Part 5 of 5.

Oh, is it still recording? You might catch me in Atlanta looking like a boss. New Orleans and then Miami. Party in New York, Texas. I'd be screwed up, shot down. I'd be really pimping, but nothing like my hometown. I'm forever living. Women need weather.

Come on, women need weather. Women need weather. From all around the world, they're women, weed, and weather. Women, weed, and weather. I was thinking we need to do that for our first weightlifting meet. We do women, weights, and weather. Women, weights, and weather. Are we ready?

All right. This week on Barbell Shrugged, we talk about the future of weightlifting. And Carl Winslow. Lasers. Hey, this is Rich Froning. You're listening to Barbell Shrug. For the video version, go to barbellshrug.com. My dad used to say it used to hurt him more than me,

that it physically spanked me. He'd get that shit through himself. Physically hurt his arm. Three, two, one. Shocker bra. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Mike Bledsoe, standing here with Chris Moore, Doug Larson, got CTP, and Charlotte behind the cameras.

Today is part five of our five-part series about the weightlifting series. We brought it home. Finally. Finally. Nobody at home knows how hard it was to do all five. There was trials and tribulations. One day, maybe in the tell-all book, you'll hear all about it. But here we are in the future. We're here in the future. That's right. So,

this is the fifth. Technically, it's the past. Now, they're watching it. This is a very abstract show. You gotta think both now and the present and in the future. This is the fifth technically is the past now they're watching it this is a very abstract show you gotta think both now in the present and in the future is the the number five of five so episode one what was that chris yeah episode one of the weightless journey we showed you how to get going in the sport of whale thing also gave a little context by going over the sport or the history of the sport of whale thing and some of the barbell facts of how it emerged and how it is changing the world today. What was episode two?

Episode two. You got this. Was, yeah. You do the write-ups, so you got this. It's still in my memory. Episode two was all about habits because, as we know, even the best weightlifters, when they're starting their long weightlifting journeys, it's hard, man.

Life can step in. There are real challenges and barriers to you getting better. We gave you some ideas and some cool tips and habits to help you get through those obstacles. That was episode two. Episode three. Keeping you on the spot. Episode three was our story with Danny Saul, who is doing great things in southern Florida, running great meets. But he was a great lesson in how the sport of weightlifting can actually turn your life around.

He had some low points with drugs and alcohol, and that sport allowed him to rise above and do great things and change lives and coach and really live a really optimal existence. He's doing really great now. Three for three, Mike. Does he know what we did in episode four? Episode four was all about the relationship between

coach and athlete. We gave you some tips on how to find a coach who will help you reach your full potential, and also as an emerging athlete, how you can sort of step up your game to the next level and be competitive. Earn the title of weightlifter. Did you rehearse that all morning? Well done. Sounds like a boring-ass series.

Is anyone watching this crap? Actually, no. People are digging this, and I'm really happy to have, because like they said, they'll never know how much it actually took to make it happen. If we would have covered four backwards, gone 4-3-1. I could do that, yeah. If we skipped two?

Maybe. Yeah. Ask my wife. Short term memory, not my... Not your strong suit? Yeah, if you ask me again, I might... What were we talking about? Wait with the stuff. Some kind of journey's happening. Real quick, what would she say your strong suit is?

Sexiness. Clearly. I make pretty smart weightlifting stuff some kind of journey is happening real quick what would she say your strong suit is sexiness clearly I make pretty smart babies man that's what I do so what are we doing for part five today we're going to be

talking about the future of weightlifting of course what else would we be talking about he only had one to remember he remembered all four

then he asked you the one and you were like oh it wasn't the present and it was't the past. Yeah. We're going to be talking

about the future of weightlifting. Does that mean lasers and robots on a snatch platform? Most likely. I want to see a laser show going during a weightlifting meet.

I don't think we, that's too far off now. The future of weightlifting, power techniques. Maybe that should be one of the things we change about the future of weightlifting.

Most weightlifting meets are like, actually Danny did it well on episode three. He did it really well, but most weightlifting meets are like actually Danny did it well. On episode three, he did it really well, but most weightlifting meets are like super chill, very quiet, like golf claps. They're not like powerlifting meets. Powerlifting meets are way

cooler. They're loud. There's metal playing the whole time. We were at the Arnold one time and there was girls dancing in cages in bikinis. That's how most weightlifting meets need to be. I feel like there's somewhere we can meet in the middle. I'm not so sure. I'm trying to do a snatch and there's a girl in a bikini dancing over there. I'm like, ah.

Mike, what happened? When you missed that attempt, you're like, dude, that brunette is so hot. I would have a lot of excuses for misses. It's weird when you're going to do a snatch or something, and it's just like dead. The room is quiet. I feel like you feel the pressure of all the eyes on you, whereas if you have a torch blasting in the background.

I think for somebody like, I've competed in the silent space long enough to where I think that's normal. If I were to get into something that was like too outrageous, I think that would be more distracting.

I think the younger athletes like that, yeah. I totally derailed us. What does par five involve? I can't believe that Doug would do such a thing. You do it maybe even better than me. Oh my God.

I've been working on it. We're going to switch it up. You're in charge of keeping us on track, Chris. I'm in charge of the procedure and making sure the details get out to people. Oh, Jesus. We want to talk a little bit about exactly why we are doing this series, or really Barbell Shrugged in general. But the series, especially because we really want to grow the sport,

as we talked about throughout the series we have the world championships happening here in the United States in Houston, Texas November 20th through 28th if you don't have tickets for that yet you should totally do it is that the biggest meet in the United States so far?

we haven't had the worlds in the United States in over 30 years or something like that, it's been a long time. Don't quote me on that, but it's been, I've never seen it here. Quote Aaron Lewis. It's been a while. That meet is the biggest meet I can think of. And then given that we're in this state of revival, this is just a big opportunity for everybody to get involved.

Actually, on that note, we mentioned on the show maybe two, three weeks ago that we had a promo code and I wasn't sure how much our fans would get like a percentage off of those tickets, but I confirmed it. So you get 10% off your tickets

if you want to go to Worlds. We're going to be there so you probably should come out to that. We'll be there the whole time. We'll be there hanging out. Thanks, Doug.

Thanks, Doug. I'll tell you this. Code name Shrug. Ever since I started weightlifting, I've been thinking about the Worlds and talking to people who had gone to Worlds and I was like, oh, I'll tell you this. Code name shrug. Ever since I started weightlifting, I've been thinking about the worlds and talking to people who had gone to worlds, and I was like, oh, I really just want to go. And I thought I was going to have to travel to Europe to do it, and now it's here at home.

So we're really stoked about that. So you should join us. If you show up, it's going to help show support so we can get them back in the United States more often. Right. So for today's show, we're going to talk about the future of weightlifting. And I feel like all the people that are new to weightlifting, that just jumped into the sport either by joining a CrossFit gym or just because weightlifting is getting more popular in general,

more weightlifting-specific gyms are popping up, and they can't really see how fast the world of weightlifting is changing because they couldn't see how fast it was changing like 10 or 20 years ago. They don't see how fast it was changing like 10 or 20 years ago. They don't see that how fast it's changing is accelerating. Right now, the sport of weightlifting, how good the athletes are, how knowledgeable people are around the world about the lifts kind of on a more general population level is just accelerating so quickly right now. It's exponential, I think, that's the point.

Dude, there's so many people right now that are so much better than even five or ten years ago. So we can kind of see that happening and we can kind of see what the future of weightlifting is going to look like. And because we know that and we know that most people don't know that, like it's really fun for us as coaches, as teachers, as educators to be able to kind of lay that lay out this view, this vision rather of the future of what we think the world of weightlifting is going to be like. And then we can help coach people into that future. That way you can be as good as possible when you get there. Yeah. And we're not alone. I think there's a lot of people out there that have been kind of in the game long enough to, to see how it's been done in the past and how it can be done better. And I mean, that's why we do what we do is because we know that even though all of our paths individually were, were fantastic. I mean, we were all very blessed, we still saw ways for it to be improved. And now that we have access

through things like YouTube and iTunes and all that kind of stuff, we're able to help push it forward with a much larger audience. Yeah, I feel like I had this really fortunate upbringing where I had the way that I learned weightlifting was a lot more ideal than most people that I've ever met have learned weightlifting. But now there's so many people that are learning it faster and from, from younger, yeah, faster and younger and have better coaching than I had growing up when I had it better than everyone when I was growing up. Now there's so many people that had it better than me just because the world is different now. So, and not because they just happened to be in this one geographical area and they had access to this coach. Yeah. It's because the, it's totally because of the internet.

It's because of the internet. And it's also because maybe it is a geographical thing, but your coach got into weightlifting because, you know, they discovered something through CrossFit or something online, YouTube videos and whatnot. And that's why we do things like TechniqueWad. Doug started that off years ago and it was just like he can pass that information on. He can kind of give that coaching one time and then reach a million people, whereas before, if you coached one time, you reached maybe 10 people at a time. And to reach 10 more, you had to repeat yourself to another group of 10 people. Yeah, that was totally the vision with that show, and that's kind of the vision of this show, Barbell Shrug.

It's the vision of Nuggets and Pearls and Barbell Business, all the other stuff that we do. We produce a lot of content intentionally because we know that we had it really good growing up and we're trying to give that back. And that's one of the most fulfilling things that we can do as a coach is try to coach the most people possible and try to make the biggest impact possible. And what we've basically decided is that the best way to do that is to have some type of recorded medium like the show and like all of our videos to do that that way we can we can reach thousands of people tens of thousands of people

millions of people that we wouldn't be able to reach if we just did it in our gyms yeah i love the fact like we can somebody can watch this show or episode technique wide and then they can share that in their box and then what really gives me chills is when younger people either either just you're in the gym for the first time working working professional, or you're a teenager, or maybe you're even a kid. I've seen kids who are now in boxes. Otherwise, they wouldn't get exposed to any kind of gymnastics, probably, or weightlifting. And now they're very young.

They're like 10 sometimes. They're teenagers. They're 20. And they're doing these lifts with really good form. And I get to see what the future of those individuals could be. They understand goal setting and movement and proper planning and commitment and persistence to a training program that way old thing teaches.

The cumulative effect of that just overwhelms me when I think about what that could take people in another 10 years of that kind of repeated behavior. Yeah, and all the communication that's happening between coaches. Some coaches are really good at this. Some coaches are really good at that. And we're able to kind of collect all that into a between coaches. Some coaches are really good at this. Some coaches are really good at that. And we're able to like kind of collect all that into a single source.

And coaches can get good at things other than just technique. You know, like you were just saying, goal setting and things like that. So we can put together a more complete package now. And that's what we're always working on is learning how to explain some things that may seem abstract to be much more simpler

so that you can use it better. And then we also want to like progress the sport as a whole. We want you as an athlete or a coach to keep progressing as well. So we're always like when we train, it's not so much about us getting better as athletes anymore. It's about learning about how we can, how we can really, how, how the training programs are changing or, or learning how we can program better or how just having something better to discuss on the show to help people think about things a little bit differently. So we really want to keep people progressing.

It's not just about like, oh, I learned this. This is how I learned it when I was, you know, 10 years ago or whatever. It's always about keep on learning, keep progressing, keep on pushing everybody. You don't graduate in this, right? It is no graduation day where now I I've read the list of books and I went to the competition

and I got a certain amount of programming experience now I'm free in the world progress in this sport is continuous and that's what's so lovely about it yeah you can't sit

stagnant anymore you have to be constantly learning and moving forward absolutely yeah um that was beautiful

that was fucking beautiful you're gonna have to edit this part yeah that's like um yeah so i really do want to encourage others as well uh you know we're actually fairly young and we've accumulated a lot of accumulated a lot of experience even though we are fairly young um and i want you as well at home to make sure that you're also, like whatever you're learning, you're passing on. You're getting involved in communities online, getting involved in the gyms in your area, and kind of sharing what you're learning and then also being open to learn yourself.

A lot of times people kind of, especially coaches, sometimes forget that they need to keep learning. So I really just want to encourage that to keep happening because that's something we're always trying to do as well. Well, that's an important point. People once say if you're completing this journey and now you feel like you know where to go next, a big component of your next steps and development and growth as an athlete, just taking your experiences, what you begin to understand and be comfortable with, and it's reaching out and now spreading and helping to teach and engage other people in the gym. Even one person in the gym that you can help in some way is how we will

actually push the sport forward. It happens on that leaning edge, engaging and sharing today. What can you help somebody with today in the gym? That's where this will start. Absolutely. All right, let's take a break real quick.

When we come back, we're going to talk about what the future of weightlifting will look like. Conversation over sex. All right. Here we go. Magic underwear is a little tight tonight. That's not Mormon. That's the people in Pennsylvania.

Three, two, one. Oh, same to me. Chaka bra. And we're back. We're going to be talking about exactly what we think, which means it's actually going to happen. What's happening in the future of weightlifting. We're going to make it happen. Intergalactic weightlifting meets.

Yeah, we'll see how it works. Gravity standards, neutral planet, illegal barbells, intergalactic Star Wars style weightlifting federation. That's what I predict predict Might take us some time But we're getting there Getting there I would love to lift Weights on the moon

It would be great Doug what do you What do you think Is actually Like maybe not You know 20 years from now But actually 5 years Because the moon

That's going to happen Oh the moon's Definitely going to happen But Nobody debates that Weightlifting 5 years What do you think

Within 5 years from now? Well, right now, I mean, CrossFit is still exploding. So there's gyms popping up, you know, on a daily basis, basically. So the quality of the lifters at every gym right now is, you know, increasing really, really quickly as well. So basically records are being broken right now. The standards are going up. The expectations are going up. The level of knowledge is going up. Basically just weightlifting is turning into, it seems to be the thing that people are gravitating towards

from a CrossFit gym. It seems to be the one thing where people go, they join a CrossFit gym. Nobody goes, okay, not doing it. I'm a runner now. Not doing it. Yeah, people rarely go to running. They rarely go to gymnastics

it does happen but the large majority of the population does end up doing the way on a majority basis most people the majority i'd say like 80 of the people that do leave crossfit and go to some other sport they rarely just go i'm taking up rowing i'm just a rower now or i'm just a runner now or i'm just a gymnast now most Most people, they pick probably powerlifting or weightlifting, but I'd say weightlifting by far is the majority in my experience. So, so weightlifting as a sport, um, is blowing up now too. It's kind of trailing the CrossFit movement. CrossFit blew up and then it blew up weightlifting. So, um, right now in, in the world of weightlifting, it's still kind of the people that are running weightlifting in a lot of cases, they're still kind of like a few generations behind. And weightlifting as a sport is still kind of stuck.

Like we did record this earlier when we were talking about it kind of being like all silent and boring and golf clubs and all that was on camera. I don't remember. There's like the legacy of it, which is a little slower moving and a little more structured and a little bureaucracy and everything else. It's not that entertaining. Like if you, if you go to a CrossFit meet or if you go to a powerlifting meet, they're way more entertaining than weightlifting meets. So I think that's going to be one of the big shifts as far as weightlifting meets specifically. We mentioned Danny, Danny soul and his MIA classic that we had on episode three of this series. Like that was a much more exciting meet than a typical weightlifting meet. And I think that's really just the start of it.

I think in the future, like weightlifting meets are going to be like a big guy going to a concert. Like Danny's, Danny's meet was actually in a concert hall. And so it was like on a stage where like there was like a spot to be. It's like where the band would play. And then there's like people down below where like the mosh pit would be and whatnot.

Like we're laughing as pit bull. You do a PR, you do a crowd surf into the crowd. Get you a beer. You know what? We tried to do that. Obviously, y'all know. I think we tried.

The future's not here quite yet. We talked about having Adee hit a lift, and then we were going to get a ton of people down in the pit, basically, and then she would just jump off stage and crowd surf away. But the way it was set up, it wouldn't really have worked. It would have been a little dangerous, perhaps. Five years from now, though. Crowd surfing. If you hit a PR, required to crowd surf. There uh the way it was set up it wouldn't really work a little dangerous perhaps five years from now though crowd surfing if you hit a pr required to be a plank there actually

be like a springboard yeah but i do think that'll be a big shift though i think i think weight lifting meets with the younger generation that's very entertainment driven um i think weightlifting meets will be a lot more entertaining and that'll just be one more thing to draw in even more and more people to compete i think another thing that's happening is the training's actually changing a lot of the weightlifting training in the past was very like snatch clean jerk squats the assistance work was there but it wasn't like i definitely yeah it was like sit-ups and back raises and it was very general and then very very little fitness work. And very barbell-oriented. And I think now we're including things like kettlebells.

Gymnastics are coming in. These are a lot of things that we put in our programs now. Had we not been exposed to a lot of the gymnastics, kettlebell work, a lot of the other things that kind of help build you as a more well-rounded, structurally athlete, you're going to start seeing athletes that have, or weightlifters that look, maybe not like bodybuilders,

but I mean, if you look at the Chinese, they're definitely buffer. If you ask people what they want to look like, you show them most of that Chinese weightlifting team in the middle weight classes, that's what they're going to point out. That's the idea. They're strong as shit.

They are lean. They are powerful. They can bench. They can dip. They can do everything. And it's not about them trying to look that way. It's that they're doing assistance exercises to help build up the musculature in the right way, the way it should be, to reduce injuries so they can keep training day after day.

I think a lot of times people get caught up in, is this directly going to help me snatch or clean and jerk more? And the answer might, might feel like they go, Oh, the answer is no. Well, that's not always the point of training. Sometimes the point of training is to make sure you're, uh, structurally symmetrical so that you can keep training all the time for snatch and clean and jerk. Yeah. You don't have any muscular balances that are going to be pre they're going to predispose you to getting injured. Yeah. You look at a guy like, uh, Kendrick Ferris. and if you look at kind of the

rep schemes that he does and some of the assistance work he does, I mean, he looks like a buff dude because he is a buff dude. He looks pretty buff to me too. I don't know. He's not. It's all mirrors. He's kind of like, in my opinion, more of

the future of what a weightlifter might look like because a lot of that has to do with the rep schemes that they're doing he's doing sets of 10 and you used to not see like weightlifters doing a lot of sets of 10 but now you're starting to see that becoming up more often i feel like that's one thing like work too uh definitely uh i feel like one thing that cross it really has going for is it's the strength sport that all especially guys but guys and girls they they want to look like, like the games athletes that they see on TV. Like, you know, who doesn't watch, want rich fronting abs. That's right. I mean, they, they look like Hollywood superstars, like,

and weightlifters want to look like that too. But the, the unfortunate thing about a lot of strength sports is most people, when they see professional power lifters, like they, they tend to think all power lifters are like the heavyweight. They weigh 400 pounds and they've got big bellies and whatnot. Even though those guys are strong as shit and they squat for 1,200 pounds. Most people don't want to look like professional bodybuilders either though. They don't want to be like the 300 pound 3% body fat, just shredded,

just roided up, just crazy meathead looking guy. Even though those guys are super impressive and whatnot. Most regular people don't want to look like that. But most regular people don't want to look like what a stereotypical Olympic weightlifter looks like either because as strong as they are and as impressive as they are, a lot of times they don't look that impressive. Like they're obviously, you know, very impressive when you actually see them lift the bar.

But when they're just walking around, like big ass, big legs, and then they kind of normal arms and they don't look like a weightlifter because most people think weightlifters are bodybuilders. They think it's a different thing. Yeah. Yeah. They, they, they think all buff people should look like bodybuilders and they don't, they don't realize the distinction between the sports. So in the future, kind of like what you were saying is now that assistance work is coming into the sport big time and that's happening for all the strength sports, all the, the power lifters are learning from the, from the body builders and the weightlifters and the CrossFitters and, and the weightlifters are learning from the bodybuilders and the weightlifters and the crossfitters. And the weightlifters are learning from the powerlifters and the gymnasts and the bodybuilders.

All that stuff's coming into the world of weightlifting now where people can look more like the Chinese because the Chinese have incorporated a lot more assistance work into their programs where they look the part and they perform tip-top in the world. So I think we have that opportunity now in America in America, especially where, um, where we can have this kind of integral look at how we train for the sport of weightlifting, where we can look like, like, you know, bodybuilders, even if we're not quite that big, but we're, we're buff and we're lean, we're strong, like power lifters. And then we're, you know, we're very explosive and very quick, like the weightlifters and we kind of be a little bit of everything. What about Rich's she?

And we're going to be rich as she. We'll talk about that later. Which brings me to my next point that I think in the future, everybody will have, we'll have a team that you're not going to, a lot of people right now are training alone. They may have some interaction online with people, but in the future, I think technology is getting to a point where there's going to be a lot more connectivity.

So instead of filming something, putting it up, which is, by the way, a huge advancement, being able to film it and put it up five minutes later is huge. Definitely didn't have that five years ago. I think it's going to happen faster and faster and faster. Even if you are alone in your space, you will feel more connected and then have faster feedback. Yeah. It's a lot different than it was 15 years ago. As I said earlier, like when I was growing up, I was the only person that I knew that had weight

lifting shoes. I was the only person that I knew that knew where there was access to bumper plays. They just, I just didn't know any weightlifters at all. And all my friends at school that, that were baseball players or football players or wrestlers, I would say like, yeah, like I just started doing cleans and snatches and all these things when I was 14 or 15 and no one had any idea what I was talking about. And like the more and more I searched, didn't matter. Just nobody was doing it. And so like the, the possibility of me having a team when I was, you know, 14 or 15 was basically non-existent.

The only person that my coach even knew was like a hundred miles away. Just there was no one in town. So that was best case. Yeah. Even though something that I thought was really cool, I still played baseball. I still, you know, I still wrestled. I still played football and I liked those things. But I probably would have done weightlifting when I was younger, but I really just didn't have the

opportunity. There was no one, none of my friends were doing it. And so I kind of did it on my own, but it helped me with those other sports, but I didn't have the opportunity to train with the team and turn it into, into my thing. Um, like it would be my thing if I was 14 or 15 years old now, because I think if I was 14 or 15 now, I would probably just join a team and compete from day one. I didn't compete until I really got to like late, late college or graduate school. And you can, you can have a team now you can join a team online now and just,

but I think in the future, I mean you talk to futurist people who, who this is what they're an expert is what is potentially futurist. How much money you make a year? Emerging economy. To be able to call yourself a futurist is probably just a self-labeling thing. Yeah, I am the first.

Ray Coswild is a real futurist. There's a couple real ones who make money, too. Yeah, I've talked to futurists, but one of the things they talk about is there's going to be way less commuting going on. The necessity to travel somewhere to do something is going to become less and less all time. And I think that applies to weightlifting as well. You're going to have that increased connectivity due to technology and you're going to be able

to lift, get instant feedback. What about online competitions? Live stream, everyone? You know, there might be that. I mean, it all depends. I think people go to a competition to have that in-person thing happening. Oculus Rift, wait for the meat. Yeah, but as I was saying, that connectivity is going to be,

that feeling is going to be more and more all the time. Do we have to travel for a meat in the future? I don't know. Maybe not. The connectivity thing, this all excites me because I'm just thinking of a future world. It's an emotional thing, too. It is.

I'm thinking of just because we know what we had access to, and I'm just thinking of right now we know what we had access to and i'm just thinking of and right now in the next five ten years the idea that a kid can emerge into a gym and immediately have a feeling that they know what is good information they know how to set goals they know how to lay out habits not stick to a program and know what it feels like to be empowered to get stronger and to see the work they put in the gym result in better life, better function, better habits, but also see the weight go up on the bar.

The idea that more young athletes can get that at a sooner point in their development is just, man, that's all the reason in the world they keep pushing this message out. And it won't be geographically dependent. No, no. I mean, the idea where no one feels alone, no one feels without a team. That's extraordinary.

We can do that. We are doing that. We are doing it right now. We are doing it. There's so much more opportunity now to find a group of people that are just like you. Like before, like if you were a person that was like six months into weightlifting and that was all the experience you had. I mean, if you could find some people that were lifting weights, like you probably weren't, weren't able to find that many people that have the exact same level of experience as you. There's pros and cons to that, but, but right now you could probably join a group that's like

just for weightlifters, six months experience to one year experience. And you could join a group of like a hundred of them that probably exists. And if it doesn't, it would be very easy to make. And then only the people that were just like you with your same level of experience going through the same frustrations, the same learning curve, all the same thoughts and feelings that you're having around that, the experience of learning the lifts,

all those people are there to support you because they're going through the same thing at the same time. And if I could go back in time, I would start that AOL chat room. Oh my God. I've got a vision of the future, man. Not the other AOL chat rooms you were in.

Yeah, when I was 15, the AOL chat rooms I was in had nothing to do with weightlifting. ASL. Stopping wasn't a word then, was it? I was going to say this internet. ASL. How much you snatch, how much you clean. The idea that you can get around more people just

like you is maybe think of how much opportunity that shows for how much training can still evolve. Because now there's a little hub of people who are interconnected who all share the same problem that's never existed. It takes the ball so much further, just that level of interconnectivity. We're all sharing the same problem. What's working for you? How can I learn from you and apply it right to me right now? That's mega powerful.

If you're not online and getting into some kind of community, then I won't say you're getting left behind, but you're going to be left behind. And the final point that we would like to make, or maybe it's just me, I don't know. It's an important point, Michael. But a lot of people refer to weightlifting and have, when I started, as weightlifting being a poor man's sport. There's not a lot of money going into it.

You're always lifting on your own dime. Your dad looked crazy for devoting so much time in these reps that weren't manifesting as some finished product at the end of it that your parents

had their doubts about you. Yeah, I mean, I remember being 15 years old and investing a lot of time in weight training. That's kind of when I started just lifting and I remember my dad

saying, hey, you know, asking me, hey, do you think you're wasting your time? How are you going to make money? How is this going to advance you as a, as a person? And at the time I really believed that it was going to contribute to something that I was going to do in the future, but I didn't know

exactly how he only knew. Yeah. He only knew. Um, and it's been, it's been a really wild ride, but a big part of why we've been able to make this possible is because things have evolved. Had I tried to figure out exactly, there's no way for me to know that I'd be running like a CrossFit-style gym at some point, have a weightlifting team, do online programs, things like that. These are all things that are only possible because it is 2015. And even more lies ahead that is unknown and is rich with opportunity. There's a lot of people that are starting to make money in weightlifting. There's a lot of people, a lot of it has to do with not just the internet and technology, but there's just so many people

in the sport now that there's things happening. Opportunities are presenting themselves. There are going to be businesses and ways to make money and kind of live off of weightlifting, be able to like pursue that passion and make good money, not just some money because some people kind of hit the point where like, well, you can make enough money to live, but now I think people are actually going to start making really great money in the world of weightlifting, and that's something. Not just like clothing sponsorships and shit like that.

Making a good living. Not just getting free shoes. I mean, that's cool, And free shoes and free supplements, I mean, that's kind of like what we've seen. We're kind of coming out of that, and there's like real sponsorships and real money coming into athletes. And there's people starting businesses

that help support the sport. And I think the only events weightlifting has really had so far is weightlifting meets. And I think in the future, there might be some other type of weightlifting events where really cool things are happening. I think there's a big opportunity there. And if you can be creative enough and really think how what is not happening in weightlifting that might be happening in another industry and kind of maybe steal that and bring it over, that would be really, really exciting.

And when money shows up into a sport, that's when the sport really starts growing. So it's not so much like a greedy like, oh, we can make a whole bunch of money off this type thing, but it's the money that allows people to stay in the game long enough to do cooler stuff. How many people are so passionate about it and put everything they have in it? They deserve, you know, maybe not deserve, I don't like using that word, but like they can make a good living out of it and pursue their passion and be really fulfilled in that. Another thing that Doug and I have been in conversations about

is kind of changing the perspective of society in regard to how people view personal trainers, coaches, weightlifters. You want to talk a little bit about that, Doug? Sure. I mean, I feel really strongly that really good coaches are just as valuable as really good chiropractors and really good physical therapists or even really good doctors. And I think general society, the way they look at coaches and the way they look at personal trainers or just someone who's in the fitness space, they don't view those people the same way that they view the people

that are in the medical industry. But in my opinion, they're just as valuable. Some people take people from being sick and they get them back to normal. And then some people take people from relatively normal. Um, even if they're not, not normal, you could be 30 pounds overweight. And I hesitate to call that normal. You're still, you're not sick, but you're not really normal either. You're, you're still below, uh, below zero. I'll be looking at it. Yeah. You still have plenty of room for improvement. Um, but you know, personal trainers, fitness people, strength coaches, whoever they, they tend to take people from relatively normal and optimize them. They're, they're, they're in the wellness industry and they're not in the medical industry, but, but they're still

working on the same physiology. Like doctors are working on people, personal trainers, fitness coaches, CrossFit coaches, weightlifting coaches, they're working on people, personal trainers, fitness coaches, CrossFit coaches, weightlifting coaches, they're working on people as well. And so, um, I think it was Alan Cosgrove, if I'm not mistaken, who made a really good analogy, um, that I heard him say years ago, where he was pointing out that if you have ever watched like a TV sitcom, like the stereo, the stereotypical way that they portray a personal trainer on the show as a character versus how they portray a doctor as on the show as a character versus how they portray a doctor as a character is radically different where the doctor is seen as very

intelligent and prestigious and some of that everyone looks up to and has authority and then the personal trainer is always like some doofy kid and like a backwards hat who like has like a like a tank top on and like you know and big arm muscles and and that's about it that's what people think about when they think about a personal trainer and and that person on the show isn't really respected by the other characters on the show and that's that's uh analogous to how society views personal trainers in a lot of ways i break the fourth wall real quick sure is that what you say we've already filmed this once and in the previous rendition of this i gave a shout out to carl winslow reginald Bell Johnson, if you're out there, tweet me, bro. I want to meet up with you.

Carry on, Doug. Well, yeah, we had some technical issues. This is actually the fifth time we've recorded this. This is the hardest episode we've ever done. This is the fifth time that we've recorded this. So not this exact spot, but we keep having it. The audio keeps cutting off. But yes, they are portrayed bad on TV. Yeah, and the last one I mentioned, Family Matters,

because Chris loves that show. And so he's giving a shout out to Carl Winslow, but please, if you know, Carl, five degrees of separation, hook me up.

It's going to happen, bro. I'll be in Chicago soon. Yes, that's true. You will go to the family. That's where the Winslows lived. I don't know if that's where

Check my Instagram feed. Go to the family house. That's where the Wenslows lived. I don't know if that's where. He doesn't seem to still live in the same house. Check my Instagram feed. I am going to get a photo with that house. Probably all by myself with an Uber driver. Dream come true. Go, Doug, go. Save us. So in the future, I do think it would be very cool.

And I feel like the world is moving that way where wellness professionals are starting to get a lot more respect, uh, for what they offer. Um, and they, they don't offer the same things as doctors or physical therapists. It's a totally separate thing that they offer. And so, um, I think comparing them is, is kind of a useless argument. It's not, you're not supposed to compare them. Um, you're supposed to respect them for what they can offer. And so, um, in a lot of ways, when, when people need to get fit and in shape, people that really have no idea what they're doing, they actually reach out to their doctor first. If you're trying to just get a physical or you have some type of pain and you're trying to check and see if, well, I don't have back pain. I just want to make sure that I don't have liver cancer to make sure my back pain is something that I think is normal, not liver cancer.

Then, yeah, you need to reach out to your doctor and whatnot. You should probably get a physical and blah, blah, blah, like total disclaimer, check with your doctor at that type of like blanket statement happens often, but the doctor's probably not going to actually get you in shape because that's not his job. He's supposed to, you know, if you've got a broken arm, you go to the doctor and that's what doctors do. And so it's treating the medical world for what it's made for. And it's treating the fitness wellness world for what it's made for. And so I'd like in the future for us to build a future where fitness and wellness professionals kind of get the respect they deserve

for the knowledge that they have. Because I know fitness and strength coaches and CrossFit coaches and weightlifting coaches and personal trainers and strength and conditioning specialists for pro teams and whatnot. Like they're remarkably intelligent. They easily could have gone into the medical world and been a doctor, physical therapist if they wanted to, but they chose very specifically to be a personal trainer because that's what

they had passion for. And they study fucking every day trying to get better. They, they read anatomy books and they, they went through, they went through college and graduate school and they took cellular physiology in the medical school. You know, like Andy's in the backyard right now, Andy Galpin, our buddy who, he's back there just... He's just hanging out outside. He's got a PhD in mechanics, sort of,

planting flowers back there. Yeah, he's got a PhD in metabolism, basically. And, you know, he went through the medical school and took all the classes with the doctors. And he just chooses to, you know, counsel with UFC fighters and help out the fitness world and do research on weightlifting

because that's what he just happens to be passionate about. And I think if he worked in a doctor's office, uh, he would just be bored all day long. He's just, this is not his thing. And this isn't supposed to be about doctors at all. It's just comparing, it's comparing someone that gets a lot of respect to someone who really doesn't get a lot of respect, um, being doctors versus personal trainers and strength coaches. I think in the future, um, getting personal trainers and strength coaches more respect in the eyes of society will actually be really good for society because they'll be more likely to reach out to those people when they have challenges with their fitness or their nutrition and then society will be a lot healthier as a result. And I think that really is one of the distinctions right now. It's how society views those people psychologically that's preventing them from reaching out to those people

not because those people don't know what they're doing yeah i want to touch on this too there's a little bit of a debate happening in the world right now in regard the united states and personal training and uh there are some organizations that are pushing that it'd be a government like uh regulated government regulated thing totally opposed to that i think that's total shit but uh so don't think that that's what we're suggesting here. Say it to the government's face, Mike. I think there is a better way to go to get that level of respect for sure in the eyes of society. I think you start by realizing this is the position of a coach, a weightlifting coach.

You are engaging a community. You are the leading edge of change. You're working with young athletes and young people who are aspiring to be better than what they are. And you're going to teach them mechanics and physiology and nutrition. You're going to teach them how to rejuvenate, take care of themselves, maintain their ability to perform. You're going to teach them the power of setting small, actionable daily habits that accumulate into big change in their lives. This world is going to become a stronger, healthier place. It's going to start, in many cases, on our way to the platform in a gym

between two people, one wanting to learn and one wanting to help the other person. Yeah, absolutely. All right. We're gonna take a break. When we come back, we're going to talk about exactly how you can get involved and be the future of weightlifting. This is Tim Ferriss and you were listening to Barbell Shrugged. For the video version, go to barbellshrugged.com. Barbell Shrugged is brought to you by you. To learn more about how you can support the show, go to barbellshrugged barbell shrug is brought to you by you to learn more about how you can support the show go to barbell shrug.com and sign up for the newsletter three oh three you're not ready no then three two one shocker bra and we're back again thank you for watching episodes one through five of the weightlifters journey we We're closing it down. This is the end.

Closing it down. This is the end, but we want to leave you with a few words of wisdom about how you can help make the future brighter. It's a call to action. Yeah. It's a call to arms. Yes.

The guns. Yes. First off, if you found these videos to be helpful or these audios helpful, don't be afraid to share them. Share them with your friends. Anything you find that's helpful, whether it's our stuff or not, definitely make sure you share that.

Join the conversation. Make sure you're getting in the forums. Make sure you're getting in the Facebook groups. Join a community. Just get online. It's going to help evolve the sport faster if we have more interaction yeah in addition to that just just share what you know like the more you coach other athletes coach your friends and help teach other people what you learn about about fitness about nutrition about

weightlifting about whatever the better you'll learn it yourself and then also of course the people that you're teaching really appreciate it so so don't just share you know piece of pieces of advice on your facebook wall and whatnot but actually in person when you're in the gym that you're teaching really appreciate it. So, so don't just share, you know, pieces of pieces of advice on your Facebook wall and whatnot, but actually in person, when you're in the gym, if you see someone doing something wrong, feel free to go over there and, and, you know, don't force your, your views on them necessarily. And just be like, you're doing that wrong. And just tell them what to do, but say, Hey, you know, I noticed you're doing this thing. You mind if I like give you a piece of advice or whatever. And that really goes a long way to helping them get better, to making your gym better and to letting you kind of refine your thoughts about how you are as a weightlifter

as well. It's a great way to get people to listen to you, ask their permission to let you coach them. I say also like be confident in your experience. Cause like everybody goes through, we say the weightlifter's journey. Everybody's going to go through a journey of their own and you might not be the strongest or smartest. You might not have read every book, but you have a completely unique experience. I think the future will start once you figure out how you can plug your experience in and help somebody just by sharing where you've been and what you've learned. Like Doug said, you might see somewhere where you know you can help. So it's your responsibility then once you know you can help to find a way to do that. Yeah. And when you do learn something, implement it immediately. That's usually what separates successful people from the people that aren't so successful is something we call speed

of implementation. The faster you implement something, see if it works or not is what's going to kind of separate you from the rest of the crowd. Most people tend to learn something or they have to hear it 10 times before they give it a shot. When you learn something new, start implementing it immediately. It may not work, but at least you'll know it didn't work sooner. Or you make the mistake of waiting for like an optimal time to start, which is the classic bad scenario.

Yeah, if you're on the fence about something and you just aren't quite sure, like it sounds like it might be a good idea, but it might not be a good idea. You're just really not sure. Just try it out real quick and then just get the feedback. And then a couple of days,

you will know 100% did that work or did that not work. So try it out right away. The faster, the better. Yeah, the consequences to it not working out aren't as bad as you would think. What's most important is the trying part. Just wear a condom. I mean, at least try it out. That's all we're saying.

You think it might be a good idea? Just go for it. Go ahead and dip your tip in the weightlifting. If you don't like it, pull a tip back out. He went there. I went there. You were fishing for it. Now I don't even know

what we're talking about anymore. The future. And if you think, if you see a way that things can be better, be the person that makes it, makes that change.

Be the change you want to see in the world. Be the change you want to see in weightlifting. We finished this quote. Gandhi quote. No, no, no.

I saw a quote from Gandhi. Before you said that, I was like, I was thinking in my head, someone's going to take that quote and then put dash Mike Bledsoe on it. Slash Gandhi. Social media will crucify you. And I'll give credit to Doug because he brought it up in between shots. He was like, yeah, we should make that point. Well, that's been like 184 episodes of this show.

True. I mean, that's overall for everything in your life. Be the change you want to see in the world. The longer I live and the more things that I do, the more I see that that statement is very, very true. Yeah, I mean, bringing it back to the point that I made at the end of the last section we did about fitness professionals and athletes and and strength coaches being respected and looked up to and in really high regard as someone that that is is knowledgeable and isn't just a meathead quote unquote and that society psychologically will look to it and they would just be the obvious choice for when I want to get healthy I go see a strength coach or a

personal trainer or or just some type of a fitness coach. So if that's ever to happen, then you need to be the person that, that is trying to always, um, get better through experience, through coaching people, through learning yourself, through, through training and, you know, going through your own, your own physical transformation, but, but also you're, you're always learning. And, you know, you're listening to podcasts like this, you listen to other shows, you read, you listen to audio books. You read books. You read training texts. You counsel people. You coach people. You're always looking to get better and get to that next level. That way, in the future, if society is going to look at fitness professionals in the way that I described,

well, it has to be true before they'll actually do that. We don't want to just change the perception. We want to change how smart, how intelligent, and how professional the industry actually is. And until we do that, it'll be very hard to change that perception. So it starts with each individual making a kind of a promise or a commitment to themselves to be that person. I certainly try to do that every day. I know you do. I know you do. CTP does. We're all trying to be the best we that we can be. So I'm going to put that challenge out to you as the listener to every single day, study, train, do competitions, at least minimum an hour a day. If you do it for an hour a day within five years, you're in the top 1% of your field, whatever that happens to be.

It applies to sports. It applies to business. It applies to being a student. It applies to anything. So an hour a day minimum to, to be that person that, that, you know, I hope you can turn into. Yeah. And I catch myself sometimes, sometimes I'm like, man, I wish somebody would do this thing. And I think this is really important that this happened. This happens. And then, and then some time will go by. I was like, Oh, you know,

maybe I'm the person that's supposed to do it. It's going to be done. Looks like I'm going to have to do the job. If you recognize a gap somewhere, be the, you know, don't wait for someone else to do it. Step in,

step up, knock it out. And I would also say, like if I had one closing point, this epic five part journey, I would say, uh, if right now you find yourself in an environment where you want to do these

things, you see where you could, but you're not feeling inspired or supported or maybe there's just no one around you can really lean to. I think you have to aggressively seek out an environment and conditions and triggers around you that are going to draw you forward and help keep you fired up and inspire you on a daily basis. If you're not feeling pulled forward in your environment, so you've got to fight to get somewhere where somebody that's going to be either smarter or faster or whatever than you is going to draw you up to the next level.

You have to have that daily. You've got to fight for that. And I think if you do that, the rewards are endless. Yeah. And really, most importantly, if you happen to know Carl Winslow, can you make a boy's dream come true? Introduce him to CTP, please. I'm getting ready. What do I say to him?

What do I say? Mr. Winslow, it's a pleasure. Hey, big guy. You'll say, hey, you should go to flightweightlifting.com. Get that free guide. Looks like you could use it. That'd be cool. If we had Carl Winslow in our flight program, and then the next thing you know, Carl's snatching big weight.

And he says, did I do that? It could happen. Oh, snap. Dude, Alex, Coach Kurt, man. Could you imagine if you were coaching Carl Winslow? Do you know his real name? Reginald Val Johnson. Okay.

Come on, man. He was in the diehard, man. You think he's fucking around? No, this is how he feels I'm not a bandwagon Carl Winslow fan like the rest of these kids

as if there was a bandwagon sorry Carl who knew Carl Winslow would be at the end of the weightlifter's journey that's what awaits

you at the end hello I'm Carl Winslow nice snatch someone's gonna make a video. All right. If you want to learn more about weightlifting, we did create flightweightlifting.com. There's an ebook there. Download it. Check it out. There's a lot of things in there. We've got videos. We've got sample programming. We've got a full program, fool.

Yeah. We have a full program, but check out flightweightlifting.com. It got a full program, fool. Yeah. We have a full program. But check out flightweightlifting.com. It's a great place to get started. We have a community there as well. A lot of the things that we talked about today that we want to be in the future, we are trying to be that change and we're implementing everything we think is going to make everyone better

weightlifters. So, check it out. Now, it's your turn friends. Go start your journey.