Barbell Shrugged - This Guy Squats 700lbs at 181lbs Bodyweight

Episode Date: October 19, 2016

EliteFTS athlete and top 10 ranked powerlifter in the 181 class Christian Anto joins us to talk coaching, competing, and getting strong as shit.

So what are we talking about today, boys? Well, this week on Barbell Shrug, we're talking about powerlifting with Christian Anto. Elite FTS team member. Is that where I come in? Yeah, yeah. Top ten. Dude, I can't talk about myself like that. How strong are you, bro?

Yeah. This guy squats 700 pounds. 700-pound squatter. What's your total? 17.70 now. 17.70. At 181, he's a strong cat. A few years before our Independence Day.

Hey, this is Rich Froning. You're listening to Barbell Shrugged. For the video version, go to barbellshrugged.com. Exactly, and that's why we tried to reach out to a lot of high schools around the area, and we try and set up tons of programs during the summer in their downtime to get people in here. This last summer, we had actually a youth program. We had kids. I think the youngest kid was six years old all the way up to 17.

Dude, it was a blast. It went for a week long, and the kids loved it, and they're just ready for it to keep coming around. Stronger your kids are, the less likely they are to get hurt. There you go. But you've got to do it the right way, and you've got to have somebody who knows what they're doing. Keeping kids engaged, I promise you, will make you a better coach.

Like, we were playing games and, like, doing jungle gym stuff. Like, having this erector act, dude, we set up, like, it literally took them two minutes to get through the jungle gym. We had them running inside, outside, and trying to beat each other's times. Stuff like that is just awesome. Do you think Michael Jackson was a good coach then? Wow. Welcome to the Bobo Show. This is Mike McGolding here with Alex Macklin.

CTP behind the camera, mic'd up again. Yo. And our very special guest today, Christian Anto. We're here at MBS in Cordova, Tennessee. Yes, sir. No bullshit. No bullshit training. You walk into this place, there's heavy metal playing,

big-ass fans spinning. Bunch of big, burly dudes. You walk in, you know this is a place to come and get strong. Yeah, you got some legit stuff. We were just jealous about that bench right there with the ability to raise the rack. Oh, yeah. It's like a little transformer. It's amazing.

It's called the Optimus Prime. It actually makes the noise while it's transferring the height. A lot of this stuff in here is made the height. Yeah, I didn't know. A lot of this stuff in here is made by Elite FTS. I didn't know they made rigs. Yes, they do. Oh, really? Cool.

Oh, yeah, I just realized that. Awesome. So, man, we came out here earlier today. We did some training. We got a bunch of cool footage on that. Got blown up. Yeah, I feel like we talked about so much already today. But let's go ahead and let all the listeners know who you are, where you come from, your story man very cool um like like mike said my name is christian anto um i'm an elite fds

athlete and i'm also a strength coach based out of mbs fitness um in cordova tennessee um so a little bit about me um i got into strength training about four or five years ago. I am originally from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, came down here for work, started going to school for nursing. I stayed in there for about two and a half years, got into the actual hospital. And being around sickness and a lot of death really wasn't my flavor. I went into nursing school because I wanted to help people. And after I realized what I was dealing with way over my head, I was like, this isn't for me. I got into MBS. I actually came here for a front desk job posting on Facebook.

And I talked to David, the owner, David Allen, for three hours the first day I came in here. And he was like, I can't pay you, but I'll give you training in nutrition and he was like I can't pay you but I'll give you training and nutrition and programming and I was like okay cool I've always wanted to work in a gym I like working out and when I started this I was a bro yeah I was gonna say what were you doing before that literally I thought powerlifting was the dumbest thing in the world yeah he was like squat bench deadlift I was like why the hell do you want me to be good at three things like that's so stupid to me so he he put me on a 5-3-1 program, and I did that for like four months, and I instantly fell in love.

It was stupid, and it wasn't even like the main list that I fell in love with. It was just the work of it. What was your background before that? You played soccer? Yes. So when I was up in Wisconsin, I played soccer all the way through. I went to junior college, so I played for literally, what was that, like 20-some years. Very, very competitive.

I am a train wreck when it comes to injuries, so I had tons of injuries that kept me from going any further. To say that if I would, who knows, but lots of leg surgeries. Are you friends with David Beckham? I wish I was friends. I need to stay in my lane if I was friends with him. I can't hang out with you tonight. I can't spend that kind of money. So when I came here after nursing school, David was like, hey, you can help people through fitness.

Like you can do strength stuff. And so I started all my credits transferred into exercise sports science. I was like, this is awesome. Like everything transferred over. So I started learning and going to school at Memphis for exercise sports science i was like this is awesome like everything transferred over so i started learning and going to school at memphis for exercise sports science finally worked with our mentor uh dr brian schilling has been on three or four episodes oh very cool um and uh mr townsend as well he was one of my big big mentors um when i was at the university of memphis and becoming into this realm and being raised in this realm as a strength coach, you start to find you don't work with athletes very often.

And I started being able to help Gen Pop or general fitness people that are just looking to better their health. Yeah, you hear that. A lot of people call themselves athletes. I have athletes at my gym and this and that. But, like, that's fine. You can call them athletes. But they don't come into the gym acting like lot of people call themselves athletes. I have athletes at my gym and this and that, but, like, that's fine. You can call them athletes, but they don't come into the gym acting like athletes or treating themselves like athletes.

Or even have the desire to be an athlete. They just want to get healthy or, you know. I'll even take it a step further. Right now, as far as an athlete that they claim to be an athlete, I only have two. Yeah. All of my clients, like, one of my clients, he has a pacemaker. He had a frozen shoulder, he he can't move well. Like it is my number one job. One is a strength coach never to hurt your client.

But two, I have to make sure that he can move. Like I want his life outside of here to be easier. Yeah. Like I want him to be able to walk upstairs without any issues, sit down without any issues. Right. That's what we typically see on a day to day basis. That's literally what 90 percent of my clientele is. So that's my passion to be able to help people through strength. And that's made me a better coach because now I can go. I'm on both ends of the spectrum. I got gen pop people all the way over here that have trouble getting up in the morning to elite level power lifters and everything in between yeah that's not something you hear all the time about you know in real life in reference to strength coaches you always think about uh you know d1 strength coaches or people who work with high level athletes but in in your case you work with a normal person and in that case you're trying to just be get them strong enough to be functional and live their life and strength has so many different levels and facets in people's life. Like someone in strength that's 50 years old, they don't have the same needs and goals as someone that's a competitive power lifter.

But strength is still a number one thing in their life that they need to have better function. Gotcha. So you talked about coming from both ends of the spectrum. You were a soccer player, nurse, receptionist. Yes. And now you are. Now you talked about coming from both ends of the spectrum. You were a soccer player, nurse, receptionist. Yes. And now you are an elite level power lifter. Top ten power lifter? Top ten.

What federation? Is that world or nation? Top ten in the world and top ten in the nation. Wow. At this past meet, the whole standards or the rankings got fluctuated a little bit, and I finally broke into the top ten in the world, and then now I broke into the top five nationally. What are some of your numbers, some of your bests?

This past meet, I did a 700 squat that I've been chasing for about a year. At 181? At 181. 181 pounds. 700 squat at 181. This is raw, correct? With wraps. With wraps.

Okay. So I had a 700-pound squat, a 390 bench, and a 680-pound deadlift. Wow. So you're kind of strong. Just a little bit. It's there. When did you kind of first kind of realize, because you say you came from bodybuilding, like, you know, bro type.

Yeah. When did you first realize that, holy shit, like, I'm actually pretty freaking good at this? Man, that's a funny question. I still am not at that level where it's like, because of the competitive aspect, and I kind of adopted this from the powerlifting mind of Elite FTS, Dave Tate, and all them. Like, they even made a shirt. You have something like terrible, suck, good. And, like, good is the top top level and i'm not even at that

good level yet you know what i mean like it's there's a progression and even if you are the best it's like it's still not good enough yeah it's so interesting that it's yeah i mean i mean that's a great point uh it's all relative right you know like you could to me you're you're freaking strong as shit and you're really good powerter, but compared to what you want to be. Right. Yeah. And that's the competitive mindset that a lot of competitors have. Like, yeah, I just did really good.

You're going to ride that wave for maybe the next 12 hours. And then it's like two seconds, maybe. Yeah. No shit. And you're like, well, uh, the ratings just got moved around and you just saw someone else like walk all over you. It's like, well, God, I got to go back to work, you guys. Or you saw like maybe somebody lifted maybe less than you, but they looked better.

Like their technique was better. So you're just like, well, I got to get better. I want to ask how you measure that or how you relate that because you seem very humble about it. Like you're obviously an elite ranked power lifter. You're one of the top 10 in the world, you said. And then earlier today we were having lunch and you said that i've been doing this for eight years how long you've been powerlifting powerlifting i've been doing it for four years but you said you're still just getting into this you're still very new to it like that's that's really remarkable

like so what do you when would you consider that you are advanced or really good or would you ever so would you stay humble and hungry i mean i i the way I was raised, and I always use this phrase, the way you're raised in this industry all depends on who you keep around you and the way I've been raised in this industry by David Allen and now all my Team Elite FTS members like Dave Tate, Vincent DeZenzo, JL Holdsworth, I could name so many other guys. They, dude, like the first three years they say like you're just breaking the surface. And if you can stay in powerlifting for 9, 10, 11 years, that's when you've made it. Like until you hit that 9, 10 year mark, you don't even know like what failure is.

You don't know how to bounce back from injury and like you're gonna get injured it's not if it's when okay um we talked about the patience thing before like do you have the patience to get to keep your total going i've only been doing this three years competitively and within that three years i've had to deal with screwing up and allowing my total to go backwards gotcha now from an exercise sports science standpoint, going to school, theoretically, that should never happen. If you're doing strength training properly, you should always get stronger because you're adapting.

Well, if you screw up along the way, there's so many variables that go into being a competitive athlete. And if you see your numbers going back down, how many times are you going to be like, okay, I already hit my peak, I'm done? That was after three years. Yeah, I was just going just gonna ask why do people usually take off you think that's you know if it takes eight years to become uh an expert or super advanced in the sport um why don't people make it that long constant progression the the patience that i've seen from a and this

doesn't even go to a competitive standpoint but the patience aspect of fitness in general yeah because of what people see on tv sure and social media is the worst it's so good for platforms for coaches like us and getting to reach out to people send out good information right but it's so bad the same thing because people are like well they just did this in three months and i was like really bad about that dude you want this in three months like i've been doing this for three years and i'm not even at that point like give me a break so from that aspect it's like teaching them that just a little bit of progress that you can measure is progress yeah like it's crazy to me that and this took me a long time to understand because my first

two years i made tons of progress oh yeah everybody does right everybody that's that's that's actually i think that's actually a real thing like two years you hit that two-year mark everybody starts to plateau and like a wall and some people run into that wall way harder than others way harder and and just being around people constantly getting knowledge of hey it's coming yeah be ready for it that was a huge help without it being discouraging right yeah right because they're understanding exactly kind of discover it themselves yes yeah absolutely that's a good point yeah i think that's a i mean that's a really hard and we talked about earlier about maturity of of athletes that's a really hard

lesson that you're gonna have to get through if you want to make it long term is that there's going to be a point where you literally stop making the progress that you were making yes like for me to get a one kilo pr on a snatch or clean and jerk is huge right like five pounds like you were saying is huge on on a squat And how long have you been tracing that? Yeah, exactly. Maybe like a year. So, I mean, this is. In the grand scheme of things, a year for a PR, that ain't that long.

Yeah. Like it's really not. Oh, yeah. I'm experiencing it. I mean, some of my mentors have chased PRs for five pounds for over two, three years. And they get a five-pound PR and it's like, dude, I just won the Olympics or I just set a world record. Yeah. It's all about your personal progression. Yeah, when you get to a top-tier level, you're going to be constantly going against other people.

But when you come back down to the roots of powerlifting, it's always going to be on you. You're fighting yourself every single time. I tell people this all the time. You've got to pay your dues. I don't care if you walked into the sport a complete badass. Some people walk in, and they're awesome, but they're still going to pay your dues. I don't care if you walked into the sport a complete badass. Some people walk in and they're awesome, but they're still going to pay their dues to get to where they truly want to be. So everybody pays their dues. And not just from a competitive athlete standpoint, but even from a coaching standpoint.

I value my mentors so highly. Like I took an intern position here before I got to like, we have a great intern position here that is the university of Memphis feeds us students and we intern. I learned so much from that internship, but I was also doing the internship BS stuff. And I, I I'll put that in air quotes, BS stuff, but like I was working yeah I was put to work I was cleaning I was cutting mats to put down on the floor like if you want to own your own facility or if you even want to be in this realm you're never going to be above cleaning you're never going to be above putting stuff up because guess what people don't give a crap about your equipment like you're going to be putting stuff up behind people all day, every day.

Yeah. And the funny thing was, the owner here, David, just wrote a small blog article about this. Like, how many times have you gone behind somebody and cleaned up over 400 or 500 pounds? Like, never. You're always cleaning up people that have, like, 135 on the bar, 225 on the bar. And you're like, why am like, why is this happening? There's a disconnect here. You're never cleaning up big weight.

Ray Williams came in here and squatted over 900 pounds a few months ago. He broke his own stuff down. He was thanking everybody helping him. You don't see someone leave 900 pounds on the bar, ever. You never see that. That's such a good point. I feel like I've seen, though, like, just some people making cracks at that,

but that's probably people just fucking around. It's like, make it, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, right. But I am not lying to you. Yeah. When the first time in my life, I literally had to go up to somebody and be like, do me a favor.

Please break down the squat and bench that you left set up so everybody else doesn't have to. And I'm not lying. They were walking out the door into their car, and I was like, no. Abs, go. Like, do that right now. You need to come over to our gym, man, over at Faction,

because we got people that leave their shit out all the time. Right, but it's almost comical. And, like, powerlifters are the worst when it comes to bands. Oh, no. Dude, I cleaned our bands up earlier. But we had, like, four or five bands hanging around there. But I try and make a point, especially from interning. It's just ingrained.

Like, clean up your stuff. Well, you've learned an appreciation. Yes. And I think that can apply to training as well I mean when you have to do the minutiae and the mundane stuff that's necessary you learn to appreciate that kind of stuff absolutely instead of doing all like the cool fun shit you know yeah tell me about your connection with elite FTS you mentioned you're on a team with them you write for them too right no I do not oh okay David writes for me okay so that's where i'm gonna um i i love the paying it forward and paying your respects to people that have mentored

you that's why i always come back to the way i was raised in the fitness industry yeah when i came to this facility david was already writing for elite fts When I started learning more stuff through going to school, David was pushing articles and articles and information on me and elite FTS puts out so much content and it's so good. So I started asking their coaches a lot of questions. I started reading a lot of their articles. Um, the majority of the equipment in here is from elite FTS. Like we, I'm not going to say we pride ourselves, but like one of our main pillars in here is from Elite FTS. I'm not going to say we pride ourselves, but one of our main pillars in here is the equipment. You can't get better equipment than this, especially for powerlifting.

So we are very intertwined with Elite FTS stuff here. They put out a lot of knowledge. I want to say on a side note real quick, more people need to go to their YouTube channel and subscribe. I watch it all the time, and I look at the subscriber number and I'm sure Dave doesn't give a fuck about the actual number. It's more about putting it out there. Damn, dude, you need to go subscribe because they're putting out

high quality stuff on the reg and they just need to watch it. And they have great articles as well. And in the videos that you saw earlier about me teaching bench or whatnot, all of that stuff was learned from Dave and from Casey and other team members. So, and the reason I call them team members is at the beginning of this year, one of my

goals when I started, I was like, I want to be a part of that. They started putting on seminars for sports performance. So they had coaches from all over the world. Some of the best coaches in the world come and speak so much knowledge, so much knowledge. And then they would have underground um, underground training sessions, uh, learn to train seminars where you would come in and all of their athletes and all their coaches, everything they did was based on their attendees. That was one of the craziest experiences of my life. I went to two of them. And then after that, they changed the venue up a little bit. And then

it was, um, the power lifting experience. That was the first time that I was able to volunteer and not be an attendee because I had a little bit of time under my belt. So I knew how to motivate people. I knew how to help out a little bit. But I wanted to help them because they helped me so much. So at the beginning of this year, I'll back up a little bit further. At the end of last year, I qualified for the pro day at the XPC finals. What's XPC?

XPC is the Arnold. Okay. The XPC is the federation that's like the real top dog for powerlifting under the Arnold. Okay. So I qualified for a pro day there. There's two days. You have an elite day and a pro day.

Pro is higher, correct? Correct. Your total has to be higher to get there. Gotcha. And the week before the meet, I was having a terrible week. And I kind of knew something was funky. And our general manager, Annie, was like – You mean like a week in training? No, a week prior to the meet.

Well, no, like you were having a terrible week in training. Just a terrible week in training. Just everything was like prepping for the meet, water cutting. Everything was just like crap. Our manager, she's like, Annie, she was like, you're going to have an awesome week. And I was like, you never say stuff like that. What the hell is going on? So she's just, and I'm just like, whatever.

And this is in our old building. So all of a sudden, it was like three days late. And this big ass package came in and i have a video up right now and it's so lame because i literally i pretty much start crying on video and they got it on video dude they screwed me over so bad and david's like hey we got a package here it was it was the worst lie ever he goes it's chalk can can you put it up and i looked at him i was like dude I already finished my internship you go get the chalk.

That's bullshit. That's funny. So he was like just open the damn box. So it's like Elite FTS and I'm like I don't like this. It's a big box.

I don't like Elite FTS chalk. And I didn't look behind me and I could have dude there was like five people with their phones out. So like I could have just turned around and be like

what's going on? Dude I cut open the box and they're they have a team shirt and it's the same color as this hat the first thing I saw when the thing cut open was the team shirt and Dave wrote a note saying welcome to the team nice dude it was it was a pinnacle for me as an athlete because I wanted to – I love helping people. And their motto of live, learn, and pass on and just putting out content and helping so many people, that deep roots with me hardcore. Hell, yeah. And they poured so much into me along with David that I was just like, this is my chance to pour into everybody that I've already been doing. So that was a week before the competition. So it was just like on and on.

Change gears. How'd you do? Complete. How'd you do in my competition? Dude, I wish you wouldn't have asked that. I did so bad. Oh, yeah. Did they call back and say, hey, can you send us that shirt back?

When was this, like, in relation to when you started? Like, how far in... What do you mean? Like, this competition. When was this? So the competition was the first weekend in March. Like, how many years have you been training? How far into your training career was that? Oh, training career?

So that was at this year. I've been competing competitively for three. I've been competing competitively for three. I've been competing in powerlifting or practice powerlifting style training for four. How many meets have you done before that? Three, six. So quite a bit. I'd say probably ten, which in the grand scheme of things, that's not a lot of meets. That doesn't sound like that many over four years.

At all. That's definitely not a lot of things. I guess if you break it down per year, though. It's about two to three meets a year. When I first started, I was doing about three. And as I started climbing, I started dropping down to two. Yeah. For beginners, you're going to probably compete a little bit more often.

Right. Yeah, because you're trying to get experience. Totally. So I got that note and message and everything, and I was like, dude, this is phenomenal. And then to answer your question, my qualifying total to get there was 1740, and I got a 1675. Hey, sometimes that happens. And we talked about this earlier. That was the greatest learning experience ever because after that meet, I got interviewed, and they're like, how'd you do?

And I was like, I did so bad. Why am I getting interviewed right now? So bad. But the best part was there was so many Elite FTS teammates there. My teammates from here made the drive up there. And there was only two of us that qualified for it. So the team aspect that this facility has and the team aspect that Elite FTS has around their team members is, like, it's overwhelming.

It's overwhelming. Would you say that that's probably contributed to the fact of your success? Absolutely. Like, having that community. Well, that community in and of itself is how, like, I'm raised. Like, that is what has gotten me to this point from a knowledge standpoint, from a how I carry myself standpoint. It's learning so much stuff from these amazing people.

Came from a team sport too. Exactly. And I wrote an article about powerlifting. Most people say powerlifting is only dependent on you. That's not true. Well, it's not because all the individuals that you keep around you, that's going to take you to the next level. And even at competing at meets, I've seen some powerlifting meets,

and Chris and I were talking, CDPU and I were talking about this. I come from a weightlifting background. It's a completely different atmosphere in a powerlifting meet. Everybody's like screaming. Everybody wants everybody to fucking lift the most heavy weight. Everybody's really super supportive. It's completely conducive to like just trying to lift heavy. That's the key distinction, though, which is the supportive thing.

Because everyone has made the argument about weightlifting meets are like golf, and they're too quiet, and they mention the music and all that. That's well and fine. But the big difference I saw was everyone was supporting that person, everybody. And you don't see that at a weightlifting meet. Oh, powerlifting meets are badass, man. If you ever get a chance to go to a powerlifting meet and watch a powerlifting meet, you're in for a treat.

I've never done one, but I went to one in Nashville a couple years ago when all these guys were competing, like Doug and Mike and all them, Chris, all of them back in the day. And I was exhausted at the end of the day just from being there yelling and watching. I was smoked. My first powerlifting meet, our team had a – dude, we rolled out there deep. We had 19 people competing. Nobody could talk for a week.

Like you couldn't hear anything. Like it was a train wreck. And powerlifting meets go on all day. Like especially if it's all three lifts. If it's not like a push-pull or something. Yeah, they go all day. Like if someone tells me that we have more than 50 people on a powerlifting meet, I'm like, do I want to do that?

XPC Finals is a perfect example. There was two sessions. Oh, man. The second session, the first session was everywhere from like those super, super lightweight guys all the way up to 198. The second session was 220 all the way up to super heavy. Yeah. How do you train for that?

Train for what? To last all day long like that because you can't do that in a regular day. And that's the difference between, like, training and competing. You'll never, ever be able to mimic it. You just won't. Yeah, sure.

You can't do it. And it's kind of like you typically wouldn't squat, bench, and deadlift all on the same day. You just wouldn't do that because that's not conducive to pushing yourself to focus in on that movement. You can squat and deadlift on the same day. I've squat and benched on the same day, but you'll never do all three. And that's why that was a big learning and turning point for me of my deadlift.

That 680 that I pulled in a meet, that's not my best training deadlift. What's your best training deadlift? My best training deadlift was 700. Oh, yeah. So I've been chasing that forever and a day because I've never maxed out from squatting and benched prior to it. Right. My back is wrecked.

You're nowhere near it because you've already done the bench and squat. And you guys felt how your back is just from benching and doing a non-competition bench after loading your posterior chain on squat and bench and then being like, hey, let's max effort deadlift, you're like, that number that I did there, that's not realistic at all. Plus one of the things I noticed at powerlifting meets, especially I've never been to a big international or national meet, but seen more in this environment, you don't have a lot of time to warm up.

And a lot of these guys lift cold. may not necessarily cold but you're definitely not warm there's a lot of times where time frame gets into it where you're like oh crap how does that affect you can you even train for that yes and I just learned this now I'm going to rewind just a little bit

to answer one of your questions as far as like the ampness of a powerlifting meet compared to an Olympic lifting meet, how many Olympic lifting meets have you competed in? Well, probably about the same. Okay. Now, if a bunch of your boys were there supporting you, would that amp you up? Sure. Regardless if they were screaming or yelling at you, would that amp you up?

Yeah, just knowing that people that I knew were watching me. I can't, like literally I cannot describe having teammates here and having teammates through Elite FTS, what that does to you, not even from a competition standpoint at a meet, but like in training. Because my whole bench has changed from talking with Casey Williams and Dave Tate and just watching the videos that they have put out completely restructured it and it changed everything yeah that wouldn't be that like it theoretically it would have been there because they're putting out the content yeah but now because they've taken a chance on me to let

me represent them I have the ability to reach out to them and be like, hey, I need your help. I'm struggling with this. It's mind-blowing. So to have them and be like, hey, I'm going to come out to your meet, you're like, let's do this. Don't embarrass me. I got my teammates coming. It's even crazier because my meet that I qualified for it,

when I got there in the morning, they're like, hey, Dave's coming. I'm like, what? Dave's coming to the meet? Dude, it's so crazy when you're about to go up to a lift and you just see him in the back corner just hanging out there like, what? I'm sure by the time you get to the bar, it's all adrenaline. Everything's

gone anyway. Everything's gone anyway. But to fast forward, where do we end off? I was just trying to ask, so a lot of times, yeah. Everything's gone anyway. But to fast forward, where do we end off on that? I was just trying to ask. So a lot of times, yeah, you don't warm up very well for – Warming up. Yeah. Okay, so the crazy thing on that, depending on how many flights you have,

that could either be a really good thing or a really bad thing. Monster Garage Gym in Gurney, Illinois. Eric Marosher is the coach up there. I'm from Wisconsin. When I went up to visit last time, I went down to visit him. I have really bad nerves. So when your name starts getting called saying, hey, you're about to get up, like literally I would freak out.

And I was like, there's got to be something I can do to train for this. He was like, absolutely, go do a mock meet. I was like, what do you mean? He was like, go do a meet on your heavy like what do you mean he was like go do a meet on your heavy day or whatever week that you can go to a meet make your heavy day that meet yeah yeah and time yourself you did that a lot i did that a lot yeah that was a game changer for me yeah because now when would you do that like so this training cycle it was two weeks before my meet it was two weeks out so technically three It was two weeks out. So technically three.

So I had the meet, I had a week off, and then I had my deload week. So I still trained the week after the meet. Then I went up to Elite FTS for the UGSS seminar, and then I came back and did my meet. Best learning experience of my life. One, because the last two meets before that, I wasn't having fun because i was getting my ass beat by the weight yeah the weight was winning and it was all up here yeah so i went to this

meet i didn't water cut so i weighed in at like 193. you actually did a real meat it was a real meat yeah it was a federated meat and i went in but it was just it was just for you to test it was for me to test and i only took that wasn't like that wasn't like the peak of your cycle? Correct. Not at all. I was still three weeks out. Gotcha. So I went in there, and the only reason I went in there is to, one, calm my nerves, and two, learn the timing of, I have this amount of time to warm up, I have this amount of time to wrap with my training partner helping me wrap,

and this is what it's going to feel like. Dude, I was happy. Huge, probably. Yeah. I was chill, and just taking my second Dude, I was happy. Huge, probably. Yeah. I was chill. And just taking my second attempts, I felt on a high. Yeah. And then for my deadlift, I tried to push it for a third,

and I couldn't even get my second off the ground, so it was self-regulating, which just goes back to, I've never deadlifted after I squatted and benched kind of heavy. Yeah. I only took my second attempts, and I couldn't even take my second attempt at deadlift because my body couldn't handle it. That just sounds like being prepared. I do the same with clients with CrossFit competitions.

I'm like, we're three weeks out. We're going to do a mock meet this weekend. I'm not so concerned with how hard the workouts are. I'm more concerned with you taking the time to clear your schedule for the day, get the food ready, get your warm-ups ready, have all that shit down so it's second nature.

You do not want to have to think about that stuff when you go to compete that day. That stuff should all be second nature. Your number one concern is just to perform. Practicing. Yeah, you've got to practice that stuff. It's so important. And it took me hearing it from him because he's been in this for years to implement it. I've heard it before, but it just

wasn't from a source that I was like, yeah, like blew my mind. And this is a guy that took three hours out of his day to his gym was closed. He opened it for me to come and visit and show me around and then have a conversation with me to deal with some issues that I've been dealing with. One of them was the nerves of it. Yeah. I missed my second attempt at that mock meet, and I smashed it here at this meet three weeks later. Yeah. And it just all goes in the progression of you peak at a meet, and I was getting all the bugs out of the way prior to,

so I knew what it felt like. Dress rehearsal. Dude, exactly. Kind of a random point. I was telling McG the other day, a little inspiration on that whole preparation beforehand. If you go watch the new Jungle Book movie, and you buy the bonus features, Jon Favreau, the director who's fucking badass, right?

Jon Favreau's the man. He's the man. Well, they fucking filmed that whole movie twice. One, because a lot of it's CGI, everything but the kid. So they went through the whole damn thing, filmed it once, so they could get all the placing done and knocked out so that it would cause way less stress and way less stuff. And you've got to think about that.

That's like a huge budget. They did it because all the, you know, get it all out of the way. Dude, you just took me to a whole new level because I was not expecting you. Yeah. Didn't you say Pixar or Toy Story used to do that too? Like they'd go through and make the whole movie and then if it was a turd, then they go back and, and refilm it. Or what did you say that? Uh, no, I mean, that's kind of a different thing. So we'll talk about that off mic. But, uh, but yeah, that's a good experience because for one, like it, it gets, you know,

it helps you control your nerves and two, you take some pressure off because the worst had already happened. You missed your second attempt. We did a mock meet at Rich's that weekend. We were there, and I bombed my cleaning jerk. Remember that? Oh, yeah. And past that, I was like, well, I know what that feels like now. I'm not afraid of that anymore.

And being afraid of the weight is one aspect of all strength sports. It's like you can respect it. Just don't be afraid of it because being afraid of the weight is going to put you in a very bad place. And that's so easy to say. But, yeah, I mean, that's a tough thing to teach somebody. And to experience it is different too. Like being underweight, you're like, eh, this kind of sucks. As opposed to if it's in your head before you walk up to that weight and you just see the plates and you're like, dude, I know how much that weighs.

I've never done that before. Like you already are defeating yourself prior to that. Right, right. Well, at that mock meet, I have a question. What percentages did you hit? Did you just hit your openers for your first attempts or did you? So I was playing with the openers and second attempts. My goal was I'm only going to take second attempts

because that's what was programmed for me that week. It was 97-ish percent. So ish is based off of something that was at a really bad meet six months ago. So I don't want to base my numbers off of a really bad meet. I know what I can hit. I was basing them off of stuff that I've done before. So I wasn't going to push it. I was very conservative on my opener.

Now, mind you, the way that our programming was set up last time, this mock meet was only the second time I was in wraps. I wasn't a fan of that because the first time my squat was so bad. Well, that's what I've never worn wraps. But when you wear wraps the first time, it fucks with your squat for sure. It doesn't just mess with your squat really bad. The first time you wear wraps after not wearing them for three, six, nine weeks, it changes everything.

Like if you're wearing knee sleeves and you go into a squat and then you throw wraps on, you're like, I don't know what I'm doing anymore. It's over with. So our first 95% heavy day was at Elite FTS. Now, there is a video out there on Elite FTS that Dave just chews our asses out because we were just, it was a mess. And that was the first day I was in wraps. And I was like, dude, this is like so bad.

And the second one was at the mock meet. And once you've used wraps several times. Well, the mock meet video. You've got it on Elite FTS. Yes, I do. Once you use wraps several times on several cycles, you bounce back really quick. There's a lot of, I don't want to say muscle memory, but you learn the motor patterns of the wraps. You learn how to use the wraps really quick.

So the very next week i did the mock meet and it was fine yeah so i took my opener i chose it really light and then i took my second attempt and that was all the confidence i needed it was it was over with after that yeah um another aspect of the mock meet i had one of my other training partners that was struggling with bench press and i made him do the mock meet, but I only made him do the bench only. So I forced him to, well, I didn't force anything. I suggested, Hey, you're struggling with this lift. You haven't done it in a meet yet. You're chasing a number that you've never done in a meet. Do bench only hold off on it. You're supposed to be benching today. Heavy anyway,

do it at a meet. Smashed it, gave him tons of confidence. And he actually hit a PR at a meet gotcha smashed it gave him tons of confidence and he actually hit a pr at the meet although it was at that meet it counted as a federation he wasn't at his weight but he still hit away he never hit it before right so now he's riding up here two weeks prior to hitting his meat and he's like i got this bench in the back like done it's done so just having that the confidence yeah confidence and manipulating your training to have you have that experience was just a lot that we needed yeah so cool what did your oh sorry go ahead i was gonna ask about his nutrition so you cut uh like like how much you weigh right now and then when you did your most recent beat like well you've been on that cycle a little bit that's a great question bodybuilding

so yeah i want to hear about what the process looks like over a couple of months getting into it so how you drop weight without losing too much strength and what works for you so from from that standpoint i will say when it comes to programming and come comes to following a regimen that that i paid for and i am paying someone that i respect i like to follow it like to a t yeah I'm really anal about that. Why not? Why wouldn't you? Based on the nerves aspect and timing, I'm always like, oh, I'm too heavy this far out. So I already started to clean my nutrition up literally like three months before my meet.

So the cut wasn't as abrupt? The cut wasn't as hard. So like a slower, more gradual. Right. Now, it's such a weird thing. My worst meet in my powerlifting career, I had the easiest cut. It was so bizarre. So I ate all the way through the day before my weigh-in, and I weighed in light.

So I ate six full meals the day before my weigh-in after doing a water load and I weighed 179. Yeah. Never happened before ever. So I was like, this is going to be easy. Let's just do the exact same thing we did last time. Nope. The, I was following the same regimen and I got stuck cutting and I, I walk around this lap Prior to this cycle, I was walking around close to 200. I started cleaning up my own diet and I got down to 193. Okay. I got stuck there and I was like, why is this not happening now? I am not educated when it comes to nutrition. I didn't go to school for it. So I hired David. He manipulated like one to two things. And literally within three days, I dropped two pounds. What were those things yeah it was just fat i was i was

the last cycle i was really carb sensitive he was like no i'm gonna mess with your fat i shit you not i was so mad because i've never experienced that change before and i was more hungry obviously when he took my fat i was like don't ever do that i was like please take all the carbs you want for me just don't take my fat. I'm fine. I'm the same way. I'm okay with low carb, but when it's low fat, I'm pretty hungry. And I never experienced that. Yeah, I never feel full.

So I dropped really quick, and then I started hanging around 188 to 190. The week before the meet, I'll do a water load. This time I also did a sodium load because that's normally what I've done in the past, and I didn't want to change any variables up. Okay. So I was drinking three gallons a day, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Three gallons of water. Three gallons of water.

Usually. Is that safe? I will say from a water load standpoint, it is safe because normally I'm drinking a gallon to a gallon and a half of water a day. Right. You didn't just all of a sudden, I drank 10 ounces or 70 ounces of water a day. I mean, if I all of a sudden started drinking it, yeah, you could be in a bad place. Also, I was doing a sodium load.

Yeah, the sodium is what. So typically speaking, next time I don't want to do a sodium load. I have a very unhealthy reaction with sodium now. What's a sodium load? I hate it. So I was literally taking pure salt. Now, not just more salt. The last time I made my weight cut easy, I was literally taking in pure salt. Now, not just more salt. The last time I made my weight cut easy, I was literally, I went out and I bought empty pill capsules.

And I was filling them with salt. Because I couldn't take salt straight because I started gagging. And they were like, well, just salt your food a lot. Dude, it ruined my food. So I was like, I'm not going to salt this. How many milligrams of salt did you eat? Dude, I don't even want to. I have no clue.

It was equivalent to two tablespoons per meal. Right. So that's two tablespoons six times a day for three days straight. Dude, I literally just bloated everywhere. Yeah, the purpose of this is trying to trick your body into getting rid of water when you cut the water back. Water follows salt. Right. It takes your body roughly a day, probably not exactly a day, hours.

I don't know the exact time frame of it, but your body starts to process it. Once you start tapering off on that on Thursday, your body is processing like you're still taking in salt. Still trying to put water out. Yep, so you're basically wringing out every part of your body, all your muscles to get rid of. You can lose quite a bit of weight doing that. 188 that's really not that bad yeah that's really not that bad of a cut i i the first day i sodium loaded i weighed myself in the morning i was 188

i weighed myself that night i was 197 and then i woke up the next morning at 189 yeah like that's how much my body fluctuated getting rid of everything and like what are you doing that's the type of like um the the uh what's the word i'm looking for um the this closed system your body has to excrete everything there's like this isn't right get it out right so um it was a little harder this time because I only, the day before the meet, I only got down to 186. And I was like, I got to lose four pounds. And I was like, it's five o'clock in the afternoon. Worst thing you can ever hear from your nutrition coach, skip your last two meals.

I was like, are you sure? Do I have to? So he was like, skip your last two meals. Do you weigh in the day before? Do I have to? So he was like, skip your last two meals. Do you weigh in the day before or do you weigh in the day? 24-hour weigh-in. So you get a 24-hour. That is a huge difference for weightlifting. That's comfortable.

So I weighed in two hours before. Now, I will say this. I think, like, I'm probably too much confidence right now. If I dieted down, I don't, like, my total would obviously get hurt a little bit. But I could, you could still blow it up a pretty good amount in two hours. Yeah. You wouldn't feel good. But if you could diet down, I would never suggest a water cut for a two-hour weigh-in.

Ever. Never, ever. How come? How come? Because everyone reacts to rehydration a lot differently. Like most people, if you start slamming stuff after a water cut, your body will freak out. It's rejecting it. Rejecting it bad.

To cramp up. You won't feel well. At all. And I have a funny story to add to that after we're talking about this. So one of my training partners is a flight nurse. And I was like, dude, I'm just going to go sit in a steam room. He was like, don't do the steam room. He was like, sit in a hot bath with Epsom salt.

OK. And I was like, why? I hate hot baths. Like, I hate hot baths. Yeah. Like scolding. My skin's like damn near burnt. And he was like, if you can lose and open up your pores in a moist environment, you are losing water, but you're not doing it as the effect of it leaving your body. Like you're still in water.

So I was like, I think I get what you're trying to say. Like I'm still like you're losing water. You're sweating it out, but it's not completely leaving your body because you're still in water. Have you ever done the, I call it the Incredible Hulk bath? Oh, man, I don't know what that is. I learned this recently from Kurt. This is where Alex poops in the tub. No, this is not where.

So green menthol alcohol, rubbing alcohol. So the green one and then Epsom salt, like a kilo of Epsom salt and like two or three bottles of green alcohol, rubbing alcohol. So the green one and then Epsom salt, like a kilo of Epsom salt and like two or three bottles of green alcohol, rubbing alcohol, in the hottest water you can sit in for 20, 25 minutes. That will cut off some weight. But be careful with that because it draws so much water out of you and that menthol, you start to feel like kind of queasy. We are not suggesting you do any of this

weightlifters no i talked to some weightlifters this weekend they would know about the green alcohol bag i know this is strictly from a very competitive standpoint so similar to that yeah i put a ton of epsom salts in there i sat in there for 20 minutes now to put a little like emphasis or a little descriptive of what this did to me, I put a beanie on too. You lose the most amount of heat or you put off heat on your head and your feet, right? The second I put that beanie on and I put my feet under the water, my body freaked the F out. It was like, what are you doing? I started feeling tingly.

I instantly started sweating. I sat in there for 20 minutes and I literally had to start talking to myself like, you have to do this. You have to lose weight it's not pleasant i got out of that bathtub after 20 minutes which was a long time you know what it could have been 15 i don't think i made the 20 minute mark and i had to go to my knees in the air-conditioned room because i closed the door in the bathroom for five minutes before i could stand up i'm talking i was like light-headed 15 minutes and i lost four pounds. And I was like, I'm there. I have to do this one more time.

So I messaged my coach and my training partner, and I was like, I have one and a half pounds to go. He was like, finish it out tonight. I was like, I really don't want to. I'd rather sleep it off. And he was like, just do it. And I did, and it was probably the smartest thing I did because I woke up. My scale said 180.7.

Yeah. And the scale here was heavy. So I weighed in at 183.3. Or I'm sorry, 181.3. Okay. And you can. You get a leeway, right? You get a leeway because it's in kilos.

So the kilo for my weight class is 181.88. Yeah. So I was like, dude, 181 is heavy. Easy. Like, that's awesome now in the grand scheme of things 181.3 and 181.88 is a huge window especially when you're already wrung out yeah that much water from your body yeah so just uh put that out it's a pound that's a pound so that was way in and then that's typically what i do for for a way andin. It'll probably from here on out, because every training cycle,

my goal is to put on a little bit more size. And the only reason I say that is because when I went to the XPC finals and I stood next to the number one and two ranked 181 guy, my coach looked at me and he goes, you need to put on at least 10 pounds less. See, that blows my freaking mind because I'm looking at you and I weigh just about what you weigh, probably like a couple pounds less

and you look fucking huge compared to that. I kid you not. I stood next to the number two guy and he was wider than I was and shorter and I was like, what in the world? So, segue into that. Okay. You just competed

and then you want to put on some size and we talked earlier, we filmed a lot of footage, and we did a lot of bro stuff today. Like, my triceps are going to be wrecked. What's, like, that kind of look like, your cycle of training? Different training phases. So, from what I can tell you what I've done in the past,

the reason that I can't really explain a lot of stuff right now is Monday was the very first day of me training on a new program under a new coach. Okay. What were you doing before? I'm still learning his style of training. Yeah. I would say we closely related our stuff to block periodization. Can you explain that for people listening?

So the basic brief breakdown like this is super basic block periodization is you are focused on different aspects of strength in different blocks of your training furthest away from a meet would let's say be hypertrophy or building size if you want to break it down even more bodybuilding yeah okay you are bodybuilding in a hypertrophy phase and you stay in that phase for four to six weeks, and then you move on. Now... Talking about more high volume, tight reps.

High volume. Put on some muscle. Right. Now, the... A lot of people use it. It works, okay? I'm not saying it doesn't. But one of the big...

One of the big... I'm not even going to use the word issues but pitfalls maybe pitfalls one of the the negative aspects of it is you only retain hypertrophy for x amount of time so if you constantly do block periodization you're gonna lose that aspect or parts of it by the time you peak for your training. When the reps drop and you start doing more CNS-driven lifts, I guess shorter rep ranges. You can only sustain that for so long. So by the time you're done with the meet, now you have to do it all over again.

Right. But from a competitive athlete standpoint, we always want to build on what we've had. Yeah. Build on the house. Build on the pyramid. Okay? So when you're really, really following block periodization like that, you can somewhat build on it, but you're always having to revisit aspects that you have lost before.

Gotcha. Pop quiz. How big is the pyramid? As big as your base. As big as your base. Boom. As big as your base. And I know you guys have interviewed many, many very well-renowned individuals that have talked about the pyramid and the base of the pyramid.

They are. But after I come off of a meet, it will be broken down completely. So the last three cycles that I've done now, again, this is not what I'm doing now because I'm under new coaching. I will break it down to the point where I won't touch a barbell for upwards of one to two months. You will see a lot of sled drags. You will see a lot of prowler pushes. You will see a lot of unilateral stuff. That's one huge aspect that a lot of powerlifters miss is unilateral.

Oh, yeah, I'm sure. Huge, huge, huge. Well, it's not fun. It's not. It's really not. It's hard, especially if you're only used to doing bilateral movements. Unsexy work. Here's the funny thing. It's important, huge, huge. Well, it's not fun. It's not. It's really not. It's hard, especially if you're only used to doing bilateral movements. Unsexy work. Here's the funny thing.

It's important, though. Used to doing bilateral movements when you're training. Yeah. Because everything you do in a day-to-day life, it's unilateral. Walking. And I learned that like two years ago in school. And I was like sitting there listening to Townsend. I was like, holy crap.

Right. I only do bilateral stuff when I'm training. Yeah. cool and i was like sitting there listening to towns and i was like holy crap like right i only do bilateral stuff when i'm training yeah yeah so that was a huge like wake up call to me like you better bust your ass and get this stuff don't go in because that base but why do you build it the bigger your peak is to bring up weaknesses right right this is your time to fix or yeah address issues that you have that will that will carry over to you the main lifts that come and in as far as my training that will come later yeah so this is power lifters are lazy as hell okay like you see this machine right here that's called a monolift that's so you don't

have to walk out or do anything you're like oh that's so awesome you stand up and the thing moves away from you like that, that's awesome. Now, again, it's safer, in my opinion. There's going to be a ton of people that will be like, no, that's wrong. Like, I don't care. It's the safest thing I've ever seen to squatting. Like, I can't wrap my head around 700 pounds. I mean, if you're lifting at 7 plus, I have seen a video on YouTube of a guy trying to walk out 600 pounds.

Dude, it's sketchy. In Timberlands. It's sketchy. And completely. Go on, right? Goodbye. Now, I will say eventually that's something I would like to do. I would like to be able to learn and do like USAP or USPA.

USAP, yeah, PL. USAP, yeah. U-P-P-S-A-P-P-L. Yeah, USAP would red light every squad of mine, I'm pretty sure. I'm pretty sure they would red light everything I did. USAP, I a little... U-P-P-S-O-P-P-L. Yeah, USAPL would red light every squat of mine, I'm pretty sure. I'm pretty sure they would red light everything I did. USAP, I'm pretty sure. They walk out their squats. Eventually, I would like to attempt that, but as of right now, this is what I learn on.

This is the safest thing for me. I'm comfortable with it. So back to powerlifters or being lazy and everything like that. Doing the GPP, general physical preparedness, that is the base of your pyramid. That is as far away from competition as possible. Once you get to the next phase, that's where you can build on your weaknesses.

That's where you get to start implementing bar stuff back in and you start getting closer and more prepared for what you want to do. Okay. Which can be more spp or specific right training towards what i kind of remember my weaknesses is more like general weaknesses so yeah left to right in balance absolutely absolutely i didn't mean to oh no so then after that my biggest downfall is what do you consider the tip of the pyramid

donuts sports specific i mean the lifts beyond that i don't know the answer no mental and that's where i was struggling with the most okay now for three meets in a row i did a really good meet and then i had two meets that my total was way down from a mental aspect it's like i'm doing something wrong the top of the pyramid is always mental yeah where it could be doing all the right training yeah it makes doing all right programming From a mental aspect, it's like I'm doing something wrong. The top of the pyramid is always mental. Yeah. It could be doing all the right training. It could be doing all the right programming.

Absolutely. Absolutely. You're everything nutrition is all. How did you kind of? So, man, where did I learn this from? I think I learned this from David, and I don't remember where David learned it from. David Allen, the owner here. And I had a conversation with him. I was like, dude, I'm not confident.

Like I am not confident going under that bar. And he was like that you need to work on the top of the pyramid. And that's where, like, going to school at Memphis for exercise sports science, and we had to take the psychology, exercise psychology. Who was your teacher? This is stupid. And now I'm dealing with it. I was like, God, where's my book?

I was like, did I sell that back? Who was your teacher? I can't answer that question. Mr. Stupid. Okay, never mind. You would have known this chick, huh? What was the name? No, let's not talk about it.

She's a hoot, though. Okay. All right, so phases then. So you say you ended competition, and then not right now, but generally you would go with hypertrophy slash structural balance type phase. Correct. Put on muscle mass, shore out asymmetries, get a bigger base. Yes.

And then the further end, when you get close to the competition, would be very specific. Yes. You're doing more of the lifts that are game day type lifts. Is there what's in between? You do specialty stuff. Absolutely. Lots of specialty accessory work walk us through that phase a little bit so what um a the form of training is called uh triphasic training it's by cal deets um we had him on the show absolutely and he that that book is amazing it's so good it's it's i bring it up in every show

and it's it's from an athlete standpoint. Like, it transfers. Everything an athlete does has an eccentric, isometric, and concentric. Right. We're looking at it. We're like, well, that's all powerlifting is. That's all powerlifting is. We just did the bench. Right. And it has every one of those phases.

There's only one lift that doesn't, and that's a deadlift. Right. Now, I have tons of videos on this of, like, really specific points that need to be hit when it comes to the loading phase which would be the eccentric because you don't have that anyway so the phases we break it up has evolved for powerlifting the first three weeks are all eccentrics the second three weeks are all isometrics the third three weeks are all concentric you focus on your eccentric so your squats are going to have a negative yeah your bench press is going to have a negative. Like three seconds down.

Three seconds, sometimes five seconds. So when you say you're focusing on the eccentric, concentric, sorry, I may have cut you off, but do you mean like that's where most of the time and attention is spent? Yes. Okay, go ahead. And depending on what you're struggling with, it will be on your main movements and be on your accessory movement.

Okay. So we all, well, I shouldn't say we all know, but you guys, typically you'll be more sore on eccentrics. Oh, yeah. Okay. It's the lengthening of the muscle. Lengthening. You're resisting it. Right.

Now, you can do eccentrics in two different ways. Okay. What did you kind of make fun of him earlier about when we were writing programming about sets, reps, and then you would add something in? Tempo. Tempo? Tempo. Okay. What did you kind of make fun of him earlier about when we were writing programming about sets, reps, and then you would add something in? Tempo. Tempo? Tempo. Yeah. Okay.

Now, I want you guys to think for something for a second. If you're doing a negative, are you tempoing a negative or are you resisting the weight for X amount of time? I think I understand what you're asking. Okay. So what is a tempo to you? A tempo is the speed at which I would want to move the water. Now, with the speed that you want to move it, are you resisting it for an X amount of time,

or are you initiating the speed? I'm resisting it. Why would you want to resist it? I don't know. I don't know. That's the difference in a negative a negative most people are like i have to hold this for three seconds you are resisting the weight right going down your muscle fibers are doing something completely different when you

resist it as opposed if i told you to pull yourself down in a tempo fashion to pop back up yeah so if you're doing a box jump are you going to resist yourself going down and then fire to jump on the box? No, no. You pull yourself down. You pull yourself down. Yeah. So it's like a speed eccentric.

Right. Yeah. So that's what you're trying to do. So it is the, and I'm trying right now, I'm in the process of writing an article for this for people to read and understand. You can do an eccentric two different ways. If you have an external load on you and you're resisting it coming down your muscle fibers are breaking yep and resisting that your myosin acting heads

if you're pulling yourself down you're stretching them right now you have a stretch now you have a stretch reflex you can reverse that correct if you're resisting the weight going down you're trying to turn off your stretch reflex because you don't want it to push you down. So that's a huge thing that I had to teach my guys. Okay. You're not resisting this weight going down or else you're going to get plastered. You have to pull yourself down under a tempo fashion so that you can revert and go back up. Gotcha.

Your eccentric is going to be directly imaged of your concentric. So what I mean to say there is your eccentric is going to determine directly imaged of your concentric. So what I mean to say there is your eccentric is going to determine your concentric. For sure. Just like in Caldeas' book, if your eccentric is really, really shallow of a curve here, you're going to have a really shallow of a curve of concentric. You don't want that. You want it to be a really sharp V. Right.

That sharp V is not going to come by you completely relaxing and dropping and coming back up. Doesn't work that way. Yeah, that explanation is really cool in his book. He talks about two lifters that have the same 1RM, but he times them on how fast one person can drop the bar and press it back up. And then the other person, if you grab that on a V, the one who

did it faster, who did the same load faster, would have a really sharp V. The slower or the worse athlete would have a really large V because he doesn't have the strength to control it, and it changed direction as quickly. If you watch the bonus footage with Christian and your training partner, what was his name? Ryan.

Ryan. If you watch them bench, that eccentric, they're pulling it down. They're pulling that bar down. It's not a drop. They're not letting go. It is very much high tension, pulling that bar down, and then reversing very, very aggressively and quickly. And those are minute things.

Squats, same thing. Same exact thing, especially with squats because I see so many people, and I'm not bashing on Olympic lifting at all, but the concept of dropping down and, like, bouncing back up. That's a misconception of what the experts are actually doing. And like they they know how to tell you what to do, but they don't know how to describe what's actually happening. And like I was just looking at one of my clients squatting one day and I was like, I know what you're doing. Right. But I don't know how to tell you how not to do that because you're doing what I'm asking you to do.

You're getting down faster. Well, they haven't trained that yet. Right. So I would never want to prescribe speed eccentrics to someone who doesn't have eccentric strength at all yet. They can't control it. I agree with you on that, but the thing that got me thinking about it was

my elite-level powerlifters were doing the same thing. So I was like, there's a correlation here. You're listening to what I'm saying, but you're not doing what I'm saying. It's one of those really weird things, and that's why eccentrics have two different aspects to it. And I was just like, I have to try and figure this out to bring that up. So then we move into concentrics.

That's where you're going to be – not concentrics, isometrics. Isometrics, pausing and things like that. So most people think, okay, I'm just pausing this way and that's it. Staying correct. What is the main purpose of the isometric? Constant force. Yep. I was going to say change direction quickly.

Change of direction. Change of direction, yeah. Okay, you have to be able to transfer into the concentric. If you can't hold an isometric, you have nothing for force transfer. Yeah. So, like, all these people, yeah, I'm just sitting here chilling. Like, they're going down either slow or fast and then they're sitting there and then when they're getting out of the they're either relaxing or when they're getting out of the holder they look like crap at the same time and it's like okay you missed the point right so after the eccentric

phase for three weeks you just worked on going down really really slow well now you have to take that reverse get down as fast as you can under control load that stretch reflex and now you gotta hold it right and then you pop up out of the hole and that teaches you how to hold that force that you just created through the eccentric hold it hold that and store it so it snaps back yeah yeah like a slingshot like a slingshot okay so holding a slingshot back like that under a lot of weight sucks yeah it's so bad fun part where you start to get to mess with and what david implemented for us a few times ago was accommodative resistance like reverse bands we talked about that reverse bands are just fun yeah

if you know how to implement them they're're even more fun. Reverse bands, meaning like, so basically helping the weight come off the ground. Correct. Yeah. So if you have, let's say on a squat, you're going to have bands above you pulling the weight up. When you unrack it, you want the weight to be as close to the normal weight as possible. As you go down, the band tension increases. It decreases the weight. You're in the hole. The most amount of weight is going to be decreased. As you stand stand back up weight from the band tension is going to decrease and the weight on the bar is going to increase on your back right it also helps you focus on concentric you have a decreased load and now you can focus all your like everything all your muscles on getting going fast as possible is maximal force development.

Right, and that's what the bands help. So all of our concentrics were either using a slingshot or a reverse band. So one, you're overloaded. Two, you're able to pop off your chest or pop out of the hole really fast or rip the deadlift off the floor, and you get to do that for three weeks, and now you're messing with weight that you haven't done in a while. And now you've trained all three aspects of powerlifting, and now you get to go into a peak phase and you're on a high

because you're doing concentrics with reverse bands, or there's plenty of other variations. And you've trained that movement pattern. You've trained that habit of moving fast into the eccentric and then holding that force and then exploding. Exploding. Exploding. to the incentric and then holding that force and then exploding, exploding, exploding. And I, I'm not going to throw names out there, but a video got put out like a month ago trying to, please say bandit cleans.

No, dude, you're off the team. Um, they, they put a video out saying like, well, powerlifting squats are different than, um, than Olympic lifting squats. There's no power generation. The velocity is lower. And I'm like, what? I was like, you're out of your mind if you think. And then they posted a video to compare the two, every video of a powerlifting squat. It was of people in gear. Yeah. As opposed to like old school Olympic lifters that were like super narrow stance. I was like, you guys completely missed the boat on that one. Apples and oranges. Right.

It's so different. Gotcha. I won't even use me as an example, but powerlifting in general, yeah, you're moving a little bit slower, but the weight is going to be way up there. It's from a stability standpoint, but some of the world's strongest dudes squatting in no knee wraps, in knee sleeves only, they're going down really fast. And they're coming up really fast, and that bar is wobbling back and forth.

So it's like for you to say that powerlifting doesn't have any velocity or force generation as much, I'm just like, man, are you kidding me? If we're training in this way, I was like, we're doing it all wrong, but I mean, these numbers are going up, so something right's happening. And they were trying to imply it for an athlete. And I mean, I've had a few athletes, and if you want to put a label

on it, I have my athletes squat like a powerlifter every day. People make the argument of like a high bar, low bar. If I have an athlete, I'm the argument of, like, a high bar, low bar. If I have an athlete, I'm not going to make that argument, high bar, low bar. I was like, you put that bar on your back where it feels comfortable, and we're going to squat. Like, don't even worry about high bar, low bar right now,

especially with, like, one of my athletes who's, like, 16 years old. Yeah. Why would I mess with that? Like, I mean, I need to get you to squat first. Right. I'm so far off topic right now. I was just thinking I would do the same thing. If I have an athlete

that's never going to do Olympic lifts, I'd probably have them doing way more low bar than high bar. You can just use more low typically. It's a little bit safer in my opinion. Right. In terms of teaching the movement mechanics. I understand the high bar, low bar thing, but we're going to rebind back to most of my clients are gym pop. Gym pop. They don't care about a high bar, low bar thing, but, like, we're going to rewind back to most of my clients are gem pop.

Gem pop, right. They don't care about a high bar, low bar. I just want them to squat. That's it. So it just depends on, like, who you're applying it to. Let's move into phase three. So we talked structure, balance, bodybuilding, get swole, get huge, get balanced.

Now we just touched on the concentric or eccentric, isometric, concentric phase, and now we're moving into more sport- the uh concentric or eccentric yes isometric concentric phase and now we're moving into more sport specific what would this last phase look like the last phase is going to be actually this last one was really fun we did a nine day mesocycle so we had a light day a medium day and a heavy day the heavy days were typically uh man let me the heavy days were the competition lifts okay the light and medium days all had accommodative resistance and it was awesome so the light days were like it wasn't speed they weren't they weren't speed days because the band tension was higher okay but it was like

i hate starting to throw percentages out because i feel people get lost on them so much. But let's just say it was, I'm just going to use the words light and medium. Medium days with accommodative resistance really sucked, but the sets and reps were lower. Light days, the sets and reps were higher, and the accommodative resistance was lighter. So, yeah, you want to move faster on light days. You're not going to move as fast on medium days and then your max days are competition competition right and the competition lifts that i'll use percentages you were always 95 and above because you were peaking for the meat did you ever go heavier than your best and never never now i will say this last training cycle for me

i changed that because the two prior ones that i told you guys about where my my total went down is because i peaked too soon my lifts in the gym were better than what i did on the platform now that's going to be from variables that i had no control over weight cut travel all that kind of stuff different bars all of it you can yeah it's not an excuse but it's just the variables that you have to deal with and i think this last one i did so well one i had home court advantage i'm used to the bars whatever i needed to get that under my belt from a mental standpoint which we also hit on but i also changed it up with the mock meet and i changed up my percentages a little further out for me personally and And I think that helped me.

Gotcha. Yeah, I wanted to ask, what might lead to someone or even knowing if they peaked too early? Why would that happen? I can only say from my experiences. If you come in the gym and you hit over 100% on your lifts within two weeks out, and you can't repeat that on the platform you peak too early in my in my definition of it um which will happen a lot for beginners probably

yeah for beginners it happens a lot now doesn't mean anything's wrong doesn't mean anything's wrong but from that aspect i will also say for beginners it's because they weren't ready for what the competition has variable-wise. So they're not used to the bar. I'll put a, for example, we have mastodon bars here. They're 60-pound bars. That's what I trained on getting ready for the XPC at the Arnold. The bar they used was bigger than that.

And I put that thing on my back. I was like, I'm in trouble. Because as odd as this sounds, the bigger of the diameter made the bar roll on me, which I expected the opposite. Yeah. But after I thought about it a little bit more because of my muscularity setup or whatnot, the bigger diameter didn't let me lock it in so it wanted to move position. Dude, that threw me for a loop. The bench bar was longer and wider. It was a saber-tooth bar.

It was like 10, 15 pounds heavier. So now the weight distribution that I'm used to holding on the bench, the rings were in different spots, everything. When I unracked it, I was like, what is this? Like, I'm in trouble. Couldn't move it the same way. So from that, like just the bars in and of itself was a very, very hard variable to work with because the warm-up room,

always different than what's on stage it will always be different yeah gotcha we were fortunate enough at our last meet to have the bar in the warm-up area and the exact same bar on the on the platform so that was that was very cool for that what uh if for someone that wants to get into powerlifting you know where would you suggest they start what advice would you give them well i was about I was about to jump in, too, and say I was thinking about, we were talking earlier about me hiring you as my coach. Absolutely. And one of the things I want to do is do a powerlifting meet. Oh, perfect.

Shit, you can just talk to me right now. Coach this guy. This is my thing. Perfect. If you want to do powerlifting, I would say do it, but don't start powerlifting with the mindset of, I want to compete right away. Try it out first, because like if you put a mindset on doing a powerlifting meet and you don't like it, well, now you just set a goal for yourself that one, you're either going

to quit at, which is going to mess you up, or two, you're going to do something that you're not having fun with, but you already made a goal to do it. So now you're forcing yourself to do it, and the experience isn't going to be there. So maybe learn to love the training and the sport of it without competition. And you don't even have to love it. You just have to enjoy it because for the majority of people, this is a hobby. Yeah. I use this. I'm a competitive lifter.

I didn't start as a competitive lifter, but exercise, sports, science, and teaching strength are now a passion of mine. And that's why powerlifting transfers so well. Gotcha. I think the powerlifting movements will help people. And I'm not even going to limit it to powerlifting. I will say Olympic lifting movements, and by Olympic lifting, I mean just weightlifting. CrossFit, the theory and programming of it, just doing that stuff transfers to normal life.

Yeah. And that's what, me personally, that's why I teach this to people. Yeah. From a, I want to do powerlifting, and let's say you're coming from Strongman or you're coming from a CrossFit background. Find somebody that you actually have sought out. Don't just be like, oh, someone told me to call this guy and call him. Like, make sure they have, and I'm not even going to use the word resume, but, like, make sure they have a sound reputation.

A track record. A track record. There's been a lot of videos that come out right now of, like, social media gurus. That face. Yeah. social media gurus that face yeah you can spit a lot of of knowledge or a lot of information out to somebody that knows nothing and they're like man this dude knows everything right and they really know nothing on the delivery so all right and that's a really dangerous thing because that just might ruin that person for having a potential to be really good at a sport yeah so

i mean power lifting is growing strongman's growing crossfit's growing and if you fall into the wrong hands you could have a really bad first experience and then that's going to ruin it for the rest yeah so i definitely say like look into who you want to work with and just make sure that it's just a it make sure you have fun with it because my worst meets were me not having fun at the meet and me not having fun in the training cycle. Yeah. Gotcha. Well, I got the first two.

I enjoy it, and I sought you out. There you go. CTP, what's your best squat? 3.45. In six weeks, how strong can you get him? Oh, don't put me on the spot. I just want to know your answer. That's what I hear you say.

It depends. That's going to vary per individual. You can't say it varies. You can't say it depends. I'm curious. I'm curious. What would you kind of like general overview, how would you assess him? I would have him probably come in and I would work him through this.

I would make sure that I teach him all the basics that I teach everybody. And once he understands where I'm coming from, because there are a lot of finite things. Like I was talking to you guys about the bench. Oh, yeah, but just setting up for the bench. The video, yeah. Just because people have benched before and squat before, I can't trust that.

Totally different animal from the powerlifting perspective. Put it this way. I've only been doing this for four years. It took me over a year to understand how to brace properly. Yeah, and you were saying that Dave Tate has even worked your bench. And that was this year. I got torn apart by Dave Tate this year, and I've been doing it for four years. I was like, dude, I thought I was doing this pretty good.

Nope. So it's one of those things where I need my clients to be on the same page as me so they understand what I'm trying to coach them. here that CTP I heard it I'm just curious uh what's your what's your favorite lift and it started off as deadlift but now just from this past uh meet two weeks ago yeah I pull sumo yeah that's why I'm standing like a freaking I know it's like say what I want you to teach me sumo. Oh, dude, we got it. We got it.

Yeah, I definitely... Put it this way. Sumo is one of those things that it's like, it looks easy, but there's a lot that goes into it. And I will say this. Out of the three lifts, most individuals are the most surprised of how much goes into the bench. Yeah.

Now, there's a lot of stuff going on cue-wise for squat, but just for people that are familiar with squat bench and deadlift, I would say squat or deadlift are the two that they're like, man, there's a lot more. People that aren't familiar with it, they're like, golly, the bench has so much stuff that I never thought of it that way. So I didn't mean to cut you off. No, you're good. What's your favorite, best?

I would say now it's probably squat because I'm making the most amount of progress in that. The lift in general that I like the most is deadlift just because you can, like, get away with a lot of garbage with it. And I just think it's really – Less room for error on something like that. Yeah, and it's gnarly. What's your biggest weakness right now or do you feel? I will say that my biggest weakness is always going to be my triceps are number one

because my bench is the worst ever. The lockout? The lockout. It just kills me, and that's what happened at my last meet. It was the weirdest thing in the world. I have been scared of 400 pounds because I've been chasing it for over a year. I unracked it, and the first thing I thought was like, oh, shit, I'm going to get this today. This feels awesome. I brought it down. I was like, was like, oh, shit. I'm going to get this today. Like, this feels awesome.

I brought it down. I was like, I'm going to get it. I'm going to get it. It shot up off my chest, and I literally felt like I was doing a pin press. Oh, no. It just stopped. I was like, I have no triceps. I was like, what happened?

And then it just left. And I was like, what happened? Yeah. It literally felt like I had zero triceps. Like, the muscle was gone. I was like, well, that sucked. So back to doing all – yeah. So benches, I hate it.

Bench, I hate the most. Deadlift because it's – I don't know if I want to say it's the most manly, but it's the most like you have to get the most amped up for it for me because it's at the end of a meet. You're about to be done, and that's what solidifies your total. It's typically the heaviest lift of all of them uh for you for you i guess like what 20 pounds under right your best competition yeah on the elite level it's yeah the squat can be higher but for most people i would think they

would deadlift their deadlift is usually higher yeah typically speaking to me that just sounds like more fun because it's like no you don't any heavier weight than any other lift, so it's like it's time to go. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the grip and rip. And that's actually the only – no. No, I hate that terminology. I didn't say that.

That's so bad. We just talked about pulling a slack. Grip, grip, grip. Put tension on it and then rip. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of tension. That's what I meant.

Yeah, because you don't – But that doesn't rhyme. You know, that's the problem. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Grip, tension, because you don't – But that doesn't rhyme. That's the problem. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Grip tension rip. Slacking something. I don't know. Whatever.

Yeah, I mean, the deadlift, arguably, I think, for me, watching powerlifting is the most interesting to watch because – Oh, it's the most fun. Like, the setup some of these guys have. Like, one time I was at MASH's. Oh, that guy. That guy. I got to dig up the footage.

Oh, if you have that that footage please dig it up because literally he spent like a minute no it was like more like three or four like no it's like watching the Undertaker like so just I don't like giving myself just gripping re-gripping just

playing with like getting the bar get his hands I would be able to do that I was the guy going after him I'd be like you better hurry the F up or I was like that because I have anxiety right now. I need to go lift. It was like that line in Dewey Cox, walk hard.

He's like, he's got to think about his whole life before he leaves. But it was awesome to watch because as soon as – I didn't even know he was going to go because some of these guys, yeah, I mean, they're not gripping and ripping. But it's like they're getting ready and then boom. And then the lift's over. Yeah. Wow. And the speed. And we talked about like powerlifting, oh, it's slow. No, that bar was moving up.

It was not coming off the floor slow. Man, this has been a blast. Appreciate you having us today. Is there anything you want to plug or anyone you want to thank? We were talking about online coaching and whatnot, and I had this conversation with a bunch of people. I made a video with Elite FTS. Most of my clients don't even know I online program.

So you can hop on MBS Fitness. You can hop on Elite FTS. I have a blog on EliteFTS.com. Training log, right? Yep, training log. I have a blog on MBSFitness.net. I also post articles on both MBSfitness.net and EliteFTS. I also do online programming on mbsfitness.net.

If you guys are in the Cordova, Memphis, Tennessee area, if you guys are interested in anything, you can contact me on Facebook, Instagram. I answer as many questions as I possibly can. What's your handle? Oh, man, I don't even know. For Instagram, it's ant__toe. Is it at gripandrip? Yes, it's at gripandrip.

Ant__toe for Instagram and Facebook. Just Christian Anto, last name A-N-T-O. We got a video on Instagram of him squatting at 700. I'm going to probably insert some footage in this episode, so you may have already seen it. I clearly appreciate that. And, like, it's stuff like this that you guys do that helps, like, up-and-coming coaches like me.

Like, none of my success would happen unless the stuff that you guys do is around. So I appreciate you guys. We're happy to share. You've done nothing but been hospitable to us today and taught me a lot. Like, I learned a ton about the bench earlier. I thought I'd known enough up to this point, but absolutely not. Definitely on the deadlift, I would

love teaching you guys how to mess with that. Man, you're in Memphis. You just pop on from time to time. I'm signing up for a strongman comp next week. There's one downtown Memphis. I can't wait to do it. I'll be screaming at you. I expect to see more of this guy. I will say this. We also have a car deadlift competition. You can win

$100. It's going to be the same weight for everybody. Oh. You get one minute to deadlift it as many times as you can. What is it, a Prius or a Dodge Minivan? I think it's going to be a Corolla. Do you get extra points if you shit your pants? It might be.

I don't know. I'm going to go. Yeah. I don't got it. I don't got it. Yeah. Sorry, guys. And I just learned how to do that on Monday. I've never done it before, and I was like, that sucks.

It's more like a lean back. Yes. Yeah. Yes, but it's super sketchy. Like, I always want to drive into the ground, push out, and this is strongman, so you can't sumo, so, like, everything sucks for me. So, like, I'm sitting there like rainbow back, cat, whatever. Oh, yeah.

Beautiful. But, I mean, it's a different – they say it's like a hack squat coming from a powerlifting background. I don't know if I agree with that. Okay. So it's similar because you're pushing back just like a hack squat. Cool. Yeah, you guys can email me at either Christian at MBSFitness.net or the number 19CANTO85 at gmail.com.

Word. Cool. I want to also say we mentioned a few different people on this episode. Dave Tate, he's been on the show before with the OG crew, Mike, Doug, and Chris. Rest in peace. And then who else did we mention? Cal Dietz. We mentioned Louie.

Louie Simmons has been on with the OG crew. Cal Dietz with these guys. Cal Dietz, I mean, 531, Jim Wendler. Jim Wendler's been on. And then also you mentioned Casey Williams. We're going to get him out here soon and have him on. So Casey Williams is an athlete on Team Elite FTS. David Allen, the owner of MBS Fitness, is also an article writer for Elite FTS.

And then Casey Williams is going to bring down Jessica, and she's also on Team Elite FTS. So look forward to that episode. A bunch of team members from Elite FTS just taking over on your guys' podcast. Can't wait, man. Absolutely. Dude, thanks for your time.

We appreciate it. I appreciate you guys. I'm ready, man. I've got my sumo stance. Let's do it. Let's do it. I'm ready. I'm like you.

I'm ready to go.