Barbell Shrugged - The Sport is Steroids w/ Jim Rutter, Anders Varner, Doug Larson, and Coach Travis Mash - Barbell Shrugged #547

Episode Date: February 10, 2021

Jim Rutter has competed in weightlifting since 2000 and coached since 2010, achieving the rank of International Coach for USA Weightlifting. He worked as a journalist in Philadelphia since 2006, writing mostly for the Philadelphia Inquirer. In 2009, he received a journalism fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.   He owns and serves as head coach for Philadelphia Barbell Club, which has produced over 20 National or International medalists since 2017.   Purchase “The Sport is Steroids”   Masters Method: Intermittent Fasting Challenge   Simple, Sustainable Nutrition to Build Muscle, Lose Fat, and Create Consistency in the Kitchen   Register Today   In this Episode of Barbell Shrugged:   Who is Pat Mendes and why is he banned from Olympic Weightlifting How Pat Mendes  was caught using steroids Pat Mendes early days of strength training leading to Average Bros gym. Why did Pat go to Brazil to lift for them vs. the USA How does Pat feel about his career in weightlifting   Masters Method: Intermittent Fasting Challenge   Simple, Sustainable Nutrition to Build Muscle, Lose Fat, and Create Consistency in the Kitchen   Register Today   Jim Rutter on Instagram   Anders Varner on Instagram   Doug Larson on Instagram   Coach Travis Mash on Instagram   ————————————————   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   www.masszymes.com/shruggedfree  - for FREE bottle of BiOptimizers Masszymes   Garage Gym Equipment and Accessories: https://prxperformance.com/discount/BBS5OFF Save 5% using the coupon code “BBS5OFF”

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Get over to barbellshrug.com forward slash IF challenge right now. Let's get into the show. Today on Barbell Shrug, Jim Rutter in one of the coolest conversations, a book that I read, sport is steroids about pat mendez and his ultimate ban from the sport of weightlifting if you have not checked out the book make sure you get over to amazon or wherever books are sold the sport is steroids you can also go to the website the sport is steroids just get into the google machine it knows everything but jim rud, this was a phenomenal interview. I super appreciate you doing this.

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I have the book sitting on my desk right here. But what's the coolest part about Barbell Shrugged? I don't have to read right now. I got you on the show to tell us. And weightlifting is in peril right now. We lost the top two people building a sport that was going to be tested clean and we were already in a lot of trouble as far as uh so many big countries getting busted and then they just fire everybody that's clean in the sport put a banned country at the top and now the iwf just is is this couldn't get better time to talk to the person that wrote the book called The Sport is Steroids. Just before we get into the actual book, what is a little bit of your background in Olympic weightlifting and kind of what drew you to this story?

I started competing in Olympic weightlifting in 2000. And then I competed for probably 10 years, qualified for nationals, American Open, all those, you know, never anything significant. I started too late. And then in 2011, I started coaching, started a barbell club in Philadelphia. And I had been coaching for about six years, branched off on my own, got a facility

because I was being hosted by a CrossFit before. And then the book, Patton Taylor Mendez, well, she's now Taylor Lump. They moved to Philadelphia and she began training at our club. And Patton and I hung out that summer and he thought the idea of a book was cool. And I obviously wanted to hear his story. I've also been a journalist in Philadelphia for about 15 years now, writing mostly for the Philadelphia Inquirer. So I had that background.

And we sat down and started talking about it, and it just opened a whole lot of avenues to approach the subject, but mostly through his story which is fascinating did you guys do this um after he he had competed and gotten busted and all that or was it like the the icarus thing while it was happening in real time no no it was after mostly his last competition was the 2015 Pan Am Games that were held in, I believe, Toronto, Canada, or Montreal. Yeah. It was in Canada.

It was Toronto. Yeah, they had tested him twice there. And he was one of the first people popped with that new test for the long-term metabolites of oral trinobol. Yeah. One of the first weightlifters. I don't know if they got anybody else before that in other sport, but he was definitely among the first to be popped with that test.

So he was probably retired for about a year and a half when I started working on this project with him. Yeah. When you, and I'm sure this is answered on page one. I just haven't opened the book, but I'm always interested in that initial step, like going from zero steroids in your body to one shot of steroids in your body is the,

is the leap that you can't come back from. You've done it, all of the morality around it changes, and doing it for the next 10 years seems easy after you do it one time. You've created that pattern, and it's there. It's hard to come back. Does he get into the decision, that initial decision to say, I probably can't compete unless I do this? And what was really his beginning thought processes? Yeah, he started the sport later than, say, most of the top international athletes would have started it.

You know, Ilya talks about how he first touched a barbell at age eight. Pat didn't even know what a snatch was when he graduated high school. He had been doing these power clean and bench press competitions that were held annually in Las Vegas, where he went to high school. So for him, his introduction to the sport was, well, I'm doing these kind of, you know, no hook grip, no brush, no feet, power cleans in Nike high tops with a lot of weight. I mean, he won his senior year with a 365 pound power clean, weighing probably about 270 pounds. But again, no brush, no hook, probably not even a decent bar. But, you know, Vegas every year and still does, has this competition called, it's inappropriately called the National High School Power Clean Competition,

when it's really just for all the Vegas high schools. And so at his senior year, the final meet that he was doing as a competitor, because it was mostly for the football kids, he meets John Brose. And Brose says, hey, I have this gym. You know, I can show you guys how to do these lifts better. And so him and a couple of his friends, including Rob Adele and Taylor Smith, they venture over there. And for the first time in his life, Pat sees through some Bulgarian or some Ironman VHS tapes. This is what the Olympic lifts are.

This is how they're done at a high level. And then I know those tapes. I've watched them all so many times. I could watch them right now. Yeah. And have the best afternoon ever. We still play them at our club on like the youtube clips that are still available online and so forth yeah um so you know it's pretty well described in

the book that one day pat and john had a conversation and pat you know again i wasn't there for any of it but pat laid it out for me that they talked about how all these people that are watching on these Ironman tapes are all on drugs. And that person setting the world record, they're on drugs. The person who took gold, silver, bronze, probably even the fourth or eighth place competitors, as we well know from the 2012 Olympics, especially in that 94 kilo class, eight of the top 10 are on drugs. You know, so if you think that this is something you want to do and you want to, if your goal is world records, your goal is world championships, well, sorry,

if your goal is meddling at world championships, you are going to probably have to do what they do. You know, now we, you know, the conversation, again, the way it's painted in the book is pretty neutral. He didn't get done that conversation and think, okay, well, you know, tomorrow I'm going to go home and start injecting myself with steroids. But he thought about it and he knew that, okay, I'm going to do this. What is the culture in John Brose's gym at the time? Is, is,

is that one of the, is that like a place that everybody knew you could go get the juice if you needed to, or was this the first experiment of, we're going to, we're going to load this potential world champ up and see how this goes. So I was, to my knowledge, Pat is the first serious athlete that John has coached. That's to my knowledge. I could be wrong. John could have been coaching other people,

but I know that like I talk in the book about how John was interviewed about a year after Pat started training there and the guy interviewing him, asked him a question, Hey, how long have you been coaching? And he's about a year. So I don't, I mean, I can't speculate on any of that without getting myself into some kind of legal trouble. Like I know that, you know, in the book, Pat talks a lot about who at that gym was clean. And he was very insistent about who was clean.

So again, legal, you know, I can't for slander anyone on this podcast. Yeah. So I don't, I know that Pat also talked about how after he had started putting out all those video clips,

like occasionally somebody would prank the gym and say, Hey, can I buy steroids here? You know, cause they still had a landline back then. I know that other, that at least one other athlete from that club has gotten popped yeah the skinnier guy

right like the yeah but I don't think it was steroids I think it was like it was a bad diuretic yeah diuretics yes which is used for masking yes can be used for masking can be yeah so again I I have no interest in searching John's name, the name of his club.

You know, Angelo Bianco was an amazing lifter that came out of there and medaled at Pan Am Championships in 20, was that 2017, Travis? Yeah. In Miami, he took silver. Yes, it was in class yeah and you know uh clean athlete in my opinion yeah and even like they even had um Jared uh I totally just went blank he's with Anderton he had Anderton who I I'm pretty certain was drug free I haven't read is that what he told you or did he told you different he's talked about

he's talked to me about every name that's in that book alright so I know John is a good coach you know I don't try I'm not trying to be anyone's moral police you know it's frustrating obviously as a weightlifting coach that um you know that you're

supposed to be in a clean sport and you have athletes who i think are better you know than these guys i mean look at ilia he went when he stops taking he is like mediocre at best everyone's hero is like less than mediocre he's like a vegan yeah he's a he's yeah i have another name for him but yeah but like you know like yeah it's frustrating so like and then when americans do it i love the thing is here's the thing is that john is my friend and i love him and like if i see him we hang out but like um but that decision is probably not one i would agree with you know but yeah that's just me i i don't even have you talked to john about about all this what's his take on yeah are you friendly with john have you spoken about it i i've had many conversations with

john not during the writing of this book john John and I, I think like Travis colleagues, when I was first starting coaching, John helped me out a lot answering questions and stuff. John was, we'll just say was not a resource in the writing of this book. I don't even actually really want to get into just the individual players, but more the culture of steroids and drugs in weightlifting. I think that that's the bigger thing that we have to overcome.

First off, like drugs were invented. I shouldn't say invented, but when I think about steroids, guys will do them for zero prizes except looking better in the mirror for themselves. And now you put a bunch of money and a gold medal and fame and all that and potentially putting food on your table and a roof over your head, and you now feed your family by snatching clean and jerk. Is it possible to even rid a sport of something that is so closely linked to being good at it? Is it possible to get rid of it?

That's a good question. really good question i would say that maybe the real question to ask in that regard is is it possible to get rid of it in cycling and swimming and i think it is yeah i mean any i think any sport where the metric is meters kilograms seconds you're going to have people willing to improve those metrics by using performance enhancers. And again, you're always going to have rogue cheaters, rogue players out there. report from the ARD documentaries that there was definitely a culture of corruption in the IWF as headed by Ayan and that that culture flat out encouraged the use of performance enhancers because you know and you know in from my understanding more than half the medalists were not even tested from the 2001 to 2015 world championships 14 world championships i should say yeah you got about 20 24 medalists per meet and only about half of them were even getting tested well what's happening with other half

well there's bribery you I mean, state-funded. That show, the movie Icarus, was unbelievable to see the lengths that people are going to go through to cover this up. And it's a state-run, like the government

has an agency in every country, I shouldn't say every country, in many countries. Obviously, I shouldn't say every country. In many countries. Obviously, I don't think ours does. Doesn't mean it doesn't. I just don't think it does. That is like funding the doping. So if, I guess, when you think about steroids and you think about the Olympics,

were you able to get into kind of like a little bit deeper of the why and how gold medals plays into politics and just why it's so prevalent at that level? The fact that it's state-funded and they uncover it in that documentary, Icarus, was kind of like one of those things I assumed, but when you saw how blatantly they were doing it, it was incredible. Well, I do touch on that in the book. You know, the structure of the book is such that it tells Pat's story, and then I would say 15 of the 16 chapters start talking about just doping in sport period.

And then that after a couple of pages, it blends into Pat's narrative. And I do talk about that a lot. I mean, there are. So, for instance, in September of this year, the former head of World Athlet uh lamin diak uh he was sentenced to three years in prison for his role in a his alleged role in a bribery and corruption scandal while he was the head of it was called international it was called the i the i double a f at the time international amateur athletics federation they've now rebranded after his scandal to call themselves World Athletics. So he is in prison for, he has been sentenced to three years.

His son, who is running the marketing for that organization, he will not leave his own country because he knows he'll be arrested for his role in the corruption. The former Russian head of their track and field organization was also sentenced by the same French court to three years in prison in absentia for his alleged role. And all this was discussed in the book and talked about. And it was talked about the why. And, you know, here's the thing that is crazy that people don't realize is that, you know, Craig Reedy was the head of WADA when all this was going on and they have emails from him to an assistant to the Russian sports minister that basically

say, Hey, don't worry about all this stuff with doping. You're cool. So Jim, let me ask you, do you think it's just naive of us to even try to think we're ever going to have a clean sport or semi-clean? And if that's the case, why don't we pull the gloves off? And, like, you know, like, I mean, if you ever want true, fair sport, really what you're saying, you know, what you sort of said is a pipe dream. And so if that's the case, let's see who's the best. Well, I mean, that is definitely an approach

or an idea that people have had and uh i've had a lot of people talk to me about that after this you know book has come out um or is it even possible to do both like bodybuilding you have like more natural bodybuilding and then you have regular bodybuilding we'll call it yeah yeah my understanding is that even natural bodybuilding is tainted to a large totally uh there's a there's a really good gym in this area for the how to put it for the training of quote-unquote natural bodybuilders and it's it's rife with drug use you know i don't, I don't want to say what gym it is, but it's a great facility otherwise. So I don't know if it's a pipe dream. I know that, you know, like, again,

this is the same guy who did all these documentaries on weightlifting. He's done several, at least three on track and field. His most recent one was on the culture of doping in Kenya, where he basically went to a bunch of coaches, interviewed them, and he was basically shown how to get the drugs that he claimed he needed as a coach for his athletes while he was in Kenya. You're talking about for running for long distance running, I guess. Yeah. For distance running, you know, mostly.

Yeah. A lot of other things. So like, you know, and it's funny too, like Joe Rogan's had a lot of good guests on his show talking about doping and sport. And as far as the, take the gloves off, see who goes, you know, the, the point that Rogan always comes back to, and that I agree with, is that if you say, okay, we're going to have a drug permissible Olympics, which by the way, Juan Antonio Samarac, who was head of the IOC from 81 to 2000, about, he was actually, he had the idea that people should be allowed to take substances that don't harm them, even if they're performance enhancing.

And he said that to a Spanish, to El Mundo, which is a Spanish, it's their national newspaper in Spain in an interview. And it's, it's murky. I mean, because what it requires then is that if, well, you know, you have young kids that you coach Trev, really good athletes, fantastic weightlifters. And basically you're saying, okay, well, we're going to allow this now. So it means that if you want to persist in the sport,

you must also do it. So it's not even a it's it's a it's a false choice is what rogan says yeah it's a tough one it creates the conditions under which people who are sincere in their desire to compete and do well must also then do something they may not agree with isn't that already the way it is but maybe just only at the highest level, but that's the situation that Pat kind of was in. It's like, you, you,

you don't really necessarily want to do it, but all these guys are doing it. And so if you want to compete, then you have to do it. So he's kind of in that situation too. That's a hundred percent fair response. Yeah. And I,

I don't, I don't disagree with your response to that. It's, it's unfortunate. It's, um, it's probably the shittiest situation for, you know, I just, I don't disagree with your response to that. It's unfortunate. It's probably the shittiest situation. I hate to use one of your athletes as an example, Travis, but Morgan's such a dedicated athlete.

He lifts well. He trains really hard. He's done incredible things at these youth hemispheric meets, the youth world meets. And then it's, you know, the understanding is you're right, Doug, is that when he gets to the senior level, it's, well, do you want to keep doing as well as you've been doing? Then here we go.

Yeah. And it sucks because knowing you, Travis, I know that that isn't something you're going to encourage. No, I'm not. It just makes me super mad. You know what makes me really mad, Jim, is that Morgan is an example who loves Ilya and it makes me so mad.

I'm like, you love someone who is like keeping you from being a world champion. Because look, when Morgan has grown up, if you put the best of Ilya without drugs and the best of Morgan without drugs, Morgan is going to whip Ilya's ass. And that's just the way it is. You know, we've got several in America that would, you know, well, we're seeing it. Ilya is mediocre at best. And here's something to remember too, is that he's mediocre after taking drugs. And we all know once you've taken it, you've taken it. You will get residual results for the rest of your life. So minus any drugs,

Ilya is a shitty weightlifter. Quote me on that one. And then you get Morgan is going to whip him. Ilya's not even going to be in a C-session. So yeah, I'm getting fired up. Keep going! You know, throughout these interviews, and here's the thing.

So the last World Championships Pat did was the 2014 World Championships that were in Almaty, Kazakhstan. 105 kilo A session, probably the most stacked a session of all time. Saw four world record clean and jerks attempted in a row, you know, and at weights that are just unheard of, you know, and Ilya of course wins, you know, not to be a spoiler alert, but Pat talks about who got drug tested in that session because he, even though he bombed out, he got drug tested. And you're right,

Travis is that, you know, I saw him lift in England in 2019 and he did like 160 or 165 and 190. And like, you know, your old athlete Mason Dameron would have gone there and smashed him. Smashed him. I know know but we have i mean like there's a good chance that cj cummings beats him at 73 kilos i mean like yeah agreed and so like illy is a illy is like one of those running parallel stories in the book of the person who got all the benefits of a state-structured funded program.

Yeah. And is, like you said, I mean, it's awful to think that Morgan still idolizes this guy. It makes me so mad. Yeah. You know, like you said, mediocre at best when he's out of the gear. And that, too, blows my mind because, you know, I'm aware, as you are, that the effects of taking steroids at all, at any point in your life,

completely restructure your muscular system. Sure. And so like, he should be getting way more residual benefits. You know, if he did steroids, I mean, he got popped from the 2008 and the 2012 retests for Sanazolol and oral Terinabol.

What are you trying to not get tested? Two of the most home androgenic drugs there are, and yet he still is, like you said, he's a garbage lifter now. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. know yeah yeah yes why is weightlifting the only i shouldn't say the only one but it seems to be the the one that everyone points a finger at and says you guys are dirty when we all know that track and field and cycling and swimming and all of these are just as dirty and they've got a long history of being just as dirty as as weightlifting because we don't have nike backing us that's why but nike does back it does not back with not no

no totally nike weightlifting is not nike that is like you know a small company that funds clothing and stuff no that is not n Nike the whoosh. Gotcha. No, we do not have them backing us. Gotcha. I thought Nike actually had athletes. No. Gotcha. Heck no.

Not even close. Yeah, not to the extent where they're giving $10 million to a weightlifter the way they are with multiple sprinters and trackers. Sprinters, yeah. That one has been sponsored by Nike. Right. And he's also been popped twice. Right. Yeah.

And then, you know, Usain Bolt was the number one paid athlete in the entire world at one time. Yeah. So that's why they're not getting popped. When we were talking to Johan Blake's coach, and he was like – and then he made it into like the – there's like three track athletes that make it to this level. Yeah. And coach and he was like and then he made it into like the there's like three track athletes that make it to this level yeah johan just was one of them um the numbers

that they were talking about were astronomical astronomical that level of track athlete i didn't even know i've never been to a track meet yeah the first one i ever went to was in jamaica on a friday night what a great introduction. Yeah, no kidding. I mean, if you want to read a great book about the culture of corruption in track and field, one of the books that I tried to model my book upon was called The Dirtiest Race in History. I'm about to read that. It's a phenomenal book. It's super well-researched. It's written by another journalist. I think I still have it in my room right now.

Is that the race with Carl Lewis? And Ben Johnson. Ben Johnson, yeah. Yeah, so the eight guys in that 100-meter final, only two of them have never failed a drug test. Wait, did Carl Lewis ever get popped? Oh, are you serious i actually i the documentary i watched on it they didn't they didn't test him so did he not did he get popped well he tested positive oh yeah but he never got in trouble that's right yeah that's what i meant wrong question yeah so wade exum was um he was either the head doctor for the USOC or he was a doctor

for USOC during that period. And he thought that he was going to be the first person appointed. And again, I'm, again, this is just, this is what I've read in newspaper articles. I haven't interviewed Wade Exum personally. I'm not even sure if he's still alive. But Exum was under the, he was under consideration to become the first head of USADA. He got passed over. He releases literally tens of thousands

of documents that he had showing who was on dope, who was getting popped, who was getting covered up through the past 20 years of his tenure as one of the medical officials for the USOC. And Carl Lewis's name was in those documents. Yeah, but then Carl Lewis is bitching about Ben Johnson. I feel bad for Charlie Lewis getting in trouble.

I mean, not Charlie Lewis. I mean, Charlie Francis. I mean, he wasn't doing anything those dudes weren't doing but carl lewis was like the golden child of the era with with all of that is there a chance and i know there's a chance but what do you think the chances are that in the united states we have state-funded doping and we just don't talk about it not in weightlifting no chance well if a track it's a it's a bigger, better sport. Like, uh, I say bigger and better, but it's more popular and more funding behind it.

Um, so being better at it would mean someone has to pay the bill to get the people, the things that they need to, you know, we was Icarus just written because we don't like Russia. And that was who he just happened to get caught up with. I don't think it's government funded but it would be corporate funded in America because we're obviously capitalists, you know, they're

not socialists. But I mean, that's Jim's question. I'm getting fired up. This topic makes me mad. No, so in the book I also, and I briefly touched upon it and I wish, you know, again, if the book was a thousand pages rather than 300 there would have been more information but so the Nike in the early part of the 2010s Nike started pouring money into what

they called Nike Project Oregon and it was I believe in Eugene Oregon near their headquarters they set up a campus with a lot of facilities to train specifically long-distance runners. And they hired Alberto Salazar to be the coach, three-time New York City Marathon champion, regarded as one of the best coaches. And he had Galen Rupp he had Mo Farah he had a lot of promising USA and British athletes training with him Nike was pouring a lot of money into it so a couple years later Kara Goucher great American distance runner she goes to USADA with claims that there's questionable things happening there they're pressuring her to take certain medications that she doesn't feel that

she needs. And this has all been documented. This is, and there was, again, it's, you know, I've done a lot of research for the book, so I'm struggling to place my sources exactly, but it's right now, Alberta Salazar is on a four-year ban from USA Track and Field because he was administering or allegedly administering testosterone to his runners. If he's on a four-year ban, it's not alleged anymore. I know, but I'm trying to protect myself as best I can. Oh, yeah. When I'm talking about powerful people that have interests.

Yeah, I'm. Oh, yeah. What I'm talking about, powerful people that have interests. Yeah. I'm saying he got slammed. He's been shut down. But in the interim, you know, Galen Rupp and Mo Farah, they win Olympic medals. They win big races. They take in a lot of money. They help promote the brand. And these guys, you know, another thing they were doing was they were just pushing the

limits of everything that was semi-permissible. Like, for instance, taking intravenous L-carnitine. I mean, it's a great supplement, right? Yeah. And if you take it in megadosis intravenously, it has a compounding effect on distance runners. Oh, wow. I don't know the pharmacokinetics of it, how it actually works within the cells, but you're you know you know this travis you you can't give a person more than a certain amount of anything intravenously once they're entered

into a competition i don't think you give anything i thought i thought you saw this you can't do anything intravenously unless it's by a doctor yeah well they would have doctors doing it of course oh okay yes and i think i think the limit is 500 milliliters if it's at a doctor's approval. But the amounts they were using were far in excess of that 500 milliliters threshold. So to answer your original question, Anders, Travis is right. It is done by the corporations here. Right. Gotcha.

You know, they network with certain strength coaches that are willing to be you know gray area with certain trainers that are willing to be gray area certain coaches and you know again i agree with you travis said charlie francis got totally slammed in a room and he's a great coach with a great mind yeah when you if we if we get back to um pat's story he lifted for brazil and not the united states what is what's that he lifted for both okay what can can we just kind of what why did why why was that the case why was he not just an american lifter i think you know the answer to that but go ahead yeah For the people. For the people. So in 2011,

Pat did the Pan Am Games and the World Championships for Team USA. And then after his first ban, his first doping positive was for human growth hormone,

he through his father's lineage, had dual citizenship in Brazil, and he decided that he would compete for them instead. Because at the time, and this has since changed, if you're a foreign national living in the U S now you saw it can show up and just test you good on behalf of the sport, but it wasn't the case back then. And that changed during his time competing for Brazil. Um, so he wanted to compete for a country where he thought that the likelihood of getting regularly drug tested would be lower. Or zero.

Or zero, as it is in some countries. Yeah. You know, as we're learning, using doppelgangers. Yeah. Swapping urine samples out, changing the barcodes opening yeah supposedly unsealable bottles or unbreakable seals on bottles you know oh yeah and what what role does the ioc play in this i mean it it's their fault putting that guy in charge of uh usada and then knowing that russia also had him in charge of the –

maybe they didn't know, but you can't be the doctor for Russia and on the USADA side. The conflict of interest is so massive. Where does this fall? WADA, right? WADA, yes, WADA. Or not USADA. That's the United States.

WADA. World anti-doping. But WADA has a direct conflict of interest by hosting the games in Russia and having their doping supervisor basically creating the test for anti-doping and creating the program for Russia for doping. He knows how to beat his own system. Like where does the IOC come into this and say, like, the whole thing's – Pay me.

That's what they say. Pay me. How does anybody fix anything when – It's so deep. It's so deep. You almost have to blow the Olympics up and not – Look at his arms. Yeah.

There are people that have suggested that that is what is needed is that you need a complete overhaul of the system. The conflicts of interest are built in. Yeah. The IOC provides about half of WADA's annual budget. They also staff about half the positions in WADA with IOC members. Like, WADA is absolutely not an independent drug testing entity the way that USADA is for the USOC. I truly do believe that USADA, now they may have other issues,

but they can, in my opinion, legitimately say, we get money from Congress we get some money from the US OC but there aren't strings attached to it whereas with water and you know half of their positions are staffed by IOC members or delegates and you can't escape the building conflicts of interest is that's going to enable now those these hammer like American way. This was good. You know, like, man,

I'll tell you, they used to come to our gym so often. Like I got to know the person, like literally they tested Nathan once, uh, twice in four days. I'm like, I'm like, is this good use of funds?

But I mean, you're more than welcome, but like, yeah, they were like determined to figure something out so they'll take they'll regularly just grab a b session lifter uh from our national championships who had no shot of meddling and be like oh let's test this person and just see what's up yeah you're getting caught in america if you take drugs and weightlifting you're getting caught and that's

why it's so funny when other coaches accuse other coaches namely me of like you know having athletes that are on drugs like who who would have the money for that as you're hearing like it takes deep pockets to do something like you're talking how long did it take pat to go from uh a low back 360 pound clean in tennis shoes to standing on world stages once he decided I'm going all in and I'm going to do whatever it takes. Shrug family, this week we are launching the master's method intermittent fasting challenge. Simple, sustainable nutrition to build muscle, lose fat, and create consistency in the kitchen. Because consistency is king. You're busy as hell, getting pulled in a million different directions and want a simple, sustainable solution

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Register for the Master's Method Intermittent Fasting Challenge. Download your personalized guide, macronutrient calculator, and free app giving you access to three training programs to gain lean muscle, lose body fat, and become the king of consistency. Get registered for the Master's Method Intermittent Fasting Challenge. Registration closes this Sunday. Get over to barbellstruck.com forward slash IF challenge right now. Let's get into the show. Was that a pretty quick rise? Yes. I mean, his timeline was he learned how to snatch, and about 20 months later, he snatched 200 kilograms.

Whoa. God. snatch and about 20 months later he snatched 200 kilograms whoa god that's about what it took for him and and whoa his back squat did go up significantly in that period also he boom he graduated high school with with what i would say you not a, maybe not an ass to grass, but a 585 pound back squat and his heaviest back squat all time is 800 pounds. He's a beast. And you know how that, you know how that works, Travis. That's super hard to do. Yeah. Yeah.

It's real easy to get a kid to 315 in the back squat. Yeah. 800 is like weightlifting, like high bar with just a belt on. Yeah. And shoes like... That's weightlifting, like high bar with just a belt on. Yeah. Weightlifting shoes. That's not the power of the thing.

Pat didn't even wear a belt when he back squatted 800 pounds. Or knee wraps or have a spotter. You can see the video on YouTube and it's a fast lift.

It clearly wasn't a maximum. Whoa. I didn't even see that. So he squatted 800 without a belt, without wraps. Is that what you just said? No. That's a beast. Yeah. That's a beast. in a maximum whoa i didn't even see that so he squatted 800 without a belt without um wraps is that what you just said that's a beast yeah yeah that's a beast when you were first tossing around the idea of doing this book what were you potentially hoping to have as an outcome of

writing the book like are you looking to to educate enough people to get like a policy level change to actually make some significant dent in the sport regarding steroids and how prevalent they are? Or what was the initial motivation? I think initially I thought about it journalistically, like just telling a story. And then as I got into it and as the scope of the individuals I interviewed expanded beyond Pat and his then wife, Taylor, then I started realizing, yes, Doug,

that there was a larger discussion to be talked about. So I think first I just wanted to tell a good story. And then, but as I got into writing the book, yeah, I would, I think that there's reforms that need to be made and it's not just with the iwf um you know it's there's corruption all the way to the top i mean these these individuals that were running track international track and field they don't they don't exist in a vacuum either where they can just control all the corruption like people were definitely aware of it um and yet nothing was nothing was done until it became public until it was uncovered by

journalists working for the bbc for pro publica working for ard in germany so yeah i think there's a big conversation to be had. And I also, without opening another can of worms, I'd be really curious to know what Travis's opinion is on the Olympic retests that were done. Oh, I'm very – I know that's a – I'm for it. I know a lot of coaches, like, say, you know, that was the rules back then. We shouldn't, you know, freeze it and then test them for new drugs. But, you know, I say the heck with that, man.

Like, you know, my athletes are, like, drug-free. And if we're going to go compete against them, then, you know, if they're taking some drug that we've never even heard of right now, then heck with them. They should be positive 12 years from now. So, you know, I know a lot of coaches in America, even like I think Sean Waxman says that, you know, that he's not for that. But I'm totally for that.

Like, you know, we don't have that here. We don't have, oh, hey, some chemistry lab. Will you make me some drug that we've not heard of yet so they can't pop me? You know, so, like, I'm all for it. Test those dudes. Burn every last one of them down so they can't pop me you know so like i'm all for it test those dudes burn every last one of them down is what i say because you know we've got some really good athletes that work their butts off drug free and like you know if yeah burn them all down for all i care so yeah i don't deserve yeah go to powerlifting man like you know go to powerlifting

they don't care take all the drugs you want well that's that's an interesting one because as this whole thing's unfolding with uh olympic weightlifting the iwf the new interim president um and the fact that you know the ioc is very aware of how dirty the sport is they're're kind of Olympic weightlifting is kind of on its last leg already. And you start to hear these rumors of like powerlifting is going to be able to sneak its way into the Olympics. No powerlifting is like everyone in powerlifting is on something terrifying. And that's just like the regular guy that's trying to deadlift 600. Not the, not the person that's going to squat 13 or whatever it is.

If they kick weightlifting out of the Olympics, they're sure not going to replace it with another sport that's already super known. It has less money to pay them, let's say that, and that is known to take drugs even way more than weightlifting. So no chance. Yeah. Jim, did anybody in writing this book and you doing the research, did you open any emails or get a phone call or find something

where somebody then called you and said, hey, stop here. You don't go any further than this because things get really weird. Yeah, twice. I love that. Can we hear the story where he got stopped? Yeah, just one of them. I'm sure it's just some government

official. Is that a red dot on your forehead? Yeah. There was one of the things I kept in the book was I interviewed a few USADA dope and control officers.

And one of them gave me something about the early days of drug testing in the UFC that I did put in the book. You did? Yeah, it's in there. It starts chapter 15 or 16. I'm about to read that mess, right. Yeah. And this is USADA, by the way. This is USADA drug testing the UFC.

And then there was, I was told something confidentially about 2018's Youth Olympic Games that is not in the book. Really? Yeah. I'd be willing to talk to you, Travis, if I see you in Atlanta about it. All right. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah. Like, it was told to me, like, hey, this has got to be off the record and it can't appear anywhere. Yeah, okay, cool. Yeah, I can't wait to hear. Yeah. Let's just say that the European Youth Championships that year, some things happened that absolutely affected the 2018 Youth Olympics.

Again, to what I've been told. What is – That's some bull. Yeah, but do we have a holier-than-thou problem at the United States? Where if you go to – look, I've been to Cabo for a bachelor party, and that shit is sold in the local – it's like 7-Elevens hitting me up for diana ball on a daily basis you get starbucks and a little d ball just start your morning get after

it let's go lift some weights hit a little caffeine hopefully you don't eat the ice like i did montezuma's revenge but look it's sold on the corner in cabo it. It's why are we so on our high horse about this? You could go to the 7-Eleven and get it in Mexico. Well, I mean, it is weird

that this country permits people to do many things that are absolutely harmful to their health like smoking cigarettes. I mean alcohol is a real killer you know and yet it's the most legal drug you know any corner bar has everything you want to get drunk to get drunk you know and cigarettes are still legal. It is unusual that we, that anabolic steroids in this country are a controlled substance. You know, they're a class two substance.

You just having them as a felony. Yeah, it's like cocaine. In the same way as having heroin or cocaine. Yeah, yeah. They're a class two controlled substance. Yeah, yeah. yet we'll let people smoke and drink and get drunk. So, yeah, Anders, you're right. In other countries, it's different. But then there's also the side of it where in other countries, taking performance-enhancing drugs isn't seen as cheating either.

Yeah. either yeah and again international coaches that I've interviewed that talk to me about this they see it as supplements yeah if you were to sit down and have you know if there's if there's three players and you're allowed to sit down with the ceo of say uh usa weightlifting and say hey this is on the global stage and then you get to sit down with um maybe like the ioc and the iwf with all the research and all of the information that you were able to gather through writing the book and, and you were able to kind of distill it. Like, where do you think you stand on how knowing that the sport is going to have steroids in it? It's probably impossible for us to get all the countries aligned

on right and wrong. How do you think they, they proceed knowing that the end right now is almost inevitable with how it's set up how do we how do we get better with through your lens because you may have there may be very few people that actually fully understand the scope of um drugs in sport to to actually come together and and have a positive outcome where we get to keep weightlifting? Well, I think it's really hard because the Olympics is, like it or not, it's a celebration. It's billed as a celebration of internationalism, celebrating the Olympic ideal.

But yet, at its core, it's also a very nationalistic undertaking. Like Russia is absolutely there to beat China, who's there to beat Cuba, who's there to beat Colombia, who's there to beat us. And it's – I think that people like to win. And there are countries, you know, one person that I interviewed talking about the book, I basically said to this person, I said, listen, I'm just going to start naming countries. You tell me if you think they have a state sponsored doping program for weightlifting. And this is a person with a long connection to the IWF.

And so I started with countries. I said, okay, Germany, no, Italy, no, Japan, no, South Korea, no. Now that doesn't mean that people from those countries haven't gotten popped. But the question was, do they have a state-sponsored system? And then I started naming other countries. Colombia, well, that's a gray area. Is it condoned? Maybe.

Does it look the other way? Maybe. Is it funded by the government? Probably not. Cuba, okay, that's a different set of answers. And then obviously China and a few other places, North Korea, et cetera. And I think that it's tough. I mean, what we need to do is we need to convince the nations that are on the fence that it's in their best interest to have a clean sport. Yeah, or we're not going to have one.

We're not going to have one. Yeah. We're not going to have one. So we take the current alignment that we do have, which is an axis of, say, Japan, South Korea, Germany, Italy, us, Canada, Great Britain, a few other places, you know. And we say, hey, listen, we have to create from this. And it probably is going to take some of the reforms that Ursula was encouraging, which is, which got her tossed out, which got her tossed out. And, and who knows, you know, part of the things that I've heard floating around is that there are, you know, just like what happened with world athletics and with a few other with boxing is that there are,

there are possible criminal indictments on the way for people still involved with the IWF and the uncovering of that or the certain people's willingness to assist with those investigations is what really might've led to them getting kicked out. Now, I can't speak to that entirely. I'm getting information, again, from other people that I talk to. And so, but I think that what has to happen is that constitutional reforms within the IWF have to basically say that, you know, if your country's on a ban, you can't have anybody on the board.

You can't even vote. Because those are the kind of things that are going to enable, again, that current alliance of clean nations to continue to, you know, we should be able to scoop up Vietnam then. We should be able to help India reform, because India's had a lot of doping positives in the last five to seven years. You know, are we going to- With little girls? Aren't they the ones who did it with Egypt? But India had a lot of teenage athletes and positive. God, that should be criminal by death.

Yeah. Come on, man. That's the other thing, too. So there are a couple of nations. Germany, for example, has passed a law that criminalizes doping in sport. And it's real jail time. Good. There was, as recently as last year, a bill before the House, strangely enough, called the Rochenkov Act, named after the guy from Icarus who is no hero in my opinion. He's a mixed figure at best. He's not a bad

person, but whatever. That's my opinion. He's put more steroids in people than anybody. He just told the story. There we go. And profited. Good job, bud. Make a bank. All he's got to do is wear a wig every day. Live out the rest of his life in america under

witness protection and you know he sees he's doing fine he got on rogan he did no shit um jim what do you see as like the general trend for steroid use in in sport specifically weightlifting of course like in the u.s and then and then worldwide is it trending upward more people are doing a higher percentage of people doing they're doing more of it or is it actually just being covered more now but actually the trend is going down where where where do the trends go that's a really good question i think so one of the things i talked about in the book was in 2011 researchers from harvard university and from the university i'm probably gonna butcher this name the university ofen in Germany. They collaborated on a project where they did surveys of all the athletes competing at the 2011 track and field world championships

and the 2011 Pan Arab either championships or games. I can't remember which one. And they asked them, okay, in the past 12 months, have you done any of these things? And it was some ridiculous number, like above 35% admitted in these anonymous surveys. And yes, we've been doing this. I would find it curious to know what a similar survey would uncover today.

Because I don't know. I think that the trend, and this is from talking to people, is moving away from the more, for lack of a better term, gross anabolics towards things that are more designer oriented. Like peptides and all that stuff. Thicker acting, less detectable stuff like that, which don't, I mean, shit, you know, Travis, you know this, you're in track and field also. There are world records from the 80s that are still unbroken. Yeah. that are still unbroken in power events like the 100, Javelin, shot put.

Still unbroken because back then they could take these super potent anabolic shards like Terena Ball, like Winstroll, and now it's less likely for people to take them. So the margins by which they're advancing their individual disciplines in sport is zero yes or zero or slower yeah right you're right so i don't know i i don't know the answer to that question doug it's a great question i think that it needs to be a combination of looking at what are people getting popped for and how, you know, and that, that again is on water and scientists and laboratories to come up with testing, but then also too, it'd be curious to know what, and again,

going back to that study of 2011, when the researchers presented their findings to water water initially was like, Hey, don't publish this.'t publish this and that's well documented you know they don't want they don't want the there to be an understanding that doping is widespread in sport they want to keep it

they want to make it look like everybody who's doing it is like they're hiding in a warehouse they're training in secret they're on a farm in some remote location you know where the testers can't find them but yeah it's decently systematic and it's pretty widespread what do you think if we what happened to the sport if we didn't have weightlifting in the Olympics. Like if it's already not a sport that's getting a ton of funding outside of a bunch of Americans losing their dreams, which is awful,

but what happens to the sport? It's not like it's at the, it's not like it's the NFL where billions and billions of dollars and all this stuff revolves around Sunday afternoon for 16 weeks. Does the sport just kind of continue on with national level? It takes a massive hit. Yeah. I think initially it does. And then I think, I you know powerlifting is not in the olympics strongman is not in the olympics uh strongman is probably the wrong choice here

but powerlifting is definitely widely practiced you know there are universities i'm in philadelphia there are university powerlifting clubs in many of the schools in this area, and only a couple weightlifting clubs. I think that young people like the idea of competing. I think that strength sports are very attractive. I think it's, you know, a lot of that is built in is because they provide really clear objective measures. Also, like, you know,'s, you know, a lot of that is built in is because they provide really clear objective measures. Yeah. Also, like, you know, Travis, you know this. The best thing in the world is to watch a young kid make progress.

It's great. You know, and strength sports enable that to be really visible. Like, you know, you've gotten stronger when your squat's gone up or your snatch is going up or you're clean and jerk. So I think it would take a short-term hit, and then hopefully some entrepreneurial-minded people would take over and do what John North tried to do a few years ago, which is create a competitor federation, try and spice up the sport. I think it would absolutely still be in premier festivals like the Arnold.

Yeah, I think it would for sure, but I think we would lose a lot to – like, for example, I think Ryan Grimsland, who's like the top junior right now, he would probably go to powerlifting because he really loves Westside Barbell, and he would be good at both. And so it's easier – like if you're a college student, which is what I'm working with now at Lenoir Ryan, it's much easier on the body to squat bench and deadlift you know weightlifting is hard man and it's like a

grueling day in and day out snatch clean and jerk squat snatch clean and jerk squat i think if you take it out of the limbics and you don't have that you know little carrot then yeah it takes yeah you're right though it takes a hit and then um then it goes back to you know it'll settle in whatever it's going to be. But I think powerlifting will gain a lot of people is what I think. Yeah, I think they might. And then there might, you know, some kind of hybrid sport might evolve, too. Now, that's cool now.

Now we're talking. Super total. Yeah. Where you have a lot more, you know. One-time challenge. Yeah. One-time challenge, super totals, you know. And also, too, like, like is crossfit gonna go away

uh no no but they got money but they got the care of the crossfit games with lots of money so of course but you're so you're still gonna have people all over this country in small gyms doing snatch and clean and jerk sure you will yeah you know and are they occasionally going to want to lift in a meet yes you know they will yeah i i help coach at probably five or six local crossfits and man they the members who would never think of doing weight lifting at any level higher than a local meet they get super excited for a local meet yeah you know especially the masters athletes or the children kids love doing school you just want you you just won't have it is like right now we've got a really good youth and junior program we've built super hard last few years that would just like it's like for me for example some of the kids i've i have

convinced to do weightlifting would not be here had they did not have that carrot at the end of the you know like you know because several of them were really good at other sports like morgan like ryan and so if i hadn't been able to say, well, you know, you can train for this sport, you have all these opportunities, and then the Olympics at the end of it, like they would be doing something else. And so CJ Cummings wouldn't be doing this. No chance. So that's something that I actually, what do you say to somebody like CJ? Like, there has to be inside you you do all this research you do all the interviews you've got all this data that you're combing through and a piece of you inside has to die a little bit of like this this hope that it'll get clean but then you you look at

all the superstars that we have right now like harrison um cj you got west like is it tainted when you go and talk to them and know that the cards are stacked against them not just because it's the olympics and it's incredibly hard to get there but now you're also fighting a system that's against you and you're just climbing so many mountains and like, like, does that taint your overall perception of how you see things moving forward? It's weird. I'm, you know, for all the research I do, and, you know, journalists, I think, are in general pretty pessimistic people, but I'm not. I would, you know, in the book, like the dedication of the book is to CJ and Harrison and Wes and Kate and Maddie and all these people who have done, who've won at the top level. You know, Wes is a Pan Am Games champion.

He is amazing. And the book is dedicated to him and about eight others and then every athlete who's competed clean at the highest level and won. And to someone like CJ, I would say, you know what, CJ? You should be super proud because you're better than all these guys who are cheating. Absolutely. The better. You're drug free.

And these losers who have to take drugs they're you're better than them you know like yes i'm stressed out enough like i was in thailand you were there with working travis yeah i was in thailand jn harrison set youth world record clean and jerks yeah like it was outstanding it was such a great day for USA weightlifting to see two athletes, two men, you know, because women, the drug effects are different, but to see two men just destroy. And we know that Thailand was doping their youth people at the time. Oh yeah.

You know, we have like evidence of that and they've been doping and he just been doping youth athletes and other countries doping youth athletes. And so Harrison West and CJ, man, they are just, they're better anyway. These guys are real champions in my opinion,

way better than like you said, a shitty lifter like Gilead. Right. You know, CJ should absolutely be proud of himself, of everything he's done. I think it's, it's say,

I think you could make an argument that CJ might be the best weightlifter, one of the best of all time. You subtract drugs from the equation. That dude, he's gold meddling, guaranteed. I mean, you don't win Junior Worlds four years in a row, which no one else has ever done. Ever. He's a beast.

He's an amazing competitor, amazing athlete, and he works hard. He's in there training every day. He can be doing other stuff. Like you said, he can be in premier sports. You know that kids in his high school football team, they got celebrated every weekend

in the fall. Guaranteed. His brother's playing division one football, you know? And how often was CJ getting celebrated? Well, you know, I might get like a homeroom announcement, right? Yeah. Yeah. But he was making a whole lot more money than his brother. That's for sure.

Yeah. But meanwhile, the football team, they're getting bonfires and pep rallies and the cheerleaders and you know that's all right cj's going to the club like this so i'll be like you guys celebrate all you want i'm getting paid this is what cj's saying yeah cj's again real corporations with money um i have a question for you just personally. How did the – I don't want to say morality, but maybe that's the best word. But in the course of writing the book, was there a change that you felt happened in yourself towards steroids, whether it be optimism, hope, something we can make a change or doom and gloom, we're all screwed. But was it, did you notice any, um, any shift in, in your own perceptions of steroids in

the sport? And, um, if so, what was that? Yeah, absolutely. I think, I think one of the things that I noticed happened with myself is that I, I got soured a little bit on the Olympic ideal. Yeah. You know, I, I grew up like I was 12 when the 84 Olympics happened. And that was, man, what, what better time to be a child in America than when four Olympics and, you know, Monopoly, the Olympic game where you win all those prizes for every time somebody gets a gold medal.

Like, I think we were eating Big Macs for free for a year. And, you know, growing up, like, you feel super patriotic. Yeah. You know, then we go to 88, and then Ben Johnson gets popped, but you think, oh, wow, they're catching these cheaters, right? Meanwhile, you don't know that six of the eight people in that race have also been caught. Why do they all have braces?

Yeah. But like, so I think that, you know, obviously, like, I love coaching. I love sport. I think it's one of the noblest human endeavors. But like any other human endeavor, it's corrupted, you know, and there are always going to be people that are going to do that. But I think that the only thing that I noticed change was that I stopped – I probably just stopped glorifying the Olympics in my mind the way I used to.

Yeah. Do you notice when you, you know, I would say I do this kind of in like a, in a sense of fitness sometimes just because I've been in it so long and you hear people that are like new and excited about it in the back of your head, you're like, oh, you're at stage one or, oh, you're at stage three of training for your whole life. And there's, there's a bit of like a, just not, not resentment, but there's a, just a bit of like, Oh, you, you just haven't gone long enough to feel kind of how I feel about the sport. Just like having a little bit of just,

I wish I had the exact word right now, but almost like a little bit of resentment towards the sport for, for being so dirty in that you've loved it for a long time. I can hear the passion in your voice, but seeing people's excitement and being just kind of weathered and beaten down from writing the book and having to do the research and knowing where the sport's at. Yeah, no, definitely not regarding weightlifting. I can tell you still love weightlifting. That comes out very clearly in your voice. Yeah, I love the sport, and I love coaching it,

and I'm really blessed and absolutely feel it as a privilege. I have, you know, we have a lot of good athletes and committed weightlifters in our club and no i don't you know i've taken several of them to international meets and you know they've all done well and i don't know no and even still when i get when i get somebody new in the club and you can just see that that kind of wide-eyed curiosity like oh man this is great and they're learning about it no i still get really excited for that yeah i don't i don't that kind of wide-eyed curiosity, like, oh, man, this is great, and they're learning about it.

No, I still get really excited for that. Yeah. I don't – that definitely hasn't diminished. If anything, it's like – I don't know. It's – you know, sport, again, it's so full of opportunity and promise. And it's like every day is like a renewed opportunity to self-develop through sport yeah and there are other activities that enable that like you know research or study and art but like sport is just to me so pure and noble yeah so where's pat and and if i were to ask him the same question of where's he at does he feel

uh like the the system treated him fairly does he i know he doesn't hate barbells i saw him squat 600 every single day for like three months lately um but where's he at in uh in his journey and and probably being pretty cathartic to get through the book and telling the story to you? Well, one of the things I try to do in the book was, there are parts of the book that, how to put this, there's a lot of literary license. You know, like I obviously didn't go to Kazakhstan with him to the world championships,

but I'm providing descriptions of, you know, the city or the training hall that he didn't necessarily give me in the interviews. Yeah. Some of that's just from watching things and so forth. And then there's an appendix in the book where it's just Pat's own words. And that's what closes the book. And I wanted to give that to him because he talks about that. The last couple of questions where I directly ask him, hey,

where are you now with the sport? The book closes with that understanding. And he's, Pat's a very successful person. He is one of the top salespeople in a really difficult industry. Talk about like daily struggles, like his weightlifting, like he's out there knocking on doors every day trying to sell a product and he does very well at it. He's exceptional. I think he's okay, to be honest with you. Like like i asked him straight up do you feel like you didn't get your shot and you know he answered that but then he said you know what else i have a great

life right now and some of that some of that is from the lessons i learned in weightlifting yeah i think also like there's a piece of it, you know, on the other side. And I've never stood on an Olympic stage or competed at Worlds or anything like that. But, you know, it's like, do you have any regret? I don't – I would like to think that everybody that's gone through this just views their own story as like, oh, it's my story. And I was going for it. Like I did it. Very few people go for it um and there's

something to be said about saying I'm going to go for it I'm gonna take the drugs I know I'm doing the wrong thing but I want to stand on the stage and be the only one that can say I'm the strongest man in the world right now and I'm sure there's some feelings of just saying like yeah it didn't work out yeah i feel like i was treated unfairly look at all those other people that are cheating too but when you when you realize it's part of this one singular life that we have you go oh shit i totally totally went for it and i was one of the baddest dudes that ever walked on this planet. And that's kind of cool. I think that's an interesting part of the story that I'd love to have him on and actually hear kind of his side because he did, he went for it. And not many people take that risk. Yeah. I mean, drugs are, you know, drugs aside, he is the only

American who can ever say, Hey, you know what I did? I snatched 200 kilos. That's a lot of weight. He did it about a dozen times in training. It wasn't just once. He did 207. He did 200 and a bunch of other occasions. He's had, like you said, an experience of the barbell that few other people have had or will have.

You know, I don't, I don't even know what it's like to stand script deadlift 200 kilos. Probably because I just never put it on the bar to do that. I think I could still stand script deadlift 200, but I certainly couldn't do anything other than move it really slowly. Yeah, there would be no speed involved. Yeah, to move it with, like, blinding speed and lock it out over your head, like, he's felt that, man, and nobody else can say that.

Not in this country, you know? Yeah. I mean, Shane Hammond has done that. Has he not snatched 200? Pretty sure. His best in comp that I'm aware of is one 97 five. Right. Drug free.

I asked, I asked around to people that might've known him and maybe I could have checked in with him, but I don't know that he's ever snatched 200 and training. Yeah. I don't know. I trained with him. I don't remember that. So it'd be worth in training even. Yeah, I don't know. I trained with him. I don't remember that.

It'd be worth asking him. Yeah. You know, I mean, we've got, like, grainy videos of him doing, like, backflips. He's a freak, man. Yeah. A drug-free freak. Yeah, he's very impressive. Yeah.

I don't know. I would say, you know, did Pat go for for it or is it someone like CJ going for it? You know, was there an education at that time and a belief that it could be done? Like if, if nobody's ever done it clean, if CJ doesn't exist, nobody believes that you can go clean. And at the time it's the only way to go. So there was no option. You go at the time, where did you learn about lifting weights? Iron mind. You watch those videos. We've all spent hours watching those videos over and over and over crazies that it's if you didn't love weightlifting you would turn that movie off in a second some dude narrating a bunch of little tiny guys lifting crazy ass weights it's

the most boring video unless you're one of us and then somebody in the sauna hours and hours and if you're one of those people that's obsessed and you want to take it to the end you go well what does it look like at the end and it starts with doing steroids and then your journey ends hopefully on a on a world stage so cj and harrison and west like whole, everybody from the States right now, that's doing great. Like they are the precedent for now. It's where the sport should go because there, there was an option,

but it was an uneducated group of people that didn't know it was possible. You just looked out and you said, well, how do I get great? And you do what all the other great people do, which is take drugs. That's a good point. That's a really great way of putting it too. Yeah.

Go ahead. No, I think that people want to do it the right way. I don't think that anybody is intentionally trying to harm the sport. I think that that's where a lot of the conversation kind of gets weird. It's like, are they trying to harm the sport. I think that that's where a lot of the conversation kind of gets weird is like, are they trying to harm the sport knowing that they're cheating? And I don't know if they are or aren't, but now because we have a precedent set by the Americans that are doing phenomenal at,

at weightlifting. Now, you know, you're cheating and you're hurting the sport. Yeah. Might not have been the case 15 years ago. Why don't we get Ursula and Phil Andrews on our show? Let's do it right now.

And talk about what just happened. Yeah, let's do it right now. All right. Call them up. I'm calling Ursula. Travis, we got nothing going on right now, do we, bud? Nothing going on. Nothing at all.

Talking about lifting weights. Jim, this has been phenomenal, man. I can't wait to read the book. I need to go on like a full vacation and tell my whole family to leave me at the pool and they can go do what they're doing, maybe at the beach. I'm really excited about it. I'm so happy that you wrote it because not only this interview, but I'm sure as, as in a full written text, it answers so many things of the storyline that I find super interesting of digging into it. So thank you so

much for coming on. Absolutely. Thank you for having me. Where can people find you, your weightlifting club and anything that, uh, and, and the book, your awesome book. Yeah. So the book you can get at the sport is steroids.com. You can also order it in paperback and Kindle from Amazon. And those are the additions that are available. I'm working to get it published in paperback in Australia right now because Amazon can cover all of Europe. My club is Philadelphia barbell club. We are located in the Port Richmond section of Philadelphia. And hopefully I will see everyone at national championships in about five weeks.

I hope so, brother. There it is. Coach Travis Mash. Mashleet.com or go to Instagram Mashleet Performance. Doug Larson. Find me on Instagram, Douglas C. Larson. Jim, appreciate you coming on the show. I'm Anders Varner. Find me on Instagram. Douglas C. Larson. Jim, I'm Andrew.

You coming on the show? I'm Andrews Varner at Andrews Varner. We are barbell shrugged at barbell underscore shrugged Walmart. Should I say it? Should I say it right now? Are we nationwide right now? Don't say it yet. Don't Jesus,

man. Not yet. We're getting there. San Diego, LA, Palm Springs, and Los Angeles. And find us in the pharmacy. And man,

this is happening in the middle of us having some really cool stuff happen. Maybe nationwide. Hopefully let's do this thing. Barbell shrug.com forward slash store for all the programs, nutrition, eBooks and mobility, make it strong people stronger. Thank you so much for coming on the show.

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