Mark Bell's Power Project - Power Project EP. 181 - ST Classic Meet Recap

Episode Date: February 12, 2019

Today we're recapping the Super Training Classic! ➢SHOP NOW: https://markbellslingshot.com/ Enter Discount code, "POWERPROJECT" at checkout and receive 15% off all Sling Shots Find the Podcast on all platforms: ➢Subscribe Rate & Review on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/mark-bells-power-project/id1341346059?mt=2 ➢Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4YQE02jPOboQrltVoAD8bp ➢Listen on Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/mark-bells-power-project?refid=stpr ➢Listen on Google Play: https://play.google.com/music/m/Izf6a3gudzyn66kf364qx34cctq?t=Mark_Bells_Power_Project ➢Listen on SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/markbellspowerproject  FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell Follow The Power Project Podcast ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/MarkBellsPowerProject Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz

yeah but you know if he if he does knock you off the board then he's got a problem because then you're gonna actually try i'm always trying and when you did the 755 was actually really easy it was remember yeah looked like you could clean and jerk it yeah that that that was just being in the zone that was a crazy pull i didn't you squatted pretty good in that meet too right didn't you squat like six 6 Six 29. Yeah, six 29. And it was also a pretty easy squat. Everything in that meet other than the bench press was pretty easy. Did you just miss your, was it your third attempt?

It was my third attempt bench, yeah. The third attempt was like 404, 403 or something like that. Yeah. And I came up, hold, hold, hold, hold, hold, came back down. Yeah. yeah it came up hold hold hold hold hold came back down yeah that's one of those things like uh you know like under a 400 pound bench doesn't sound great when you're when you're 250 plus right it does not but once you're over 400 then you're like kind of off the hook like it's definitely not still not your best lift but over 400 you're like hey hey guy's pushing four plates have you

benched four plates before in the gym uh with a slingshot on oh you had to cheat i had to cheat it and there's no pride in that but uh yeah yeah what'd you uh think of the um uh st classic shoot that meet was it was nice it was really well run a lot of people a lot of spectators um the energy was good with every single lifter uh and it was cool being able to like see people use the slingshot on their attempts yeah you know i know a lot of people just made him feel more comfortable like uh one of my good friends jason kalipa he was competing in the meet and you know he was super nervous about competing and i was like oh man you're gonna you know you don't wear a slingshot like you'll be fine and he was like oh

really he's like i get to wear the slingshot and so he just felt that much more comfortable just because it gives you a little protection and plus who doesn't want to you know put on a little bit more weight yeah and then uh who what's jeremy jeremy avia yeah seeing him at that deadlift didn't he pull something super heavy a few weeks ago too like this is just like it's funny that an 800 pound pool is pure exhibition for him you could just lift that any day he smoked it too and then he forgot his belt that's insane he usually wears a belt like that he meant to wear a belt but he's so um i mean that this is jeremy he sometimes sometimes he just forgets to even bring the belt, but he was warming up

and he meant to wear his belt, but he just forgot it and lifted it up and was like, oh, wait, I forgot my belt. Like, dude, what? He smashed that weight too. Dude, he's so strong. Yeah. It doesn't make sense. Like, it didn't seem like a struggle at all.

No. That was so on point. And I think his opening attempt was, was fairly quick too, but the weight got out in front of him a little bit. And then, but that second one, he just absolutely smashed it. Correct. Holy shit. Yeah. How'd he do that with 840 pounds?

He did 842? Yeah. I think, no, it was 826, I think. Was it something like that? Yeah. Whatever it was, he said it was a beltless PR. Yeah. But he didn't know.

He didn't know he didn't have a belt on was he said it was a beltless pr yeah but he didn't know he didn't know he didn't know he didn't have a belt on until he uh smashed it but yeah i had a lot of fun with the competition and uh it was great you know running into so many fans and then just learning how many people are here locally it's like well shit man let's all get together you know i kept running into people and they're like man i've been meaning to check out your gym i'm like the gym's free you know you got an invite like come you know come check check the damn gym out i don't i still don't understand because like i run into so many people who are like yeah yeah super training it'd be so cool to train there i'm like you know you know the gym's free right wait really really it's

free he says it but i don't believe it like a lot of people just straight up don't believe yeah it's free yeah one of the guys that i ran into, he's a listener of the podcast. He's a cool dude. And I don't know, maybe because I just didn't remember what he looked like on his Instagram or something, but I looked at him. I was like, dude, he's a big guy. Like, yeah, you're around the corner. You should come to the gym. And he was just like, yeah, I don't know, man. Like it's one thing to train at a regular gym. And he's like, but if I go there, I know I'm going to be like the smallest, weakest guy. I'm like, no, dude, like it's one thing to train at a regular gym and he's like but if i go there i know i'm gonna be like the smallest weakest guy i'm like no i do like there's no minimum requirement to

you know lift here that's i tell everybody and it's still i mean i understand yeah it can be intimidating because it is the super training gym yeah but dude this environment's incredible we just want you to work hard yeah that's it yeah you know and uh yeah it was it was just a lot of fun though i ran into a lot of great people a lot of people with like inspirational stories and that's what makes some of these things so hard is like you know these events they take a lot out of us in terms of our staff in terms of moving all the plates over there and and uh getting everything prepared and you know there's a lot that goes into it there's people at scores table there's uh pre-registration uh people putting in their opening attempts and the list of things go go on and on and

on when you're running a powerlifting contest and so smoky and kara weston and jesse burdick and all these people are just so responsible for so many different things we need to bring the kilo plates we got certain bars we got certain benches we got. And so it's a lot, right? And so sometimes I'm like, man, that really consumes a lot of resources from us. But then I get there and, you know, I have someone telling me a story about how, you know, the podcast changed their life or they've been to super training before and they came in and had a great experience and they tell me how wonderful the staff is and hey you know this guy helped me squat and it's it's amazing because you know we're thinking oh okay i helped the guy with like a lift or i gave the guy a suggestion for nutrition but it doesn't end there it's like that you could really truly be

helping uh positively impact somebody's life just because you helped them squat, which sounds crazy. But if that's what you love to do and someone got you back in the game because they showed you how to squat and no longer hurts your knee or no longer hurts your back and you can make improvements on it, you're just so damn excited. So it's amazing to get that kind of feedback. Yeah. Let me ask you, what's, what would be your vision for the, like, because the first time that we had the SD Classic was last year, right? Yep, that's right. And, like, this is year two. Do you, what's your vision for, like, the SD Classic as time goes by, as the years go by?

Do you want multiple in a year? Like, how do you want to, what do you see for it? Yeah, I think, so I have a kind of multiple goals, multiple things that I'd like to try to do. And one of them is I would like to try to bring super training gym experience to everybody. And I'd like to try to almost bring ST like on the road, which now that, you know, takes up even more ammo, right? That takes up even more people but the feeling that you get when you come in here on a saturday and the feeling that you probably have when you go into you mentioning the different hours for jujitsu there's some hours where it's like okay this is the big boy class this is like this is the cream of the crop and i'm sure other people are probably welcome but it's like man if

you can't hang it's probably not a great idea for you to be in this class because it's going to get pretty intense yeah i would love for everyone that that we can possibly reach to feel what that feels like when you're in super training on a saturday morning and everybody's squatting got the music cranked up and there's not one person in the room that doesn't want to see somebody else get better there's not one person in the room that has any other desire than to they want to get stronger They're there to help other people get stronger. It's a really, really powerful feeling. And it's not something you would ever feel or recognize, uh, at a commercial gym, because that's just not the same thing. Now, everyone at a commercial gym, they have the best intentions of getting better,

but they don't all have the same intentions of getting stronger. And this is kind of streamlined towards one thing. And it's a really, it's a really powerful thing to feel. So I'd love to be able to figure out ways of, of doing something like that in terms of the actual ST Classic. And in terms of this contest, I think it would make sense for us to bring contests like this in-house, do certain things at the gym. And we're going to have to figure those things out uh it's gonna take time to to really figure them out i i like the idea of these people that watch us on instagram and youtube and stuff they now have a chance to not only come see us not only communicate with us and interact with super training but they get the chance to share the platform there's something really cool and

special about that where it's like, I can't really think of anywhere else where you'd get that experience. You know, if, if you guys are rolling and I wanted to come in, it like, wouldn't be appropriate for me to show up to every class of the advanced class. If I showed up one time, it might be like, Hey, my buddy's coming. He wants to check it out. Probably not a big deal, but I'm going to slow everybody down. I'm going to mess everything up otherwise.

Right. check it out. Probably not a big deal, but I'm going to slow everybody down. I'm going to mess everything up otherwise. Right. And so, you know, you don't really get this opportunity like this where, because it's just you versus the weights and it doesn't take very long. Each person has a minute to lift, do the lift and then you're out of the way. And so you can have Brian Shaw lifting with somebody who's totally brand new to powerlifting. Yeah. The camaraderie aspect of it, I think is like the really amazing thing because like, even when I first came to super training gym, I was used to training a commercial gym by myself.

You know, I had a training partner here and there, but it wasn't really a team setting. And when I got here, it took a, it took a few weeks for me to adapt to like, and understand that everyone is. Oh yeah.

We made fun of you all the time. I remember I was coming here wearing leggings, like, or not leggings, but you know, the compression pants. Yoga pants. Compression pants.

They're compression. Trying to show off that egg plant. Just a pushup bra for your butt. Yeah. But like, my butt doesn't need no pushup bra. I got that dunk. But,

yeah, no, the meat, it really was like, like everyone there, everyone knew each other. Everyone knew what it was about. And there was no, like, there was no animosity or toxicity just like here at the gym there's never anybody that

like here there's competition you know like when someone's inching up to marcus's squat like dan and marcus there's competition but they're both trying to help each other get better everyone's literally doing everything they can to help the other lifter improve yeah that's a beautiful part of it i was trying to explain that to my dad because my parents actually ended up coming out to the meet, which was really cool. But so he's like, you know, he's looking around. He's like, so then, like, what's your competition like? You know, I'm like, no, my competition is myself. You know, like, I want everybody here to hit everything as heavy as they can.

You know, like, I don't want anybody to mess up or anything. Like, I just want myself to do as good as I can as well as they can. You know, like I, I don't want anybody to mess up or anything. Like I just want myself to do as good as I can as well as everybody else. Um, so yeah, there's no competition. It's just me against me. You know, I have a number in my head that I want to hit, but you know, like I said, like it also doesn't matter. Like I just want to be able to perform and, you know, be strong and, you know, not, not get hurt obviously, but you know, just have a great fun time. So, you know, and that's essentially what happened. And in the middle of it all, I was taking it pretty serious and I'm like, you know what, man, I should probably kind of just like chill out, just like enjoy it, remember it. Cause

like a couple of people were like, Hey, it's your first meet, man. You only get one. And so I was like, ah, you know you know maybe i'm taking it too serious but then in the middle of it i'm also like you know but this is my shit like i am never gonna get this opportunity again yeah like and i don't know most of us we grew up like kind of imagining like oh we're gonna get the uh the last last shot to win the game and overtime you know game seven so i'm like you know, game seven. So I'm like, you know, yeah, I am going to take it that serious. Like, I'm not going to like overdo it and,

you know, start like pushing people out of the way or being a jerk. But like, yeah, I'm going to like, this is it. Like, this is,

I'm going to, I've been prepping for a while now. Like I'm going to do everything I can and I'm going to take it serious. A lot of, and it was fun. A lot of what we, what we have in society is kind of set up to watch you fall flat on your face and people want you to be careful and they're going to say you

know jiu-jitsu is dangerous powerlifting is dangerous oh man fasting like i don't know about that man like are you sure you know you okay with that like you're not eating any carbs like the body human body needs carbohydrates you know and you have people that are going to kind of say all these things. And again, that's, what's great about being at these kinds of events is that, uh, it's, it's, it's a brotherhood, you know, we do want to see, see each other doing well. And if there's any sort of like criticism towards anything, it's a, it's usually kidding around or B, uh, it's just somebody like legitimately concerned. Like I had to stop charity whip from doing her, her, her deadlift because, uh, she hit, she hit a deadlift and then she wanted to go to 500 pounds, but like she popped something in her hip and she just said her body went numb and she didn't know what was going on. And then I was like, well, how do you feel right now?

And she's like, I'm in some pain, but I feel okay. And I was like, well, let's, that's a, that's a great place to end. Let's stop, you know, let's not do another lift. And she was just kind of thinking about it and thinking about it, thinking about it. And I said, I said, listen, you know, you, you can decide to do whatever you want, but I'm going to go take the lift off the board. I'm going to take your next lift off the board. You're, you're done. And I was like, are you okay with that? And she's like, she just shook her head. Like I knew that's all she could do. She couldn't really say, she couldn't say, yes, take me out of the meat,

but she could do enough to just shake her head. And I said, okay, you know, you're, you're out. But that was just to try to protect somebody because I don't want her, uh, you know, traveling back to Atlanta, you know, on her flight with a torn hamstring or something. It's like miserable, right? It's going to take three or four months to try to recover from something like that. So it's just easier to say we're there to kind of watch after each other. We're there to try to help each other pick attempts. We're there to try to help each other get better. But in our effort to get better, there's kind of that fine line of like,

I don't want to see you end up a lot worse than you were when you came in today. Most definitely. Andrew, how'd you feel when you were in the back, like right before you took your first attempt? And you're like, I think Mark, you were doing all his warmups too and everything, right? Yeah. Having Mark there, of course, was huge. Obviously, like I'm a pretty like jittery guy. I'm a nervous guy, anxious guy.

So somebody would come up to talk to me or during like the lifters, like pre-meeting or whatever you want to call it. Yeah. It was so hard. That was one of the hardest things because we all had to sit there and listen to Megamind talk for, you know, it wasn't even that long, but it felt like it was like four hours because I'm like, I can't stay still. I need to move around. So, it was really tough up until Mark was like, yeah, go ahead and start moving around and start warming up.

Like just do like bands, do light stuff. Just, I needed to move. Yeah. Not being able to move was tough. Uh, Marcus was like,

Hey man, just like calm down. You're going to exert too much energy by walking back and forth. Like I'm trying, man, but it takes a lot of energy to not move. That was really tough that's hard because you get different advice because my advice was hey move around a bunch

so you get rid of your anxiety you know because i think that you know um when we train we're not we don't andrew and i we don't like sit down or i mean it'd be really really rare for us to i mean we don't sit down and even like drink water i mean some people will do that in training session you know they have a hard leg day. It makes some sense. Sometimes in between sets you rest, but we don't ever do anything like that. We're, we're usually going pretty good. And I'm very aware of, of how he trains and how we train together and everything.

So I was just like, yeah, man, just, you know, move around a lot, try to get a lot of blood into your shoulders and biceps and stuff. And I mean, look, if you're going to wear yourself out with a warmup with bands, then you're probably not in very good shape anyway. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, so yeah, he just had him just kind of keep moving, keep moving. And that way keeps your mind off of, you know, what's actually about to happen. And with Andrew, the hard part was just picking the correct, uh, warmups, you know, picking

the right warmups to tune his body up, because this is not a, um, you know, if you're going to go and run, um, 10 miles, the intensity of running 10 miles is pretty low. The duration is long, but the intensity is low. Most likely, unless you're like a really good runner, you probably run fairly slow. And so what's the warmup required to run 10 miles or what's the warmup required to walk five miles? There's really not a lot of, maybe to run 10 miles, maybe you would like stretch, move around a little bit, and maybe you would walk, you know, for five minutes at a pretty good

pace, get your body temperature up, heart rate up, and you'd be off to the races and you start running. But powerlifting is a lot different. We're trying to tap into our nervous system. We're trying to get our nervous system on board with what we're about to do. We're trying to have our body ready to recruit as many muscle fibers as possible

to be able to lift the most amount of weight. And for lack of a better term, you can kind of like short circuit that system and not take advantage of how strong you can really be if you don't warm up properly and so selecting the right weights for andrew uh in the warm-up room was was critical and i had a lot of help too with from jesse burdick in selecting his attempts uh for the actual contest too because i knew that he could jump pretty good from attempt number one to attempt

number two but i also knew that from attempt number two to attempt number two but i also knew that from attempt number two to attempt number three it was critical that that was a small gap and i knew that his third attempts would feel easier than his second attempts but i knew the second attempts if he didn't make a second attempt i knew we were going to be in trouble because a second attempt was not near the max i was trying to get him to but i also understood that the second attempt could be rough and he could miss it on a technicality because the jump is greater from the first one to the second one rather than from the second one to the third one.

So it ended up working out well. He ended up hitting all six of his lifts. And your third deadlift was the best deadlift I've ever seen you do. Yeah, that is a gym or, I mean, everything was a platform PR, but that was a lifetime PR pr2 303 because i had only hit 300 prior to that yeah um so when i like i just i didn't i didn't know obviously i don't understand how to convert kilos to pounds so i i don't know if they had announced the uh the pounds or not but i heard the kilos and I thought that the pounds was going to

come up like after that. So, I don't know if people thought I was crazy, but I heard that. And so, I just covered my ears and I'm like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so, I don't know if people behind me were like, wow, that's a weird way to get fired up for a lift. So, when I walked up to it, you know, and I had planned on hearing Mark say, it's going to take a second. So that was my cue to know like, okay, this is actually going to be like a pretty strong, like attempt now. Cause Mark doesn't say that unless it's going to take a second to get off the ground. Yeah. So I just, yeah, I just, I ripped into it and it, you know, stood up, put it down.

I looked over cause I'm like, please be 300. And it was, you know, so fired up. Cause that was, I didn't have a, like necessarily like a lift or a amount of weight I wanted to hit, but I knew I wanted to total 500 for the push pull. Yeah. And so when I hit 300, then that, you know, made it just over 500. And so I was really excited for that. Like that, that meant a lot to me, you know, made it just over 500. And so I was really excited for that. Like that, that meant a lot to me, you know?

So, so I, right away, I thank Mark and I do thank you for calling 300. Cause that was huge. Like that, like I said, it means a lot. Yeah. The only way I wasn't going to call for 300 is if his second attempt was like really crazy slow. That was the only way, but I, I knew that's what we wanted to get to. And I knew that we wanted to get to 200. So it's a good idea to try to work your way backwards.

But in working your way backwards from your attempts, it's really critical that you're very honest and maybe even a little modest with the weights that you select, especially when in your first powerlifting meet, you got to be really kind of cautious. You want to make sure that you make the lifts because if you make lift number one, lift number two, it's, it's just going to be that much easier to make lift number three. It'll be very difficult if you, if you missed your second attempt, it'll be hard to come back. And also you can't really add weight.

It doesn't make sense a lot of times to add weight to an attempt. So you end up kind of being stuck with the same weight, but yeah, you can see that one came off the ground pretty quick. Wow. And then he exploded into it really well. Yeah. Yeah. an attempt so you end up kind of being stuck with the same weight but yeah you can see that one came off the ground pretty quick wow and then he exploded into it really well yeah yeah that was huge dude you mean dude you could get 315 like on on a like because you were peaked here but with the way that that moved you could grind a 315 like that was nice yeah that i mean yeah that would that would be that that's the goal for sure is three plates, you know. Yeah.

But the way that Mark set up the whole, all the numbers was perfect. And what I wanted to ask was, would there have been any reason for you to, like, I don't know if you had two and three already kind of in your head before going in, like if you had that written down somewhere or something. already kind of in your head before going in like if you had that written down somewhere or something but would there have been any case where you seen me smoke my second lift to be like okay maybe we will go up obviously if if i struggled you wouldn't have gone straight to 200 you would have dropped it back down or something but would there have been any case where you would have just deviated from the the plan and put up more? No, not really. No, I, I wanted to, I wanted you to really make the lifts. Yeah.

Yeah. I want it to be overwhelming, uh, that you would have a really, really good opportunity to make the lift. Didn't want there to really be any, any question. The way that I was taught in powerlifting is that your lifts on the platform, um, and this is the way I competed through most of my career now now things are different because i got like specific a specific goal um but the way that i was coached in powerlifting was that you the only attempts that should be hard should be your third attempts

so if you shouldn't have nine hard attempts in powerlifting me. I remember when I was newer, I'd get done with a meet and I would be like, oh my God, I feel like I got run over by a truck, you know, and I felt terrible sometimes for a whole week after a meet. But once I got in better condition and once I understood how the meet should actually go a little bit better and I had this idea of, okay, third attempt should be the only ones that are even remotely hard. And maybe sometimes they're not hard. Maybe you lock in so well, and maybe you're so fired up that they're not hard because the adrenaline dump that you get at a powerlifting meet. And so once I kind of learned that, uh, that really helped me a lot. It's like, okay, third attempt is, is the one that's going to be a tough one. If there's going to be a grind, if there's going to be messed up form,

then that's going to happen on a third attempt. Yeah. Those first and second attempts, I never see really a situation where you should actually miss your second attempt. Unless, like again, I think we talked about this on the other podcast, unless something freakish happened

or weight cut, you're feeling sick. But do you think it's a general rule of thumb? What I've seen, and I hear that like Russians do this all the time, they always leave a little bit on the platform. It's like whenever I see athletes that are disappointed that like they do a third attempt at success where they're like, I had eight more pounds, but it was a PR and you had eight more pounds. Like that's good. You know you're going to hit the platform later on and you're going to hit another PR. Leave a little bit there. Yeah, the Russian athletes

are interesting. Um, and there's some other athletes that do it too, but you see it a lot from the Russian athletes where, uh, Kirill Serkev is a great example. Kirill Serkev's best, uh, bench press. I think he did a seven, uh, 33 or 727 bench press, biggest bench press of all time. He's competed recently, probably twice since he's broken the world record and he hasn't benched anything over 700. He world record and he hasn't benched anything over 700 he hasn't even just hasn't even tried i think he's done a 666 and like a 670

and he's kind of just left it there and he does it really smooth and you're watching and you're like i don't just don't understand well he won't go outside he won't go outside of his strength level you know he's going to lift what he should lift. So in my case, if I was a, if I was a lifter that had that kind of discipline, I would have opened up with, you know, 455 and I would have went to like, uh, 485 and I would have went to probably just under 500 pounds and probably would have went three for three. If, if you can have that kind of discipline but sometimes it's really hard when you're trying to set you know here in america we go by pounds so sometimes we're looking for those

pounds in other countries they're looking a little bit more for the kilos so like an 800 kilo or 400 kilo deadlift is a big thing in other countries uh where they're trying to do an 881 pound deadlift here in the u.s a lifter might be thinking more of like about 900 or 850. We're thinking about those rounded off, uh, kind of numbers. And so just a different mentality. And in the end, it makes sense to lift more like a Russian and to kind of have a little bit left in the tank on the platform so that you have other places to, uh, to elevate to. Yeah. For me, the turnaround time on this meet was super fast in terms of uh you know trying to get stronger and trying to get strong enough to be able to do that

weight um i knew i knew it was going to be like that i knew it was going to be you know a little bit hit or miss and it was going to be a little bit of the of a roll of the dice um i felt really strong going into the contest but i think where there may have been a little bit of an error on my part was number one i just didn't have i didn't uh i didn't allow for enough time i made kind of a six or eight week prep for this which was crazy turnaround time and when i started i was probably benching like 405 oh jesus so the turnaround time was was. I mean, you can even just go back and look at a couple of Instagram clips and you can see like where I'm, I lift like 405 and you're like, this guy wants to try to bench 500. And, uh, and I almost made it happen, but, um, so it didn't

have enough time was, was probably one of the main things and I'll fix that. Cause I'll compete again coming up soon. Um, and the other thing was, is not only did I do a weight cut, but I also lost weight. So I was losing weight and I did a water cut. And those two things in combination aren't great. And so when I put my weight back on, I put a tremendous amount of weight back on with a 24-hour weigh-in. However, the weight that you put on isn't the same as the weight

that you have when you're training in the gym. So I might've been like 240, 242 in training, and I may have weighed the exact same on the platform, but the difference is the hydration and stuff is in like your stomach and it's not in your muscles. So, you know, it would have been interesting to measure like biceps and stuff, but I mean, I just kind of have a theory that biceps and chest and stuff like that would have been a little bit smaller and where most of the weight would have been put back on is probably through like my stomach, you know, where you're holding on to more bloat and maybe even like in my face, which is not going to, not going to really help you lift any more weight. So those are some of the things that kind of, uh, you know, happened, uh, leading up to the meat, but I still made a pretty good run at that 500 and April 7th, there's a meet in Reno and, uh, I'm going

to get my revenge on that 500 pound bench. Nice. How many weeks out is that now? April 7th. I think it's like a six or seven weeks. Uh, the hard part is, is I'm traveling all over the place. I'm going to Columbus, Ohio and to, uh, and Italy and, uh, a bunch of spots. But if I can get in one good training session a week on the bench, then, uh, it should be,

should be totally fine. I actually, the frustrating part when you go and do something like that, like you, you did your competition at worlds and you felt you should have done, done a little bit better. There's nothing worse than feeling like an able-bodied person and feeling strong mentally and physically yeah and then coming up short you're like ah it's like uh it doesn't um it like irks you like it makes you like mad but gets you fired up enough to like get back in there and start right away and so as soon as i uh when i woke up, uh, Sunday morning, which is just the day after the meet, went right back to writing 501 at 220 on my mirror.

Like I've done that for years. I've always written goals on my mirror, do it every morning. And, uh, now I see that and I, now I know exactly what it takes to do that. And, um, I feel like I can have even more strength than just the 500 pound bench. So we'll see what happens. We'll see how it goes. How did you feel that? Uh, because when I lost worlds, I was very angry that day. I was very angry, very quiet. Um, when I look back at it, I know I could have handled that better because I

had my, I had my girlfriend with me, but how did you feel? Cause I saw you that day. I mean, I didn't see, I couldn't see like a lot of, I guess, anger coming off of you or whatever, but how do you, how did you feel? How did you process that after it happened? I like the idea of never let them see you sweat. If I got pain, I don't want everybody else to really know about it necessarily. It's hard because it sounds like a loser mentality a little bit when you say like, uh, you can lose, but you're really one.

Like I really, I really felt I was really happy with how I did. Yeah. Um, I was really fulfilled with how I did. Now I missed the lift, but I, I poured everything I could.

I, I went over everything I could possibly do to, to make the lift. The only thing I could have possibly done is made the decision to do the meet a little bit earlier, but I didn't have any control over that. Once, you know, once I decided, I decided, and, uh, the 500 was like, I, at first I was thinking, oh, it'd be cool if I went in and benched like 455, that'd be kind of cool.

And then I was like, well, maybe I'll wear a slingshot. Maybe I'll try to lift, you know, more than I did last year. So I was still at all these things uh in my head and when i was telling the guys here that i wanted to bench 500 they all thought they all assumed i was talking about in a slingshot and they didn't even realize until like last week that i was you know gonna do it this way but yeah i like the idea of you know if i win or if i lose i don't really want you to be able to tell the difference that much yeah and that's not like a front that i'm trying to portray i'm not like going out of my way to get into this mode of like okay i'm going to kind of cover this up that i'm really like hurt or pissed uh about about missing

the lift it's just a genuine uh feeling that i have because i i i crossed all my t's i dotted all my eyes i i went over everything i trained as hard as i could i even set up my training to where there was no adherence to like i'm gonna bench every six days or seven days it was like i'm gonna bench when i feel like it i'm gonna cut out some of my squats i'm gonna cut out some of my deadlifts and so sometimes i would bench on like a monday and i might bench again on like a wednesday i might bench again on like a saturday yeah but it was all by feel it wasn't i wasn't purposely trying to over train or anything like that i was just going by you know if it felt right i would um i would go for it i implemented a lot of stuff the only thing that i probably i wish that

i would have done is um but i mean I really couldn't have changed it. Uh, well, I guess I could have changed it in the closing weeks leading up to the meet. I started to switch back a little bit more to the way that I normally bench where I dropped the weights down really fast. And then I kind of, I, I let them come down,

I get tight and then I throw the weight up. I think that if I can, in this training cycle, if I can slow down a little bit, if I can slow down that eccentric a little bit more, I can stay more connected to the bar. Almost like somebody who yanks on a deadlift and gets forward out of position. Um, if I could stay a little bit more connected to the bar the entire time, then I think that I'll have absolutely no problem, uh, smashing through that weight. Um, another factor too, is just, um, just being smaller, you know, you end up with a pretty long range of motion. And, uh, recently I changed my grip up, so I stopped tearing my

pec and I brought my, my grip in a little bit. And so that range of motion is a little something new to deal with. So I'll have to work on that in a training too, but I think some incline benching, some close grip benching, I'm not going to really change too much else up other than maybe doing some like heavy holds, just hold some weight statically. Yeah. Jen Thompson does a lot of that, right? Yeah. She does it with like 500 pounds.

She's so strong. It's unbelievable. I think some of those things would really help a lot. It's pretty crazy. I think the biggest thing I just got from that is that you did everything you needed to do i think that like when when an athlete knows that they look back and they're like i skipped these training sessions i didn't do this they don't get the result they want that that makes at least i know in situations where that's happened to me in competition

um that makes me the worst so that makes me even more mad like when i know i could have actually done more but in this situation you literally did everything you needed to do so you look back at it you know there's a few things you can do in the next one but that makes a big difference and you know if you actually don't get the results you want but you did everything you can handle that a little bit better i think yeah i was really looking at it too like on a weekly basis i was like okay like you know what am i doing with my kids and what am i doing with my wife and what am i doing uh with the podcast And what am I doing with my wife? And what am I doing, uh, with the podcast? And what am I doing here? And what am I like, where do I fit in my lift? And, you know, I was really prioritizing

it. So again, yeah, I, I felt like I, I did, uh, everything I could do. And also like, you know, you've got to kind of think about, you know, why are you doing these things? You're doing these things, uh, for self-improvement, you're doing these things to feel better and not feel worse. And so, um, you know, putting some pressure on yourself and yeah, all those things can be positive, but like, we don't want to put so much pressure on ourselves that we just make it, we make it too, uh, too much of a mountain to climb, you know? So I like to just try to have good perspective on it and, um, and, and just, you know, pour as much into it as I can. Nutrition wise, I thought everything was good. The weight cut was, was not hard.

I, I spent like 10 minutes in the hot tub. I didn't have to do much. Uh, when it came to that, took some dandelion root, which is just a natural over the counter diuretic. Yeah. And, uh, drank, you know, did a water manipulation, drank two gallons of water for about three days. Um, and the, and the weight came off. But again, I think that the mistake was, is that I was losing weight and getting lean before that.

And I need to stabilize my weight for this training cycle. So that'll be the hardest part is just to try to keep the weight at a certain weight the entire time through the whole training cycle and then just lose, you know, eight or ten pounds of water. That will still impact my strength negatively, so I'll have to account for that. And in my training, I might have to lift 2% more and understand that I may not get that same weight on the platform so i'll have to just if i want to bench 500 i'll have to probably in training be able to bench 505 or 510 or something like that so now i know that going in and now i can make the right adjustment so what's going through your mind uh when you're kind of you know you're hitting the uh the chalk bowl you're walking back and forth all that good good stuff. Yeah. I'm just thinking about, you know,

thinking about being fast and trying to think about being explosive. Um, you know, right there with that four 85, I was actually thinking cause the weight moves slow. I kind of grinded through it and it was an opening attempt. I was thinking, you know, back in the day when I was in a bench shirt, that would take a lot out of me. So I'd knock the second lift off the board and I would put in a third attempt and I would just wait, regain my strength and regain my energy. And it was something that definitely played through my head there for a minute.

But I just I just left it in there because I was like, well, having two stabs at it, you know, might might be better than just one. but, you know, might, might be better than just one, but really, you know, when I'm getting fired up and I'm getting excited, um, you know, I just think about just, just trying to put in everything I got into it, just trying to do, do my best and trying not to, uh, let the moment pass me by. And I, I try to, um, utilize the energy from the crowd. Something I've always done is, uh, to, you know, I kind of so part of the reason for the chalk bowl patty cake uh situation is like i i want all eyes on me like i want i want the attention i want i want that uh 30 seconds uh to myself as i think every lifter deserves that you know i i hate these meets where they run multiple platforms sometimes.

I'm like, this is crap, man. Give these people their 30 seconds of, of fame here, you know? And, and so I, I kind of like it. It's not like a, it's not really like an ego thing. It's not like I want to say, Hey, like check out what I'm doing. Although I don't mind that side of it either.

It's, it's more like, uh, I just want the energy. You know, I want the energy from everybody. I want, um, just as every lifter wants that, right. Every lifter wants, uh, like, Hey, like I worked really hard for this. Here's my opportunity. This is why we have a platform. And this is why we're not facing a wall. This is why we're facing like an audience. We're doing it in front of a crowd. And I like to utilize the energy from the crowd. And I even kind of visualize like when I'm breathing and stuff, I'm visualizing like sucking all the power out of the room, sucking all the energy out of the room and, and trying to harness that for myself almost. I think there's also an idea of like an increased pressure there.

Cause when all eyes are on you, you know, like, like who wants to fail when everyone's looking at them? Yeah. But if like you go up quietly and you just do it, if you fail, you can you know wander off in obscurity so that's it's right there right it's right there cute i don't think i i mean i didn't even know that i got that close i just really had i had no idea yeah and the second one was as close or even closer. I'll fast forward and get through it. But, uh, what were you more excited for? Or maybe what were you more jittery about? Yeah. Your lifts are mine.

Um, you know, I, I was, uh, I would say that I, I put a lot more thought into your lifts because, you know,

we had to really be accurate with the, the weights that you were, the weights that you were hitting. Um, I, I, you know, I always get a little nervous, you know, we had to really be accurate with the weights that you were, the weights that you were hitting. Um, I, you know, I always get a little nervous, you know, doing these, uh, powerlifting meets and it's very normal. And we talked about that in the podcast before I use that nervousness as excitement, like, oh, this is just excitement. And I'm going to use it as positive energy for you. I remember, you know, in the warmup room, I had to have you take weights in the warmup room that were almost identical to the weights you'd done in the platform.

Yeah. Like your opening attempt for your deadlift. I don't, you probably don't even know, but it was 253. Yeah. I had no idea. I mean, that's pretty light, but, but, you know, we've had training sessions where you just had a rough time and couldn't get 270 off the ground or 280, you know? So I was like, well, I need him.

The first lift has to come off the ground clean and smooth. And so when it came to deadlifting, I had you deadlift 135 multiple times, 185 a couple times, 225. And then we ended with 245 and your opening attempt was 253. You know, that's pretty unconventional. We don't really usually do stuff like that. And then same thing with the bench press. I actually had you bench more in the warmup room than you did in the platform.

You benched, uh, uh, 185 and a slingshot, I think maybe twice in the warmup room. Yeah. And, uh, and then you went out on the platform and your opening attempt was that 175 and, and the 175, uh, was so easy. I think that probably was a big relief for you i could kind of see it in your face and on your shoulders and stuff just like oh man it's the weight of the world just you know came came off his back he's he's good to go now he's in the meat and um that that's exactly what we wanted to set up i even had an idea of like maybe we're going to have you

you know go to the back and do another warm-up but it was just unnecessary at that point you were tuned in and and the flight was going fast enough where we didn't have to sneak in another warm-up between attempts cool yeah it was uh it was i mean i got a great coach it worked out really well this guy benched like 600 pounds didn't he in a slingshot yeah uh i don't know his name i think it's micah marino yeah micah marino coaches a lot of people yeah i haven't even i haven't heard from him in a long time i he was a really popular lifter a couple years back i think i want to say you know maybe he's only like 200 pounds or something 190 something pounds it's a huge bench i mean he you know he did it in a slingshot obviously but shit that's i mean he could i wonder

he maybe he benches five without it that weight class is 242 right uh this was just kind of like um the uh i don't know what you call it he's pretty thick yeah he probably is about 230 or something maybe he's a little heavier than i was thinking but oh there's our boy jp jp price jp surprised me i like i didn't realize that for half of the year he doesn't bench press that kind of caught me off guard it's a bit but i guess it makes sense since his bench is just so heavy and it's so stressful it's just wow you spend all that time yeah what an awesome guy too yeah he's the best yeah he's he's i mean i remember when we had him on the podcast he said like one of his goals is to be he says to be like a thermostat and he likes to uh you know if if the

room is hot and everybody in there is angry he likes to cool it down yeah and if the and if the room is cold and no one's laughing and no one's smiling he likes to warm it up he likes to warm everybody up and i was like well buddy i was like you certainly achieved that i said every time i see i end up with a big ass smile on my face before we even say two words to each other because i'm always so excited to see you you know like you're like you're doing it man but yeah what a powerful son of a bitch man he he came here and squatted um about eight plates i think on the safety squat bar for a set of five and i mean he's a big guy but he could move i mean his his form was like it was wild yeah this is uh 677 no way wow

it makes sense it's crazy that he used to be a wrestler too back in the day yeah i know yeah he i know he's yeah a grappler right yeah he could uh yeah it wouldn't be uh wouldn't be wise to to mess with him at all no i wouldn't plus who would want to like you his personality like you mentioned it's like every time you see jp it's you always feel good he always makes like that's that's a crazy thing about him and people like that when you can meet somebody that can always make you smile when you see them that's a special gift i don't know if he does it intentionally or it's just him but it's a it's really powerful it's a great it's a great trait to have with my uh my daughter she always makes me laugh and i always tell her all the time like

i was like that's a really good trait i hope you always keep that you always have a way of making me laugh you say something silly say something crazy and i was like i hope i hope you always keep that. You always have a way of making me laugh. You say something silly, say something crazy. And I was like, I hope, I hope you're always able to keep that. I think it's important to let people know, like that's, that's a talent, you know, a most, a lot of people don't have that. A lot of people don't have that ability to make

people laugh, make people smile like that. Anyway, the super training classic was a success. Thank you to all the men and women that came out to it. Really appreciate, uh, all the support. Um, appreciate all the men and women of super training gym and slingshot that helped out with the contest. Um, it was great having SEMA there showing off his

magnificent body, magnificent face, magnificent skin tone, that ass. I mean, list goes on and on. Yeah. Yeah yeah yeah huge thanks to the spotters and loaders um you guys know a lot of people know how much work they actually put into it i i've seen it but i didn't see like behind the scenes i didn't see like what it takes to actually like they're loading and unloading weights the entire day well and there's there's people in the warmup room doing that too. That's yeah. That's what I'm saying.

Like I never really paid attention to much to that. Most meets don't have that. Man. Yeah. So that was set up by Jesse and by Smokey, um, which is great because then like as a lifter, you don't have anything to think about. You're like, Hey, put 185 on the bar. Yeah.

It's a, it was amazing. So thank you to everybody that was a part of that. That was huge um lastly i just want to kind of add this thing in um you know something i was thinking about is how you know this event that we run at cal expo every year is a lot of fun um it's not the expo is not huge um but you know what we have going on at super training at slingshot, uh, was really well represented. And there was a lot, a lot of positive feedback, a lot of great people there. And something I was thinking about kind of on my way home as I was licking my wounds

from missing my 500 pound bench, um, was, you know, how you can't outsource these things, you know, and that's what I love so much about. I love, I love the fact that you can prep and you can do everything in your power for a bodybuilding show and not end up with the results that you want. Like most people would think, man, I hate that. I hate that. I can't get what I want, but that's a part of life. There's, there are no guarantees. You can pour your heart and soul, uh, into a significant other. You can pour your heart and soul into a business and it's just not always going to work out. There's so many factors that go into it, um, that, that are sometimes watching Jeremy Avila do a deadlift and it's just ridiculous how fast he is. Um, but it, you know, it's,

that can be overwhelming at times for people. That could be something that makes people upset, but it should just make you more hungry. It should make you more hungry to get to the end goal and to stack up your thoughts and the things that, and your actions together and have them align with the dreams and have them align with the things that you want to do. Remember, I always talk on this podcast about cowards are people that talk about what they'll never do. And you want to not only do things, but if you fail, you want to continue to pick up the pieces and try to figure out how do I make sense of this in my life? And how do I get, how do I end up getting what I want? And the fastest way to get what you

want, we've gone over this numerous times is just ask. You just have to keep asking questions and you just have to keep poking around. And so as I go for this 500 pound bench at 220, um, as soon as I got home, I started texting like four or five of my friends that, that bench 600 pounds, that bench 700 pounds, Matt winning, Jesse Burdick, um, uh, James Strickland. Like I just started texting some of these people, like not, not in a panic, not saying like, oh man, I need to change everything. And I need to have seven different training methods to hit this bench. But let me just, let me take a moment to realize and recognize that maybe my ideas of doing this, maybe they're not the best and maybe I should be open to some

other suggestions and some other things. So, you know, even though I can walk around that expo and I could, you know, I I've done really well financially, the business is very successful. I could go around to that expo or I can go to the mall or I can go to a car dealership and I can buy just about anything that they have. I could maybe even at this trade show, have gone up to a different business and have purchased someone else's business, right? But you can't buy a 500 pound bench press and you can't buy the body that you want. It's something that you have to work for. And I love the fact that these things cannot be outsourced and they have to be worked for and there's no other way to get to them.

Strength is never a weakness. Weakness is never a strength. Catch you guys later.