Barbell Shrugged - The Greatest Powerlifter of All Time Ed Coan, Dr. Andy Galpin, Anders Varner, Doug Larson, and Coach Travis Mash Barbell Shrugged #622

Episode Date: December 29, 2021

Throughout his active career in international powerlifting competition Ed Coan has set over 71 world records in powerlifting.[4] He became the lightest person to cross the 2,400 lb. barrier in the powerlifting total (a sum of three lifts: the deadlift, bench, and squat). He set an all-time powerlifting record total at 2,463 pounds, even though at the time he was not in the heaviest weight class.   Coan's best result in a drug tested international competition is 1,035 kg (2,282 lbs) in the 100 kg weight class at the 1994 IPF Senior World Championships.[5] establishing a new world record at the time. Even though serving a lifetime ban from the IPF for doping, today Coan is among some people still acknowledged and regarded a legend in the world of powerlifting and spends much of his time mentoring young lifters coming into the sport.[3]   Coan's best single ply lifts: Squat - 1019 lbs (~462 kg) Bench press - 584 lbs (~265 kg) Deadlift - 901 lbs (~409 kg)[6] raw by today's standards with only singlet and belt       Total: 2463.6 lbs (1117.5 kg)   In this Episode of Barbell Shrugged:   Why playing the long game wins in strength The perfect deadlift set up Why feel is the most important coaching tool for strength Setting 30+ world records in a career Why competing can hinder your progress   Connect with our guests:   Ed Coan on Instagram   Dr. Andy Galpin on Instagram   Anders Varner on Instagram   Doug Larson on Instagram   Coach Travis Mash on Instagram   ————————————————   Diesel Dad Mentorship Application: https://bit.ly/DDMentorshipApp   Diesel Dad Training Programs: http://barbellshrugged.com/dieseldad   Training Programs to Build Muscle: https://bit.ly/34zcGVw   Nutrition Programs to Lose Fat and Build Muscle: https://bit.ly/3eiW8FF   Nutrition and Training Bundles to Save 67%: https://bit.ly/2yaxQxa   Please Support Our Sponsors   Organifi - Save 20% using code: “Shrugged” at organifi.com/shrugged   BiOptimizers Probitotics - Save 10% at bioptimizers.com/shrugged   Garage Gym Equipment and Accessories: https://prxperformance.com/discount/BBS5OFF Save 5% using the coupon code “BBS5OFF”

Shrugged family, this week on Barbell Shrugged, one of the strongest humans that has ever walked on the face of this earth. He has like 30 powerlifting world records. When you're only competing against yourself and every single year you go beat last year's PR, that makes you the strongest man in the world 30-something times in a row. And what's actually super cool about this is the number of years that Ed Cohen was allowed, not allowed, but able to compete at such a high level. Very few injuries. We talk about all the training methodologies that go into staying strong for a very long time, not just strong, but like world class, greatest of all time strong. And you're going to learn how long of an approach and a process he took in this episode to

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So 2200 Walmarts nationwide. Get into your local Walmart. Ageless Male Protein. Three programs on the shelf. Friends, let's get into the show. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Anders Varner, Doug Larson, Coach Travis Mash, Dr. Andy Galpin, and one of the strongest humans that's ever walked on this gigantic rock

flying around the sun, Ed Cohen. Welcome to the show, man. I can't believe that one of the coolest things about this job, it is a job somehow, we get to hang out on calls like this, and I actually get to hang out with Ed Cohen. It's like, honestly, it's one of the greatest things that can happen. I get to listen to cool people talk too, so I'm lucky. Yeah.

Man, there's endless things that we could talk about. But on a very personal note, as we talked about at the beginning of the show, I'd love to dig into just how you have maintained strength and continued to stay around weights and lifting for so long. And just what is like at the top, just a lot of the mindset that goes into your training and how it's shifted from being a world-class competitor, world record holder, to transitioning out of that into something that is, whether, into a more sustainable approach that you've been able to keep doing throughout your life?

I took my time. And I never looked on paper or in the magazines what everyone else was doing as far as routines. I just went by how everything felt. And then I figured out the easiest routine in my mind that was on paper. But it turned out that the easiest routine on paper wasn't the easiest routine because when you add in, you know, your recuperation, when you add in your movement, when you add in picking the right numbers and how long to go on a training cycle and how your warm-ups are going to go, what exercises are going to work for you. I went by feel. I never went by anything else but feel. If it felt good, it felt smooth,

it felt like my body was in the right place at the right time, that's what I continued to do. I didn't listen to anyone else. Were you like that from day one? You just always had a good sense of what you needed and what to do? Or did you develop that over time? I was extremely introverted as a kid. So when I joined a health club on the south side of Chicago,

I kind of just sat in a corner by myself and observed and watched. And then I'd do a set. And then I'd watch everyone else and then do a set. And that was everyone in the gym, wherever I went, and I just figured out, I could start, kind of see what they were doing wrong, and where shit was breaking down, and I could see what I had to do then, to make sure that I didn't break down, what had to be tight, what angles to take, I'd watch people lift from different angles all the time. Front, side, back, side, front, side, back. And I would just start picking things.

Were you with Ernie France early on? Was that the first club you joined or what? No, no. You know what? I used to go to Ernie's once in a while on Saturdays because all these big old time world record holders were there. And I'd go, they'd all go there and they'd do all three lifts in one day yeah and i would go there do my deadlift routine for reps and all my assistants work and they never got it until i started passing them right now i remember reading his book they talked about how it basically was bulgarian powerlifting where they every saturday they would max out and then they would kind of

go heavy uh squat benson did lift on two other days during the week and I'm like oh yeah at least crazy with not a lot of assistance work yeah so what I I didn't I didn't I didn't really like that so I used a lot of my heavy compound movements as an assistant work and trained them almost like I was getting ready for a comp to make weak areas not weak again. Beautiful. How long is your career? When you started dominating powerlifting, I think this is the coolest fact. How long were you like at that championship level?

My first meet was in 1980 when I was 16. 1984, I had already won the Open Nationals and my first world championships. And that went all the way up until the mid to late 2007. So 28, over 20 years. 28 total years. But dominated for over 20. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's insane. For all the people that aren't fully up to speed

on exactly who you are, can you give us a list of all those big accomplishments? A lot of world championships. A lot. Like 6,000 or so world records. Alfred Pound, the strongest guy ever. First guy at 220 to total over 2,400. I think you were the first guy that's not a super heavy to go 2,400.

Is that right? Yeah. I mean, I followed him. I pretty much know more facts than he does about him. Yeah, probably. Would you – yeah, would you start at – I feel like the first sentence you said in this show really could be the entire show on talking about kind of like auto-regulating your own training based on feel. When did that start to kick in?

Because I believe it was Aaron Horschak posted posted a picture you did a show with him about low back pain or something along those lines and he posted a him and stewart mcgill together yes and he posted a picture of you deadlifting and you could know there you could be a person that's never seen a deadlift in your entire life and look at that picture and go, well, that guy's strong. I don't know what the hell he's doing, but that setup is the, it's like the most world-class setup to picking something up off the ground that exists. And that's not auto-regulated. That's like a, that's like an extra, that's a technician putting a lot of pieces together and finding weak links to be able to create a setup that looks like that. So how did that progress from your career to becoming so technically perfect?

And then you talk about auto-regulating training based on feel. Those things don't seem to flow in the same sentence. I only went by feel. When I would do any lift I did, I would grab the bar, set where I thought it should be, and then just start kind of wiggling my body into a certain position of tightness and rigidity till I felt everything right at the right spot.

And then I knew I was ready. And that's pretty much it. ready and that was it yeah did you have people or coaches that were kind of like you said you you're just observing people in the gym but did you have coaches kind of no leading you down a path you You were training by yourself? Yeah, I had training partners, but I was kind of like up here. Yeah. Yeah. How did you develop it then? Yeah.

How did you develop that plan? Inside your brain, I'm trying to get to the part where the genius comes out because it's not that simple. Like it's simple to you, but it's not simple to people that are going to see that picture.

I think there was a movie with Jim Carrey called 21, where you see like all over his house and stuff are all these numbers written. Yeah. That's how I was with routines. I would just go over, what do I think is doable over this amount of time? How much time did I have? What were my weaknesses? And I started filling in the

blanks so when i made up a training routine that was 12 weeks or even longer every single set rep weight every single exercise was already calculated in to get me to that because i didn't want a weakness i i looked at it as like a suit of armor, wherever you hit, there was a chunk of muscle that could back it up that, that you needed to be able to perform exactly the way I wanted to lift. Yeah. And what did you identify as your weak links when you were, especially when you're first getting started and how did you know that, how did you know specifically what they were? My, my back had to be strong cause I had little oompa loompa legs and a long torso so

so i lean a little bit more when i squat and deadlift so that's what i had to use more i already i was gifted to have a lower back and um uh hips but my quads so then my quads would we so all off season was one long training cycle of high bar, close stance squats. That would be it. It would be deficit deadlifts, conventional with no belt. It would be benches with my feet up to make the lift harder. I would change stuff like that that seemed to work really, really well. But I stuck to it.

I never got into it like, oh oh you have to change everything three weeks well it takes a lot longer to develop muscle in a certain motor pattern that's going to transfer over than three weeks i agree are you referring to like west side the way they want to change their movements all the time yeah a lot of that has to do because of the because of the equipment and stuff that they get to use, the strength curve in some of those things are a little bit different. Well, I would agree with you. I think their biggest weakness in the West Side Method would be that they don't do anything long enough to get really good at it.

As you remember, I remember watching Chuck Vogel's squat, and it was always like if he can get it, he's going to hit a big one. But he always looked so uncomfortable. Whereas, like, you or, you know, Goggins looked, you know, you never worried if he was going to pick it up out of the rack. Chuck might not even get out of the rack, you know? Yeah, unstable. That was from being unstable.

When you started off in the old federations where there was barely any equipment and you had to walk it out, it automatically built stability or else you'd die. Sure, yeah. Like, the walking out can be the hardest part for a lot of people including me you know if i could get it up get it out and walk back and get set up strong that was good you know that was a big if yeah yeah exactly that's the first word if yeah yeah yeah never taking that away but yeah Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Where did your mindset come from to realize that you had the ability to set world records? Like if you're if you're a 14 year old kid and you walk into masses gym, if you don't squat 600, you go to the kids rack down the down the hall and you hang out with four plates on there. Like no one cares. Like if you're hanging out with me and you score out 400, I'm like, yeah, high five.

You did great. Good job. Let's go eat food. I would have been in the kid's rack anyways because it was so short. Me too. But like where did that mindset come from to be able to know it's possible? I just really wanted to do it i never thought of world records honestly i mean there's certain numbers i wanted to hit but it had to be doable within that training cycle that i was capable of or else it didn't work out or

else i'd be just like every other guy on the internet that maxes out all the time and misses what did you know it would never get me anywhere. How did you pick that number? Like, you know, if you were capable of 800, you just competed in the squad 800, how did you choose your next one? It would be how did I feel on that 800 if my body broke down at any point during the 800, and that dictated what I had to work on in the offseason. But I never let go of my weaknesses because I know everyone has a certain strength level here and a certain weakness here is always going to be there no matter what but I had to make that gap smaller over time not just

work on the strength or else then everything breaks down and then you don't progress and then you blame the routine when it was actually your fault my god you're the simplest of concepts and it's so brilliant you knew that your back would always be strong suit and like your hips so i worked the crap out of my back i right we used to have we used to have me and a strong man named brianoonfeld, he used to have the log press record with the juniors back and forth in the old days. And we would actually have bent over row cycles to have a contest at the end. Totally. I remember you doing well over, like, I remember in some magazine where you're doing like 455 on bent over row or something. Yeah, that was without straps, though.

We went up to like 575 with straps for some reps. Oh, yeah. What? I sound like that blows me away. But I remember reading in the magazine that you said, about what you said earlier, that you would take an offseason, which I never – that's the one thing you said that I never listened. I wish I had it now.

Now with all my athletes, I'm looking for big blocks of offseason so that they can survive. And you told me once, you probably don't remember, but you said compete twice a year, and that's it. You said don't get caught up in all the hoopla, and I didn't listen. So, you know, I became really good in 2004. By 2006, my career was over because I didn't listen and like so my you know I became really good 2004 by 2006 my career was over because I didn't listen you well well what well you looked a little different with with some of

the equipment that puts stress on different areas it's almost like you had to use the equipment more often to get used to that extreme equipment so right which cut down on your time being able to do anything as much raw. So it's a give and take. It's if you got better, then you got stronger in a certain way. I never thought of it that way. I just knew that I had to get stronger in the off season. I loved more than competing. Really?

Why do you say that? I just loved getting bigger and stronger. I got in this sport to get bigger and stronger because I saw Arnold and Pumping Iron. Me too. Yeah. And then I met Arnold in person and I told this story before my head came up to his, my nose was

in his chest. I was like, shit, I can't be Arnold. So I tried to be Frankl. Me too. He was short and strong. I remember you being in Flex Magazine. I remember you being in Flex Magazine. With his shirt off, I was like, wait, you could be that big, that strong,

not have to diet like that or pose on stage. I'll take that. I think I got something. I remember when you and Dorian were in Flex Magazine, and they were comparing you two side by side, and like, here was your routine, here was his routine. And the crate, here's when I was just like, Ed Cohen is like immortal.

Because Dorian was known to have the biggest back of all time in bodybuilding. Still might be today, but yet when you two were side by side, your back was as good, and I was like, holy cow. It was pretty good. I'm glad I wasn't, like, standing next to him at the time. He was a monster, but our routines were not that much different than each other. No, yours was very much bodybuilding-ish, your routines, which I did. I followed everything

you said to the T for the longest time. I should have kept doing that, but varied. Yeah, I know Dorian was known for documenting all of his, every set, every rep, everything. He had many, many, many, many notebooks over the years. Like, were you that meticulous? That's exactly what I did. You're doing the same thing? That's exactly what I did. You're doing the same thing? That's exactly what I did. I can still remember numbers and sets and reps and all those routines from before.

What was your best training cycle of all time? It's when I got super strong in the offseason, and then I didn't try to go too heavy getting ready for the meet because I said I love the gym so much that there's a bunch of meets that I probably could have peaked a little bit better for but I just love the training um my best in in the gym was a uh a really easy 975 double in the squat and I didn't even put the straps up um I did a uh a 565 raw pause bench i did 550 with my feet up on the bench because i never learned how to use my legs i just push yeah your technique was not beautiful

in bits you were just strong no i just that's that's where my back came in yeah yes and then and a deadlift was a 900 for two conventional deadstops without a deadlift bar. And I pulled $892 with no belt conventional in the gym before. That's crazy. All right. Yeah. How did you feel when all the gear started to show up and the numbers started to go through the roof, but, uh, they weren't putting in, or you could say, I guess the changes were happening faster than the body would actually allow.

Um, you know, how, how, where was your mindset during that, that era, uh, in seeing some of those records? Well, there wasn't some idiot who always tried to lump everyone into one um division or whatever with equipped non-equipped multiply all the other crap no matter what federation and that kind of got a lot of people pissed off i'd say but uh i only lifted the way i lifted because i was comfortable with it i I was happy the way I was doing. So I didn't, it wasn't, it wasn't for me. It's like, you know, riding a motorcycle, getting a tattoo.

I don't have either, but I like them. But I just, it wasn't, it wasn't my thing. What did you think about the WPO? I think you only did one competition. I did one. Yeah. Yeah. I like all the hoopla and everything else.

I just think the judging sucks. Yeah. Besides that, everything else is good because if you put all the power lifters together, everyone talks and has a good time. It was fun in Orlando. Yeah, no one really gives a shit. They just want to go out and have a good time. Yeah.

The judging always used to ruin it, I think. Yeah, the inconsistency that I think, you know, where they would make certain people go

like deep like they should and all of a sudden this guy's getting away with stuff. Yeah, because he's somebody's buddy. Because he's somebody's buddy. That happens a lot.

Yeah. It still happens. Oh, totally. Like, let me ask you, let's get into this. Like, today's Multiply Lifter where things have literally gotten out of control in my opinion. Yeah. I mean, Oh, totally. Let me ask you. Let's get into this. Today's multiply lifter,

where things have literally gotten out of control, in my opinion. I mean, squats are not even close. Back in the day, you would get frustrated. Yeah, like that. I would say, what a new world. What was that record we saw? 1,300 or something? Oh, 1,300 bullshit is what it was.

But what is your thoughts? You know, you got the guys from my side. And I'm a big fan of Louie's, but I feel like they've lost their way. Where, you know, now it's going back to Raw. And, like, that's where everyone's looking. And that's, you know, really, they can do all the records they want, but nobody cares. Like, why don't they go back to Raw and prove it?

No one cares. You said it. I don't even care. I like a bunch of the guys, but it's just not my thing, and I don't they go back to Brooklyn and prove it? No one really cares. You said it. I don't even care. I like a bunch of the guys, but it's just not my thing, and I don't care. I know. I just, you know, like, I think Dave Hoff would be one of the strongest guys no matter what. But he needs to go and do that, or nobody will ever remember it. Yeah, I don't think he's capable of that now after doing so many years of multiply.

There's a bunch of weaknesses in certain spots that would show up with heavy weight. You're probably right. Can you expand on that and give some examples? Well, look at how much you get out of the squat suits and the way they have to set that they set up so wide um and then you talk about depth and you talk about the training they do if you'd have to you'd have to get more quad you'd have to develop a new motor pattern because the motor pattern is totally different i don't care how big you are in any body part. The motor pattern is different.

If all of a sudden you try to squat raw with a closer stance below parallel, all of a sudden, bam, bam, there goes your knees. Totally agree. There goes your quad tendon. There goes your hip flexor or your lower back. And without that, and the same in the bench, because the shirt can give so much. I mean, I think some guys are benching, you know, 1,000 or even an 800-pound bencher

that only benches 550 raw before he uses a shirt. When he has to start using that, when he doesn't have the chance to use that shirt all the time, where are the weaknesses in the pecs and in the triceps? For sure going to happen so it's uh they have to they'd have to do a few training cycles to get conditioned again but they'd have to go out of where they were a star in too right that's what they have to put their pride aside and and you know it it wasn't my thing to go multiply so they could say the same thing out of me. I wasn't ready to leave what I was doing to go to theirs. But you did, and you still won.

See, you had the courage to go there, and you still won. You know, that's my point. I went to the USPF to go against you. You know, like, I wanted to go against the best no matter what. And, you know, right now, if I were those dudes, I would step away from multiply. Number one is killing their bodies. They can say what they want about how they do it because it protects them.

That's bullshit. You're not going to know that. So they need to put that stuff aside and prove. I mean, we all got into powerlifting to see who's the strongest dude in the world. Go prove it, man. They're not in multiply. They're over there wrong. Go do it.

Well, you said you would do it if it were you, but they're not you. You're totally right. I just think it's going to be sad because I like those guys. They're going to go down in time as nobody's going to remember. So they can save world record all they want, but nobody's going to really believe that.

That's everyone outside of the Multiply community. And you get to a point where you just got to say, I really don't give a F about what everybody else thinks. I'm going to do it fun.

If somebody's doing multiply and they're having fun and that's what they're into, that's what all their buddies are into, that's great. Are you going to reap great rewards from it? No. No. No. Powerlifting has changed and evolved probably a massive amount, probably due to the internet and YouTube and Instagram

or better communication between people, sharing training methods, whatever it is. For some reason or another, powerlifting, like all things, has evolved over the last, we'll say, 20 years since you were kind of at the end of your career. In your mind, how has it changed for the better and kind of where is it off track or getting worse? Well, both social media has helped and hurt it.

I would say it's evolved more where I think a lot of people realize how fun it is. A lot of women and men realize that just because they're powerlifting exercise doesn't make you a powerlifter, but by doing them with a certain amount of intensity causes really, really great results that affect the way you feel, look, how you view yourself, all that. The part with training that's about i think is uh there's a lot more really really really good coaches out there that scare people in the right way to take their time over a certain amount of time that they could

have and are more realistic you know uh mike trusashearer, Bryce Lewis, you know, you got the RP guys with Mike Israhto and a bunch of them and Chad. And there's many, many more that have kind of duplicated and learned from those guys. So I think that the ability to peak would have helped me the most. Like I would have gone to a couple of those guys and said, what do you think about this? Because I wanted to get better.

So no matter how good you get, you're going to keep learning. I mean, look at the stuff that Travis does and look at the people that he's around. He's around Piros, Dimas. Listen, look at Andy Galpin and the research he does. It's always involving me getting better, which in turn makes the athletes better. Which in turn, when the athletes get better and they step it up a notch, then the scientists and the brainiacs, they look at it and say, why?

And then they figure out why we were able to do that shit. Yeah. So it keeps going and going and going. That's what was missing when I was younger. We didn't have the Andy Galpins or at least we didn't know them. Now that we're getting introduced to scientists like that, things are

changing quicker. I think it's going to multiply even more. Look how much people are doing that in the recovery and watching their diet a little bit better because of all these guys you know like i said you know mike israel uh layton norton stan efforting all these guys they're you know sean baker everyone you know everyone has has changed quite a bit

and you and i realize it because we're like the same age and we want to train. I don't want to be Superman anymore because I can't. Right. But I want to be a little bit strong with no pain and can move. That's it. That's right. That's it. A little bit strong. I'll follow up on those ones.

Go ahead, Andy. So I got a lot of people that asked me to ask you this question or similar types of questions. So what they want to know is had you had some access to these resources, so recovery aids, my support science, high quality nutrition, how much better do you think you would have been? Or you think you got pretty close to your maximum potential? I think I got, I got pretty close because of the way I trained, and I was pretty methodical.

And I never put myself out there so far that I would even think I would miss or peak out in training. And I picked the right exercises. I think I could have done better. A little bit on nutrition, not not that much my sleep was always on um Fred Hatfield had told me years before that that uh uh you should only be as as flexible and mobile as the sport you're competing in totally yeah um but uh I some of the definitely some of uh, prehab rehab stuff I would have

definitely benefited from. Definitely. Cause my, you know, my, my family has a history of a bunch of arthritis, especially my mom. So she had like two knees replaced, a shoulder replaced, a hip replaced. It was only a matter of time before something went wrong with one of us. And I seem to be the one. And, uh, so that's just the way it is. Can you prevent it?

Not always. Some shit's just going to happen. My thing is this. This is what I tell people when they ask. Would I change anything? No. I'm happy with what I did and the way I did it. Could I have done more in certain?

Yeah, probably. Oh, well. I didn't get into it just for that. I got and the way I did it. Could I have done more in certain? Yeah, probably. Oh, well, I didn't get into it just for that. I got into it because I loved it. Every time I went to the gym, it wasn't a chore. It was a reward. I freaking loved it. If you're going to do anything, no matter whether it's sport or education or business or what it is,

if you're going to do anything to an extreme and be really, really freaking good at it, there's going to be consequences down the line, no matter what it is. Right. Just make sure you do some cool shit before it happens. When you go in the gym now, do you still feel that same love or do you get excited

i know when i when i was younger i would get so excited to get to the gym how do you feel now when you go um now i don't since i don't have to drive the computer go too heavy i have to drive to do stuff like i said without pain so i pick stuff that doesn't really hurt. I do some little things from guys like Tony Rogers, Andrew Locke, and a few others that help me before and after I work out. And I'm happy with it. I train, but I work out now, but it's more of a health benefit for movement to make me not have pain and for psychological, because I still love it. There's part of me that'll always be a power lifter, no matter what.

Totally. You know, I talked to a guy yesterday that I wish that both of us would have known him when I was younger, but it's Dr. Keith Barton. He does a ton of stuff with tendons and with ligaments. And I learned more in that hour and a half and probably learned my whole life because of tendons. But, you know, if, you know, I think about you when I was talking to you, I was thinking about your, you know, your terrible injury that happened when you were squatting to your, it was your patellar tendon, I think, right? Your quads. Yeah. Yeah, I just wish we would have, that would be the one thing I wish we would have had. Someone like him to help us, you know, keep those things stronger.

Because, you know, eventually, you know, a power lifter, that's going to be the end. It's going to be some major injury. Yeah, but what I did there, what I did was I set up too fast and my right leg was a little too far out. So when I came down, it just came in. And I felt it was like standing in front of a train. I knew something was going to happen and it just snapped. I remember. Yeah, I've watched that video a thousand times trying to avoid that.

I used to play that video every single semester in my class. And the best part was you would go down. Obviously, you've got a huge load on your back. If any of you out there have never seen it. Knee snaps. You fall basically directly on your face with 800, 900 pounds on your back. And then you're kind of screaming in pain. And then a few seconds later, it scrolls across the video and it says,

like moments later, Ed said something to the effect of, okay, move me out of the way so the next guy can lift. Yeah. Move me. Yeah. What a classic. so the next guy can lift. Yeah. Move. Yeah. What a classic. Since I learned how to lift from some of all those old school guys down at Francis, I learned how to dump a bar.

Right. So I was able to get that bar off that side and dive forward. Doug Furness, who's been there, who's been through some injuries himself, he came right up to me and looked at me in the eye and said it's okay it was the initial shock that made me kind of scream and moan then everything was dead because that that mid-tendon rupture was completely severed in half there's no pain as long as you don't move the leg it's no pain and i just get me out of the way i was fine with it and how do you come back how do you

come back from a catastrophic injury like that and get back to lifting my time you know my cousin is my surgeon and uh his therapist that worked with me actually did his doctoral thesis on everything that had to do with my knee and that when that happened so we had everything to you know all the other data for him to go do his thing and he said uh i put you back together just fine mike knows how to get your range of motion back you know how to get strong don't get hurt that was it and you know did you ever get hurt again since then no not, not in that leg. Actually, I went well over 800 with that same leg without even the knee sleeve on raw. Wow. I never had pain in it again.

But, you know, I didn't put a bar on my back for eight months. How was that? How was that time? That's what I'd like to know. How were you mentally for eight months? I just took my time, and I was fine with it. It doesn't hurt okay i can go um getting back to like the the way that you structured your own training and and

going off feel how did you assess the the appropriate amount of volume that you were taking into um strength periods and then peaking periods? Like how did you actually structure that without some templated perfect plan that you were going to stick to the numbers? It was a perfect template plan. Obviously. He was a world record holder. Yeah. Since I like training in the off season so much,

I like the feeling of getting stronger and I knew the exercises that I had to get stronger in it had to be a version of the squat a version of a bench a version of the deadlift that would transfer over I knew I needed quads but front squats I they just sucked for me I couldn't put enough weight on. I didn't like the way they felt, especially with my torso and my little Oompa Loompa legs. So I went high bar close stance and it worked out just fine. How much would you use on that? Like, give me some numbers on there.

I would go up and this is even before knee sleeves. So it would be just, uh, shorts and a belt. And I'd go up to like seven70 or something for a couple not bad but you know but look when when i changed and i did low bar that same way with a right with a power squat i'd go up to 865 no problem before sleeves so you're talking about is a hundred pound difference in the high bar and then your low bar.

Yeah, 80 pounds or so at least, yeah. Definitely shows where you're strong. Yes. But you're not going to notice that drastic of a difference in a percentage until you get super, super strong. Sure.

And then it's like, okay, now I know where I'm weak. Quads. Yes. sure so and then it's like okay now I know I'm weak quads yes yeah you any what would you suggest a guy like you know and or me do to avoid like you know like how do you keep attending you know knees the structures you know safe and stable is there anything we could do is just a matter of time for you a two-part question number one Keith is you know I would tell you to go listen to your podcast with keith right that's awesome he's done that um having said that we don't know a tremendous amount yet about humans a lot of the stuff we know is from nice road models right limitations there but you have to work with what you know right so uh i would say the two major

reasons people have three i'll call them three major reasons that people have uh tendon or connective tissue injuries number one they don't put themselves through a similar range of motion at a reasonable load that they're going to to go, right? Tendons, ligaments adapt extremely slowly. I'm not shocked at all that Ed had the career he had because he, I mean, if you look across the powerlifting community, he said this, he said this for years and people have always been like, geez, he competed for so long, he competed so infrequently. Well, these two things line up. There's no question.

If you take eight months to recover from injuries, and then probably, I don't even know, another year before you had a huge load after that, this is what it takes, not for the muscle or for the motor control, because the strength will come back. For the tendons and the ligaments to truly understand that load, because there's no vasculature going in there, there's no blood going in there,

they need a tremendous amount of time. So number one, just don't take the patients with the load over the range of motion um the number two um isometrics particularly 30 seconds longer to up to 90 seconds um that's what's going to be there you can hold these things up to five minutes but those are a very very very productive way to train tendons and you want to do those isometrics in the appropriate range or the appropriate joint angle and then number three is you have some underlying autoimmune or inflammatory or oxidative issue that's attacking those things and we know chemically molecularly actually exactly what's happening there. So if you've got some sort of blood, gut,

hormonal disruption, and you're in the wrong spot, you're always going to be chipping away at that connective tissue. So until you can get that stuff properly addressed, you're fighting a battle that you can't see. How would you address that final one? You know, the blood.

It's got to be like a nutrition piece, right? Oh yeah. it's a lot more complicated than macros you put it that way yeah you have to understand um i don't want to get us too off the rails here this show but um very specifically you have to understand micronutrients that are in your blood that are in your hair that are in your gut that are in your blood, that are in your hair, that are in your gut, that are in your food. Things like vitamin C, absolute requirement for tendon synthesis, right? So if you're not at the right levels, high or low, you're going in the wrong direction. So you have to understand someone who has the true analytic capabilities to get that stuff. And then the food and supplementation

has to be in the right direction and not be swinging you in the wrong direction so you can't just start taking supplements because they vitamin c too much like you could deploy copper like this is this whole circle of things you have to understand exactly what you're doing if you're trying to reach the levels that ed did um he got away with it about having all this science because he took his time so that is a very viable option as well. Just being intelligent, not training through too much pain and going slowly is a way that you can do it without any of the fancy science. So you can do either option. Yeah, actually, where did that mindset come from of taking your time and understanding that you needed to have that long of a period between competing, and then on top of that,

not overreaching and failing in training too easy. I feel like that's the thing we like to do the most is just test, test, test, but you were able to have a mindset that was built on the longevity in between. That was the part of my cycle. I had so many weeks where I do reps, higher reps to condition and for speed. Then I had so many weeks where it was like the general heart of my training cycle to get strong. And then at the end, it was just some weeks to peak. You're not going to get strong at that point, but you can get peak and your body can get used to that heavy weight. That's all that was. And I had to go through that to get to where i wanted to go all the time i knew that so i just repeat repeat repeat and i kept all my numbers all my notebooks and i just went up a little bit each time the way i viewed it was kind of this

if i replaced a lot of the volume in a squat bench and deadlift with close grips, inclines, dips, shoulder presses, bent over rows, deficit stiff legs, deficit conventionals, you know, pause squats, high bar, close stance squats. And I knew that over a certain period of time, a training cycle, and let's say you do four really good ones a year, if I got all those exercises a little bit stronger, then as a whole, even if I only went up 10 pounds in the squat or bench or deadlift that if all those other exercises got stronger too my body as a whole was much much stronger so that 10 pounds in that squat but if i had the other lifts that got all strong too that 10 pounds that i gained in the squat at the end because everything else is supporting it could easily be 30 or more pounds. That's cool.

That is cool. One of the crazy things about your career too was that you just dominated. Is that how many weight classes you dominated? So could you tell people in how many weight classes did you win national and world titles? 165, 181,1 188 242 and i went to meet in 275 weighing like 247 just because they had a heavyweight and lightweight division and it didn't matter it's like at the mountaineer cup one year yeah i told nick bucek instead of just having it for all heavyweights split it up put more money in split it up and, and give the lighter guys a chance to win money

because they weren't going to get a chance to win money with me in there. Yeah. You write that off on your taxes. I donated to the charity of those weak people over there. Little people. It was just a question of I was fat and happy for that meet. Didn't really mean I lifted anymore, but I was fat and happy. You know, I think the Mounted Cup was probably my favorite competition of all time,

and I didn't win. You know, obviously you beat me, but it was still my favorite. It wasn't bastardized in any way, shape, or form. That's what I loved. It was just all a bunch of lifters going there and having fun and then having a meal and a beer afterwards at the casino. I loved it. You didn't have egos?

No. And it was everyone was squatted deep. Everyone paused their benches. Deadlifts were locked out. It was beautiful. You walked out your squats. It was definitely my favorite meet, and I didn't even win. It was beautiful. You walked out your squats. It was definitely my favorite meet.

When you're done with your career, what you really want is you want other people to look at it and say that was good, that was good, that was good. Your lift should be on your approach.

After that is you gotta realize that you know what Travix I don't know how to do a Olympic weightlifting you're better Anders I don't know how to do a freaking podcast you're better so there's always going to be someone better than you I'm just a freaking power lifter

the best I just just keep going keep. Just keep going. That's right. You're good at what you're doing. Keep going and keep going. Being humble is easy. It's just I wanted to lift this weight

because I wanted to lift it. I didn't lift it because I wanted to say, oh, I'm this or I'm that or I'm better than this guy. I lifted it because I wanted to because it brings me joy. I didn't do it to be able to say, oh, look at me. No.

You know, dude, I hope every athlete is listening. Every strength athlete in the world is listening to it because that mindset will keep you away from the obsession that happens. That's what gets people hurt is that you look like, honestly, you know, I was the opposite. I wanted to beat you so badly like, honestly, you know, I was the opposite. I wanted to be you so badly that like, you know, I obsessed over the sport and did things guaranteed were the very things that get me from doing that. But if I would have just done it, you know,

for the joy and worried about like my list and thought it was long-term, I feel like it'd be a different, you know, You probably would have got even better. I mean, your, your deadlift didn't start coming on until you were almost done with your career. I know. You would have pulled over 800 no problem if you did some of that beforehand. But, you know, you live and learn. But now what do you do?

You get to pass it on to everyone you do have. Exactly. That's right. Teaching them not to do that. You know, the thing you said is the one thing I'm trying to get across to them is, like, you know, don't worry about what someone else is doing. All you can do. It's not like that. If I see someone on the internet doing, if I'm a, if I clean a jerk 400 and you see them doing 450, tomorrow you can't go out and clean a jerk 450. It doesn't matter what they're doing. As you worry about yourself, you can just, you can think about the things that matters and leave, leave out the stuff that don't

you want to obsess and go crazy crazy like a lot of us do. If I write a paper for college or a dissertation of whatever, and my information is fantastic, but I write it too fast and I have tons and tons of grammatical errors, I don't get an A anymore. I got a C. Yeah, Andy still fails you. Oh, God.

That's an F for Andy for sure. I love you harder now. If you just take your time, it comes better, but you learn more about yourself when you take your time. Totally. Yes. All my athletes, I'm going to force them to watch this

and report on it. You want to develop your own sixth sense, your own kinetic sense that you could feel exactly what the hell is wrong or right. I can look at people and tell them how it felt, how their set felt on them. That's where you want to get to a point. Do you feel like the people nowadays do not have that awareness like i know a lot of kids i train but just do not have that kinetic awareness you know where their body is in space like we made it back then and i have my fears

as why what are your thoughts a lot of it has to do is there's so many people that everyone that program for everybody that no one takes the time to learn themselves they just are sheep and they don't say nobody says as they should with any even if i was in andy's class i would still say why exactly great point you gotta learn why and it goes first circle. Then it goes full circle again when it gets expanded on. It never, ever freaking stops. They do not take the time. Why did you do that?

And then what? I'm totally with you. I got in a lot of trouble in class for asking those questions way too often because I needed to understand it myself. But today, they just can't, not they, not everyone, there are a few that it's really tough for me to get across. Like, you know, I'll see the obvious thing they're doing wrong in their movement and they have no control of their body whatsoever.

It's like, it gets frustrating and like, I'm trying to search and trying to, how do you get across people like that? I feel like, you know, there's so much on the internet that you can just watch whatever and you don't have to have your own imagination. So when I say visualize, they don't know. Sit down with a kid. Let him watch a video.

After he does his set and makes it, show him a video of him missing it and said, what's the difference? Good point. He'll be able to see. If he doesn't see it, then you point out and say, what's the difference? Good point. He'll be able to see. If he doesn't see it, then you point out and say, see this? This is because of this. Now, what I have learned is I'd say about 95% of all lifts,

wherever you miss it at, is usually because of something you did on the setup or right at the start yeah you are not in the proper position something in your setup is wrong you didn't tighten up this you didn't do this you walked it out different you you put your hands on different your you didn't tighten your sternum wasn't up uh your abs weren't tight it's usually one little thing that you do at the beginning of the lift that has a domino effect that ends up showing up at the end i totally agree i i wrote a i've written many articles saying the same thing i even in weightlifting i feel like most lifts are missed within the first few millimeters you know of the of the bar leaving

the floor the bar just for the back's not tight, whatever it is. But I totally agree. And they are in control of that. The sad thing is, at that point, you're in control of that. So you just need to slow down and take your time. Well, see, most people think they can do the same thing with heavy weights that they do with light weights. But everybody can lift light weights with bad form or something off.

When it gets heavy, you know, especially with weightlifting, but even with powerlifting when you get up to a maximum attempt, there's no room for error. That little bit is going to be your demise right away. It'll be exposed for sure. Agreed. Yeah, that's why you can't – there's a point in lifting. You can't lift heavy all the time, but you do have to lift heavy enough

to expose those things. Like, you know, if people stay at 70% the whole entire time and then try to max out at the meet, I feel like that's a problem. But it's almost as bad as going heavy all the time. But you've got to get in that 80%, 85% range for the most part so you can expose those little errors. Yeah, 100%. 100%.

But you just have to be intense. Even if I was that lightweight, there was a purpose to my lightweight, to whatever exercise, to whatever set. There was a purpose, and I was going to expose that purpose during my set. That sounds like Fred Hatfield. Why am I doing this?

Agreed. How often in your training were you going above 90 percent going above 95 percent was that like a uh weekly the last four weeks at the most yeah but i would never go up near 100 so the last four weeks you would be above 90 before that you would be mostly in the 70s and 80s, or you're doing more volume, or how is that? In the 80s, usually the lower to upper 80s. Agreed.

And so you felt that was heavy enough to cause a stimulus, but not so much that it would beat you up for longevity's sake? Yeah, I was getting stronger and bigger at those weights. And I could feel enough weight to know that this is what I'm called for. So if I did 900 for five in the squat, I knew that I could squat over 1,000. It was just three weeks of a peak. 9.20 for three, 9.42 for two, 9.64 for two. I'd walk out 10.40 or something, hold it for 10 seconds,

and walk it back and say, oh, I got this, no problem. Yeah. When you're doing that volume was there ever any um and i i guess this kind of falls into like a muscle fiber thing galpin of um was there any fear at the time of like not training fast twitch muscles and having to do one rep maxes uh regularly to um be able to to be able to lift 1,000 pounds at a meet? No, it's the foot. At the time before people were really studying this, was that in your brain at all that you needed to?

My fast twitch muscles were used on every set because of the force I put into the weight. I never tried to push the weight slow. I pushed it with force so right away when my brain tells me that my muscles try to fire as fast and as hard as possible agreed once again isn't that then fred outfield is the first one at least in powerlifting to talk about you know compensatory acceleration pulling, accelerate throughout the entire motion, the boat as maximally as you possibly can. Yeah, see, his was based on explosive power, not speed strength.

Like speed strength, when I asked Shane Hammond, when he retired from his Olympic weightlifting, I said, well, what was your biggest takeaway? He goes, I got really, really fast with really, really light weights. Yeah, yes. And like he wasn't as strong, I would imagine, when he was done with weight. Well, he had so much strength already. But, yeah, there's a difference between explosive power with heavier weight

and strength, which two different sports right there. That's what I think kind of sets it to a fart. I think Olympic lifters could get a lot of benefit from doing some power stuff in the offseason. And some power lifters could definitely get ahead by doing some more athletic lifts. When you were an athlete and you were young and you could run, jump, and do whatever the hell you wanted, sprint, you recovered so much faster right and your body works so much more efficiently great you guys may know this but i mean i believe shane was like a close to a thousand pound squatter and like yeah with no wraps or with wraps and nothing else right so

yeah one he had like one rotation on his wrap yeah yeah yeah i mean he had a suit i mean yeah he had a single plus suit but it was like there's a big difference in what suits used to be it was at the 1996 junior nationals i was there so i had won the you know the 100 the two no i'm sorry i was in 198 pounder then but so i was sitting there with my gold medal i was young and arrogant and here comes comes Shane and squats 1,008. So I put my medal in my shirt. I was like, yeah. Because anybody who's never watched Shane Hammond squat,

it wasn't just that he squatted 1,008. It's how he squatted it. It was so fast. Like, he would dunk it. It was the most incredible day I've ever seen. He had knees like a pachyderm. Yeah. I actually saw Shane in 335 when he started

Olympic weightlifting do a standing backflip and land on his head. Me too. I trained with him at the training center. Yeah, he was amazing. You know, I often thought about, you know how men will size each other up? I would lift beside him

about the whole year. I was like, if I had to fight him, what would I do? And to this day, I'm uncertain because, you know, some people you'd be like, oh, kick him in the knee or I'll do this. I'm pretty sure if I kicked him in the knee, he would not face me. No. I don't care if Bruce Lee kicked him in the knee. I don't think he would face me.

That's how big his knees are. Doc, you'd like this. For a bunch of years, I've been doing JKD and counter-violence training. Nice. Wow. Doug can help you out there. That's a fighter.

I wanted to get some movement back. I thought that was always just so cool. JKD? What's the JKD part?D. What's the JKD part? Pardon? What's the JKD? That's Jeet Kune Do. That's like the old Bruce Lee.

Wow. Galpin. Look at you. Now Jeet Kune Do. Wow. He's got the book right on the desk. Alright, boys. I gotta leave. I have to go to meet with a student and an athletic

director. Fun stuff. Oh, that sounds important compared to this. Administrative stuff. Always fun. Dude, I get in so much trouble. Let me just tell y'all. If my team wasn't good, I would be fired right now because I got in so many administrative like, I made so many administrative errors.

It's hilarious. But luckily I'm good. So basically nothing really has changed in your life since when you were a kid? Not at all. No, no. I'm still the same kid. Really good at following the rules there, huh? Yeah.

I'm like, I even once, I even, you know, after they call me to the outlet director's office like the fifth time, I'm like, look, you know, if you hired me to be really good at administration, then you should fire me now. But if you want to win, I'm your guy. And so they're like, look, if you hired me to be really good at administration, then you should fire me now. But if you want to win, I'm your guy. And so they're like, we want to win. It's really easy to just walk into those meetings and call scoreboard

and then just sit down and take your seat. I'm like, does anyone else have Olympic hopefuls? Because I have four. All right. I'll see you guys. Later, bud. Later, Travis. We don't have to end, right?

No. We got a half an hour. We blocked off 90 minutes. Okay, so I want to go back to your training. What I'm really interested in is how you split the days up. And when you say sort of volume, what's that mean? So in other words, were you like squatting Mondays and benching Tuesdays? That kind of a split. And then when you're doing 80%, 85%, are you doing sets of three sets of 12?

Like what are these numbers? I would, I would push my 80 percentages for sets of five up into the high, up into the really, really high eight. That was, that was the heart of my strengths slash size type stuff yeah that i really really loved that's where i felt especially after a certain amount of reps where i had everything had to be turned on to be able to do those two more reps after three like my abs had to be tight my back had to be tight in certain spots more more mid to lower lat. So I learned not to pick my chest up. I learned to pick my sternum up because it locks it in even lower.

And I learned that that kept my shoulders back, and that automatically kept my elbows back. And when I kept my abs and my back tight, my whole body worked together instead of separate pieces. So I learned that by feel. And I learned it because once I took a weight off and you make that little bit of mistake and you feel that wobble, that means for some reason, why didn't my body not turn on?

Why didn't my abs and my back start locking up? Well, that could be from a hand placement or from bar placement. Yeah. So the beauty of doing so much work in that area is if you were to do things at nine plus, you can only handle so many total reps before you just default to the pattern that is whatever it's going to take to get that number up, right? And there's very little practice. If you do it too light, you're not getting a realistic feel.

There's something magical in that 80% range where it's heavy enough to feel like what it's gonna feel like when it's really heavy but you get to figure out exactly where things aren't moving perfectly and you get to do it so many times because it's not so damaging especially when you've got 800 pounds yeah because if you do do it above 90% and that form breaks down, you just taught yourself how to do it wrong. Yeah.

Yeah. I guess, how did you think about kind of like the neurological side of programming the perfect movement pattern for that? Was that one of the big things that comes out of for you being in that rep range of having to do it multiple times in a set i never thought of it as my mindset my this my that i thought of it just as how does it feel

does it look you know when i went by my diet i got a mirror i know how i look i know what the scale says i know how my performance feels in the gym. If something isn't right, I go back to the day before and say, what did I eat? I have it all written down. I know what I did. It was actually simple, but it was hard. Once

you set up the formula for it and you learn the first few training cycles, you're good. And that'll last you forever. You just got to abide by your rules and not change something. Like if someone comes along and says, oh, well, you'd be better off if you arched more in the bench and you did this. What?

I did it in a full meet. At 220 raw, I did 545 without a problem. You know, with Neanderthal-like arms. You know, well, why did you bend so much with long arms? Because I wanted to. I never said to myself, oh, this is going to be weak. I said to myself, how do I get stronger? How does it – which grip feels better?

I was better with a closer grip than I was a wider grip. Interesting. So, you know, it's like what felt stronger? I was better with a closer grip than I was a wider grip So, you know, it's like what felt stronger Yeah, any tips for um Since you've talked so much You know about just going by feel and paying attention Sometimes that's difficult because of your mind will lie to you, right? So any tips for understanding like when is it just me mentally being weak today or maybe tired versus like you know i need to actually take a back off

day here i need to do less like how do you how do you when people are trying to understand and learn by feel how do they figure out what about you're just being lazy or hey like this is getting aggravated i need to back down here there were some days in the gym when I walked in, when I felt like crap. After I got warmed up and started to focus, it got really better. Those turned out to be the best days. So you have to kind of identify, have a checklist and identify why do I feel a certain way, whether it's good or bad. If, if I had a bad workout, what did I did wrong? A lot of times, as long as you pick your numbers correctly, if you had a bad workout, then it's an outside source. That's simple. So I could identify that

because I had a list of stuff, you know, all the sleep and all this stuff. I knew I had to sleep. I knew I, every night before I went to bed, I knew I had to have a steak because it made me feel a certain way when I woke up. Sleep was the key. I knew I had to do these little bit of stretches because my hamstrings were always tight, but my hip flexors and adductors were always great for some reason on me. And then I learned how to use those in a deadlift, on my deadlift setup more.

I wiggle in, and I open up my legs even even more and I get my hips closer to the bar. And then when I grab the bar and I take the slack out and I pick my sternum up, how my back locks in and then how my adductors lock in right from there. So I knew that if I sit back just a half inch further, that would be closer to being a stiff leg. My adductors wouldn't kick in. My hips wouldn't be activated right away. And I would be closer to being a stiff leg. My adductors wouldn't kick in. My hips wouldn't be activated right away, and I would be over the bar and miss. I knew exactly how to feel or how to make it feel to get the best response I knew. So that was a sumo deadlift setup where you're intentionally getting your hips as close to the

bar as possible? I did the same thing in conventional too. Okay. Yeah. How do you pick between the two? I've seen many pictures of you doing one or the other in competition you never just picked one and stuck with it i had uh i picked up a weight uh 760 so fast one time sumo style getting ready for a meet that i popped my adductor because it's like the weight came up almost all the way before the adductor even fired and then when it fired at that height with that weight it just grabbed and just yanked so i switched over to conventional but luckily i always train conventional in the off season so it's like okay let me see how much i can pull conventional.

So you're just working around an injury, and then when it was better, you went back to doing mostly sumo? No, I actually stayed conventional because it gave me a challenge. And what were the differences between your best at each of the variations? Were they similar? At 220, I pulled 901 in a meet. At 242, conventionally, I pulled a pretty easy 887. I did that because it was to break Andy Clark's total record.

So I had the highest total in the world at one time regardless of body weight. Yeah, there's not very many people that have done 4x body weight on a deadlift that's you're no it's a small group no i just i i never thought about the percentage of what a body weight stuff i just went to what what was i capable of lifting that's all i cared about i didn't get it it was the it wasn't the exact number I was concerned about. It was the progress. I usually say if you do four training cycles a year and make progress on all these different exercises, what are you going to look like at the end of five years? Wow.

Nobody wants to answer that question in 2021 i mean it's it seems like you did a really good job of just paying attention to yourself and not paying attention to what other people were doing just staying staying present staying focused and just doing your own thing which i feel like nowadays is much harder to do because you see your competitors on social media and like everyone else is kind of in your face more so these days so i feel like guys probably have a harder time just focusing on themselves and not worrying about the rest of the world because they see the rest of the world so so frequently and so easily uh do you feel like that was like i feel like yes that's totally their choice to do it do you feel like that's a blessing for you and in some ways that you were

around before the age of social media that we didn't have to worry about it i don don't think it would have been, it would have made a difference. I just like to do my routine and that was it. I knew what it was going to get me. I like the results. Yeah. In order for you, yeah, talking about the results, in order for you to be the best in the world for 20 years, there's an unbelievable number of life circumstances that happen from 16 to 36 years old that have to get in the way like how did you organize your life with like just all of the outside crap to be able to stay focused i call crap kids getting married just life events that go on to be able to continue to to push it uh for that long like you're not at 36 you're the opposite of the human that you are when you're 16 yeah but, but I wanted it so bad,

and I was consistently making progress that work, or I didn't really care about girlfriends that much. I was a virgin until I was 23 anyways. So it's not like I cared about that. No sex makes you stronger. If you hear that out there in shrugged nation hold on to all that testosterone yeah hold on to it the uh i didn't it didn't bother me because what i was doing was what i was wanting to do it like i said going into the gym and training was

like i was rewarding myself every day I got to go in there because I loved it so much it's not like I mean there's of course there's a certain amount of obsession but I loved it so much that I didn't think of it as an obsession or obsession or giving up anything because it was what I wanted to do. Yeah. Well, I don't even know if it's about giving things up as much as getting the people around you on board for the commitment level that you have to make. Or is that just part of, if you want to be in Ed's world, you've got to understand that I need to live this life.

Yeah, why do I care about what they think? I'm doing what I want. Well, because you love them. Of course I do. They're going to let me do what I want to do too. I'm going to go say that when I get back to the house tonight. It's going to go well. So we typically will say like the rough number we say is seven years

where an athlete can have be at their physical peak right you can be good at sports outside of that range because some sports have other ways to win right but powerlifting is like it's about as straightforward as you get in terms of physicalness that's what it takes um i'm wondering i guess how how how long did you did your peak run um when did you stop breaking world records like when did you you know would you your peak strength at 30 was it 33 36 like did you pick at 28 and then um let's see i would probably say 36 to 38 unreal wasn't that when ronnie coleman won his like first Olympia at 36? Was he that old?

Maybe. Yeah. I'm not sure. It's interesting to be able to peak at that age. The last time I saw Ronnie Coleman, he was actually pissed that I could still squat and deadlift and he couldn't. Because, you know, he had his two hip replacements and then his back fell apart.

And I have my own theories on that. Well, let's hear them him i'd love to i believe in in power lifting in the way i trained because my hips and the doctors were so strong that has a direct correlation on how healthy your hips can be and everything supporting it and i believe as a bodybuilder, the way he lifted, his hips and his adductors were not strong. So when he had his hip surgery, he didn't have enough surrounding everything to protect his lower back.

If that makes any sense. Does the tapered waist. I was going to bring this up earlier but since we're on it you know that doug and anders and i are all roughly the same age and so we kind of all grew up with the same i'll say strength athletes in mind we've talked about a bunch of them like yourself absolutely included and these people who formed a lot of what we think and who we followed who we admired and now we're getting to the age where a lot of these people are like just physically a mess like you brought up ronnie and there's it seems like everybody who is you know these characters in the 1990s are they're

just you know in a really tough spot and sort of heartbreaking but so i'm interested to hear considering you have more success than anybody in that sport, you did it for longer, which are antithetical things, but you don't appear to be totally physically wrecked, which actually is complimentary. So I'm just wondering, like, how are you physically? Everything is good. I've got one shoulder that I had a few tears in, and infraspinatus, labrum, and subscap tendon, partial tears.

So they were really painful. And you know when everything gets tightened up and it starts pulling that ball into the socket, I'm in the process of trying to get that better. I did go to bioaccelerator a little more than a year and a half ago. And I had 20 million in each shoulder and another 60 million IV. It worked for one shoulder. It didn't work as well for the other shoulder.

The IV I liked the best because I woke up that night in the middle of the night cognitively. I could have sat down and wrote. I could have took a test on one of your classes without even going to class. It was unbelievable. I could hear a fly go by. It was incredible. So I will definitely go back again.

But in the meantime, I'm just doing some better therapy, some better movement. If something hurts, I don't do it. But like I said, I could squat and deadlift and do back. Benching hurts. So I'll do dumbbells and change the angle where it doesn't hurt. And that seems to start helping it along with some of the stuff some of the top rehab guys have told me. That's pretty minor for 20 years of breaking world records.

That's not it. Right? Wait, one more time. What did you have injected into your shoulder? I missed that part. Stem cells, the umbilical stem cells, the good ones. Is that like the gold standard these days, Andy? Do you know for as far as stem cells go? I assume that was with Weirden, either in Dallas or down in South America.

Yeah, Medellin, Columbia is where BioAccelerator is. Yep, that's the stuff we really can't get up here yet. That's the real deal. Well, also they can inject so many millions more. Yeah, that's the issue. I'm actually curious, are there still people that are either in powerlifting that you still stay in touch with? Everybody. No, that wasn't the real question.

The real question is, who are you continually learning from in staying in touch with powerlifting? What are the areas of weights that still excite you? How it feels well i there's certain guys that i watch still that i think are studs uh that are decent people i don't like guys that talk their own shit and have egos i don't i don't get into that i just like guys that work hard and and um and let their numbers speak for themselves everyone else will talk about you for good enough yeah um but you know there's so many good uh nutrition guys and rehab guys and you know you got doc over here that does all this incredible research that all you have to do is just take the time and read something. Yeah. And all of a sudden, there's ways to it. Any sport has so many similarities that go along with training and mindset

and diet and listen to body movement. If I can do a movement with no pain and full range of motion, I consider that part of rehab and i don't go to the point where there's pain so now i'm just healing myself as i'm training the whole time yeah is there a pc you that i i i only bring this up because one of my favorite things to watch on the internet is when dan john competes in olympic weightlifting meets like he makes me so damn happy to see him in a singlet and he's like the he stands on the podium and he's in first place there's nobody to the side of him um do you ever feel like going back out there and

just doing it for the love of the game no dan john that's why dan john's got no competitors yeah you gotta i imagine if uh no i'm the undefeated 60 year old champion of the world you just don't live everybody else laws of nutrition there it is i don't i don't want to go there and be more of a tragedy than my old super-hero. That's in your head. I love watching Dan John go out and do Olympic lifting meets. It makes me so happy. I have two last questions.

Totally unrelated. One of them, what if somebody was like, hey, I want to be a mentee under ed cohen like i want to i want him to coach me or i'll go live in his shed i just want to be around him for six months do you do you coach people do you you work i don't really do any online coaching i have i got usually a hundred or more people send me videos every day that I just diagnose and for free. I usually do that. I do all that for free. If someone has a question or they want to come to Chicago, I'll train them for a day or something. But I don't get into as much online because the things I have to look at and feel,

I'd have the time I'd have to put in. I'd have to charge someone way too much. And I have a conscience, and I couldn't do it. So I'd rather do a lot of this stuff. If they say, I'm doing this for a contest as far as training, I'll give little recommendations that usually, you know, Doc, if you change one little thing, that's the right thing. It has such an immense effect on the, on the whole thing that, that I'm confident with, with what I know that I can tell them that one thing and change everything

without having them change their whole training. And because too many people change so much about their training. And usually, usually it's, it's always about numbers. You know, a lot of the trainers now they'll watch someone lift or punch or whatever and they'll pick out you know five or six different things wrong and tell them this is weak and you got to do this and you got to do these exercises when a lot of times all it is is just one little fucking thing on their technique that activates everything usually that's the thing that has a big domino effect and a lot of people

don't know that that has to do with just time and watching yourself and diagnosing yourself time and time again to feel how everything feels the whole time as i'm saying that i'm wiggling into my squat position and squeezing my back in the right spots because that's just how it is. You got to know how it feels before you can do it right. You can't just copy someone and says, okay, this is the way to do it. It's like, well, you know what? Dr. Bo Hightower, everyone knows who he is from Jackson and Wink, the chiropractor, naphthobath bath and I was in his office waiting to get treated once when I was there and I looked at a magazine a medical magazine

and they had pictures of like five different people that their MRIs on their hips were all just slightly slightly different well I figured I was like wow that's the reason why someone has a heeled shoe, a flat shoe, a wide stance, a closed stance, a low bar, a high bar, a wide grip, a close grip, and where the weaknesses are in the squat. That lift alone. So I never started going by what a person looks like from the outside to help and train. I have to see them move to be able to make them do it. Then I can help them.

So it wasn't like, oh, you're built a certain way, so you have to do it this way. It doesn't work that way at all. Not at all. Yeah. Okay. Changing gears entirely. So everyone, because because the internet now can go look up

every world record in every powerlifting category and by weight class by fly and applying That's fine. What I actually would love to know the most is Are there one or two crazy feats of strength that you saw that no one will ever know about that maybe happened in the gym or behind like not in a meet like what are the craziest things you stand out you're like wow that was fucking stronger i can't believe or somebody else you saw it do it um it's got to be some strong man stuff yeah yeah i mean i used to watch brian schoenfeld walk out for a front press with 430 or something, 435, with straight knees, use only his upper body, and do a double with it and put it down. God.

Especially because my strict press hasn't increased in the last, like, 15 years. And it doesn't start with a two. Especially because my strict press hasn't increased in the last, like, 15 years. Yeah, like, no leg movement. And it doesn't start with a two. Yeah. No strength in his legs. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. He wasn't doing, like, a little calf raise to get some bounce in there?

He was freaking strong. What's a strict press without a calf raise? Yeah. He was strong. Oh, my gosh. That's terrifying. My numbers were just the numbers I hit. I never thought of anything I did that was like, oh, so unbelievable. It was just what I was capable of.

And, you know, so my training partners weren't as strong as I was, but if they did something, squatted 600 or something, that's all they're capable of, I realized that that was fucking awesome for them. So I always used to go by, I'm just a regular guy. I can just lift a lot of weight. And that's all it really is. I had two questions. I lied.

Here's one more. What's your favorite exercise that's not been squat then? I love seated behind the necks, wide grip chin-ups, and bent over rows. Seated behind the... I'm going to do some of that

in about an hour, just because you said it now. So you haven't done them in a while? No. That's like the strictest of strict presses. So what you do, here's the mistake people make, is part of their shoulders are really strong, but doing a behind the neck press

takes a different way of mobility and stuff that you have to go light enough to develop the mobility and the strength in those end ranges that are different than a front press or else you will eventually get hurt yeah i do i do strict press weekly now probably for the last six months because i hadn't gotten strong in it in so long uh but it's it's never even at near a rep max it's

just to accumulate volume and strong. I separated my shoulder. So it's just about doing the thing to make them strong. But behind the neck has not even crossed my mind since bodybuilding routines back in the day, like a long time ago. And I got up to a 400 coming back. Yeah. My best was 400 on that.

That's so wild i won't do that today maybe tomorrow yeah all right i do the barbell and i'm like and i'm not not the men's bar i do the women's bar and i'm like yeah this is yeah it feels pretty good like there's a big stretch in there. That's 10X. Here's the cool thing. When I talked about my heavy compound movements, I trained that exercise just like my bench in the same rep range

like I was getting ready for a meet. Because I wanted everything, all these little exercises, to kind of peak at the same time. Yeah. I'm stoked to go to the gym now. I had numbers on everything to get better at. Thanks for coming into Barbell Shrug today, man. This is like a lifelong coolest thing ever.

My pleasure. You guys are great. Thanks. Where can people find you? And if I want to move into your shed like Galpin was talking about, how do I do that? Well, I train at Lance's Gym, which is in the Bridgeport neighborhood in Chicago, just down the street from the Chicago White Sox.

There you go. But if not, just get me on Instagram. I'm on Instagram. Do you want to tell people your name? Is it Ed Cohen on Instagram? Yeah, Ed Cohen,die cohen something like that there you go you can tell you can tell he's worried about his following andy galpin someone is worried about their following now look at him no i'm uh i put i was double checking ed's handle

for him here so he wouldn't have it here um it is eddie cohen yep eddy yeah here's the thing when why i say sign it eddy is the first demonstration i did when i was younger um i was in pennsylvania on like st patrick's day and there was a meet and i I pulled, as a demonstration, I pulled 770. This was back when I was like 20 years old. I was at 181, and some lady asked me to sign Bill Pearl's Keys to the Inner Universe, and I was still shaking. I hadn't taken my belt off, so my hand was still shaking. I went through EDDIE, and I went EDDY. Fun fact, Ed.

We were at Sorenex and we interviewed Bert two weeks ago and that book was sitting on his desk. Nice. Nice. Yeah. After I signed it like that, I couldn't negate that signature and sign it

another way, so I just left it there. There you go. Love that. Andy Galpin, where can the people find you? Andy Galpin, Instagram, Twitter. That's the best.

There it is. Doug Larson. Right on. I'm on Instagram. Douglas C. Larson. Ed, for many,

many years, I've been hoping you would someday come on the show. So thank you for being here today. I really enjoyed you having you on. Oh, anytime. You guys got my email number. So you need anything, just ask. You bet, man. Appreciate it. I really enjoyed having you on. Oh, anytime. You guys got my email number, so if you need anything, just ask.

You bet, man. I appreciate it. I'm Anders Varner. We are Barbell Shrugged at Barbell underscore Shrugged. Make sure you get over to Diesel Dad Mentorship where all the busy dads are getting strong, lean, and athletic. And everybody, in November, you need to go to Walmart. We are

going to be in 2,200 stores. That's 2,200 stores. And you should see my face on the box of some supplements in the performance nutrition section over in the pharmacy. And if you do not, since we are in 2,200 stores, what you need to do is leave that janky Walmart you're in right now and go to a real one right next to it because that's over half the Walmarts in this country. So get over to the pharmacy, performance nutrition section. See my face on the box. Friends, we'll see you guys next week.