Mark Bell's Power Project - 10 Minute Walk Talk - Chris Duffin on Squatting 800lbs for 30 Days

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey there, this is Chris Duffin, co-founder of Kabuki Strength, coming at you today. So, doing a little 10-minute walk with Mark Smellybell, so enjoying some sun. But, I wanted to talk about something I did recently, and it was a big fundraiser for the Special Olympics, specifically around powerlifting. And, if you've ever dealt with anybody that's in the special needs community, getting involved in the Special Olympics or lifting for them, you can find it's really just incredibly powerful as far as what it does for their self-esteem, confidence, let alone, you know, the impacts on health. Andlifting itself you know some people may

Starting point is 00:00:45 hate to hear this but it's a it's a very simple sport so it allows people to really or these individuals to really realize those results and they know it's real like that's why it's so empowering like you know you've gone and you've made improvement you pick up that bar and uh you know it's not anybody saying you know yay yay or here's a trophy like it's the fact of like the weights don't lie and everybody knows this and and that's why it's such a powerful people you know thing for these these individuals and it's crazy the amount of people that would like to be involved with this that don't have the opportunity I don't have the the metrics

Starting point is 00:01:24 is up on our, our webpage for the fundraiser, but if you go to Kabuki Strength, which I encourage you to do so that you can actually donate to the cause, we've got some of the, those metrics on there. I think like here in Oregon, we've got about 4,000 people that compete. Again, these are rough remembered numbers here, but about 30,000 that would like to. So, so we've been doing a fundraiser and one of our coaches, uh, Cassandra Lamadrid, uh, is actually a coach for one of the special Olympics powerlifting team. And, uh, she came to us and said, Hey, can we host some events, uh, at, uh, at our facility? And we absolutely agreed. And I said, you know what, let's do a fundraiser.

Starting point is 00:02:10 And I want to do something really challenging myself for this because that's exactly what this is about. It's like putting a challenge in front of somebody so that they can see that result and have that change in their life from participating and overcoming or seeing improvement. So I wanted to put something really nasty and gnarly in front of myself. that change in their life from participating and overcoming or seeing improvement. So I wanted to put something really nasty and gnarly in front of myself and I picked something that I wasn't sure I could do and honestly if you asked me today I'd still say

Starting point is 00:02:34 it's impossible even though it's been done. But I guess there's really only one time that it can be done, and that's in the moment of doing it. So I was traveling, and I didn't have a lot of time to train, and I haven't squatted for like a year, and I planned on squatting in Texas at an event coming up in May, and I'm like, well, I better squat. And so I ended up working up to 800 pounds, and I think it was in New Mexico, and then I flew home, and I'm like, God, that was so much fun. I squatted 800 pounds the next day and the next day, and then that's when Cassandra came to us and said,

Starting point is 00:03:11 hey, and this is when we had the discussion, I said, you know what? I'm gonna squat 800 pounds every day for 30 days. We're gonna post videos every day about it. We're gonna get people to get involved. We're gonna raise awareness about this because to, uh, get involved. We're going to raise awareness about this because a lot of people don't even know that special Olympics has a power lifting component. So, so that's, uh, we decided to just have a fundraiser and awareness and, oh my God, that was,

Starting point is 00:03:39 uh, well, it was very successful as far as raising funds. It was also very successful at beating me down physically, mentally. Like I cannot describe to you how tough it was. There's just the, you know, you've got to be strong enough to squat 800 pounds a few days in the row, right? So, but the other thing is, you know, the fatigue that starts accumulating, the abuse on the body and actually knowing how to be able to fix it and doing the work every day and making sure that you prioritize that and your rehab, your recovery methods, like everything. By the end of it, two weeks in became essentially a full-time job. I mean, that's all I did nearly all day long was either sleep, work on recovery modalities, prep for train, and squat.

Starting point is 00:04:39 Like, that was it. The last two weeks, I was sleeping anywhere between 12 to 16 hours every day. I just and I would be sitting on like my couch just for just trying to get up and move and I just like my body's just like not responding and I'm sitting there it's like okay it's 15 minutes I've been trying to get up to get that that ice cream out of the fridge. Okay it's 25 minutes I'm still sitting here. Can I lift my arms? Can I lean forward? It's not happening. Nothing's happening. So, um,

Starting point is 00:05:12 and then just the, that physical abuse, like, uh, it started to get really, really painful around my right hip. I had a lot of, uh, compensations going on there, everything tightening up and, uh, just working it every day after every session. I have to spend about 45 minutes getting that hip open back up so that we could, I could walk again and get through the next day. And, uh, and you know, it just, it was, it was pretty cool. Uh, time like I but I guess I'm sadistic and I love the I love the the challenge of it and I think we I think we did a lot

Starting point is 00:05:53 with this so at any point like let's say you know you were two weeks in were you thinking like okay fuck I did this 14 days in a row. No one's going to get upset at me if I quit now. Absolutely. So somewhere around the 12 day mark, I so started just like looking for like a way out and going, well, people, you know, just like, I'm like this, this session, this last one, I walked away. I was so fatigued, so tired. Like there's just no way I can't even do another day, let alone three more days, let alone another two weeks. And, uh, so I just had to start looking at it like day by day, like being in the moment

Starting point is 00:06:40 because I couldn't, I didn't, I did not see how I could actually get this done. Um, and, uh, so there's just so much like second guessing myself. And, uh, you know, as I'm getting closer, like, you know, it's been enough. I've got three weeks in, nobody ever thought, nobody thought I'd be hit three weeks. I got 21 days. It's going to be my last one. thought I'd be hit three weeks I got 21 days it's gonna be my last one and every day I just go to bed and say you know what that's how I feel right now and all I can do is go to bed sleep and wake up and see what tomorrow holds and I literally did that for two weeks every night thinking I am done. I can't do this to waking up and going, okay, I'm going to get this. I'm going to, I'm going to, I got one more day in me.

Starting point is 00:07:34 This is it. And I get through that workout and I'd be right back in the same spot. Like just, there's just no way I can't I can't see it and every now and again about once every five to seven days there was a there was an uptick in strength and speed so it's really interesting I actually tracked the velocity both peak velocity average velocity and depth of every squat taken over the course of this. And I have those published as well. And it was about every five to seven days there would be an uptick in strength output

Starting point is 00:08:13 and it'd be a pretty good feeling day and I'd be re-energized. But every peak was lower than the last. And every week it was just this downward decline after week one as far as speed and strength. And the last few days were just grinders. I mean, nothing was moving on me. And God, like I said, the head games that plays with you when you're going through this is just,

Starting point is 00:08:42 that's why I said it wasn't just physical, but, you know, emotional in this manner, trying to create the energy to be able to go after it, you know, mentally. And then, yeah, just knowing how to and being able to fix yourself, which took me and a team of people to accomplish. But luckily, that's what we specialize in and It's definitely not something I'd recommend to anybody and honest I challenge anybody to do this I don't care like it's such an insane challenge In regards of in regards to this now that you accomplished it So what's next? I am doing the Collegiate Strength and Conditioning event in Texas. It's a big show where we show our equipment and I'm gonna be squatting, attempting to squat 800 for the biggest AMRAP that's ever been recorded. I believe my research shows that

Starting point is 00:09:46 Kirk Karawiski did five reps with it and Ray Williams has done five reps. Honestly, I think Ray could do more than five if he chose to, but nobody's, no, this was a long time ago he did that. But nobody at that level really does, does that. But so anyway, I want to, I want to, want to have the most reps ever done with an 800 pound as many reps as possible set um i've got some bigger goals over the next next couple years um i've been pretty open about them but uh you know i'd like to squat a thousand pounds um shoot for that uh march of next year at the ursa show i think in san diego and uh at some point I'd like to

Starting point is 00:10:25 conventional pull a thousand as well so some big gnarly goals we'll see what happens so but that's a pretty ways watching this video that's what the grand goals is around so people can find us on kabuki strength calmngth.com. That's K-A-B-U-K-I strength.com. You can find me on Instagram and Facebook is pretty useless these days, but mad scientist Duffin, some underscores between all those words. Awesome. Thanks for being on the 10-Minute Walk Talk podcast.

Starting point is 00:11:01 We really appreciate it, buddy. All right. Thank you. Peace.

Mark Bell's Power Project - 10 Minute Walk Talk - Chris Duffin on Squatting 800lbs for 30 Days

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.