Mark Bell's Power Project - MBPP EP. 615 - John Haack

Episode Date: October 26, 2021

John Haack is an American powerlifter. He is the current world record holder in the raw 82.5 and 90 kilogram weight classes. He set the current world record of 907.5 kg on August 3, 2019 at the age of 26. John's most recent record in the 90 kilogram weight class was set on September 25th, 2021. John managed a raw, sleeved total of 1005.5kg (340 kg squat, 263 kg bench press, 402.5 kg deadlift). Special perks for our listeners below! ➢Vuori Performance Apparel: Visit https://vuoriclothing.com/powerproject to automatically save 20% off your first order! ➢Magic Spoon Cereal: Visit https://www.magicspoon.com/powerproject to automatically save $5 off a variety pack! ➢8 Sleep: Visit https://www.eightsleep.com/powerproject to automatically save $150 off the Pod Pro! ➢Marek Health: https://marekhealth.com Use code POWERPROJECT15 for 15% off ALL LABS! Also check out the Power Project Panel: https://marekhealth.com/powerproject Use code POWERPROJECT for $101 off! ➢LMNT Electrolytes: http://drinklmnt.com/powerproject ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code "POWERPROJECT" at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $150 Subscribe to the Podcast on on Platforms! ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast Subscribe to the Power Project Newsletter! ➢ https://bit.ly/2JvmXMb Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ https://www.facebook.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/mbpowerproject ➢ LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/powerproject/ ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject ➢TikTok: http://bit.ly/pptiktok FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell ➢Mark Bell's Daily Workouts, Nutrition and More: https://www.markbell.com/ Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ https://www.breakthebar.com/learn-more ➢YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang ➢Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=en ➢TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nsimayinyang?lang=en Follow Andrew Zaragoza on all platforms ➢ https://direct.me/iamandrewz Time Stamps: #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell

We're on? Yeah, we're on the internet. We're good. Yeah, we're good to go. I'm just trying to think. Okay, there we go. I got all the research that we did on John. It's right here.

Got the documents. I see it. You got those emailed to you? Mm-hmm. Okay, good. I know everything. I know what we're going to talk about. That was weird when he was seven.

We're going to expose him. Fuck, man. We're going to expose him. No, that story's off the table. That's why we invited you on. I don't know. We'll figure out something. Those seagulls will never be the same.

That's probably a true statement. So wait, what did you do to the seagulls? Don't worry about it. Okay. Well, I'll tell you after. All right. They eat McDonald's. I mean, how much worse can it get, right?

Anyway, we're here with one of the strongest athletes currently in the world and arguably one of the strongest powerlifters the world's ever seen, even if that makes you uncomfortable. I think the numbers speak for themselves, and people can do the mathematical equation and kind of decide for themselves. No disrespect to our boy, Ed Cohn, but the stuff that you're doing right now, man, it's on the level. People got to at least admit and recognize it's at least getting close to the level or

it's at least on the level of Ed Cohn. Yeah, it's cool. The family started to see my name in that conversation. I think the thousand kilo and 90 kilogram body weight really kind of put me over the edge of like okay he's he's getting there like i i definitely don't think i'm there yet i'm not an ed cohen but i think if i were to like retire now i would be at least kind of one of the guys that like people who got into lifting now would look back and talk about i think uh you know the power lifting and a lot of sports were just so different back then

and so like when ed cohen was competing there was mainly like especially in ed in the beginning of ed cohen's career he'd only go to like the ipf you know he would compete in like one particular federation. And actually, there was like the the USAPL used to be the I forget all these different acronyms. But it used to be the ADFPA, which is actually where I started in, which is a drug free powerlifting federation. But even before that, there was just powerlifting and there was no drug-free, there was no drug tested. And then somewhere down the line, somebody said, hey, this is not really looking right. I'm tired of getting slaughtered or I think this is unfair. And then they started to split the federations up. But anyway, the point is, is when Ed Cohn was competing and went from some people from the seventies, eighties, even kind of like early nineties were competing, there was less federations and it was less confusing on who was the best nowadays,

especially like around the time that the, um, us what's the, what's the name of the, one of the main federations, uh, USPA, USIPL, WRPF. I think the USPA. Around the time that they started, because they were newer, they broke off of another federation. And because they were newer, everything was a record, a state record, a national record. So it took a while for some of these newer federations to be established. It took a while for the all-time world records being broken in some of those federations to really be legitimate because they were new and there was new categories, you know.

So people were, you know, breaking Masters 44, 40 to 44 record from California type of thing. And that was going on for a while until nowadays it's more established and we're starting to see some really amazing lifts from a lot of lifters around the world. But I guess that's what makes the comparison so difficult is that when you think back to some of those old school power lifters, they went to kind of one, they went to a couple big contest every year. And that's where all, you knew all the heavy hitters are going to be there. Like you knew that Bill Kazmaier and Ed Cohn were going to be at the same contest. Yeah. I think we're getting back to that now,

because obviously there's the IPF, the USAPL, the drug-tested side, but the untested side, we're getting a lot more money meets, so you're going to get the top guys. a lot more of like money meets so you're gonna get like the top guys you know like i'm gonna show if like the showdown you're gonna have like myself chad penson jamal browner uh dan bell is kind of retiring now but uh he would have been a them too um so now like winning that meet actually carries some weight versus like oh i did a backyard meet and hit a really big number. I think it's just carries more weight to do it at like the showdown. I think another big difference is people didn't used to really retire because they would just

like lift until they couldn't lift anymore. And also, you know, some of these savage lifters of the past, they're like insurance salesmen or they had, you know, some other type of job and lifters today. They have there's a lot of lifters that have jobs and families. But for the majority of what I was experiencing when I was competing is most of the individuals didn't have a typical nine to five job. And most of them, if not almost all of them, it was very rare that they were married, and it was very rare that they had children.

Not that you can't do those things, but it just throws another wrinkle into it. But nowadays with social media, I think somebody can build up, and then they can kind of take, like, hey, I already did all this stuff. Like our boy Big Ray, he could just kind of move on and do other shit, and everyone's going to follow whatever the hell he does because he's so popular he's lifted some crazy weights uh hopefully that guy doesn't need to have a real job yeah yeah i mean uh actually uh posted something about uh like i saw a condom on the ground at uh one of the factories i worked at

and a bunch of people were so like taken back by the fact that I actually have a nine-to-five job. I could. They're like, you work in a factory? Yeah. So they're like industrial laundry plants, and I do the chemistry for them. Ah. Yeah. I'm a chemist by trade.

And not quite like Derek. Your story's getting awfully peculiar. Yes. But, yeah, a lot of people are like, oh, you actually work for a living? Like, yeah. I mean, I could live off of just sponsorships and winnings from meets, but I think I would get bored with that, to be honest. It makes sense, though. That looks like a Hydra logo on your hat.

Remember what Captain America would happen to him in Hydra? Super serum. I see what's going on here. He's a chemist. Hydra. How'd you get into chemistry? Did you have a superhero story? Did you fall into some fucking plasma or something?

No, it's actually a super nerdy story. I got into chemistry because I was in an ap chem class in high school and our science olympia team needed someone from the chemistry science olympia team and uh i was like all right like i'll do it i'll get on my resume and then end up taking like there's like a state competition i took fourth in it and i was like oh i'm good at chemistry like i'll stick with this wow yeah has that kind of stuff just always clicked well for you and is it uh hereditary in some way you think um i don't know if i'd say like it has like clicked very well um like compared to my siblings i have a sister and a brother

we kind of joke that uh i'm the blue collar my brother's like the white collar like he he did really well with like reading literature um geography kind of stuff like that whereas I did a lot more of like uh science and math and then my sister was kind of like a balance between the two before we continue down that route I want to know because some people are probably looking up the numbers when we're talking about ed cone right the goat and yourself right you've probably thought about what would be the numbers needed to potentially put you over what would what what is do you have that goal is there a goal there is there some numbers that you need to be able to potentially uh it's it's tough because i think it's kind of like a conversation of like LeBron versus Michael Jordan. We're like,

there's nothing like LeBron can do that. You wouldn't still have a very large group of people saying like, Oh, Michael Jordan is better. So I think like no matter what, I'll never be able to like surpass Ed Cohen. But I think there's like numbers I can hit to like put me in the conversation. Um, I think like, uh, maybe we talked about like a 800 squat, 600 bench, 900 deadlift

and 90 would be, um, a really big one. How close are you to that? Uh, what is that? That's 13 more pounds on your deadlift. Yeah. So I'm, uh, I'm close on bench bench and deadlift but squats got a ways to go might take a bit yeah okay um you know ed cohen's done some ridiculous stuff in the gym have you i'm sure you've seen some of the training footage have you ever just thought of like

i don't know me just during this training cycle let me just go for some of these lifts or you don't want to get too outside of what you normally focus on um i mean i've kind of played around with uh like some stiff bar dead lifts to kind of emulate that but uh i don't i don't look at as like individual lifts as like or gym lifts and think i want to hit those maybe maybe when i get up to like 220 and i'm more like in his weight class yeah yeah he was yeah that's another thing to think about is he was uh heavier and shorter a little that little motherfucker i don't think i could ever match like his squat numbers yeah he was he was uh he was one of a kind but you know you see like really weird unique stuff from that guy like his arms are really long and so people were like oh ed never really benched that much but some of the competitions that he did where he broke all-time world records in total,

the only thing he wore was a squat suit and knee wraps. He didn't wear a bench shirt. He didn't wear anything on the deadlift. And he still went out and murdered everybody. And I think that people forget, I believe his best bench press, at least in training, was like a 585 bench press. There's video footage of him benching 555

for a double with a close close grip but i think that you have lifted more than that i'm not sure about your competition bench uh where that's been uh my best gym bench is 584 and then i tried i tried to touch and go 600 and it was not close it was a no go it was no go but i have a bet going with, if you know, PullMyBeard on Instagram. Yeah. Ty. He, we have a bet. He's fun.

Yeah, he's a really fun guy. If you want to laugh, go to his Instagram. Go to his page, please. But, or if you're questioning your sexuality, maybe. Still, yes. Sweet. But we have a bet going, though. Mine is always in question.

First one to hit 600, the loser has to get their nipple pierced. Oh, wow. Yeah. You better hurry, bro. He's getting close. I'm a little nervous. Damn. So you mentioned something in the gym that I, and maybe I haven't asked this question

enough, but I think I have. And, you know, I owned a magazine company called power magazine for years where I interviewed the top power lifters, um, every single month for years on end, uh, rubbed elbows with many all time world record holders. And they're all a little, a little bit different. Um, but I have not heard one of them say what you said to me in the gym today. And I think it's really interesting. I said, how often do you miss a lift? And I sat back and I was like, he's going to say what I think he's going to say. I never miss a lift because I lift with perfect form.

It's all about technique, bro. And the technique police are not in your training program. You don't mind missing a lift here or there. Yeah, I'll usually miss, like during a prep, I hit like a single squat bench deadlift every week. And I typically end up missing one on each of the lifts during, maybe not squats so much, more so bench and deadlift. But I usually miss one during a prep. It's just, usually I go in with a number in my mind and for the most part i can kind of guess right about like how it's gonna feel that day but

sometimes i get too into that number and i know i'm off mentally that day but yeah still don't want to be a bitch i think it says some interesting things about your personality. You know, number one, you're not afraid to go for it, which is really cool. Do you know in advance that you're going to go that heavy or no? Usually. So I kind of I write out like a training plan for 12 weeks. Like when I do, I start with like what I want to hit for that that meet. I just picture it in super simple.

It just says like deadlift and this is heavy. And the next week it says heavier and then heavier the next week well it's funny because like all i write out actually is like the singles and then i kind of like wing it on the rep days um i kind of have like a general idea like oh i want to do like a three by eight for like four weeks you're frustrating so many people there's so many people right now that started out with a pen and they just threw it across the room like fuck man i don't guys winging shit yeah but like i i know pretty well at this point like i've been training since i was 10 i know how much i'm gonna like put on from like train cycle train cycle so i can kind of have an idea of like all right this is what i want to hit

at this meet i'll probably be able to do it um this is what i need to hit like three weeks out four weeks out to kind of like this is so fascinating too because you're a chemist and you're but also you're super simple in the sense that you're like when you said put on you mentioned to me in the gym that you were talking about putting on your own body weight but probably just in your head you're like if i gain like four to six pounds i'm going to be exponentially a little heavier and you're kind of uh expecting that outcome to come as you're going through your training prep uh as you're lifting heavier and heavier weights your body's going to respond to it more you're probably eating more food and you're getting a little bigger yeah well usually it's more so like water weight from uh getting on like anadrol oh well let's let's let's not we'll we'll go down that path but this is really fucking cool

because number one mark mentioned that um it is something interesting that like you might miss a few lifts during a training cycle one thing that's that's odd is like when people miss lifts it gets in their head and they're in their next training session so maybe they're like just not feeling it because they missed that lift do you tend to just like be like okay that was a mistake forget it and go on to the next one and then also in terms of how you're setting things up right now how do you feel that people sometimes over complicate their training um so the first point um i guess i'll kind of get into my head if i'm like feeling good that day and i still and i'm like confident and I still miss it, then it'll kind of like weigh on me, but I'm pretty good then adjusting my training plan to how I, how like that day went.

Yeah. Um, like when I write out the plan, the plan, those singles, it's kind of like a rough estimate. And then if sometimes I get a little bit ahead of schedule, like they'll be like, Oh, I have to like 550 bench today but i hit 550 and it moved crazy well so i'm like okay i'll go 563 um and then like i'll just everything else up five kilos the rest of the prep or the opposite where i'll be like oh like last warm-up at like 500 felt a little rough maybe i'll only go 540 and then i pull back a little bit but um like if i go into it being like all right i'm gonna hit like 800 on deadlift for

like a set of three and i'm like i'm like i'm feeling really good today like i'm gonna kill this and then like 800 is glued to the floor then i'm then i'm a little bit like oh like what what's going on yeah um and then other times if i'm kind of like all right i'm supposed to hit 800 for three but i'm pretty drained from last workout i didn't sleep that well i didn't eat that well um and then like 800s glued i'll kind of be like ah i can i can chalk that up to no sleep and stuff like that. How do you salvage these days? You know, like something shitty is happening. Or let's say you pull, you mentioned that oftentimes after your last warmup, you'll take a pretty big jump. So maybe you have, I don't know, seven plates on there and it's 700 something pounds if you're using kilos or something. And you just go right from that

right into your working set of 815 pounds or something or i'm sorry you're you're pulling that last warm-up and you're like fuck man that that's not moving well do you just abandon the plan a little bit or do you still go for it how do you kind of moderate that um it kind of depends like honestly like from the social media side i'll be like if like the last warm-up felt a little rough, I'll maybe take, like, a smaller jump to hit something where I can, like, I can video this and I'll, like, I can post it. Gives you confidence. Yeah. if i if i like take the big jump miss the top set sometimes i'll hit my like drop downs other times i'll just kind of be like all right i'm i'm feeling very drained today like i'm just gonna like hang out and just talk with friends but not really andrew i interrupted you there no you kind

of took the uh the wind out my sails i was gonna ask like you know when you do miss a lift like what do you learn from it like what's the the the main thing that you kind of get out of it? Whereas most people, like, in SEMA, so they just get all frustrated and kind of, like, I don't know, they whine in the corner of the gym all by themselves. But for you, when you do miss, it doesn't seem like it's that big of a deal. So, like, what do you think you take out of it the most? I don't know if I, like, learn too much out of it now because I've just been doing it for so long.

So like, I feel like, uh, I don't know. It's, it's, it's kind of tough. It's just like,

maybe, maybe just, it's usually more so something to do with like my recovery that I'll, I'll be like, Oh, I messed that up. Yeah. Well,

I mean, I think over the years that that's, you've just answered it though. You just kind of don't even take anything out of it. And I think that's fucking huge. You just didn't give a fuck. Yeah, exactly. You know, think less.

But as we as you're sitting there, we've had many people on the show who are built. We've had great bodybuilders and great people. But don't you kind of think that he just looks different? I mean, do you see how like I mean, he I mean, I don't mean to like embarrass you, but you're just, you're so thick and so, like, well put together that it's like, it's like, it's overkill. But you're fucking jacked beyond belief. But this is the thing. Like, when I look at him. Okay.

So when I look at you, it's like you're very thick, but nothing is like out of proportion. Like some guys, like they're fucking, they're coming in, their backs are like here and like their legs okay right they look weirdly actually a weird physique and they're like not they don't good posture yeah look aesthetic he could he looks like you can walk normally and he looks like normally just built thick right but everything is there it's it's nothing's out of this is great we're totally embarrassing yeah I've's nothing's out of this is great. We're totally embarrassing. Yeah Well, see the you see the booties he's walking around with over here, can you turn it real good those America's ass But yeah, yeah you are really well proportioned you work on accessories a lot I assume or not no not really Oh, wow, you're killing a lot of people. Yeah

Joe my friends. I was like, if I hit my biannual set of curls every year just to get the biceps. Fuck. All right. Let's just take a moment of silence on the show here for a second and memorialize all the people that just died. and memorialize all the people that just died. Like my biceps, I get enough stimulus just from doing back workouts.

Dude. Yeah. I don't hit any isolation stuff. I mean, as I'm looking at you, to embarrass you further, you're very 3D. There's a front delt going on that's very clear. There's a fucking bicep that's slapped together right there and a tricep to slap together. And then he's got like crazy, like rear delt and back and lats and chest. And it's just fucking it's awesome.

And what I think is really cool about it is I don't think there's been like a deliberate concentration on like, oh, I'm going to do this isolation exercise for my shoulder. I'm going to do this movement for my rear delts. Like you're not, you're not sitting there hours on end, pulling a band apart probably or doing, not that you don't do any of those exercises and exercises. And it's not that you haven't done those in the past, but probably just the staticness of holding the position for a bench press three times a week,

handling heavy squats, handling heavy deadlifts. A lot of these things are probably the things that made you. So you didn't even necessarily have to concentrate and say, I'm going to get super jacked. You just concentrated probably more so, I don't want to put words in your mouth, probably more so on, I'm just going to figure out a way to get really fucking strong. Is that kind of how it unpacked for you? Yeah, for sure. So like, um, I think a lot of people start with the training of like i want to be like jacked i want to be like more of a bodybuilder i always had the focus of wanting to be the strongest so i never really did like oh i'm gonna do like a chest day or a leg day it was always like i'm gonna do a bench day or squat day

and it's kind of like what's gonna get me a stronger squat or stronger bench? Even when you were a kid? Yeah. Damn. Yeah. Like, I was more interested in, like, what could I bench versus, like, wanting to look jacked. All right. I think you mentioned you're from Wisconsin? Yes.

So that's where your family is from. And did you grow up there until you're, what, a teenager or something like that? I lived there until last year. Oh. Yeah. And you started lifting when you're 10 how did how did lifting at 10 is uh that's early how did that happen um i got a i asked for a weight set for my 10th birthday and then um i used my allowance to buy like a little multi bench station and basically uh would go and hit like 50 pounds for 30 reps every morning before going to...

Just like bench the bar or something like that? It was like a 20-pound bar with none. Do like a set of 30 and then go and beat the gaps. Any idea like where the idea came from? Actually, watching like World's Strongest Man, like Mar maria's puchnowski we're like was anyone concerned while your parents like i yeah i don't you know this is that's great that you want to exercise but this is a little bit weird uh they never told me about it they probably were but i mean it worked out well so he mentioned something there he mentioned um bench 50 pounds

or 30 reps and then go and feed the calves i don't i think we just kind of skipped over that so it was a farm yeah dairy farm dairy farm oh i thought he meant like he's like doing like uh don't work feed the cows all right so like we were kind of talking about this before the podcast but working on a farm that probably had a lot of that probably had a big change in terms of your just development right physically i think so i think like um if you've ever like shook hands with a farmer or like uh like i uh my my school was like we had pretty good wrestling team but if you like wrestled like the smaller schools with like that had the farm kids just something about them like they didn't look imposing but they could just throw they knew how to use their bodies so much better than yeah like a normal high schooler

you do all the kind of typical farm stuff like bale hay and things like that we did um we kind of got away from that a little bit when i got towards like high school because uh my grandpa passed away so then uh my dad kind of outsourced a lot of the actual field work. And then we just like, come on, dad, I'm trying to get jacked here. Can we still have a farm? Yeah. So we still and then we got into more like big bales, which are you use like a tractor to move them versus like the smaller bales that you're you probably used to seeing. What are some of those disciplines that maybe you saw from your grandfather or your dad or even just things that you had to implement yourself to be part of this like working farm?

I think it's kind of the discipline of like you just you just have to get the job done. Like it's going to suck. Like you're literally standing in like cow shit. But you have to like get this the cows fed no matter what. you learned that like at a really young age. Yeah. I mean, I started doing chores when I was three. And I'd imagine like, because you're starting at such a young age, you have days where you're crying and upset and somebody's probably like, Hey, that doesn't really, your emotions here don't matter. You're like milking cows and you have chickens and things like that. Getting eggs i don't know we said cows yeah but uh yeah i mean i mean your emotions

don't matter to the cows really it's like they still need to get fed so and is this a a farm where you uh guys were selling product as well or is it mainly for the family or or what yeah so like we had like uh it, it was mostly just dairy. So like milk, like we'd fill up the bulk tank of milk every day and then the milk man would come and pump it into his truck and drive it away. Yeah. So it was, it was like a thing that wasn't only for the family, but it was also some income as well.

Yeah. So we, we milked 70 cows. Yeah. So I would imagine like that's a different thing than just having like a cow where you occasionally are, are just getting milk for the family versus, uh, what did you learn about like that process? Cause like, I don't, I don't even know what the hell goes on. Like, so you milk the cow and then like, what's, is the milk good right then? Or does it go through, it's got to go through like a lot of processing or what? Uh, so it goes through like a filter

system, takes out a lot of like the, um um solid particles and then goes into your bulk tank and then it goes into like a um then it goes to like the factory to get processed did you have access to like raw milk and and things like that for yourself like for your family because i mean that might be part of the reason you know and sema over here growing up on uh goat meat and goat milk and a lot a lot of nutritious things really but uh for yourself maybe that was a little bit of contributing factors did you guys have like raw milk and things of that that nature yeah we didn't um apparently we used to drink the raw milk a lot but uh i think when i was younger it was either like myself or my brother when we were younger we got like sick and the doctor was like oh it could be

the wrong like right some of the stuff in the raw milk so we kind of we started doing uh buying like store milk but at the same time you'd still like you know you're like thirsty in the barn and just drink some like drink a glass out of the bulk tank that's great when did powerlifting come into the picture for you uh so 11 no i didn't start till i was 20 oh wow okay yeah so i did uh did my first meet when i was 20 um it was in college and you know when you're just like in the gym you kind of gravitate towards like the strong people or like you're like oh you're strong i'm strong let's train together uh my train partner in college he competed in high school and then he convinced me to do a meet with him okay and let me ask this too and i guess in high school were

you like a football player were you some type of sport player along with lifting football and wrestling football and wrestling yeah okay so that means he knew how to move really fucking well as a wrestler and then he moved into power i was like okay as a wrestler i didn't start till i was uh a freshman yeah and then by then you're wrestling against kids that have been doing it since they're like six and their dads are kind of a little hyper uh trying to live through their their kid yeah and uh like like i could beat i out muscle kids, but I didn't have the best technique and I would get gassed out by like the second period. And if if I made it to like the third period, like I'm going to let him pin me because I am tired. I want to I want to go home. Who are some of the better power lifters when you first got in?

Like who like do you recall seeing like someone like an Ed Cohn or, or seeing video or hearing something about maybe like Jesse Norris or somebody like that where you're like, ah, okay, that guy's a little bit similar to me in terms of body weight, but yet he's doing these crazy weights. I wonder if I could do that. Yeah, actually. Um, so my second meet was actually the first time i met you was at raw unity seven and uh that was when animal sent like basically like their whole lineup of pile lifters was like brandon lily

dan green was like the guy at the time wild ass me yeah it's crazy uh jesse norris was there uh let's see who else milanichev right milanchev was there. Yeah, I met him. That was pretty cool. I asked him for a picture, but he was, like, getting ready to squad. I was like, see? Maybe not a great time. Not getting ready. He had just, like, kind of finished squad, and, like, he took a lot of pictures. I was like, okay.

Like, I understand if you say no. Yeah. I remember how many people he had, like, holding him down to get his wraps on and shit. I always tell that story about, like, I was like there was a guy, like two guys holding him down. One guy holding each of them down. Yeah. Someone holding his, like someone holding his leg. It was an event.

There was like one guy that like pulled, like pulled it around. And then another guy that like pulled the knee wrap even more. And I was like, Jesus. And Andre's just sitting there like in Russian saying like more and with his straight face. And you're like, how the fuck are they? Like, doesn't that kill? Yeah. Like i've only done uh raps a couple times and i had i usually did like self rapping and i was like i'm getting it pretty tight and then i had uh had someone wrap me one time and i was like oh okay that's like i didn't like it because it was just it felt like i couldn't like

actually contract my muscles you can't feel anything it feels like your toes are gonna explode yeah i was like i just didn't have confidence i was like gonna come up with the weight wow in that meet that second that was you said that was gonna be your second meet but like how strong are you i'm just curious like how when you got into powerlifting how you how fast you saw strength progress yeah so uh my first meet that was in 2013 i think june it was a usapl me i told 1482 and that was kind of the first time i was like i won best lifter at this local meet but then i compared my number to like like nationals for usapl it was like one of the first couple years of raw nationals uh if i had hit that total i would have taken like second or third at raw nationals yeah

it wasn't like really big at the time yeah yeah um but i want to point out real quickly though that 1400 pounds is actually very strong uh first of all for a new lifter uh a drug tested athlete um and uh i mean you're you're squatting like sounds like mid-fours almost right and probably deadlifting mid-fours and then benching like three uh i was hitting i hit a 540 squat 330 bench and a 611 deadlift yeah that's that's incredibly strong coming out of the gate and what was the weight class 181 yeah that's wow i mean it's very clear that you're already pretty talented at it when you first started going to you mentioned going to a commercial gym you mentioned having weights at your house when did you start going to commercial gym and did you start to recognize like

i'm a little i'm a little different or i'm a little ahead um so actually i didn't go too much to a commercial gym it's more so so just my high school's gym. Oh, I see. And then like the college gym. I kind of joke because two years ago, I think I got my first gym membership. That's great. Yeah. Because I always had like either the high school, college gym,

or I started at like Madtown Fitness in Madisonison which is a pile lifting gym and i think i paid for like a month membership and then after that month uh i became friends with the gym owner and he's like oh you're gonna be like a special after like you can you could be like our sponsored athlete wow yeah okay so yeah yeah how did you how did your other meets start progressing oh and then uh yeah so then uh the raw unity that was the second meet. That was in February of the next year. And I totaled 1620 at that one, I think. Get over here, Jessica Smith, and give us a big old fat hug. Jessica has been away.

She went to prison a while back. Fresh out of harassment charges. Fresh out of the pen. Great to see you all right now that we got that over with hopefully we don't have to fucking talk to her rousted all right 1600 something pounds then what happens um i think the next one was upa and that was the first time i broke the the drug tested 181 record like 1705 i want to say um that was like uh so at the time it was like myself brett gibbs and then like jamie lewis was the the untested guy that had the record i think like 1710 or

something like that and that's when i kind of the discussion of like oh who's better john or brett and that's kind of what i set out to go compete against him and worlds how'd that go that went well i uh won nationals that year and then um ended up going nine for nine at worlds. The following year hit eight, 13 kilograms total. I don't know what that is in pounds off the top of my head. A lot. Yeah. And that was, that was pretty cool.

Cause it was, I was also a junior at the time. And I remember like one, I, cause I won nationals and they're like, oh, you can pick either open or junior world team. And so like, well, the kid next to me, it was like, well, which one are you going to do? I'm like, I'm obviously going to go open. Cause I want to go against Brett Gibbs. And he's like, well, you could win the junior.

I'm like, I can win the open man. Yeah. Oh shit. Yeah. So now the numbers that you had then before you went on to the USPA, are those like are those numbers that you had before you left? Are they still like has someone beaten those numbers yet for the 1705? Yeah. Yeah. OK. Yeah. But I'm curious, before you made that transition, what kind of what made you want to move in that direction?

Because it seems that you still had a lot that you could have continued to gain there oh you mean uh going from ipf to uspa oh okay okay yeah sorry um yeah so aka getting on some drugs yeah i actually didn't get on drugs for a full year after okay yeah but um so even like back when i hit the like the 1620 it was kind of always like i want to be like in the i don't want to be like just the best ipf uspa lifter i want to be like the best overall and i saw like conquering the ipf as just like one of the stepping stones to that and after that like i had a lot of like family members like oh you won world like what are you gonna do now and i was kind of like well like do i go again

and originally that was kind of the plan yeah and then the first current like the first big current with the 40 000 payout got announced i was like that's an easy reason to switch like i ended up taking second at that meet and i was actually still natty at the time so i was like damn yeah it was a ten thousand dollar payout for second place and what did you lift there how much like what are you benching squat and deadlifting so that was with wraps natty by the way means like he's on a little bit of d-ball just like just a couple pills you know yeah it was totally natty come on bro i believe you i believe you uh it's a farm boy strength yeah you can't question it uh what did i total that one

i i tied um ben polak he's fucking strong he is very strong but did the usapl give you shit for doing the kern even though though you didn't take anything. That was why I was going to stay natty. Because my plan was, I was like, okay, I'll alternate every other year. Because it's a one-year ban for competing outside. So I was like, okay, I can do Worlds in 2016, do the Kern in 2017, and then go back to Worlds in 2018. But when I signed up, they're like, oh, you won't be able to compete in 2017 or 2018 worlds.

I'm like, why? That's like, my band will be up by the time 2018 worlds comes around. But they said, because, okay, the meet is in like April of 2017.

So my band should be up in like April of 2018, but they make the world team decisions in like January of 2018. So they're like, Oh, you're still banned at this time. So we won't select you for the world team. I like January of 2018 so they're like oh you're still banned at this time so we won't select you for the world team I think it was just there wasn't a rule against it they were just kind of being dicks about it

that's so awesome you get banned for like hanging out with people that take shit I know they could still drug test like they could still off season drug test you to make sure I just think that's so kind of ridiculous because it seems like they're trying to fucking own an athlete yeah i remember i asked him one time on the uh the like usapl group page i'm like hey like what's the point of this rule like why can't i

compete in uspa and then come back to usapl and they're like well like mcdonald's doesn't want you eating that burger king like well i don't get banned from mcdonald's for eating that burger king right i think it actually it might even be like a WADA rule, not necessarily a USAPL rule, but they really like to stick to their guns on it. As an organization, they can just be like, we don't really care if you compete in other spots. But for some reason they do. I never made it never made a whole lot of sense to me.

What did your training look like at that time? Because nowadays you bench squat and deadlift and your ways of improving bench squat and deadlift are through bench squatting and deadlifting. You do assistance exercises, but you said like sometimes you don't have even a ton of steam to do them and you're just kind of getting through them. I'm sure they're still a big part of what you do, but they seem to represent less. But to a newer newer lifter that's kind of wondering how you built yourself up how did you build yourself up in the beginning so even even then i'd been training for probably like 12 or 14 years something in that range so i would say like the those like

first five years i was doing a lot more like it was still like strength based but it's a little bit more like volume bodybuilding kind, kind of like, um, push pull type splits. Where I have years, it goes right with Andre Milano chip. Yeah. And then like after that, it kind of became more similar to just like in between like that,

the five year. And now it kind of just tapered a little bit more towards, um, just hitting the main lifts. So even like four years ago when I was still natural, I was still training pretty similar to what I do now. At any point, did you start to see like, where was,

or like maybe now, but where was a big slowdown in strength for you? Cause like, it's not perfectly linear, but you're still, still waiting for that. Yeah. Are you just, uh, like definitely, um, you because like it's not perfectly linear but you're still still waiting for that yeah are you

just uh like definitely um i've had like periods where it's like slowed down but i've always kind of like uh change something up to or maybe not necessarily change something up but like just take like one step back to take like two steps forward what does that kind of look like um i guess kind of getting like if i get like two into my head about a certain goal number um i might like keep just pushing it too much and i'll like i think like a lot of lifters are like oh i want to hit like a 500 pound bench or something like that and then they just they get so into their head about getting that 500 pound bench that like every like three meets in in a row, they'll go like, like a 440 opener, 470 second. And then they'll go for 500 and miss it like every single time.

And I think like one thing I did was I was like, okay, like maybe, maybe I won't get 500 pound bench at this meet. Like maybe just go for 490 and then 496 the next one then 500 and that like i would say i think like 2017 was kind of when like that clicked for me and since then i've been very consistent with hitting like prs on on my meets what was the decision to uh take performance enhancing drugs and were you like worried about it, nervous about it, or has it been in your horizon for a long time? Uh, so I, I was kind of new. I would like eventually get them, get on them. Um, just cause like I said, I always wanted to be the best. I didn't want to be just the best natty

lifter. I want to be just the best overall and i knew to do that i needed to get on drugs and actually uh i started on sarms that's how i actually like found andrew's least he was doing the sarmageddon series yeah like right around that time christ andrew hey look at the impact i started right before him so maybe I influenced him so I started that for I did that for about a year and then decided to like my first cycle was literally just I did 12 weeks I did the first 4 weeks

were 150 tests and the next 4 were 200 tests I can hear all the pants going right now and then the last four weeks going into the meet i went up to 250 milligrams of test and that was the whole cycle and that was when i hit the 2k at 181 you were like damn this shit works did you see a really big bump um maybe not so much from that one so what i get from drugs more so is just um going from like 181 to 198 weight class. Like I just noticed that I was able to put on the weight so much more clean

versus like if I just tried to fall. That's actually a really interesting thing. Cause I wonder if you went like, like some sort of way of testing, gaining body weight versus taking performance enhancing drugs. Like, I don't know what the results are of that one study that everyone always brings up where people took testosterone, I think, for like six weeks and they increased their bench without working out in comparison to a group that was natural, that was actually

training. But I wonder if the group gained body weight, because I think that that is a huge responsibility or is is what is hugely responsible for uh some of the strength gains but obviously not forever and for you you have to stay in a particular weight class yeah i think for powerlifting i think most of the strength like i think uh most of what you gain from taking like steroids or performance enhancers is uh just being having more muscle and um it also makes the weight cut a lot easier too i think like i feel like um just yeah that's actually very true because you have more muscle and it's easier to kind of deplete your glycogen stores lose water weight it's easy to manipulate uh 15 20 pounds when you have a large amount of muscle mass on you, whereas just trying

to just strictly lose fat would be very difficult and also really awkward with trying to gain the weight back. If you had to lose 15, 20 pounds and it was mainly water weight, you can normally put it back on pretty well and lift pretty well. Yeah i yeah i think the like the post weigh-in recovery is a lot more efficient as well an interesting thing that i'm noticing about you also because we talked about the way that you look but also like you you're not breathing in a like in a crazy way because you when you see a lot of guys that like are running quite a bit of stuff when they speak or they get on a mic they're like like you seem to have control over that you seem to be health like you're healthy you can tell you're healthy so how did you make sure to do that

in a way where nothing it doesn't seem that your blood pressure is compromised it doesn't seem that you're breathing heavy how are you doing that oh well i run like very low so like i'm kind of off cycle right now okay um so normally i run a pretty low dose i run a pretty low dose regardless i love the this kind of talk i'm kind of off cycle right now yeah so which means you're not off cycle i'm on 100 milligrams test a week right now right okay um so because normally uh when i finish a meet um i'll come off completely but between the showdown and um my next meet was the hybrid showdown it's it was 16 weeks and i'd usually do like a 12-week cycle so i was like i don't want to like come completely off for four weeks and then come back

on so i was like i'll just do like 100 milligrams test um and then even even like at the peak, I do like a 12 week cycle. I'll start at like 200 milligrams tests and 50 Anovar a day. And then at six weeks I'll switch to 50 Anadrol and bump it up to 250 tests. You were mentioning also, like when we were talking in the gym, how like when you get up to the 220, you feel like, like you feel like your face is. Once I get up to 220, then like it like it feels like oh i'm getting a little bit like it feels unhealthy for me okay yeah like maybe if i put it on slower i could do that but that's why uh when everyone's like oh you should move up to 220 now i'm like i don't know hey i

feel like i still have stuff to do at 90 kilos but uh it's just uh i feel i feel like i'd lose a little bit of my like athleticism and um feel the move as well so do you want to like i'm just i'm just curious about like your progression through time are you trying to do some stuff at this weight class and then later on when you feel like i don't know what conquering this weight class looks like for you but then are you going to move up and try to conquer another weight class or you just see how things go? I see myself as I don't like coming down in weight or like I feel like I can never go back to 181 at this point. Like now that I'm a 90 kilo, I can only go up. And so I want to do everything here at 90 kilos before I move to the 100 kilo weight class. Who has the 100 kilo weight class record?

I think Uri Belkin does. And then what about 242? Jamal Browner. And you have surpassed both of their totals already in the 181 class? 198. In the 198 class. Yeah. I wonder why that those records don't roll over

since it's a disadvantage to be less weight than it is to be more weight. I do agree with that. I think it should be the under 100 kilo class, not the 90.1 to... Right. Anyone under that weight that has done more weight total wise should have the record i agree so these are fake records these motherfuckers have i mean in fairness jamal

he took a big jump for his third death these guys are these guys are fucking savages um so you move you want to move up in these weight classes and probably uh it would probably make for great competition because those guys will probably want to level up in these weight classes and probably, uh, it would probably make for great competition. Cause those guys will probably want to level up as well. Yeah. I think, uh, like I definitely want to go head to head with,

uh, Yuri at some point, but he's much more like a lot of people like, like to compare us. And I just like to say like, he's a much better lifter and raps than me. And I'm, I think I'm better in sleeves.

Um, you don't have some of the rap records or you do have some of those as well uh so technically i have the rap record for 198 as well um i think chad's chad had it at 90 or 997.5 and then i just barely etched it out. Having those, like, does it mean much to you to, like, have those records? And, like, it does seem like the 1,000-kilo thing was something for you. When you hit an 887-pound deadlift at the end of a powerlifting meet, you went through your squat, you went through your bench, you figured out out the number and i think you were chasing that thousand kilos for a while

were you super excited did you cry did you like fucking run around like you want a bunch of money or something or like what did it feel like it didn't mean much yeah that one was uh that one was really exciting because so i went into the meet feeling pretty confident and I planned out my attempts and I was like, OK, I can still miss one lift and hit the 1000 kilos. I was like, all right, if perfect day, I would hit like 10, 12.5. But obviously missed the third squat, but I injured myself on that one. I kind of tore both quads and um at that point i was very like down i was like um if you listen to like the massonomics podcast like yeah we had we had the booth right next to where john was saying he he was not having a good

time that is accurate i was not i was like i don't think the thousand kilos is here i was very heartbroken i was like damn i really thought this was the one um because i was like i don't think the thousand kilos is here i was very heartbroken i was like damn i really thought this was the one um because i was like i don't think i can leg drive as much on bench and i don't know how that lifts are gonna go and but after like warming up i mentioned like my upper body feels really strong i can't really leg drive so like the first two attempts i didn't push it that hard or i didn't like it was basically like 90 upper body maybe like a little bit of leg drive yeah and then third bench i was like ah like fuck it like fuck my legs fuck your elbow kind of thing yeah um and uh you could have wore a slingshot under your singlet Uh, you could have wore a slingshot under your singlet. That is the method now.

Is that the meta? But, uh, yeah, so, uh, hit that, hit the third bench. And then at that point I kind of like did the math. I'm like, okay, this is the number I need to hit to hit the thousand kilos. And, um, that lift warming up, I was like, all right, like it it hurts to move but the actual lift isn't making the legs worse so like it could be there actually and ended up being there so it was kind of like going from that super low to that super high with two torn quads yeah bruh yeah why am i like the only one who seems surprised about this? That's fucking crazy.

Yeah. I mean, it's I guess like in the end, it didn't affect my strength for bench and maybe like two and a half kilos on bench. Like I went in thinking like 584 was going to be my third attempt. How bad was it in the succeeding days? my third attempt. How bad was it in the succeeding days, you know, like getting upstairs and walking and stuff where your legs really, really jacked up or was just like kind of a tweak or a pull in the competition? So the first week after was pretty, it was uncomfortable. Like I could, I could move, but it was just like, like I had to work on the Monday after I got back and I was just like, no, I'm going to like, I'm going to kind of do computer work this whole day.

Like I'm not going to move. And then, um, even, even still like the, the left or the right one, um, on squats, isn't feeling a hundred percent currently. Yeah. I'll see how I was going to squat after this and I'll see how, how that goes. Okay. Damn. Um, who's somebody that you would really like to lift like with because

you kind of mentioned to me earlier that you don't really have a lot of times when you you work out with people but you because you mentioned that a lot of times you're kind of doing your own thing um are there some people out there like a larry wheels or a michael hearn or bodybuilder powered up their strongman person where you'd like, man, I just love to just say, fuck my program for the day and go train with them and do something crazy. Uh, definitely like Chris Bumstead. Um, he's probably like the bodybuilder I would most like to train with. Um, not like, like it'd be cool to lift with like big Rami, but I would prefer like Chris Bumstead personally.

with like big rami but i would prefer like chris bumstead personally um and then there's there's like a i see like a lot of the palatars as like my peers but then like if i look at like strongman those are kind of guys i'm like wow like seeing seeing the shit they're doing i'm like damn that's that's crazy i'd love to like lift with uh like brian shaw or um so you'd be down to try some of that stuff have you messed around with any of that stuff before yeah i was actually supposed to do official strongman games in three weeks but i actually pulled out of that because so originally when i signed up for that i thought my next meet after the showdown was going to be the kern and i was like okay that'll give me enough time to kind of stay on cycle until strongman games and then and like kind of focus

on strongman and then come off and come back out and like switch gears back to powerlifting yeah but um because the hybrid showdown um popped up i decided to drop out of that one i'm really curious man because when like when you've talked about your training through this conversation it seems that a majority of it has been very strength-based like when you were younger you you you'd still strength-based although you did work with more volume of like more volume focus it makes me wonder like for you to gain muscle do you think bodybuilding training would be something that'd be beneficial for you if you like did a few training cycles and you just focused on training volume i feel like you just blow the fuck up yeah i think so i mean like even even if i start doing like just adding like an extra back movement i can just like visibly see after like almost like a week

where i'm like oh like my back is looking a lot better it's weird like maybe maybe it's just kind of placebo effect kind of thing. Like, oh, maybe I'm, but like if I do like abs for like a week, like I feel like the next week my abs just like look significantly better. That's the thing. I don't feel like it's placebo though, because it's like you, you don't really do that often. So if you do, it's like, you would just like, yeah. Like if I do that though, like I start getting more burned out from the main lifts

gotcha yeah so like i guess i kind of just i do accessories as i feel like it i guess i don't know what uh what are you doing food wise and and has there been a really like targeted focus on that or are you a little uh more laid back with that uh i'm kind of in between so i like i guess uh so i work with merenison's periodization um i follow probably like 70 of it where it's like i i focus on like the timing of like protein and then pretty intuitively eat like fats and carbs but i'm i i perform really well with like a high carb diet so you're on a high fat high carb diet pretty low lower fat write that down yeah so when you say intuitively what does that look like for you like do you can you feel before like a training session i need a bit

more carbs today before i train or something like that yeah for sure like um or i'll just feel like um oh i'm like feeling kind of down like maybe just eat a little bit more. And, um, uh, like my body, as long as like I check my body weight most days and you're not rigidly tracking things. Correct. I kind of like not rigidly,

but like half ass track the protein. I'm like, as long as I'm getting like 180, like between like 170 and 185 grams of protein. And then the carbs and fat kind of come naturally. So if you want your shoulders to be bigger, for example, you just train them one time per month and they get bigger. If you want to get leaner, you maybe just don't eat pizza for a day. I'm just trying to make sure I have all this down.

I'm getting the program down from some of the other stuff you said in the gym and then you only deadlift super heavy every week and you only squat heavy every week but you also only bench press three times a week am I figuring some of this out do you deadlift more than once

a week and squat more than once a week because I didn't write that down yet I do usually squat twice a week so I have like i knew i had this program wrong so i guess like the way my training is kind of focused is like i have so saturdays um heavy single on squat and bench and then some some bench accessories and then monday will be heavy deadlift with like back day. And then Tuesday I'll do like a rep bench day. Wednesday will be a rep squat day. I usually like to do that as a pause squats. And then Wednesday or Thursday I'll either do another bench day where it's kind of more like speed work.

I'll do like, I like doing bands or chains on those days just kind of i don't know if they're trying to move real fast like a real explosive or is there a little bit more focus on just uh like form more more so form and control but also like moving fast um like that day if i give it to like a client i'm kind kind of like, Hey, like if you're newer, like try out different move, like different things. Like maybe it might not, it might not be, uh, bands for them, but like, you know, maybe try a different grip, try a different foot placement and see, like, I'm a big fan of doing what feels good. And that's usually, or like feeling what, doing what feels strong and sticking with

that. And it's kind of like experiment on that day. What you're talking about is just practice. I mean, really, you know, when you do, uh, when somebody does speed work and when somebody does rep work, they have a similar impact. They have a similar effect where if someone's doing, you know, if you, if you wrote out for a client and you said, Hey, I'd like to see you do you do, you know, three sets of 15 on these squats. Well, it's different than when they're doing three sets of three, because when they're doing three sets of three, the weight is heavy enough to where they can't really think about

the movement. They can't really play with foot placement. They can't really, as they're doing the range of motion, they can't really think about what they're doing because the weight is too heavy. When you do three sets of 15, however, especially from a powerlifting perspective, you can take that time to say, oh, I wonder how it feels if my feet are turned out a little bit more.

Oh, I wonder if I get this grip. Oh, I saw this person do this. I can practice. And you can actually think during the lift, oh, I wonder if I arch up more, how that feels while I'm squatting. And then same thing comes with the bench press and you mentioning the speed work. And I think what people get lost in is like, they, they think some of this dynamic effort work that Louie Simmons came up with does not work

great for raw lifters. And, uh, they're very wrong on that because, uh, first of all, doing like eight sets or 10 sets and going with kind of short rest intervals, it gives you a really wonderful opportunity to practice your first rep, which is one of the most important things in lifting. So if you're doing a speed deadlift or doing speed squats or speed bench, you have an opportunity to practice. And you can also kind of think about like, hey, this is 500 pounds. Like, don't think that it's just 185 or whatever is on the bar. You're also, you know also teaching yourself how to accelerate

through the weight. But as you put it, you're trying different grips and trying different things. What's the strongest? What's the weakest? Oh, wow. I'm weak when I'm really out wide. I wonder if I brought some flies into my training, did some cable crossovers that would help protect the shoulder more so I can build a bigger bench. Or maybe i would use a cambered bar to go down lower or use dumbbells to go down lower i mean then you start really actually thinking about your training and it's not just uh it's not just you kind of going on autopilot so it gives you awesome opportunity to get stronger yeah and i think uh i really recommend like once you like if you're doing like maybe like, uh,

seven or, uh, like four sets of eight and you try different ones and like maybe like a wider grip felt better on one of them. You're like, Oh, like I like that. Um,

I think I usually recommend like, okay, like for your next heavy day, do that for your warmup and see how it goes um because maybe it won't feel better at the heavier weights but you know just like i've been doing this for 18 years now like i found out what works for my body but it it didn't happen overnight i'm i'm curious because uh we asked andre milanich how this like you know you see a lot of lifters that are excited about powerlifting. Let's say they've never lifted before, but they just want to hop right into powerlifting and just lifting heavy, right?

What would you suggest and be for a lifter in their first three to five years of training? What should they concentrate on? Should they just concentrate on getting stronger and going to powerlifting or what would give them a good base? That's tough to say because I like personally like i've always just really enjoyed being strong so like uh sticking with powerlifting's been fun i think as long as you're just having fun in the gym i mean i don't think there's anything you need to focus on yeah but um just find some find some training program that you enjoy. Like if you like doing higher rep stuff, like do a program that's more higher reps and then you can't get too focused on

the actual, like, like have fun hitting PRS, but don't rely on those for your enjoyment of the training. Yeah. If you only like something, you'll never be great at it. You know,

you have to actually like love it. If you, if you like something, you have an opportunity to be pretty good at it. But it's going to take that you're passionate enough about it to where when you go and do a lift and you fuck up your back and it messes you up for three, four weeks. was pretty competitive. And we'd always kind of say like, well, we'll see what happens after the guy's here for about three months, you know, because first month they're really pumped. Second month, it starts to get a little harder. And by the time that third month rolls around, they got to really make decisions on whether they want their elbows to be flared up all the time, or if they want to take extra time to figure out ways of, of taking care of those things. Cause powerlifting, uh, is a sport that doesn't end when you leave the gym. You know, there's so much more to it when it comes to your food and your sleep, trying to figure out ways of, uh, recovering and things like that. And so it takes a lot of resilience. And once you see somebody get hurt, you get an opportunity to see like, oh, okay. I think that motherfucker is probably going to

stick around for a while. Cause he did get hurt and he was sucking it up for a few weeks, but now he's back to it and he's rebuilding because it sucks, man. It sucks when you, you're working so hard, you're, you are doing everything, you're doing everything in your power that you think is right. And you think is correct. Um, I heard just a sidetrack just a little bit I heard a story the other day about this woman who said that she did an easter egg hunt when she was a kid and she was really pumped because she knew that this one easter egg had five bucks in it and she got super excited she found the one that she knew there's going to be five bucks in it this like golden egg her dad would you know put the easter eggs around wherever She gets all pumped up.

She opens up and a turd pops out. A little thing like dog poop. Oh, actual dog poop? Yeah, actual dog poop. And her dad like sat her down and explained why he put it in there. He said, sometimes no matter how hard you work or how hard or how much you think

something's the right thing to do or the right way, sometimes shit just happens. What a wild time for her. I know, right? How old was she? She's like five or seven or something like that. Wow.

Like, yeah, holy shit. I think I would never trust my dad. Yeah, I know. Yeah. But anyway, kind of the point being is that like you are trying to do things that you think are in your best interest. You are trying to move towards things that you think are a great idea and bam you get hurt so how do you deal with injuries how do you kind of come back from um i think uh so i haven't had like any like major

ones in my lifting career it's usually something where i can still like maybe i won't be able to squat heavy but i can still at least like bench or deadlift. So I just kind of put my focus more on the other lifts I can do. Um, I, I personally, I've never had to deal with where I've had to take like a whole month off of like training.

So that's great. Yeah. So, okay. I don't know. Am I thinking torn quads aren't a major injury? Like, is that not a major injury?

Uh, I mean, I had, I took like a two and a half weeks off, like of squatting okay and now i'm like i've kind of like uh the first first one lift back i hit like worked up to like 385 and then just i've been doing squats twice a week and just kind of increasing it slowly each week so like last saturday i hit 540 for okay a triple and it felt pretty good yeah uh it felt like um like like i felt strong but i also just didn't feel confident where i was like oh i feel like it could like re-injure

yeah if i like went an inch deeper kind of thing gotcha you're touching upon something i think makes a lot of sense here i think that uh a lot of it's just his mindset you know what other what somebody else might consider to be uh an injury that is uh temporarily uh life altering you're like oh it's just so you know it's just a little uh hitch in my giddy up for a little while and i'll get better soon yeah i think um i think a lot of lifters at least like uh newer guys kind of think too short term where like uh andy and i have i and i've talked on our podcast about how like i had kind of like a five-year plan of like what i wanted to hit like i wasn't just thinking like next meet i was like all right i want to hit this at this meet

that'll set me up to hit like this is the next one this is the next one and then like and then i can hit the like 1000 kilo it wasn't like i need to hit the thousand kilo at this this next meet and so then when i get like an injury like that it's kind of like okay like it might just like set me back a little bit for the next for the short term but um i can just like adjust the short the long term a little bit to still hit that that end goal that's a really big deal though like that that that's that's awesome because most lifters do they're only thinking about what they want to hit in the gym next week and what they want to hit at their next meet and then after that they get the post-meet blues they're like i don't have any new goals set up but you set up a long-term plan and that's why you're able to consistently just chip

away at these little goals yeah because it's not it's not something you have to do right now. Yeah. Now I hit that long-term goal and I don't know what, where I'm going from now. I'm joking. I like, I just don't have like a, other than the,

like the 800, 600, 900, I don't have like a specific number in mind. Maybe, uh, I think Ed Cohen's best two 20 was like 24, 36,

something like that. I think that would be like a really like 24, 36, something like that. I think that would be like a really fun number to like kind of shoot for. But, you know, that's a ways away. So, okay. That's a lot of lifting. Yeah. Right. What are some exercises that you utilize to, because people are sometimes obsessed with particular lifts so let's talk about bench

and say like what is a particular other movements that you might utilize to help increase your bench press um so like i talked about earlier like most of my lifts are just doing the main lifts um but especially for bench when i do the three days a week i kind of focus on like um each day i kind of focus on like a different like main mover so like chest shoulders and uh triceps and i kind of hit like i'll hit the main lift and then the next lift after will be something that kind of like is still similar to bench it's usually like a barbell movement but it kind of focuses more on that like chest or whatever so i it's usually like l barbell movement, but it kind of focuses more on that, like chest or whatever. So it's usually like a Larson press, which I do for like chest.

Which is a bench press, like a bodybuilder bench press where your feet are up or your feet are just straight out in front of you. You could just have your feet straight out or you could put your feet on a box and just let your legs totally relax. You could even kind of practice this on like a floor press or something like that. Just anything to get your legs, um, you know, out of the lift. Yep. And then,

uh, like an overhead press on my shoulder day. And then, um, like close grip or bands or chains or something on the, uh, on the tricep day. Cool.

How about squat and deadlift since we're on this? Um, so I don't do too much variations on deadlifts um sometimes i'll hit the the top single and then i'll drop down do like a couple sets of pause deadlift but what i found works best for my deadlift is training back like actually uh like bent over row or pendulate rows really has a big carryover for me really yeah like if i hit like pendulates if i like skip it for like three weeks my deadlift will feel trash but if i like skip it and then like i hit it the next week i'll be like okay my deadlift it feels a lot more locked in can you describe that lift a bit uh yeah it's a

bent over or pendulate row is just a bent over row basically but you like you drop the bar all the way to down to the ground let the weight rest a bit and then give another pull to it do you uh move your body much or do you try to stay strict where your body stays like but you're not using a lot of body english i try and keep it um stiff i try not to jerk it as much but um like sometimes you just want to push it a little bit heavier so like i think a little bit of movement is good but um you don't want to be flailing yeah you don't want to be doing like basically three quarters of a deadlift when did you start doing the penalty and like what what like what do you i guess when you do work the penalty what numbers do you look for that correlate

over to like okay so my deadlift is probably it's probably probably move this amount of weight uh i don't like focus too much on the weight of um my accessories ever like i don't know what my best set of eight on pendular rows is okay but i usually just kind of pick like round numbers like i train with kilo plates i'll usually just do like um if i'm doing like sets of 12 i mean start with like 275 so it's like two reds and then if like that set moved well maybe i'll throw like five kilos on each side or something like that but um yeah i don't i don't uh i don't specifically like try and focus on the weight as long as i'm like around like rp like seven to rp nine um but the position is what you care about with that movement like maintaining good position that's part of yeah maintaining good

movement and then uh just getting the work in really like as long as long as i get the sets and the reps in um the weight doesn't matter to it like maybe like when i'm feeling stronger i'll hit heavier but yeah i don't track that. So I don't know. There's, there's a lot of variation in what you're saying. Like, it seems like you're just saying bench squat deadlift and you have a couple of movements that you like to do, but there's still a lot of nuances and variation within everything that you're talking about.

Bench pressing three times a week and then having, you know, a specific focus on shoulders one day, triceps another day, pecs another day. But I think that people don't always understand how much variation there can be in just one movement, even if it's just the one movement with not an actual variation to the exercise, because you can lift the weight slower. You can lift the weight faster. You can do some pause reps.

And then you can also utilize like different barbells. So you could do a fat bar bench press. You could do a safety squat bar squat instead of a regular deadlift. Maybe you are using a trap bar. Like there's just, there's endless amounts of variation that you can use that is still the same exercise or similar flavor to it you can shorten the range of motion you can lengthen

the range of motion that seems like you don't choose to to veer too far off of the actual movement itself for the most part but you did mention for squats that you use a safety squat bar and that occasionally you'll also do some pause squats, right? Uh, yeah, I do actually more pause squats than do safety squat bar. Um, I've had like some issues with like hip injury or like glute, um, safety squat bar. So I don't push that one that heavy, but, um, I do like doing like beltless pause squats on my secondary uh squat day usually like work up to i do a lot of like ascending sets so like i'll start at like um maybe like 500 and then if that goes well go up like 20 kilos or something like that and then i'll hit like a top set and that

that like the top set is kind of what i track as as long as i'm like increasing that each week why beltless um i just kind of like it yeah i don't like i i don't have like a good reason like oh you need to do beltless to like build your abs but um so i'm very upright so it doesn't i don't get a whole lot out of the belt. Um, but so you think you could pretty much, I'm assuming you could squat pretty close to your belted max beltless. Yeah. I think I've hit, um,

honestly, I think what did I hit this past train cycle? I hit something like upper, like six 82 for like a pause, triple beltless or maybe like 700. I don't know. Something around there. It was kind of funny because like I'll post like a

video like that where I'll like personally think like wow that was like one of the most impressive sets I've ever hit and then like won't get as many likes as like yeah like upper seven squats like that damn it like mentally that like almost like fucks with you is like being like trying to be like both

like lifter and like social media side of things okay it's because you mentioned this earlier in the podcast it was really interesting you're saying like okay if there's a goal number you had in mind and you're not going to get there you at least you're going to get something that you can post and it's it's cool that you're mentioning this because like that stuff is somewhat important for you as a lifter and having people see kind of what you're doing. It's it's it's interesting that like, you know, OK, this won't get as many likes, but this will. You know what I mean? So so what kind of I guess what kind of importance do you put into the social media aspect of things? Because some people are like, I don't give a fuck. But at the end of the day, it is fairly important important in this day and age it's one of the only ways to get recognition too in the sport that we're

in yeah yeah i think that actually like really benefits me too because like people like seeing the top single and that that's what i'm good at that works out well for my my training and i recovered well from it um so i do like put more focus on those single days i think and then like the rep days or the accessories i kind of half-ass it because maybe not like half at three quarter acid three quarter acid do you uh cook at all because like you know the food thing is a really important and we did touch upon it a bit but do you cook your own own food, or do you just kind of end up at, like, Chipotle? Like, what's it look like for you? So, I usually like to, I'm starting a new meal prep plan for my, like, breakfast.

It's kind of like my, I eat, like, a bigger breakfast, and then I snack a lot. Andy will make fun of my diet, because me and his girlfriend we both like eat like child like we'll eat like uncrustables and stuff really yeah okay so uncrustables what else uh i love fruit snacks fruit snacks welches uh annies i don't know what that is those are the like organic ones oh healthy with it yeah um so like like i would say like my my best meals are definitely breakfast and then pre-workout meal is usually like oatmeal a protein shake and a banana and that's like pretty consistent and like if it's a heavier heavier if i want to go like heavier that day maybe like do an extra packet of oatmeal or something like that.

Extra banana, extra anadrol. Yeah. What did you eat when you were a kid? I mean, my mom cooked dinner most nights, cereal for breakfast, and school lunch. Okay. I'm kind of curious about this. Over the years, do you find that, because, yeah, your nutrition is structured, but do you find that now, since you've been doing certain things for such, like such a long time, you can kind of literally pay less

attention to it. You kind of just know what to do and you can wing certain things because you know how you respond to stuff. Were you more regimented before or no? I think it was kind of like stepwise getting to that point where um i was probably like less regiment earlier in my lifting career because like i was younger i can get away with that and um i was still progressing through other means of just like getting stronger yeah um i think like as i've gotten like past like 25 i've kind of had to get each time I get a little bit better, I think.

But it's such small steps, I don't notice that I'm doing it better. So in the past year, I've started watching one of your recent guests, Andrew Huberman. So sleep has been a really big thing that i've improved on this past year and i think that's kind of like one little like little thing that i can do to like help increase my my performance any particular things or just like thinking about you know uh getting to bed on time like anything that you've noticed that really helped um yeah getting to bed on time honestly just like kind of listening to it it's like making me more conscious of my sleep and like um i like his uh his uh like getting sunlight in in the morning um trying to limit screen time at night and then just going to bed at consistent times what did you notice with that when you started because we

talked about sleep a lot but for you what did like that look like for you before? Cause I mean, obviously you were getting some sleep, but you weren't paying as much attention to it. And then what are the things that you adjusted? So I think, um, actually like, so I got, uh, laid off from my work back in May and I started a new job and my previous one, I was working from home. So I kind of like, I was at a really bad habit and it was kind of like i was i had a really bad habit and it was kind of like i can like wake up and just roll out of bed and kind of casually start working at whatever time i wanted so i would like play video games late at night and then like wake up at random time like just naturally and now um i actually have kind of a set schedule and i think

that's actually like helped me being like okay this, this is what time I have to wake up. So like if I want to get eight hours of sleep, like this is what time I have to go to bed. Okay. I definitely want to ask about what games you play, but I want to like, we got to let you know right now, since we're talking about sleep, we work with a company called Eight Sleep, right? They have a mattress topper that can cool your bed. And there's been a lot of research to show that the cooler temperature your mattress is, the faster sleep onset you're going to have. So the cool thing is that Eight Sleep, they have a mattress topper that you don't need to buy a mattress, but you can put it on top of your mattress. Or you can get a mattress and the topper and get amazing sleep with that temperature controlled pad.

And we can get it for for you for 150 off um right now if you guys head over to eight sleep.com slash power project that's uh eight spelled out so e i g h t i had to look at it because i can't spell for shit eight sleep.com slash power project once you guys go there you guys will see the uh the banner up at the top it'll say 150 off automatically off of your pod pro or your pod pro plus mattress uh so code needed just head down to the links in the YouTube description as well as the podcast show notes But yeah, I do that stuff's amazing because it actually will change like your temperature throughout the night So like mine when I first get into bed, it's like freezing cold Well, it's rare very cold. My wife says it's freezing cold and then by time I wake up

It's like it's warm so I like it's really really easy to get out of bed and like the um the amount of like wake-up periods throughout the night has gone way down so like you're getting better sleep it's like something you should definitely check out cool especially during the trend sweats oh man never done trends oh good for you oh will you ever do i don't think so i think think like you touched on with that coach Trevor guy where you guys talked about how like like I want things like oh

trend like such a such a like so hardcore like you need it for strength and like it's actually kind of funny because do you guys ever sponsor Pete Rubish I know he yeah I know he did the backyard me

of the century absolutely um he was one of my first training partners so i kind of like saw like that's like i think i think that's actually like a big thing that's changed since like when i first started lifting versus now i was like i think a lot of people are kind of i think back then it was kind of like just take whatever is in your fridge because literally i asked him going into uh raw union like hey, Hey, like, what do you want? He's like, Oh, I don't know. I just injected everything else I had in my fridge. I was just like, Holy shit, man.

That's, that's wild. Like now, now obviously he's gotten like, he's a bunch smarter about it. Yeah. Yeah. People, well, people share more information and with the more information out there, uh, it does attract maybe more people to get into it. information out there. It does attract maybe more people to get into it, which, you know, is not necessarily always great because it might be people that haven't really trained much yet.

They haven't put any time into it or they are starting very young. So there are some dangers to it. But it is nice to hear people say, hey, like these ones actually are pretty mild. I never had, you know, I personally never had anything happen to me with these, but these over here, probably not a great idea. And then, you know, future people that are thinking about going that route, they can make a better decision. Yeah, and I think, yeah, just there's more information out there, and now people are a little bit smarter about what they take. Yeah, somebody actually in the live chat had brought up Pete Rubish. um i have no idea so hopefully they weren't honeydicking me but um

that he's coming off of everything and then trying to compete i think he's been off very yeah he's been off of everything the last time i checked i don't know if he's still i think he was like trying for a kid maybe i might be wrong there i watched a few of his videos where he talked about like coming off came off everything and he's been off everything for a few months now and his like lifting numbers they went like way down and then now they're they're they're climbing back up um yeah i think it's fuck i think it's great you're not going to see too many people that do that that are on shit for long periods of time who say, Hey, I'm just going to leave it in the rear view mirror and not even take like TRT because, uh, you are changing a lot of so much of your identity. You know, I lost a hundred pounds. I don't have the same strength. So I

changed my identity somewhat. And then I got a mustache and then dressed as a superhero, but changed my identity a bit, but it's still not the same as like just you know going completely clean from it yeah i mean uh yeah i don't think i'd ever go on trend at this point i think yeah whatever you're doing is working i perform well with just doing like i think anadrol works a lot better for me personally you know drawing video games yeah i do want to mention this though and kind of ask this too because i've heard you talk about genetics before and like you mentioned like genetics or they play a big part but in you know as we've been talking man i don't think people i don't want people to hear that and be like oh john's just genetically

gifted because you've been working on a farm since three you've been lifting weights for strength since 10 you've done wrestling and football in high school and you've been super consistent with that shit like the whole time so and you've been paying attention to what's going on around you because you've mentioned listening to like andrew huberman and pulling in information from other people so yeah like you there is a lot like a lot of people don't start lifting till they're 16 or 17. And before that, they don't even really do much physical things in their youth. But you were growing up being a physical, just working with shit your whole life. Yeah.

That plays a big role. Yeah. I think like, like when I say like genetics, I also mean like, um, my early environment. Okay. And I think just like kind of getting the mindset of what i need to do to like get to the level and obviously like the actual genetics do play a huge role like you know there's many people that can never bench like or even squat like 500 pounds like most people probably won't be able to squat 500 pounds

in their life they could train all their life and they they can't get to that level but um i think like what's i have a very good combination of kind of all the things you just listed like genetics and environment and also just like intelligence for like training, I think. I think a lot of people kind of train stupid and that ends up killing their career. Yeah, you I mean, you went through a lot of years of just probably, you know, hey, this feels pretty good. Like, I'm going to leave that in there. And you probably went through many years of like crossing shit off the list. that in there and you probably went through many years of like crossing shit off the list like this exercise like i don't know maybe one time you tried heavy good mornings and you're like i don't think that does shit i'm gonna stick with deadlifts and then maybe for a long period of time you tried

deficit deadlifts like i don't do anything i think that's stupid uh maybe you tried fat bar deadlifts you're like that's dumb you know you find these things out you know and you you find stuff that start to eliminate a lot of stuff and you start to kind of carve out and cut out something that is kind of uniquely your own. That sounds insanely efficient. So like while we're I'm teasing you about like just training every day and going as heavy as possible. It's something that is working great for you. I know that you even coach other folks, and when you do, they get great results as well.

So it's obvious that you have a great understanding of not only how your body's working in the gym, but just how the gym works in general for everybody. When you do work with some people that are maybe less gifted, does the programming look different? Or are you trying to like start people out with benching three times a week or doing maybe as much frequency as you're doing um so i would say like

probably like 70 of my clients are on a very similar program where i think like kind of the benching like three times a week squatting twice a week and deadlifting one to two times kind of works for most people and then like just working with them and like finding out how their body feels day to day how and like cycle this train cycle the train cycle and then you can kind of go either direction i think like that's kind of a good like middle ground to start at and then um just kind of going going from there see if like they respond better to accessories or just the main lifts you know and one thing that i noticed when you're talking about a lot of this too i think one thing that people do is they'll try to add in a variable or add in a movement right and um maybe they don't stick with it for long enough maybe

they like they don't see the results they want quick enough so like okay they dump this how do you look at that because it seems that you don't just throw everything at it and see what sticks like you try something for a while uh yeah i think like um so i did a lot of that kind of like throwing different variables in early in my powerlifting career like i did i started down like five three one i'd like and then i'd do that like 12 weeks then i'd switch to like the cube method which was really big when i started um and i just kind of started taking like the parts that i felt worked well from each program and then i built my own from there and um i think you got to kind of find that balance of like trying it long enough but not

like sticking to it if you're like all right i like this isn't working um and i think that's something that it's it's hard to like explain. It's just kind of like intuitive. I feel like. I think not enough people follow their gut. And, uh, what I always admire about people that are like yourself is that you repeatedly do that. You know, you're like, Hey, this is this, I'm going to, I'm going to work on doing this. You do it.

It feels right. Feels good. I mean, you, you put it really simply with the bench press. You're like, I like to feel what's strong and then use that more often. And it's like how many times we get people that say or they ask, what stance should I use in the deadlift? I don't know. But how about a good idea would be whatever one's stronger for you. Probably lean towards that one more often.

whatever one's stronger for you, probably lean towards that one more often. Like there's, there's probably mechanical reasons and a bunch of reasons, mobility reasons on why a sumo deadlift feels better than a conventional deadlift or vice versa for you in particular. So, you know, we hear so much like that you need to work on your weakness and you can do that. And those are good things to examine and look into, but it's kind of a real, it's a real bummer trying to do those things all the time because you're, you're working on shit that you're not good at at all. And I think you probably need a combination of the two to even have like enough motivation to get through each and every

day. So if you find something that feels strong, whether it's you're really good at reading or you're really good at math and you can be a chemist or you're really good at deadlifting conventional versus sumo, then, you know, stick with it for a while and maybe you still incorporate things that hit your weakness so that you can become more well-rounded, but don't be afraid to lean into where you're strong yeah and like uh going back to like how i pick like accessories um if i'm feeling like oh my chest isn't like feeling as strong on this bench like maybe i'll hit a little bit more chest to bring that up but i know but like oh like my biceps aren't feeling strong like that's not gonna help my bench really so i'm

not gonna really focus on that with that like kind of with what mark was mentioning there um because you know when you see yourself squat you're very upright squatter which you don't see that often in powerlifting yeah um also you've chosen to stick with conventional where there's a lot of people like they they choose to do sumo at some point but you stuck with the real deadlift now what what have you ever tried sumo in the past and you just didn't like it point but you stuck with the real deadlift now what what have you ever tried sumo in the past and you just didn't like it what made you stick with conventional and also your squat form how did you realize that this is the way that i'm going to continue squatting well did

you experiment with other stuff uh yeah so like uh like you said like trying things out long enough i probably didn't do that with um low bar and suit well i i can say like i can't sumo like i just if i go wide it just um something with my hips just does not feel right okay um and then low bar it's kind of the same thing it just doesn't feel right and i kind of like went with my gut of this this feels strong like i've been doing and i didn't like get into piloting until i'd been lifting for uh 10 years yeah so it's kind of like this is what's worked for me this is what i've been training for 10 years if i change it up now it might be like do i have to train another 10 years to get back to like where i'm at kind of thing and i ever feel as confident in this form

i've made like small tweaks like i've moved the bar down a little bit, but I don't think going low bar at this point would be that beneficial to me. Gotcha. So sometimes when someone's not strong, I think this is important to mention, when somebody is not really strong, like they're not advanced, they haven't been lifting for a long time. This is where the assistance exercises can come in, but this is where I think people get mixed up and they get things wrong. A main movement, a barbell movement, can be an assistance movement. So, for example, if you were to program and you said, hey, I want to see what's your best triple, and the person benches 155 for a triple. So hopefully they warmed up with the bar.

They use 95 pounds. They probably proceeded to go to one 35 and then one. So it's not a lot of work, right? And then, so how do you get that individual to get a lot of work? Well, you do it with the assistance exercises. Some people choose to have their athletes go over to the dumbbells and, uh, do, you know, three sets do three sets of inclined dumbbell bench and then followed by flat bench and followed by flies and all these other things. But other coaches, especially I would say more modern powerlifting coaches, understand using things that are specific towards the competition, having a ton of merit. And that's stuff I've utilized over the years, and I just called it a secondary barbell movement.

But it was just the first movement done with a different prescription and maybe done in a slightly different way. So this person that bent 155 for three, they're now going to proceed to reduce the weight to maybe 115 pounds. they're now going to proceed to reduce the weight to maybe 115 pounds. And I might say, let me see, uh, what four sets of six looks like, um, benching with a closer grip.

You know, it sounds to me like that's a lot of the stuff that you're doing with people, but you do have to find out when you're newer lifter, you do have to figure out a way how you're going to be able to replace the volume that you can't get from your buddy that you're lifting with who is repeatedly kicking your ass in the gym and the way that you're going to do it is with those secondary movements the assistance exercises because you just don't quite have the same strength yet that's how you're going to be able to make up that

distance and make up that ground over time for sure i think uh i think that's kind of like going back to like how my trainings progressed over the years is like early on i put a lot more focus like i'd i'd put put focus on the main lift but then i would put more or uh more merit compared to now into like that secondary movement but um overall my training has been focused a lot on like that main movement and a very similar usually barbell movement like i'll do a bit i do like dumbbell after that secondary movement but um probably like 90 of my focus and like energy is put into those two do you have a favorite thing to do you did mention video games a favorite thing to do uh aside from uh aside from all this gymming that

you're doing uh so i'm pretty like homebody i like to just kind of relax like hang out with my dog and like i watch a lot of movies and like video games and i don't know about it which games for netflix and shit like that yeah what are we playing uh mostly runescape oh really yeah how long is there any is there a new version of runescape out or is it still old school runescape so there's two versions there's like the new version where they like kept updating and then like they made an update that a lot of people really hated yeah so they used like a save file from 2007 to make old school runescape so it has like so old school runescape has like the same graphics basically yeah as like back when you

probably played back in you know like early 2000s like in sixth grade yeah yeah um and but like they still update it and that one actually is like i think more popular than uh the new runescape are you like ranked in any of these games uh i'm almost maxed account i think like once i max it i'll probably quit because i put way too it's it's a it's a fun game where i can like kind of mindlessly play while i do other work how many hours have you put into runescape because runescape like hours have you put into runescape because runescape like if you've been playing runescape for that long is this you have had a lot of hours i've never even heard of that is this what that is uh that's that's a new version so this one's

lame yeah okay look up old school just type in type in old school runescape kids this is how you get strong yeah you want to get massively strong I joked on another podcast Old school RuneScape It's like point and click games You do the same thing over and over Old school RuneScape I think it's Kind of a good metaphor for

Pilelifting you just have to find the enjoyment In doing the same thing over and over And then you get that little dopamine From hitting a pr yeah when it's slightly different every once in a while yeah this is still that's still new no so this is actually they they just came out with a plug-in to like make it better graphics but it's this is so this is still old school this is old school yeah it's old school hd bro bro this says a lot this continues to say a

lot about you man i know you're not out here playing some new shit you're still playing old school runescape trying to max out your account now you dodged the question how many hours do you think you have in that account oh man i've been hard that's hard i can look it up i don't know i don't know if i want to know the answer to that. My guess. Just say yes or no. Above 10,000. No. No? I don't think above 10,000.

I think probably around 1,000. 1,000 hours? Okay. Yeah. Okay. All right. That's fair. What about movies?

You end up kind of like binge watching some stuff or are you watching just kind of single one-off movies? It varies. I watch a lot of like amazon prime movies i'll just kind of like go and see like just go through the titles and uh see what i like but then uh if i if i start like a new series on like netflix i will finish that series like you're determined yes uh that's like i get like super hyper focused on things like my my ex-girlfriend had a puzzle and she started it one night and i was kind of making fun of her for like i was like a puzzle like what are you six you got trapped and like literally trapped it was when i was like staying

up late at like 10 30 or something or 11 i like walked by the kitchen table and like found a piece i like i was like oh put that in like and i was like oh that was enjoyable found another piece and then i was up till like 3 a.m. And the next day of work, I got like three quarters of the way done. And the next day of work, all I could think, I was like, I can't wait to get home and finish this puzzle. Did you finish it? And that was the reason for the breakup?

She's like, you son of a bitch. It was not the reason for the breakup, but I did finish it. I waited for her to get home to do the last quarter of it. Right, right, right. Yeah, you can't do that to somebody. Yeah. You can't screw them over like that. She had another puzzle she could do, so.

Do you have any aspirations to do any bodybuilding? You did mention some strongman. No, I don't like dieting. No. I don't think I could mentally deal with losing strength. I can handle it for coming off cycle, because I know I'm still trained losing strength. Like I can handle it for like coming off cycle. Right. Cause I know like I'll, I'm still trained for strength.

Like I know as long as I'm like stronger, um, like 16 weeks out from meat, like from this, like meat versus like the previous one, I'm still stronger than I was. But, um, to lose like a hundred, hundreds of pounds on my bench which you're like no that was yeah i was gonna ask do you remember any of your numbers before you um i guess we'll say changed federations because that's literally what everybody goes to is just like oh well that's why he's so strong because he does this and that but i mean you said he got second before he as a natty lifter amongst enhanced lifters so i was curious if you remember some of your biggest lifts uh yeah so in in the gym my best squat was i want to say like just under seven so like i started my first arm cycle was austereen and like after like eight weeks i hit

like a 700 pound squat which was like about a 10 pound uh pr i uh like every time i went on like sarms i feel like i got like 10 pounds on each lift and my best natural bench in the gym was 474 and my best natural deadlift um i want to say it's like 750 all right yeah those are some pretty big numbers and who knows how hard far you could progress you know pushed it um do you feel like you slowed down at that time or you don't really know um i think i was like slowing down a little bit but i think it was just kind of one of those uh like sometimes training i feel like just comes in like those like waves and every so well every so often you get like you slow down and i think that's what a lot of people fall off the sport

from is like they slow down and then they get like discouraged and then they're like oh fuck this sport i'm gonna try pile or bodybuilding or something and um so i was like kind of coming to like a slowdown but i think like there was like other things i could add in to keep increasing but then i just i just decided to do supplements what's your what's your mindset on these big lifts? Uh, do you feel like you need to prove yourself to anybody? Is it just you proving yourself, uh, to yourself? Um, are you, uh, is there anything that happened in your life where you're like, I want to show people like what's up type of deal? Or it's just you just absolutely just enjoying lifting and loving the process of power lifting.

or is it just you just absolutely just enjoying lifting and loving the process of powerlifting um i like there's nothing that like happened that makes me want to like prove it um i just always wanted to be i guess the best so it's kind of proving it is kind of like to myself and like to other people's like whenever i see someone like uh i get compared to like taylor atwood a lot because like he's like natural goat and like everyone's like oh like um uh like they like atwood's doing like these crazy numbers but he's natural too and he's like two weight classes below um so like when i see that it like it kind of fires me up a little bit i'm like okay like i'm gonna hit like something big to it kind of fires me up a little bit. I'm like, OK, like I'm going to hit like something big to like kind of shut them up a little bit. But maybe just to like maybe again, I don't put words in your mouth, but maybe one of your goals is to kind of like just have your numbers be so good that they speak for themselves and they stand up to anything anybody else has ever done.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Like, I think I don't know if that'll ever happen. Like going back to like what we said earlier, like with the LeBron versus Michael Jordan kind of conversations, like no matter what Michael or LeBron does, like there will always be that conversation, even like Kobe Bryant and that conversation of who the GOAT is. So I think it's impossible to ever, like, shut everyone up with your numbers, but I just want to do as much as I can to, like, kind of etch my name in, like, the history of powerlifting. Yeah, to beat Ed Cohn, you'll just have to do 1,000 across the board on each lift. Yeah. And even so, there'll be some people like, oh, he was thelifting. Yeah, to beat Ed Cohn, you'll just have to do a thousand across the board on each lift. Yeah. And even so, there'll be some people like,

oh, he was the best. Yeah. Well, it's kind of like, you know, people grow up with these people. You know, people grew up with Jordan. You know,

people grew up with some of these legendary athletes that they've had from the past. So there's no way anyone else can compare to Muhammad Ali because that person remembers what it was like

when they saw him and how inspired they were by them. And maybe because of someone like yourself coming onto the scene, uh, and older folks seeing some of the younger lifters, they might not think is it's as inspiring because they're not in the same spot in their life. So they're like, this guy's not as good as that guy. LeBron ain't the same as Jordan. I think most people can kind of admit that like LeBron James is just on another level in terms of his abilities and capabilities. I do think that in order to be considered great in the reference that we're kind of referring here to today, it's not only important to prove yourself, but it's also important to continue to not only prove yourself, but to be able to improve yourself when you're already really fucking good and maybe even already great.

And then to do it for a long period of time, you start to see somebody you're like, Oh my God, that guy has won worlds in Brazilian jujitsu, you know, 17 years ago, and he's still here. Like, I don't know what that guy is made out of. I don't know how he's doing it, but he's still competing. He's still here.

So I think, you know, not that you have to do things for that long. You already have broken a lot of all-time world records, and your numbers already do speak for themselves. But it will help the longer that you can hang around and longer that you can compete at a high level that's when people really start that they'll just have no choice yeah they'll just have to they'll have to recognize and they'll have to see uh that you're one of the best yeah but to like add on to not just like proving it to myself and to other people. I think it's just motivation just comes from just enjoying the sport in the end. Like I like going to the gym every day and training with friends. So if you don't have that, you're not going to do well in whatever sport you play or activity.

And that can't be understated because that's going to be the thing that you're going to be doing most of the time. Competing is one or two days every every competition is just one or two days but then the training is every single week if you don't enjoy that like you have to have enjoyment in hitting the prs like i think everyone would have enjoyment from hitting the prs but you have to have the enjoyment of hitting like the the three sets of eight. Yeah. Have you done any big weight cuts before? Oh yeah. So before we go any further, I don't advise anyone to do a weight cut that especially a newer lifter.

So if you're a newer lifter, I know it's easy for people to be like, Oh, I just miss a mule or two and I'm going to just go for the weight that you lift on the platform. Don't worry about any sort of weight cut. But having said that, um, how, and none of this is an actual recommendation. This is just what John has done. His own experience. He's going to share with you what, how have you, uh,

cut weight and what is the biggest and most successful weight cut you've done? And have you run into any like real dangers with it um so i don't know if i've ever like cut to the point where i'm like oh i should probably like go to the hospital but like probably like getting close to where it was like this is like it's not safe what i'm doing um typically i start like water loading i don't really drink water like my friends give me crap for it because i'll like i'll drink like pre-workout monsters and shit monsters that are pre-workout and um so like two weeks out i'll start drinking like a gallon a day and then uh so if weigh-ins are like friday the sunday before i'll go up to like one and a half. Monday will be one and a half. And then Tuesday will be

two gallons. Wednesday will be two gallons. And then I'll do like a half gallon on Thursday. This method, by the way, helps your body to release, uh, a diuretic, uh, hormone that helps you to, in the end, uh, get rid of more liquid than what you put in. So it might seem kind of confusing, but you'll be able to pull an additional weight off of your body by basically excreting it out because you'll be producing this hormone. Do you drink like distilled water or is it just like whatever kind of water? So I start early in the week. It's I also do the same thing with, uh, like sodium, my, uh, my sodium, sodium levels. Um, so basically what you're doing is you're, there's the two hormones. There's a, I think one of them is vasopressin and I don't remember the name of the other

one, but like one handles, uh, how much, uh, sodium your body excretes and how much fluids you excrete. And you're trying to like raise those levels and basically then your body like once you cut sodium and the fluids your body still has those levels high and you basically flush everything out and so that's like kind of so the first layer is like your fluids just doing water load second layer would be like sodium loading and then the third layer is cutting back on carbs because the glycogen from the carbs retains water once you start cutting

that down they'll start flushing more water out and um basically that'll like usually get me down about eight pounds or so and then i um, sauna the night before sauna, um, suck on like Jolly Ranchers and spit into a cup for the last, whatever weight I need to do. Magnesium citrate. I've tried that. Um,

I don't like it. I actually do. Um, I don't know the name of it. I got it from, so I was coached by Joey flex and, um, it's like some like herbal tea that kind of cleans out your system.

It's like a- Coached by Joey Flex. Yes. That's interesting. Because Joey Flex, I think, first got into powerlifting from one of the seminars that I did at Barbell Brigade and I did a seminar with you at Barbell Brigade. Yep. Interesting.

You ever tried like those super dieters tea or or anything like that anything to make you blow out any extra weight because it makes you just like shit like crazy uh so that like kind of like is like a colon colon cleanse i'll do that like wednesday night um but it's i've done the magnesium citrate and it just kind of upsets my stomach oh it just yeah just, yeah. Rips, rips you right apart. When'd you start, um, kind of just doing like, cause you were working,

I don't know how long you were working with Joey. Um, he works a lot of lifters, but when did you start like doing your own programming for yourself? So I, um, I kind of started as doing my own programming and I would like just do like programs I found online,

like five through one, like Q i think that was that was kind of like what most people did at that time is like they would do those those programs um by like big names and then like after that like online coaching kind of started taking off because like instagram became a big thing and um so i worked with jason manikoff and joey and i would always do my own thing during the off season but i would have them like uh peak me for a meet and then um so once i left the the ipf um because like the rule and joey was on the the world team coaching staff so he was kind of like, Oh, I don't know if I can like be at a meet with you. Uh, or I can't be seen being at a meet

with you at least. Yeah. Uh, so I was kind of like, okay, like if you can't be there meet day, like I'll just do my own thing. And, um, I kind of like now my, my training is kind of, uh, it, it takes inspiration from both of them. then also what I did before and just kind of all figured out what works for me. Nice. Cool. And so JC in the live chat had asked, how are you balancing a full-time job with being a full-time powerlifter? Honestly, it doesn't take, it's not that hard to be a lifter it's just like as long as like since i enjoy lifting it is my hobby in a sense so it's just like how do you balance any other

hobby that you do that's one of the best of the world out yeah i mean but i don't do i feel like i don't do anything like different than feel it. Do you get, do you get mad? Do I get mad? You seem like a super, super calm. Like, like all these questions that we're asking you, uh,

there's almost like a lot of deflection. Like you bring, you don't, you don't allow any of the things that we're throwing at you to have any like weight or merit. Uh, no, I don't,

I don't get like, I'll, I'll get mad at like little things, but, um, I don't like have like roid rage kind of like oh actually it's interesting before it seemed like you don't have a lot of stress i guess yeah like before lifts sometimes you see lifters like they're like you know they get themselves amped up is that the type of lifter you are are you more calm before you get a big lift how do you um it's kind of like a like calm but focus like if you've ever seen the movie like

x-men first class yeah you know when like charles xavier is explaining to uh magneto like how to like turn the thing he's like i think like the key to like power is being like somewhere in between like rage and like uh tranquility i kind of like try and find that spot where i'm like i'm folk i'm clear like i'm hyped but i'm like clear-minded and like the only thing that exists is me in that bar yeah you can't channel that kind of energy unless you're unless you are focused unless you are kind of calm because otherwise it's going to kind of you know people get real emotional and we've talked about it before on the show that you're usually when you're getting like super hyped it's because you know that there's a great likelihood that the lift is going to get the better of you yeah

you know and you're just trying to like i guess talk yourself into like that you're going to be able to somehow uh have this like herculean effort and you're going to be able to make the lift and everyone's, the crowds can go crazy and love you forever. That's a cool thing about that too, is like you can replicate that. Like that's something that you can consistently go to. Cause you see a lot of lifters,

they'll scream, they'll bang and trying to pull up all that energy before a lift consistently. That's what will stress you out. Yeah. Like actually going back to when we talked about like missed lifts, usually if I'm going to miss a lift, it's actually kind of, like, in the middle of a train cycle. I rarely miss the, like, the last heavy one. And even then, I actually, in the gym, my last heavy is usually going to be heavier than what my planned third attempt is going to be. So, like, in the meet, because I know, like, I'm going to, like, what my plant third attempt is going to be so like in the

meat because i know like i'm gonna like lose or i i count for also very rare most high level people they'll say oh you know i took you know five ten percent less in the gym and hit more weight on the platform and you're sometimes hitting some big weights in the gym yeah because i know like i'm gonna there's probably going to be some strength loss from like the water cut or the weight cut and everything and i want to go into my third attempt being like very confident in the lift since we were talking about water cuts meat day rehydration how do you handle that um so usually i'll get a i'll get an iv and uh it was actually kind of funny with the last meet because i didn't have that big of a cut like my current cut was way bigger but um when I was getting the IV I actually passed out um but like and everyone was like freaking out like oh my god John had like such a big cut

but like no like I I'll sometimes do that like I don't know why it's just my body reacts to it um but I usually try and like if I lose like 16 pounds in water, I try and drink at least like, that's about eight pounds a gallon. So I usually try and drink at least two gallons. And then, um, big focuses on sodium and carbs, those two things that you, you cut out, um, avoid fats for the most part. And then I try and get like a four grams of carbs to one gram of protein ratio because that kind of helps open up the the pathways for your absorption it's a

gnarly feeling when that weight starts to come back on you and you start filling out you're like holy fuck it's hard to sleep because you're like, I feel like I need to use all this right now. Sometimes it doesn't hit me until second squat. I'll feel like... I'll try and go for 700

grams of carbs during that day. It's just as much carbs as I can get, but that's kind of like... I for like a nice round number yeah um but yeah like uh meat day like sometimes like during squats like my legs will feel like almost like jello but then like once i start kind of creeping up and it seems like doing that work like almost like flushes like the glycogen back into my muscles and then it's like okay now i feel strong you're like feel full wow power thing meets are really interesting like you don't really hear a whole lot of anything until after people are done with their squats like everyone's like pretty like focused a lot of people are nervous um it just it smells like uh like bengay and

old fat sweaty guys pretty much on testing me you can smell the oil in the air yeah and and uh yeah and chalk and baby powder it's got this weird particular smell to it you'll get you'll get some head nods you know people give you a little like what's up thing a couple fist bumps here and there but like people are pretty like anxious but once squats are over everyone starts yapping away like oh my god i did this in my prep that's true because i mean bench is kind of boring too so you're kind of like you just need to pass the time yeah awesome man well thank you so much uh for your time today um i guess kind of last thing is do you do any uh sort of like cardio sort of training of any kind do you not really mess around with any the light

jogging uh in the off season i'll like do a little light jog and then i'll like i'll just walk my dog and that's usually kind of the extent of it plenty plenty of andrew take us on out of here buddy before we get out just kidding before we get out mark i don't know if i can hop your ass on the table but oh it's not the crocs it's more so these ripstop joggers here we go all right so this is what i rocks there though huh i'm pretty impressed by the crocs like a little bit more towards in sema but towards in sema towards in sema i can kind of see it jr shorts. They're from a company called Viore. They're the best gym clothes that you're ever going to be able to have. I'm being fucking serious.

You're almost not going to want to wear them in the gym because they look so nice. I could work out in these. I actually hike in these, too. But then you don't work out. But, yeah, I don't work out. But anyway, guys, they're so comfortable. You put me on them. Yeah, they're great.

And the fart pouch is amazing. The charcoal technology that they have. I didn't get those. You guys didn't get those pants? Those are the newer pants. I think they said they're not coming out for a little while. How does Mark always get all the cool shit first? Yeah, they're still working on it.

It's a filter type of thing. Oh, my gosh. But anyway, all the clothes they have available on their website are amazing. They're going to make you look good. They're going to make you feel good during your training sessions. They fit right. And you got to go check it out. Yeah.

Actually, I wore this shirt for the podcast, but I was a little bit early, so I ended up walking into the gym, hit a couple of sets, and then I'm still wearing it. And it feels amazing. If you guys want to check it out, head over to V-U-O-R-I. So it's viore.com slash PowerProject. It's safe. You want to do VioreClothing.com slash PowerProject because sometimes it's weird. So yeah, either one.

Either way, links will be down in the description as well as the podcast show notes. But when you guys go there, you'll receive 20% off your first order. I'm wearing the Stratotec tee. That's my favorite t-shirt. It's amazing. It feels incredible. Again, links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes and again thank you everybody for checking out today's

episode uh we had a lot of people in the chat room so we really appreciate you guys thank you so much make sure you hit the like button uh on your way out and please follow the podcast at mark bells power project on instagram at mb power project on tiktok and twitter my instagram and twitter's at i am andrew z at the andrew z on tiktok and sim my instagram and twitter's at i am andrew z at the andrew z on tiktok and sima where you be and see my in here on instagram and youtube and see me yin yang on tiktok and twitter mr hack oh i am uh bilbo underscore swaggins do you gotta explain that real quick like why bilbo swaggins i just thought it was funny it is funny i was i was like drinking one night and someone asked me like oh what's your street name thinking like oh rap name like oh bill boswagens and they're like no like what street do you live

great rap name actually yeah yeah and then i was like that's a funny name i'm gonna change my instagram to that and then kept it ever since everyone asked me like oh when you're gonna make it bill boswagens 198 and i actually have it but it's kind of a pain in the ass to change it because you have to like wait like two weeks before it's about like i i can like drop that name from the other account but it's like it's safe for like two weeks and i'm like i'm gonna forget it yeah i'm gonna lose both of them so it's bilbo underscore underscore swaggins 181 yes okay because there's a couple other ones out there now. Yeah. Fuckers. I know.

And you do some programming for people? Yes. And people just, what, DM you or email you? Either DM or email. Email is jhack30 at Gmail. There you go. Thanks again for your time. Really appreciate it.

Awesome having you here at Super Training. Yeah, thanks for having me. I was nervous because you've had like such like informative guests and i'm like oh i just lift lift things yeah now you're well you're really fucking amazing at it yeah you're inspiring and motivating to all of us so thank you for uh fucking smashing those big weights all the time it's amazing to watch i do it for you oh thank you that means it means uh something different now that I get when I watch those videos. Just cut out that bite and put that as a video.

And then bam. But he also watched Sarmageddon, so. You're welcome. I did. You set me on the path of being untested. I love it. Where were your hands when you were watching Sarmageddon? That's kind of the key factor there.

Well, I. And that's all the time. I'm at Mark Smellybell. Strength is never weakness. Weakness is never strength. Catch you guys later.