Barbell Shrugged - Why USA Weightlifting Wins Without Steroids w/ CEO of USA Weightlifting Phil Andrews, Anders Varner, Doug Larson, and Coach Travis Mash - Barbell Shrugged #559

Episode Date: March 24, 2021

In this Episode of Barbell Shrugged: How has USA Weightlifting started to climb its way to the top Why is weightlifting such a dirty sport Is it possible to compete on the world stage as a clean sport How has weightlifting been affected by pandemic The insane growth of USA Weightlifting under his leadership Connect with Phil Andrews   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   U.S. Air Force. Find out if you do at airforce.com.   Organifi - Save 20% using code: “Shrugged” at organifi.com/shrugged BiOptimizers Probitotics - Save 10% at bioptimizers.com/shrugged

Shrugged family, this week on Barbell Shrugged, we are talking about why USA weightlifting wins without steroids. We are talking to the CEO of USA Weightlifting, Bill Andrews, and in this episode of Barbell Shrugged, we discuss how the USA started to climb its way to the top, being drug-free. Why weightlifting is such a dirty sport, and is it possible to compete on a world stage as a clean sport how has weight lifting been affected by the pandemic specifically usa weight lifting as well as the insane growth of usa weight lifting over the past 15 years under phil andrews leadership before we get into that i want to make sure everybody gets over to barbell shrug.com forward slash store that is where the march madness 30 off store wide sales going down right now programs ebooks nutrition online courses and apparel and i'm sure there's even more stuff in there i'm forgetting because we have so many cool

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Use the code MM30 to save 30% storewide. Friends, we're going to get into the show. We got reads coming up in the middle. I appreciate you. Have an awesome day. Let's get strong. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Anders Varner, Doug Larson,

Coach Travis Mash, and the CEO of USA Weightlifting, Phil Andrews. Welcome to the show, my man. Your name is coming up so much in my life over the last two weeks. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. It's not over like the greatest

of things. And the IWF, it's International Weightlifting Federation. It's going through some crazy times. And you were really trying to bring a code of ethics into the IWF and solidify the sport in the Olympics and on the international stage and bring some respect to a sport that has been relatively just dirty and has a kind of a bad name on the global stage. I guess just kind of as like the backstory, how did you get started, become the CEO of USA Weightlifting, and then how did that kind of transfer into um the IWF yeah that's a that's a whole bunch of questions right there um but it's uh so I worked on the 2012 games in London uh and I moved over um to to the US in in very very early 2013

and then cool story, got, ended up working for USA Weightlifting. Worked with a few other national governing bodies in the US in that first six months. And at the time, waves was really growing.

What? Are you guys broken up? No. You're freezing up. You're frozen on my screen just now. Doug and Travis are just fine for me.

Yeah, yeah. All right. So it's just me um okay let me uh like it's the first time in a long time where we've had these issues i think zoom is messing up cool can just can we just start back at uh your history and uh and then we'll go all right let me You want me to start over? Yeah. All right. So I worked on the 2012 London Olympic Games and hosted the Team USA training site there and then moved over to the US. Worked with a few NGBs

and then landed at weightlifting. And honestly, it was because of CrossFit. We were growing at the time, saw some opportunities for the sport that probably didn't exist before for weightlifting and it was an attractive opportunity to be part of that to be honest I'm not a weightlifter by background I've played hockey rugby shooting but not a weightlifter in in my history but I've obviously grown to be part of the of the culture here in the u.s and uh now i love the sport obviously

um and then fast forward to 2015 michael masick moved on and uh i was asked to take on first the interim ceo and then permanent in 2016 and then we tried to make a quite a bit of change to uh get us to where we are today and hopefully we hoped in three months ago we would be bringing home the most medals in 60 years at the Olympics but we're hoping in about 8 months time here, 9 months time in August we'll be able to do exactly that

it's a very interesting 2020 when you look back and you go we started this year thinking that's what we're going to do and we're ending this year thinking very differently but yeah that's the brief history of how i got to the usa weight lifting how i became our ceo and why a random short british guy um was usa weightlifting um and uh i think there's a lot of history back there that we can certainly go into and what we've done in the last few years and i'm sure Travis has spoken about it a little bit. He's been part of that journey almost every step of the

way. And how did I get involved with the IWF? Well it's obvious that one of the critical things for us is international relations, how we are perceived as a country internationally, but also how much of an influence we can have on the international scene. So together with Ursula Goss of Papandrea, we've really tried to make inroads into both the IWF and Pan Am Federation in the last few years pretty successfully. And then earlier this year we had the ARD documentary that came out. ARD is like the NPR or the BBC, but for Germany, basically the largest news station in Germany. And they did a documentary named The Lord of the Lifters about Tamar Cheyenne.

From there, on the 22nd of January, the IWF appointed Ursula as the acting president at the time and something called the Oversight Integrity Commission, to which I was then secretary. That then hired Richard McLaren to do the investigation into the allegations raised by RRD. And then in June, that reported back. And along the way, Tamashian resigned in April. And that's how I came to be part of the IWF. And then, you know, we fast forward to October and really the executive board, as it stood today, basically pushed back on a lot of what Ursula and I were trying to do and the secretariat also. To the point where, unfortunately, we were, I actually resigned rather than being asked to leave. And Ursula was essentially voted

out and then resigned her seat on the executive board. They are certainly more unified now, I'll give them that, but you know the people we had brought forward for the Discipline and Ethics Commission and also for the Reform and Governance Commission were roundly rejected and unfortunately I have to say I don't have trust in who's there now to make the changes necessary what are the changes that are necessary right now we have a few issues the first obviously is anti-doping that actually to be quite fair has um been roundly um dealt with by the outsourcing to the ita we've got problems in anti-doping due to coronavirus,

but that's a little different. Everyone's got those same problems. So I'm a little bit more confident in anti-doping than I would have been in 2016. But we also have problems in governance. If you look at a couple of comparisons, you've got three international federations who've been through similar items.

Wrestling, UWW, the I the iiba which is boxing and ibu which is biathlon and you could make an argument for world athletics and the reason they're a little different is can you imagine olympic games without athletics that's not going to happen the other three can get kicked out just like us so all of those have been through some type of reform, right? And it's been about governance. It's been about good ethical leadership of those federations that's really put athletes at the center of what they do and putting fair practices at the center of what they do. In other words, eliminating...

Corruption might be too strong a word, but certainly eliminating manipulation of the sport. And ultimately to an extent that does date back to anti-doping, because if you look at a lot of the people involved, a lot of them facing nation bans coming out of the recommendations of the Clean Sport Commission and Article 12 of the IDF anti-doping policy, which is essentially covering nation bans coming out of the recommendations of the Clean Sport Commission and article 12 of the IDWF anti-doping policy which is essentially covering nation bans. If you look at Egypt, Thailand have already been banned, Malaysia have already been banned and then you look at those facing potential action from that

same group, that'd be Russia, Colombia, Romania etc. You can see that there's a lot of self-interest going on. That's what's got to be eliminated for us to survive as an Olympic sport. And unfortunately, there is comparisons currently being drawn between boxing and weightlifting because we are unable to unite as a group for the good of the sport. And that's what we need to do. It doesn't mean that Ursula needs to be present at the IWF, orula needs to be present at the IWF or I need to be present at the IWF or Pierce Demas needs to be present at the IWF or whomever it might be it means that we need to unite behind the right things as a sport and we've got there primarily

on anti-doping because the IOC held a hammer over our head and that needs to absolutely continue we cannot roll back bows in any way and expect to continue as an olympic sport but i think there is a lack of understanding that by the way the ioc can and will evict you from the games they did with wrestling and uh they are i wager looking at that for boxing they did already remove aiba from the toky games, but saved the sport itself by basically running it internally. And then biathlon did a really good job of turning things around. One of the people that we had lined up to be on reform and governance commission was the person who chaired that for the IBU.

And another was the person who chaired that for the world athletics or then IAF. But again, they then IAAF. But again, they are a little different. They had a very similar scandal with Liam Diak to we've seen, but the difference in World Athletics is you're not going to realistically see World Athletics removed from the Olympic Games. You might see quota reduction, which means less athletes. You might see steeplechase gone or long jump gone or short putt gone or whatever it might be,

but you're not going to see athletics as a whole out of the games. So that's possible. Yeah, right. There's really one sport in the winter games, one sport in the summer games where that's the case. You could make an argument for swimming, but certainly athletics, it would be in the summer games. And I'd make an argument for swimming um but uh certainly athletics it would be in the summer games and i'd make an argument for skiing um fis which is covers skiing

snowboarding all of the related sports to that in the winter games what is the phone call you just got off of that definitely confirmed you know you're you know the notions of being a little worried about what's happening it was a phone call that basically said, I'd asked a question about how the progress was on the current Reform and Governance Commission, and that phone call that I got back was not positive on that note. I don't want to say too much more than that, but that's about all I can say.

We obviously are looking for true reform, and if the current administration can deliver that, great. Thank you. That's what we need. And I don't care who delivers it, whether it's us in the U.S., whether it's the British, whether it's the Germans, whether it's the current administration. I don't mind.

Who's in charge now? Who are the people in charge now? I've only heard of the one, but like, I don't know the other people. So the president, yeah, now the interim president is a guy called Dr. Mike Irani from Great Britain. Oh, I thought it was the guy from Thailand. No, no, he was president for a day. Okay, good. So when they removed Earth, they put a tie in there, which is from a banned country.

Ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous. It was named in the public McLaren report. It was not an appropriate solution. And immediately the IOC made a public statement of their concern. And I've repeated that made a public statement of their concern. And I've repeated that concern a couple of times. They then, about a day later, maybe two days, put in Mike Irani.

So there is a logic to interact with Yod Bangtui, which is he is the first vice president. In theory, when the president is removed, disappears, resigns, et cetera, the first vice president should be the person to take that post. But because of the allegations of doping, or now banned for doping in Thailand, it wasn't appropriate to put in your... Ridiculous. Yeah. And they then appointed, recently not in line with the Constitution, Sam Koffer from Australia to the Executive Board. Yeah. So you've now got Mike as the President, Mohammed Jaloud as the General Secretary,

and then Jose Quinonez as the Vice President. Where are they from? What countries are these people from? I know Koffer, you know. Koffer's Australian. Yeah, I know Kafa, you know. Kafa's Australian. Yeah, I know him. Mike Irani is British. Right.

The General Secretary is from Iraq. Peter is from Czech Republic. Jose Quinones is from Peru. Yopantui is still there on the executive board. He's from Thailand. Niku Vlad from Romania, but currentlyralia uh is one of the other vice presidents still there um and then i think as everybody knows i still resigned her seat as vice president there's still two people that are like from countries that are you know if the guy

from thailand is still there so we still got one that's banned and then romania is looking to get banned and so like shouldn't those guys if you're like in trouble right now let's just for a while let's set you to the side and like remove them and i know saying that about nuku vlad i'm sure is like you know sacrilege but i don't care really like i'm trying i want to see our sport get clean i think that's right and i think that the ioc wants to see some some you know complete 90 degree change of or 180 change of direction especially with people and leadership so you know the they are looking for a new direction they're looking for a fresh iwf

and that might mean you know nico's a legend in the sport there's no question you know if you go to any gym in the country it's got some weights it doesn't even matter if they have a barbell if they have kettlebells you're probably going to end up doing an rdl right um you know and it's actually amusingly but earlier this year i had an argument with a coach here in uh denver um what an rdl was and ended up going would you like me to call niggas I can literally call the guy who invented this right now yeah turns out I was right yeah and I was confident it's actually you guys know yasha fan of Travis does my I was Yasha, and the person who was with me during that argument, I said, Yasha, could you just demonstrate an audio?

I'm like, that's how it's done. So I think Yasha was actually in the room when that was done in Colorado Springs. And so that's where it became the Romanian deadline. But, you know, someone like Niku or even a Piros may have to step away for a while in order for this sport to survive. Agreed. You know, and I'm not going to pass judgment

on whether Niku Boazer was not involved in some of the doping allegations that are coming out of Romania. But he was the president of the federation. And, you know know there are there are quite a lot of doping positives coming from Romania and then I'm not suggesting now but they are coming from the previous Olympic Games and ultimately the reason why Romania will be banned or was likely to be banned is slightly

different to Colombia slightly different is slightly different to colombia slightly different russia slightly different to to thailand thailand had 11 positives in one fell swoop in a world championship and that's why they got suspended yeah many better doctors yes you get 11 people pop you're not even trying you're trying to get in trouble yeah like i you know i i'm gonna take i know you have to be very you know political in in what the comments you make but like in america here's what happens if um if a team has athletes test positive it's like what is it like three or four like the coach gets in trouble like i i'm well aware of these things. And so like Nico Vlad, if he's the president, then he's responsible. Because it's like if you're getting multiple pauses at that tip-top level,

you have not tried to govern your own body. Because, you know, like in America, you know, we govern ourselves. It's not like Americans, you know, don't take drugs. Like we just catch ourselves. That's actually, that's, I'm in the middle of, I'm like a hundred pages into steroids as a sport. And we interviewed the author and I'm sure that this book has popped up so many times in your, in your life recently. And I'm,

I literally was cooking dinner last night and reading it and ignoring my in-laws and everyone. Cause I'm like so fascinated fascinated just by this is what people do to become the best and then they look out into the world and find out what's going on in the world it turns out everyone's doping and you just feel like you have to and luckily you know mash has a team right now and we've got weightlifters in our country that are doing phenomenal things but But one message without drugs, but one thing that I is kind of an underlying message in the book, and maybe it's just the tone at which Pat tells his story or his story is told, is that it feels almost like america comes after weightlifters as if it's just this like tertiary sport that no one cares about but they enjoy busting weightlifters to say oh we're

doing a good job and i disagree with that and the reason is that i mean for a start we actually have an additional program that tests the local level called the green program we put in place two sports have that us and cycling um and you know there's definitely some comparisons to cycling you can absolutely make sure of you know if you look at the cycling era where they went through some rather similar things if you if you talk to any of those people who are involved or were around cycling at the time, what they'll tell you is it's the peloton issue, right? That, well, okay, Lance was the worst offender, but everybody in that peloton had to do it to keep up.

And if you think about the countries where you look at those results from, let's say, the era in the late 90s through to the, you know, the 10s. And you look at those top countries. Now, I'm not going to accuse every athlete in every one of those countries of doping. There are phenomenal athletes out there who can make the top 10 clean. But, you know, we've seen those positives come through. We've seen 2012 Olympic Games get decimated through retests retests and bear in mind not every single athlete the olympic games is tested so you may have athletes who who may have tested positive in a

retest but just were not tested statistically there's definitely that you know correct but there's a peloton issue there where you know you look at that top 10 you go well the only way i can get there is by doing this. So you've got that weighing on the athlete and then to an extent, probably on the federation also. So it's the culture in those days in a way, and that's what has had to be broken. And where I think the increased action of anti-doping in the IWF has done a good job is somewhat breaking. Not breaking it completely. I think there's some way to go yet.

But I think they've done a good job in the last few years with the outsourcing to the ITA in particular of increasing those doping controls. I'll come back to the domestic stuff. And leveling that playing field somewhat. And that's one of the reasons. We're going up for two reasons. One, we have a more talented team, I think,

than we've had in a long time, a more competitive team. I think the decentralization in the U.S. has been huge for that, not being so focused on OTC, but instead being focused on each individual of our very talented athletes, I think, is a much better way of doing things. But, you know, and having those athletes compete against each other, there's a lot we've done in the US to become more competitive

and coaches have done in the field to become more competitive, like Travis and Albert. However, you know, we have to keep our own slate clean if we're going to go and fight internationally too. And I think, you know, if you look down the USADA list of sanctions,

yes, we do appear rather a lot, as does track and field, as does cycling. If you look at the risk factors involved, so you look at it and put yourselves in the shoes of USADA. Am I going to go and test that guy in table tennis where there's not really a lot of huge advantages in doping? Still exists, no question about about that but it's not the same like level of of advantage to be gained from from performance elements and drugs in in table tennis or archery or shooting or do i go and test a weightlifter where there is uh plus track and field plus cycling plus triathlon you'd argue for swimming what are all those

got in common their power or endurance sports and that's where pds are really going to have the highest impact doesn't mean it doesn't happen elsewhere but those are going to be the ones and then you next level down it's going to be wrestling you've got to have a lot of strengthening wrestling uh you've got uh boxing shows up there quite a bit. And that also marries with, look at those retests again. Weightlifting, track were dominant in those retests of who's the culprits here. And it was those two sports that dominated. But wrestling was there.

Boxing was there. I think swimming had a few. Triathlon was a new sport. It had very few athletes in the Olympic Games at that time and actually still has relatively few. Not really a few uh triathlon was a new sport had very few athletes in the olympic games at that time and actually still has relatively few not really too much in triathlon but cycling shows up uh boxing shows up wrestling shows up as well as weightlifting this group we're talking about a podcast it doesn't concentrate on weightlifting right but yeah are we going to come after domestically athletes who are doping you're damn straight because we want to keep that playing field as clean as we can

because this is the same thing. When I go internationally, what I want to do is be able to look at one of our athletes and tell them they got a fair shot when they go out there. And if they get a beat, that's our problem to solve. That's our problem to come back and go, what did we do wrong? What can we do better to go and beat that person? But if you beat us dirty, that's not really our problem to come back and go what did we do wrong what can we do better to go and beat that person but if you beat us dirty that's not really our problem you know that's that's the issue all i'm asking is come and beat us clean if you can beat us clean do it and let us figure out how we come back and beat you because we'll come figure it out we have another another thing that was

brought up and and you mentioned it in your answer here, is kind of that decentralization, whereas the majority of the world has master of sport. That is the coach. Underneath that is the next level. Underneath that is the junior coach. Underneath that is the coach that's going into elementary schools and saying, you look like you have the right body shape for an Olympic weightlifter. I guess, does that model lend itself more to being a, like creating a dirty system within a country compared to what we have of this decentralized, everyone can be a coach.

You go to USA Weightlifting, like I'm learning so much about this right now because it's interesting to me. The book is very interesting. me the book is very interesting interviewing you is very interesting but i always just competed in weightlifting to lift weights because i loved it and i coached people because i loved it but learning about all of this stuff and and the models that different countries use like what you know some of the benefits some of the drawbacks to having this decentralized model compared to master of sport you are the o the Olympic weightlifting coach for our country. But I think, Anders, that the biggest thing you've got to realize is, I mean, first of all,

the US is completely unique in what we do. Number one. Number two, if you look at those countries that have turned around to sport really quickly, they've always found something different to do. This was one of the biggest things that we found was different. Look at the example of British cycling. They found ways that were different to everybody else in the world to increase their lot in life rather quickly. And that's exactly what we were trying to do, is let's accelerate our growth, right? And there's so many advantages of the decentralized model in the US culture. Now, I'm not suggesting our model would work necessarily in China or in Japan or in Russia or in Germany. organization now our job is to support Travis but also crystal and also Morgan McCullough Ryan Grimson and those athletes in the field whereas in in a in a more centralized system they come into one training camp I think there's a few things that critical in understanding one there is not a single coach no

offense Travis who is the best coach in the country for every single athlete it that are critical in understanding that one, there is not a single coach, no offense, Travis, who is the best coach in the country for every single athlete. It just isn't. That's totally true. I've proven that. Right. It's, and I don't mean any offense by that,

but you know, I watched an OTC program with probably, uh, at the time, arguably our most talented athlete in the country came into the otc and was terrible because that coach just wasn't good for that athlete was the athlete bad no was the coach bad no just it wasn't a good fit right but going home that athlete once again was a dominant athlete and you know there's examples as long as your arm of people

changing coaches or finding the right coach for them and suddenly having a great uh a great career but and there's certainly there's natural talent that comes into that there's there are certainly talented coaches and less talented coaches i'm not going to deny that but you've got to find the right coach and athlete mix. And like, let's take Ray Jones and CJ Cummings, great coach and athlete partnership. Is Ray the best coach in the country?

I don't know if I have an answer to that. He certainly coaches our number one man in the country right now, but I'll tell you what he is. He's the best coach for CJ Cummings. No doubt. 100% on that. So, I mean,

that's, that's the biggest beauty of the decentralized model. And then we can adapt services to them rather than adapting the athlete to the centralized system. You are right that there's certainly some arguments to say that a centralized system is easier to control a doping regimen, especially if it's being controlled by a medical professional who's centralized or understands timings, understands when to take certain substances, et cetera, in order to stand the best chance of passing the test. There are certainly some arguments for that. There's also been some evidence of doppelgangers, of hospital manipulation, of laboratory manipulation,

which is much easier to do in a centralized program. That's just not me making that up. What's dopp gangers? Read the water reports. Double gangers means basically someone shows up and goes, I'm looking for Travis Mash. And somebody who looks rather like Travis Mash comes out and goes, hi, I'm Travis Mash.

You're in the corner somewhere. I'm too good looking for that. I don't think anyone can match my look, so it'd be tough. Especially after that whole 30 month he did. No one's touching him now. Definitely too sexy then. I mean, that 215 Travis Mash,

no one touches him. That's right. Yeah, my mama told me, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. Dang it. So,

it is, but you know, that's the doppelganger, and then that recently came out, a lot of report of evidence the doppelganger. And then that recently came out in the Water Report of evidence of double-packing and weightlifting. But the decentralized system has been a cornerstone of what we've done in the last few years.

And that means that, you know, the other thing is it puts the pressure on the coach. If you want to be the head coach of Team USA, you want to be coaching with Team USA, you want to be on these international trips, you've got to get that athlete there. If you go and beat people, it's down to you guys. You lift the weight or your athlete lifts the weight in the case of a international trips you've got to get that athlete there perform you go go beat people it's down to you guys you lift the weight or your athlete lifts the weight in the case of a coach you got to go and that's uh that's we put a lot of funding behind personal

coaching so we believe in that model and we believe the personal coach especially our top athletes should be there when our athletes are on the ground. Other countries used to laugh at this. When we showed up with, you know, like 60 people, and people would be like, these guys are crazy. And, you know, it's interesting. I'm sure Travis has seen this over the last few years of how the attitude towards Team USA has just changed. Oh, yeah. You know, we used to march in and people would just be sniggering almost.

And now we march in into a world championships pan-american games whatever it might be and people are looking going all right team usa showed up hey what are you guys doing by the way um that's exactly and we've got recruitment programs as well again adapted to the u.s culture we know that we get a lot of our athletes not just through crossfit but through other sports too and we're looking at powerlifting we're looking at track we're looking at gymnastics yeah you know and it's we're looking at cheer um and you know you've got let's look at the olympic rankings maddie rogers cheerleader jordan delacruz tumbler harrison morris gymnast and crossfitter well not really crossfitter but gymnast and then

basically got into it through kevin simons and powerlifting he powerlifted first he was actually well and the funny thing is he sort of accidentally did the chinese program what you think about it oh yeah gymnastics powerlifting weightlifting yeah by complete accident he did the chinese development program. It obviously worked. Right. Absolutely, it worked. But it's, you know, you look at that team and everyone's got a background. Most people on that team, the exception is CJ, actually, have a background in some other sport.

Well, CJ football. You know, he played football. He did, but not much. Omar, his brother, played a lot of football. I'm hoping he comes back after his stint in the NCAA. CJ wasn't terribly successful in football. Rather successful in weightlifting. But he's also rather short, so it makes sense. But there's Kane as well. You could make an argument for the

Wilkes family of being in weightlifting. That's an eight dot too. But most of the guys on that team have, both male and female, have a significant background in the sport. Yeah. One of the interesting things that you bring up and talking about kind of,

I think one thing that CrossFit did very well in growing the sport of fitness is the marketing side of their media and putting out the cool documentaries and building the athletes. And I know that even somebody that's relatively connected to the weightlifting community, I don't know some of these people that even you are talking about as the best weightlifters and as kind of the marketing arm of USA weightlifting, what is kind of stopping CJ should be talked about it, the dinner table of random households with the things that he's doing right now there. I go to his Instagram page and you could just

clear off the next hour of my schedule. Cause I can't believe what that kid is doing right now. But how do we get those stories out to just into the mainstream a little bit more and be able to take those people that are really great at it? Because that really is just the marketing arm of a business that is built around performance and getting people lifting more barbells. Yeah, that's fair. And look, our big opportunity in weightlifting comes really from the Olympic Games. That's somewhere where we've got to go, we hope this year, but it's going to be next year and make that splash. And that's where we were building towards. We have to take advantage of that opportunity

and we were we had quite a lot lined up and we do for 21 um to realize those opportunities now we can we do a better job at the marketing side yeah do we do a better job than most governing bodies arguably yes um actually our following rates are higher than the majority of olympic sports considering our size and membership we're actually huge compared to usan but can we do a better job sure can we are we trying to bring out the stories of each of those athletes yes but the other thing that's really important to us is the stories of the everyday individual of you know if you look at our instagram right now we're doing my weightlifting story which is how do i get into weightlifting what does weightlifting mean to me and your weightlifting it's that balance between cj cummings who's phenomenal but not realistic

like it's it's don't expect to walk into your nearest weightlifting gym three weeks later be cj cummings you're yeah but you know we have a huge community of people that love weightlifting because they can go in. They love to snatch. They love to clean. They love to jerk. And that's where we have to respect those guys too. That in the other thing is if you think about it from a strategic perspective, okay, you may not be CJ Cummings, but you might bring the next CJ Cum cummings into you into the gym with you when you come so it you know having those one of the things that i've really liked is that

growing of the grassroots side as well as the elite side and even in the masters i don't mind a 45 year old or a 50 year old starting weightlifting from scratch no problem there first of all no time like the present to get strong. Second of all, you might bring your kid in, your niece, your nephew, your cousin twice removed, your friend's son, who becomes the next CJ Cummings. Totally. In all fairness to you, if you look at where our marketing was in 2013

versus where our marketing is now in 2020, if you look at where our marketing was in 2013 versus where our marketing is now in 2020, like if you look at the growth, you probably had the most growth of any sport in history. I mean, like we were at zero. I mean, we were in Anders, we were putting on national events in bowling alley. Yep. Bowling alley. I remember it. I don't want to even want to go to that competition. And now it's. I remember going, I don't even want to go to that competition. We're the strongest person in the country, and I don't even want to go.

Yeah, I remember John North. I had Adley there, and I remember it was like shaking my head and being like, we got to do better. And we did. I remember when he was – what was your job prior to – you were the event coordinator, correct? Yeah. Yeah, I was our event and programs director from 2013.

And I remember when he was in that position and, like, you know, we all got to know him. And, like, his response time was unlike anything we'd ever seen. Like, it's crazy that this guy with now we – I don't know how many – how many people do we have as members now? We're a little bit down during COVID. We were up close to 30,000. We're now down to about 23.

So let's say that when even this is, cause I'm talking about prior to COVID 30,000 members, and this guy answers every single email and or texts within, you know, moments. And I remember Don, you know, got,

you know, rest in peace, but you know, Don would always talk about, you know, moments. And I remember Don, you know, got, you know, rest in peace. But, you know, Don would always talk about, you know, like he loved Phil. Even when he was getting mad at Phil, he loved Phil. Just the response and, like, you know, the fact he would get back to him. And so, like, anyway, my point is to add to all that. I've watched him just crush it. Taking a quick break, friends.

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my question wasn't necessarily what let's be clear this year has affected everybody and I feel like you know trying to lead My question wasn't necessarily what – This has been a tough year for sure. I mean, let's be clear. This year has affected everybody, and I feel like trying to lead a community in a situation where you can't actually have that community is rough. My question wasn't necessarily about doing a bad job. It's just how do we make it better? Because so much of what we're talking about in kind of like united states

playing in a very different uh call it maybe morality or testing situation against the rest of the world and how we fit into that global conversation and going many people having that centralized unit we have this more open source anyone can come in and and play olympic weightlifting and if you can lift weights then you get pushed into it but a lot of the issues um i i think come from basically a funding issue and creating the popularity of the sport and if if you're the nfl you don't worry about a lot of the things that Olympic weightlifters worry about. And the testing, there's a players association. There's a lot of legal things structured into the success of that sport. And a lot of it just comes down to

the funding. And when you go to Russia, they have the funding. They've got the state-sponsored everything. And really, my question about marketing was not so much on the negative side of what we aren't doing, but how do we get it into more households so that people – CJ is a household name. How do we make sure that people know who Marcus is? How do we know that – I met – what's Spencer's – the girl that went to the Olympics. What's that?

Spencer Allen. Oh, you know, he's talking about – I'm totally just – what's Spencer's, the girl that went to the Olympic? What's that? Spencer O'Reilly. Oh, no, he's talking about, I'm totally just playing. His girl, the Olympian. The Olympian from last time. Morgan. Morgan King. I met Morgan for the first. No, I met Morgan.

We had one man in the last Olympic Games. It was not Spencer. I've never heard of Spencer. No, I met, we met Morgan for the first time and I watched her lift in person at the CrossFit Games this past year. And I just remember thinking like, this girl is a total badass and she has the personality to go along with it. And at any point in time, like me being 190 something pound male, if I was yo morgan i'm gonna lift you right now i should be like you need to go put on your shoes and let's get to work like that girl's personality

needs to be talked about and actually have almost happened the so we have i mean it doesn't surprise me after after interviewing her it doesn't surprise me at all well she she may or may not even know this but in 2015 we had the junior national place called oklahoma city you guys oklahoma city but no oklahoma city convention center right we had morgan on the backdrop and some guy from the lighting crew was like oh i could outlift her and this was the obviously at this point morgan's you know someone who's on the track towards the olympics but not quite there yet yeah and i said all right no problem buddy go up there if you can i'll load the bar to exactly what she's snatching and if you can out snatch her

we'll put you on the olympic team right now and he backed away from that pretty quickly i loaded up a bar and just stood there until he took at least a snatch at it he did yeah it was like dude no no i was just pissed at the way he was, excuse my language, the way he was treating what was on one of our very best athletes at the time. And she was headed to the Pan Am games in just a few months after that, but she may not even know that story. She wasn't actually there, but it was, it kind of irritates me when people do that. But anyway, you're right. You know, people like Morgan, Wes, CJ, Harrison, Kate.

Maddie and Kate really have broken through that to an extent. Hunter Elam as well. Kristen Pope, of course. You know, there's some who have really brought their personalities out on social media. That's really helped us. And we're great with social because you can put a snatch or a clean and jerk super easy into an Instagram video, which is one of the reasons CrossFit's been successful too.

But, you know, you're right. We have to definitely look at what we're doing in the Olympic Games, how we take advantage of that, how we get that word out, how we get enough people hopefully in the building to share that message out when cj or harrison hopefully ends it was 30 years of hurt of not having a medal in the olympic games because in the olympic sports that's what it does come down to especially with nbc and the people who really promote olympic sports cj needs to be on the Wheaties box. Correct. He does. And that's where we've got to do a good job of making sure we're ready

for that success. And it's one of the things maybe we didn't do so well in 2000 when Cheryl and Tara won medals. We've got to make sure that we are the curling of the 2018 games. Everyone's heard of curling because of Schuster team

and they came out of nowhere to win medals. Well, it really come out of nowhere if you're thinking and watching curling yeah but they did in between 2014 and 2018 olympic games that same is true for us between 2016 and 2020 if you've been paying attention in weightlifting you're going to expect team usa to do pretty well but if you're from outside of weightlifting even people who are close to us like the usopc are going you're not going to look at that many medals um and i can't wait to prove them wrong so that's really part of it is making sure that we can use that and and it's a fair question we've got to make sure that we're going to take as much as we can of those successes and we've've had a problem this year because we've not had, you know, a new junior world record to celebrate.

We've not had more junior world championships to celebrate. I mean, you know, that's one of the things we lost this year. CJ is the only human being in history to win four straight junior world championships. It could have been five, but we didn't actually have a championship for him to win. Harrison Morris probably should be a junior world champion, but he had that opportunity taken away from him.

And likewise, more than capable of a junior world record in the clean and jerk. So it's, you know, those two really lost opportunities. You don't think of those individual stories. You know, I'd say that Kate and Maddie, partly because of, of course, the sporting rivalry between the two of them, have definitely done a good job of marketing themselves. The other thing that's important to Olympic sports is getting a good agent. Kate certainly has that. Maddie has that.

Polly Mangold had that because of Nick. And they're using the same agent as Nick Mangold from the NFL. So there's a huge amount of things that go into the melting pot of marketing but that's a big thing for us is we've got to make sure when it comes to the olympics that's what people understand really easily and how do we use that to do what we need to do which is push people back into the gyms across the country because i think weightlifting true love of weightlifting comes from the barbell yeah do you think that there's more um i guess more of a threat from the idea

of gyms being closed right now and people kind of being in their garage or do you think there's more of a threat from this kind of like overall doping issue like do we do you feel like that we just because barbells are harder to get a hold of right now and having coaches in the same room is that is that kind of the biggest threat that we're facing look i mean i think they're both threats i mean that's the thing i mean obviously gyms being closed down across the country uh or it's a huge challenge i mean some people are lucky enough to have equipment at home a lot of gyms have done a really good job of lending out to the extent they can that equipment when they are closed we have a lot of gyms who are still you know i think counties and states are being a little bit smarter than they were in the first shutdown in terms of at least allowing

some degree of open um so people can spread out those gyms you know those classes or those training sessions across a day. But I used to be only doing that, you know, two hours for weightlifting once a day. I've seen gyms do some of that. But gyms are suffering across the country, no question about it. And ultimately, you do need coaches, you do need gyms. But I also would say that the emergence of the at-home gym, and as I'm looking at your setup

right there right you can come train with me anytime you want thank you very much performance there you go and so it's you've got uh a setup there and and other people i'm sure doug and travis probably got some weight sitting in their house somewhere too and so it's not so much of a problem i think for the person who's already a weightlifter already a crossfit already a powerlifter they're probably going to continue um especially because of the personalities that are generally attracted to those three particular sports strongman perhaps a little less so because of the different implements you need but you know if you've got weights or a barbell or even some kettlebells you can do something um so i think that's the issue is we've got uh is is coaches

done a good job a lot of them at pivoting online actually travis and spencer did a great seminar for us on that but we've seen other coaches do a great job of pivoting that to help their athletes and you're seeing things like mirror come out with a little bit of weight lifting they got taken over by lulu lemon um sort of like a Peloton type setup. You know, is it great? No. Is it going to create an elite weightlifter? Rather unlikely, but is it keeping people moving and fit? Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, it's, I ultimately gyms have to reopen in order for us to be back to where we were.

Right. And I think where there is a new fitness industry emerging where it's going to be a hybrid of at home. Why do you really go to the gym well one's the coaching the second is probably community um and then i think why do you stay at home that's just to get fit or just to improve and there's some people who do remote training all the time do it rather well um i mean kate nye has been essentially remote coached her entire career. And, you know, I think she does a rather good job with that. Yeah. Like 415 or something the other day. What was that squad, Travis?

She's done ridiculous amounts. I've watched her do 190 kilos, 418. Yeah. Her coach is phenomenal too. That's a guy who doesn't go, yeah. He doesn't get enough credit. I mean, because he's relatively new to the sport, but he's an amazing coach. Or Redbeard, as Reddit calls him. Reddit calls him Redbeard. He's a great guy. You're right.

So, I mean, Josh has done a great job. And look, that's one of the things we have in this country. I remember standing up at the coaching symposium two years ago. And I just said, let me be clear. For years, I've been here five years, and I've heard every year, American coaches suck. They don't. Period.

They just don't. We are behind the rest of the world for other reasons. Our coaches do not suck in this country. But a lot of them have been inventive in how they get out there and they train weightlifting in a pandemic. So I don't think that's a threat as such. But it is a threat in the sense of gyms at some point can't survive. You know, it's at some point you need to bring membership money through the front door. And you need to be able to use that to pay your electric bill, to keep the doors open, to pay the rent in the gym.

And to recruit new people. So I'm more worried about new people coming into the sport than I am about anything else. The doping side is a huge threat. That could get us kicked out of the Olympic Games. I think one of the attractions of weightlifting is the Olympic Games. Do I think the sport will die off without the Olympics? I don't.

I think that the sport of powerlifting is growing in this country, I think the sport of strongman has grown in this country. I do think people will continue to snatch and clean and drink. But there is a little bit of the allure of this particular sport, the more technical end of the strength sport. Yeah. And the allure, a lot of it, is the challenge. And that challenge culminates in the Olympic Games. Totally. The vast, vast vast vast vast vast majority of people the olympic games is out of reach you know it's it's a point something percentage of

our membership will ever even get a sniff at a world championship or a pan am championship let alone olympics um you know it's we're talking we can send eight people every four years that's it that's our max and that might go down, of course. Even if we don't get eliminated from the Olympics, you're probably going to see a quota reduction. You can't see it send so many people to the Games because the IOC has to reduce the size of the Olympics for Paris in 24 and LA in 28 anyway.

So we're probably going to see that. Let's be realistic. So you were talking maybe six per every four years that we could send. So getting that sniff at the Olympics is, is a very huge challenge, especially right now, honestly, in a women's division.

Yeah. We all can. I keep saying to people, the world's an Olympics. Don't judge our talent in the U.s by who we censor the worlds and the olympics judge it by who we don't no kidding how does the uh usoc what i don't even know what the the exact governing body is of the united or of the global olympics uh the olympic committee however that is but i i would imagine there's like a profit center for swimming

and track and field and these ones that make a lot of money for the Olympics. And similar to like a collegiate athletic department where the football team makes all the money and then you've got all the other sports underneath it that it funds. Is there some of that going on where doping is kind of like the thing that they're talking about? But what they're really saying is we've got to figure out a way to market Olympic weightlifting on a global stage so that we can actually make some money in this. And if we can't figure that out, well, we all have this doping thing that we can fall back on because now the sport's dirty. Yes and no. we all have this doping thing that we can fall back on because now the sport's dirty. Yes.

No. I think that there is, there's a few, few elements at play. The first of all, there's the iOS, the very briefly there's the IOC. They're the,

they're the King dog. That's the, that's the NC to use your analogy. That's the NCAA. Yeah. And then you've got each of the sports as an international federation and ours is the IWF, International Weightlifting Federation. That, if you like, is the conference. So that's your SWAC or your Big Ten or whatever it might be. And then each each nation has a National Olympic Committee, which is the USOPC in our case, United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee, that if you like is more like the athletic department.

Gotcha. So that's the University of Utah or Orion or wherever it might be. So it's, and similar to a university, not every NOC has every sport. The US does. But it's not every country will field a team or even have a federation for each sport. Some Olympic federations, especially the Winter Games, are as small as like 60 countries. country will field a team or even have a federation for each sport some some olympic federation

especially the winter games are as small as like 60 countries so um because you know it's it's very unlikely that let's say barbados is going to field a rather well-classed biathlon team so it's it's um you don't see that um happen so much over there. Weightlifting is rather large. We are one of the largest ones from the country perspective, 193. There's a few who are bigger, but we're at the higher end of that in terms of participation worldwide. So there's a few things they look at.

First of all, the biggest way that the RFC is funded is through uh tv and sponsorship and that's for the whole olympic games so it becomes like a reputation issue because they're not paying for the rights to football they're paying for the rights to all of let's say the university of utah sports or whatever it might be does that make more more sense? Absolutely. So what they don't need is, to use your analogy, they don't need the University of Utah fencing team to be causing massive reputational issues for the whole brand. No kidding. The cause and effect on the revenue for the football team.

So that's – I'm trying to keep to that analogy, but that's how that really works. We're different in the U S because we have to generate our own income. Whereas most we funded by the government. So, and that's part of the doping issue, right? Because you've got a ministry of sport. They know a lot of countries are in the UK. It's the department of culture, media, and sport,

or it's named something like that. And just really have you sometimes that are, In the UK, it's the Department of Culture, Media, and Sport, or it's named something like that, Industry of Youth sometimes, that is funding your Olympic Committee to go and win medals. And then they also fund over here around the Doping Commission. So in our case, the government doesn't fund Olympic sport. Americans fund Olympic sport.

Membership fees fund Olympic sport. Coaching education fees fund Olympic sport. Sponsorship funds Olympic sport. Membership fees fund Olympic sport. Coaching education fees fund Olympic sport. Sponsorship funds Olympic sport. And then you've got the difference between NGB and the USOPC. A lot of sports receive, who have got more medals, receive a lot of funding from the USOPC. We don't because we receive less than 2% of our budget from the US Olympic Committee.

So that might change after 21. We'll see. I hope so. Well, we we hope so that's for sure that's what we're going for in one of the one of the ways but you know if you look at the way that it's funded from the antidoping perspective that is the only olympic body in the u.s that's funded by the u.s government is the u.s antidoping agency they're funded out of the Office of Drug Control in DC. So that money to fight doping is literally the only money that comes from the government. And the funding to WADA, the world anti-doping agency for the US, does also come from the US government.

That's the only one that comes from the taxpayer. Whereas in a lot of countries, including Great Britain, including, I think, Canada,ada yes canada it comes from the government so both the anti-doping and the people trying to win the medals both come from the government so that's that whereas the ioc is relying on reputation because they have to get the money from nbc or from the bbc or from um channel one in france or wherever it might be to get their money in. So it's more of a reputation issue. But the other thing they've got to manage is cost

because the Olympic Games has become an extremely costly thing to host. I mean, almost a bank. Yeah, that's a way to think it's an advantage because compared to, say, equestrian, we have a rather easy setup. We need basically a blank sheet of concrete in a building. When it really boils down to it,

setting up a meet in North Carolina for the North Carolina State Championships and setting up the Olympic Games are not actually terribly different. So, yeah, you've got to have better lighting because you're going to be on TV. But you still need a platform. You still need weights. You still need referees. And that's basically what you're trying to do. It's the exact same thing.

So it's a relatively cheap sport, and you can do it in relatively few days, which is an advantage. The other advantage we have, the RSC likes, is you have some unique competitors. Turkmenistan is good at weightlifting. It is not very good in most other sports. They've never won an Olympic medal. Algeria could potentially win an Olympic medal in this Games for the first time ever in weightlifting. It is not very good in most other sports. They've never won an Olympic medal. Algeria could potentially win an Olympic medal in this Games for the first time ever in weightlifting.

And there's a lot of those countries who are in our sport, which aren't in others. North Korea is another one, DPRK, who are good at weightlifting, very much not good at terribly many other sports, judo a little bit, but that's about it. But on the other hand, Uzbekistan is another great example. Uzbeks have done a little bit better in some other sports.

Wrestling, they're okay. They've got a few medals in judo. But those countries, which are a little unusual, do well in weightlifting. That creates an additional market for the IOC, if you think about it. That's actually a positive for our sport another positive for our sport is that if you look at tv ratings they're looking at certain countries some of those are where weightlifting is larger so you're not wrong anders but i'm just trying to give a little bit of the bigger picture and maybe i've gone too much into the weeds here but that's it's using that ncaa. They're more worried about reputation than they are about the sport itself

because they're not afraid to take on new sports. They're taking on skateboarding, surfing. But there is a degree to which they also like the age-old Olympic sports. When you think of the Olympics, you do often think about wrestling, weightlifting, athletics. Those are aged sports, which have been a cornerstone of the Olympic program literally since 1896. We can't have the most athletic people in the world all competing in one place and not find out who the strongest is. It just doesn't seem right. It has to be that way.

I agree with that. And if you look at 40th, 70th, 30th, we are the 40th. So it's, you know, what are you going to do? Let's name the shot-ball champion the strongest person in the world, which there's certainly an argument for that. But we are the strength sport in the Olympic Games. And I have to say, I think the Olympics will be remiss to not have a strength sport. If weightlifting is not that strength sport, it should be powerlifting or strongman or CrossFit or whatever it might be.

But I do think that they would prefer to retain weightlifting because it has been the olympic sport for so many years but to do that we've got to rely ourselves together and go all right yeah thank you very much what's it going to take to stay in this thing we sure can't put yeah Thailand in charge we can't do that that's for sure and just you even saying that we need like well powerlifting could do it or crossfit could do it I just in my brain i was like those people aren't the strongest or most athletic people we don't we can't have that we have to have olympic weightlifting right in the name i mean that's a whole different debate but there was something inside me that died a little bit when you said that i was like yeah i don't

i don't like that like i don't want i mean i would tend to love crossfit but not on the olympics right i mean i i tend to agree that you know obviously i'm i'm a little biased around the sport of weightlifting but you know i do i think weightlifters are the most athletic of those yeah um but you know do i doesn't mean i don't like powerlifting or crossfit or strongman. Yeah, totally. I'm also from weightlifting. Well, I've been high level of two of those. I'm picky weightlifting. You want to see ratings go down?

Wait until someone's squatting 1,300 pounds and their eyeballs explode on national television. They're going to be dying for Olympic weightlifting to come back. Some dude with a bloody nose. I don't know why Kellogg's didn't sign up to advertise during powerlifting. It's not going to work. The reason why weightlifting is such an amazing sport that I try to – my goal, anyone listening or anyone I talk to, is how beautiful. You look at something where someone's lifting very heavy weights,

so it's super masculine. Oh, wow. But they do it in such a way that it's like watching ballet or it's like watching gymnastics. As a matter of fact, because I love movement so much, like I actually follow Worldwide Ballet on Instagram because the same thing that intrigues me about ballet intrigues me about weightlifting.

It's beautiful. It's like poetry in motion. You're seeing it right before your eyes. And, you know, I can't imagine a world without that in the Olympics. It would be a sad day. Yeah, I mean, I agree. I mean, obviously, I don't want to see us out.

You know, I have heard it on very good authority that the Olympic Committee, IOC, does not want weightlifting out of the Games, but they do want to see a fresh IWF. They do want to see real and meaningful change. I think you could say the same about boxing. If you see recently the IOC openly came out and said to boxing, you didn't do enough.

I plead and implore my colleagues across the world to make sure we are not the next boxing. Please. Yes. Yeah. It's a good place to end. What can people do? How do people help this cause?

And where can they find you? Well, you can always find me on Instagram, a.phil, at philandrewsusa on Twitter. I always give out my email address, phil.andrewsusa on twitter um my i always give out my email address phil.andrews at usaweightlifting.org and my number is 719-260-25 yes crazy enough to do that um but um and like travis says we can always guarantee a conversation can't always guarantee you'll like what i have to say but but you always guarantee a conversation. And, you know, I think in terms of what you can do to help, it's a little like trying to get something through Congress.

Talk to people who, to the extent you can in the IOC, to the extent you can in the IWF, to the extent you know the right people, put that pressure on them. Make them realize it's the Olympic Games or not. That's our choice right now. We either make real change in our sport, real, meaningful, governance-related change that puts athletes at the center of what we do,

that puts fair sport at the center of what we do, and protects the reputation of the the sport or we're out of the games however temporary that might be or for however many years that might be we will cost young athletes who are right now looking to go to the 24 or 28 olympic games that shot if we don't act now and those are the best athletes that we've produced in the history of weightlifting. In the United States? Yeah. You know, and so, but, you know, that's all over the world, Andrews. It's not just here.

Germany, Canada, France, Great Britain, Spain. Yeah, and there's some great athletes. Travis has been to the Youth Worlds, I believe. That's right, Travis, you've been to the Youth Worlds. Yeah, two of my guys meddled at the youth worlds yeah right it's you've seen those athletes coming through from other countries too not just ours

every continent all five continents in the Olympic Games and yes there's five not seven in the Olympics before we get into that debate but you know it's not just the young athletes from the U.S. Yes, do I think first and foremost of guys like Hampton Morris,

Olivia Reeves, Morgan McCullough, Ryan Grimsland, who are coming through right now. Yeah, sure, of course they do in the U.S. But I also think of those guys coming through elsewhere. We need people to compete against. Sure. Yeah, I want to beat some of those guys, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. So, you want to beat some of those guys. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So, you know, we'll see what happens in Tokyo. That is happening. We are not going to be out of Tokyo.

I think people have had fears of that. Are we going to be kicked out of Tokyo? The reality is the IOC will not kick a current Olympic sport out for Tokyo.

If you look at boxing, they didn't do it with boxing and if they were going to do it with anyone, it could have been boxing. So... So if we have the Olympics my only worry is that with COVID we just need

I want to have an Olympics I'm rather confident of that and that confidence is somewhat stemming from the IOC but for note I also said that in March of last year but I am rather confident. Thomas Bach was in Japan this week.

And the Japanese Prime Minister reiterated to even having some spectators. We've obviously had good news on vaccines. I believe the Japanese government and the IOC have a degree of confidence that they can get their hands on the knife to at least let some form of the Games go ahead. Do I think that might be a force to take the Games? It feels

relatively unlikely. But do I think it might be at least the Olympic Games? Yes. Good. I'll take that. Coach Travis Bash. Go to masterleague. Yes. Good. I'll take that. Coach Travis Bash. Go to mashley.com. Thanks, my friend. It's been a long time.

I miss you, and it was good seeing your face. Thank you. Likewise, my friend. I hope to see you soon. Doug Larson. Find me on Instagram, Douglas E. Larson. I just want to get together with all my friends and do snatch and clean and jerk. I know, Phil.

They were going to come with me to Peru. You know, I was bringing Doug and Anders to Peru with me. We're going to talk to everyone. We just want to be back, but we've got to do it safely. That's the thing. And it's, you know, I'll be honest, guys. I struggled for a little bit this year losing what I felt a little bit of connection to.

You know, part of what keeps you going is seeing those athletes do real well. And that was missing for a little while there. Totally. I miss it all. I'm Anders Varner at Anders Varner. We are Barbell Shrugged at Barbell underscore Shrugged. Get over to BarbellShrugged.com forward slash diesel dad. Three programs.

Get strong people stronger. Make sure you get over to Walmart in LA, Vegas, Palm Springs, and San Diego. Three programs on the shelves and performance nutrition. Go to the pharmacy. That's where you can find us.

We will see you guys next week. Friends. I want to thank our friends. First off over at USA Weightlifting thanks a lot Bill Andrews for coming over and hanging out with us get over to barbellshrug.com forward slash store use the code MM30 to save 30% store wide

also leakygutguardian.com forward slash shrug that is where you can save 10% on leaky gut guardian from buyoptimizersorganified.com forward slash shrug the green the red and the gold, as well as our friends over in Special Warfare at the U.S. Air Force. Go to U.S. Air Force or go to airforce.com to learn more.

Have a great week, friends.