Mark Bell's Power Project - Power Project EP. 65 - Stefi Cohen & Hayden Bowe

Episode Date: June 5, 2018

Dr. Stefanie Cohen is a 16x World Record Holder, a 123lb competitor in powerlifting with an insane 235/518lb deadlift. Her and Hayden Bowe are Co-owners and Program/Nutrition Coaches of Hybrid Performance Method. Re Watch the Live Stream: https://youtu.be/0L69YPJjqKg ➢SHOP NOW: https://markbellslingshot.com/ Enter Discount code, "POWERPROJECT" at checkout and receive 15% off all Sling Shots ➢Subscribe Rate & Review on iTunes at: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/mark-bells-power-project/id1341346059?mt=2 ➢Listen on Stitcher Here: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/mark-bells-power-project?refid=stpr ➢Listen on Google Play here: https://play.google.com/music/m/Izf6a3gudzyn66kf364qx34cctq?t=Mark_Bells_Power_Project ➢Listen on SoundCloud Here: 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

The whole thing will be that. Back and forth for 90 minutes. All right, Mark, we're live. So where'd you guys meet? Let's start out with that. Let's figure out how you two lovebirds met each other. There's two versions for that story. There's two versions.

Oh. Why don't you tell yours? I thought you said two virgins in this story. I was like, well, maybe not anymore, right? Well, that's news to me. I'm interested to hear her version. Oh, no. You're going to start a fight.

The version I'm aware of goes something like, we were both competing at a competition in Miami. Olympic weightlifting is what we both competed in at the time. And I saw her and thought she was cute. Found her on Instagram. Saw that she sold singlets. Like she was importing singlets from Venezuela, custom ones. For real?

That's right. You what? You was importing singlets from Venezuela, custom ones. For real? That's right. You what? You're importing singlets? You know, I was a broke, uh, undergrad student. I had to make money somehow. Man, you'd be locked up for a long time for something like that. Bringing that kind of shit into our country. God damn.

Yeah. So I, uh, I pretended I was interested in one of her custom singlets so I could start talking to her. And she ended up working out at the same gym as a friend that I knew at the time who owned that gym in Miami. So we arranged to have like a workout date type thing. I liked her, so I stayed around the next week. Is that where it started? She hadn't even done a sumo deadlift in her whole life at that point. You got her to open up.

Yeah. So to speak. To get in a better position. What are you guys laughing about? It's true. So I guess I hung out with her there for a week. And I was traveling back and forth to Miami after that to come see her. We did a few trips together, stuff like that.

And my business at the time was all online. So it just made sense for me to end up staying down there. Now you realize how ridiculous the spot from behind is on the sumo deadlift. It's not necessary. But you didn't care. Not at all. What's your version? Actually, I didn't mean that there were two versions.

I meant more like there's a short version and a long version. You didn't care. Not at all. What's your version? Actually, I didn't mean that there were two versions. I meant more like there's a short version and a long version. The short version is just we met at a weightlifting meet, which is usually what he says, but there's more to that story, which he covered. So did you ever get into one of those singlets? Eventually, yeah. For a while, it's all I wore. Was that like the first date? You're like, you got to wear this. It was a requirement.

It's like, hey, there's no butt cheeks on this thing. Yeah, something like that. So how long have you guys been together now? Coming up on three years now. Oh. So you live together, right? Live together. Correct.

Work together. How does that work? Do you guys do okay or do you get pesky with each other? Aren't you her coach as well? Yeah. You guys don't punch each other? I don't see any visible bruises. I'd be the one with the bruises.

Yeah. Yeah, no, I think we have a pretty good handle on it all. There's obviously a lot of overlap in everything we do, but we try to make sure, I think the biggest thing for us is just having periods of time where we're not talking about training or work, uh, things, time where we're just, you know, hanging out and watching Netflix and appreciating each other and our relationship without all the other things. You're like just sitting there. I can picture you guys just sitting there. like you're about to watch something on Netflix

and you're like, what would you like to do? What would you like to do? At the same time, you're like, gluten ham raises. Happens all the time. Yeah, and then you head to the gym and start banging out gluten ham raises. Is that how it happens? All the time. Yeah, I don't know.

For us, it's been more like it's been organic. I feel like, you know, each one of us just does whatever you're good at and doesn't force anything upon the other person. That's exactly how we go about it when it comes to business, for example, you know. more experience when it comes to anything related to online marketing, finance, anything, numbers, business. Whereas I had no, no experience with that. I just know how to lift and how to get better. So that's what I focused on, for example. Uh, what was the company you had before? Uh, it's a company still active called Working Against Gravity that I just, uh, sold my interest in prior to starting hybrid. Cool. And it was like a kind of another training type thing? Solely nutrition.

Oh, okay. Yeah, that's pretty cool. And so you're coaching her. How have you helped coach her to, you know, she's got 16 world records. Obviously she's strong and I'm sure she has a lot of genetic potential to begin with, but a lot of it's got to be credited to some of the coaching, right? What are you guys doing? What's different that you guys are doing? Give us the secrets over here.

Aside from her genetics and work ethic and all of those sort of things, I feel like a support role is more of what I play. She's obviously very knowledgeable being a doctor of physical therapy and she could, you know. Why are you a doctor? We got to get into that, but we'll do it later. Um, you know, she obviously knows what she's doing. Um, but at any level, I think there's always doubt and you just want to have that positive

reinforcement of someone telling you that you're on the right track and that, uh, you know, what you're doing is going to help result in reaching that end goal that you're working for. So that's sort of the role that I play in that. Yeah, Hayden's really good at, how do you call it, just knowing what role to play at what times. So if we're training, he's not my lovey-dovey boyfriend. He's straight to a point. He tells me what I need to hear.

He doesn't let me quit no matter how I'm feeling. Has any of that ever hurt your feelings no like you ever just like straight with you and no no not hurt my feelings no no sometimes he might be a little bit rough but make it make you mad or then you just think about it and you're like oh well he's just trying to make me better. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Nothing is not like a long lasting, uh, you know, argument. A few years ago, you were, uh, stuck with some of your lifts, right? And, uh, you and I had some conversations about it and we talked about, you know, the mental side of it. Has there been anything that you changed drastically to, uh, get past some of those

sticking points? Yeah, absolutely. I, um, I realized that one of my biggest holes when it comes to training was my mental game. And I knew that something needed to change. So I actually hired someone who is a sports psychologist. And I started religiously working with him, having like weekly meetings and stuff. And for the most part, well, we worked on a lot of things like this could be a podcast on its own but you know sports psychology is not what most people think it's going to be where you're just

opening up like counseling opening up to someone telling them about your issues it's not like that this type of sports psychology is more strategies it's actual practical applications it's implementations it's visualizing each step when it comes to training and competitions and how you're going to react and what kind of things you're going to tell yourself and how you're going to change your mindset and how you're going to change the way that you talk to yourself and to other people and everything. So it's been a constant work in process for sure. Changing your vocabulary is probably a big part of it, right? Absolutely. Absolutely. Reassurance is one of the main key part of it, right? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.

Reassurance is one of the main key points when it comes to sports psychology, just constantly talking to yourself, telling yourself. It's weird that it makes such a big difference. It kind of seems like bullshit, right? Yeah, it really does. Like, you know, you have to, you know, talk nice to yourself in order to hit this 500-pound deadlift. It sounds like crap kind of, right? It does. That doesn't sound right, but it really does make a big difference when you, you know, the other day in your squat, you did a 368 pound, uh, squat for like three sets of four reps. What it was,

what, when you saw that written out from Hayden on a sheet of paper, that would probably cause a lot of anxiety, uh, months back, right? When you weren't able to break through. How do you deal with it now when you see that? Because I think a lot of people, you know, suffer from that. They see like three weeks from now, they got to hit this certain bench, this certain squat or deadlift. And they're like, oh man, I don't know. I'm not sure.

Like, am I going to, like, we all know that the program will work. We know that like, if we do it properly, that we will get stronger, but sometimes these numbers just make you scared. Um, absolutely. Well, when it comes to my training, I don't have, I don't ever have a specific written number on my paper. So that particular scenario doesn't really happen. Um, that probably helps a lot. Yeah, it really does. Cause you don't, there's no expectations. You know, I come to the gym and gym and I do the most that I can for that day. Yeah, what is written down? Sets and reps, but no weight. Exactly.

So up to a top set of four or three working sets of four reps, and I just do the best that I can that day. I've just found that for me, at least, that's something that takes a lot of the anxiety out of the equation. The expectation's completely out of the equation. You don't have to perform any single way just with, just by showing up to the gym that day, it's already a win. That's the way I see it. Regardless of whether I hit 80%, 70%, 60%, doesn't matter. The fact that I'm there doing the work is what matters the most.

You guys are mentioning at lunch that, uh, it's a lot of max, a lot of maximal stuff, you know, and you got a lot of people nowadays talking about, uh, it's a lot of max, a lot of maximal stuff, you know, and you got a lot of people nowadays talking about, uh, frequency and optimal weights and spreading fatigue. And you guys are kind of doing something different. The weights are heavier. Um, what's the method to the madness? Uh, self-regulation more than anything. Um, you know, we say any day that we're feeling good, we're pushing it as heavy as we can go for that rep and set scheme for that day. But if Steffi or I go into the gym and we're not feeling like we're in a position to push hard, we'll take that into consideration as well. So it's not always just run yourself into the ground.

Right. It's, uh, basically just self-regulating that, you know, if you're tired and it's not there, you don't push for it that day. And if you feel great, you go as hard as you can. Yeah, auto-regulation is huge. I think that most people forget to take responsibility for their own programs and place way too much importance on or way too much reliance on their coach, on their program, on what's written, and forget to actually feel, hey, what's going on with me today? Like, you know, you squeeze your hand or like do a few jumps or

try to touch your toes and try to feel what's inside of your body. Like that'll give you way more information for whether or not you can hit a certain lift way more than what's written on a piece of paper by anyone. I don't care who the coach is. Yeah. A lot of times people see that number and they're like, this is what I need to do for the day. And they could still get great results by just reducing the weight a little bit, um, by doing one rep, one, uh, one less rep, one less set, something like that. If you're not feeling it, it's hard though. So how do you, how do you, uh, really check yourself? Is it, is it kind of through the warmup process? I mean, you mentioned it's kind of squeezing your hands and moving around. Is it through the warmup process that you start to

really learn about like, okay, well maybe I don't have it for today. Yeah. A combination. So I usually look into previous sessions, especially the previous week. What was I able to do last week is that, cause usually it's, it's, it's predictive of what you can do in the following week. Then taking a look at how much work you did, how was your recovery, it's, it's predictive of what you can do in the following week. Then taking a look at how much work you did, how was your recovery, your sleep, your eating habits, your stress levels, like all of those things are, will play a role in what you can do the following week. And then, yeah, simple things like just paying attention to how your body's feeling. But I think all of that in combination is the best predictor. How do you deal with failing? Like when a workout is shitty, how do you deal with that? You just go

home or do you finish all the assistance exercise with the same enthusiasm as you would if you made the lift? Yeah, that's one of the main changes that I've done since last year. You know, Steffi from a year ago or two years ago would have just quit. The second that I couldn't lift it or that I had a bad set or whatever that might be, I would have just quit and be extremely upset at whatever happened that day. But for me nowadays, like I said, the biggest accomplishment for the day is showing up to the gym and doing whatever you can do. So, you know, if it doesn't go my way, I might be upset for, I give myself five minutes. So I go outside, I cry, I scream, I do whatever I need to do for five minutes. And then I pretend like it never happened.

Like I never failed that set. I never wasn't able to do something to, for, to me, it was a complete success. That training, I just move on to the next lift and I put a smile on my face. I put some music that I like and that's it. I move on. Short-term memory. Just forget about it. Exactly. A lot of times missing a lift isn't that detrimental anyway. It's just a part of the training process, right?

Absolutely. Yeah, I agree. And just to add to what she said, I think it was interesting to see all of that work she had done on her mental game really paying off. Like this was probably your most volatile, unpredictable training cycle ever going into the U S open and you had your best results. And, uh, like you said, if that was a year ago, there's no chance, you know, you would, uh, it definitely wouldn't have gone the way that it went. And even at the U S open, uh, I know you worked a lot on visualization and one of the things, one of the curve balls that she got thrown was missing the first two squat attempts.

And normally in a competition, she'd be freaking out and I'd have to be there really giving her additional support. But this time I walked up to her and she was like, don't worry, I've already visualized this. I know what I have to do. Like, I'm fine. It's this, I know what I have to do. Like, I'm fine. Yeah. So one of the strategies that, um, that I got taught was visualizing not only your successful outcomes, but also your unsuccessful outcomes.

So oftentimes, you know, we're so scared of even thinking about the possibility of something going wrong. Like we're almost superstitious to a point where we don't, you don't, don't even want to think that something can go wrong. But with this technique, you visualize yourself failing and you try to coach yourself through it before it happens. So, all right, you think about what's, to me, the worst thing that could happen is either missing a lift

in the warm-up room or missing your first lift. That, to me, is a freaking nightmare. So I saw it happen before it even happened and I told myself exactly how I was going to react and exactly what I was going to do. And that's what I did. I missed my first lift. I just, you know, I pretended like it didn't happen. I went back, I sat down and I tried again and I missed my second one again. And I did the same thing. No panic, nothing. I just sat down and composed myself and nailed it on the third one.

nothing. I just sat down and composed myself and nailed it on the third one. 200 kilos, 400 pounds, 441 pounds squat. Pretty, uh, pretty ridiculous. You know, I think visualization plays in big time. I think, um, you know, obviously, you know, you need both the heavy lifts. You need, you need the power lifts, you need the bench, the squat, the deadlift, overhead press, uh, bent over rows. Like we need a lot of these exercises to, uh, get bigger and stronger. And I, I've always said that the reason why assistance exercises are so effective is not really because of anything spectacular that they're doing. I mean, they can help with hypertrophy. They can kind of help everything else hold together. But I really think the beauty of exercises that aren't with a barbell are simply the fact that they're not with a barbell. Simply the fact that they're not breaking our bodies down. And also the weights

are lighter. Like even though you might take a heavy dumbbell press or something like that, and the weight might be heavy for you, it's still much lighter than the weight you're going to handle on a bench. Typically, if you were to do dumbbell stiff leg deadlifts or something like that, it'd probably be less weight than you would handle and so on. And lat pull downs, you know, are going to be less challenging than, than pull-ups and some of these things. And it gives you an opportunity to actually visualize what it is that you're going to

do on game day. And I advise that to every single person that listens to the show, that's stuff that you should be doing because when you're doing a set of tricep pushdowns, it's not about your tricep necessarily. Although you can visualize that as well and get some gains from that because you can get some hypertrophy. Think about your bench. Think about that failed bench press. Think about, you know, how frustrated you were the last time you couldn't lock out your bench. And rather than just doing a set of 12 and not thinking about anything, run that shit through your head. And then, and then tell me how you're doing, you know, on, on your, uh, dumbbell, uh, dumbbell, um, you know, anything you're doing for your triceps,

you're doing tricep extensions with dumbbells or with a heavy weight, you know, think about that, that, uh, bench that you missed, run that through your head a bunch of times as you're doing the exercise. And that visualization will be a real positive thing when you go on the platform. Another thing that I think can really help a lot of people is you mentioned, mentioned visualizing, you know, things that can happen that are bad. And you mentioned, or you may also mentioned things, things that can happen that are bad. And you mentioned, you also mentioned things, things that can happen that are good. Also just visualize like, what's it going to be like? Like, okay. I know that some people from Slingshot are going to be there. That's pretty cool.

I also know that like my arch nemesis is going to be there and that bitch beat me last time or whatever, whatever the scenario is like, get yourself ready for all that. I used to always think about the warmup room. I would think about every single detail that I could. So I had it all mapped out in my head. So I didn't get there and go, Oh, there was no surprises. I was like, it, there's a potential that the warmup room is outside. There's, there's potential for all kinds of craziness, potential that they don't have

a deadlift bar to warm up on in the back. You know, like there's, there's going to be things that are out of your control. And I think it's good to run through all these things, uh, before you get to the, before you get to game day and shit your pants. For sure. The more detailed, the better when you do these visualization techniques. You, uh, you have a lot of experience in Olympic lifting and, uh, I saw just the other day on your Instagram, you, uh, you were banging out some cleans, right?

What did you end up hitting? I did 375 that day, which, I mean, like not a super heavy clean for me. It was definitely heavy given the fact that I haven't done that in a long time. Isn't that like 90% for you? I don't even know with weightlifting, but it's different in weightlifting, you know? Like my best clean, 407. And so 375, you know, it, you don't think about it the same way as percentage in squad or deadlift. Um, but yeah, it was fun to do it again. What are, what are, um, I mean, does that make you

sore since it's been a long time since you've done that? Are you just dead from that workout? Yeah. I feel like I got hit by a truck. I, uh, I hadn't actually done a snatch and I think almost two years now. So that's what really, uh, beat me up. You know, if you're doing a lot of bench press and stuff that are tightening your shoulders and you try to do something that really opens them up, like the snatch, uh, and you do that for two years. Why do you think you avoided it for so long? You were kind of scared. It's, it's hard. snatches. Like one of the hardest things you can possibly do in the gym, in my opinion. So whenever we did weightlifting stuff, I would just stick to, you know, power clean, push press stuff that was easy. But it was nice to do it again. And now since I got over that initial fear of going back to it, I think I'll probably do it, start doing it more often again. Why do you lift like such a goddamn maniac? In what way? I just see it. I see that, you know, I see the comments on, on Instagram and, uh, you know, you have those really,

really fast deadlifts, right. And there's really fast squats. Uh, he, this guy can grind them out with the best of them for anybody that's seen, uh, any of his, uh, any of his lifts, he could have a fucking peanut butter and jelly sandwich while he's doing the upward motion of a deadlift. But, uh, you know, it seems like I, obviously both of you are really, really pushing it hard, but, um, you know, I'm seeing from you like weekend and week out and it almost seems like maybe multiple times a week that you're loading up the squats pretty heavy. Is that just the way that you, uh, love to train or do you feel that's the best, best thing for you to do?

Or, you know, what are your thoughts on it? Um, cause most people don't have it in them to go that hard, you know, that, that often. I don't necessarily think I'm, uh, working harder than someone who's hitting the same percent. I think that's just the way I look when I'm doing it, you know, I wish it was super fast and clean looking, but, uh, you know, I dunno, some people seem to like the, the grind and I dunno, that's like my most popular videos are the ones where my head's going to pop off and I'm convulsing, but, uh, I mean,

really anything over 80% kind of looks like that for me. What's your body weight at? Uh, right now I'm about 200 pounds. And then like, what's your best squat in competition? Uh, in competition, I think two. 280? Oh no, uh, 280, 617. Yeah.

That's a, that's a pretty damn big, pretty damn big squat. And when you guys came out to super training, um, that was about a year and a half ago, two years ago, something like that. Right. Yeah. When you guys came out, um, you know, obviously I was aware of both you guys. I was checking out your, your Instagrams and stuff. And then I, I think maybe before that, I think I maybe met you guys at the, uh, at that caffeine

and kilos, uh, deadlift event. Right. That we're, we first met. Was that it? Yeah. And I saw and kilos, uh, deadlift event, right. That we first met. Was that it? Yeah. And I saw you have a pretty successful deadlift there. Uh, but I didn't know you could squat like that. You know, sometimes some of these smaller frame guys, uh, sometimes no offense, uh,

sometimes people that are, you know, smaller and light in the lighter weight classes, or even just don't have like massive legs. A lot of times you're not seeing them, you know, hit some big squats. And then when you came into super training, I can't remember the exact weight, but you're just like piling up, you know, four plates, five plates. And silent Mike was there at the time. And he was like, Oh yeah, he's like, that guy does that like weekly, you know, he's squatting like that all the time. Yeah. Squat is, uh, is definitely my best, uh, lift. I came from weightlifting and then my biggest issue in weightlifting was I was always really weak in the squat relative to what I could rack in a clean.

So I was just beating myself up like crazy doing that. And I really took a few years to focus on squat specifically. What was your clean to front squat? When I could clean, you know, 185 kilos, I was front squatting 190 kilos. So, you know, I was like, it was very close. It's basically a max front squat every time I tried to do a clean and it beat the crap out of me. So, yeah, I took a couple of years to really focus on the squat. And now it's gone so far the other way that I squat and deadlift the same now. So both I've done a six 65 and squat in the

gym and I've also deadlifted that. Yeah. Um, Steph, what does it do for you? Um, you know, when you see him post something up and somebody's negative towards him, uh, do you like want to just jump in and like tell that person to fuck off or you just, do you both, you guys just try to not even mess with it? Oh, I'm usually a voice of consciousness. Hayden's the one that always to just jump in and like tell that person to fuck off or you just do both you guys just try to not even mess with it oh i'm usually a voice of consciousness hayden's the one that always wants to get into arguments i'm the one deleting them after he posts them i don't know to me it just uh you you learn how to grow a thick skin you know you learn not to let it bother you and and that's it i mean if you asked me that same question a year ago,

I would have told you that, yeah, I get pretty pissed. I want to reply to every single one of those comments, but nowadays I, I honestly, I don't even read them anymore. Yeah. So we just talked yesterday on the podcast too, about how it's, it's very common for people's reaction to somebody throwing a punch their way to like ball up their fist. Well, you have to realize that even if it's in retaliation to something, it's still going to make the other person want to continue to fight back. Right. And, and since it's not a real fight, there's a, there's also no consequence involved for them other than just typing on their things. They're going to go back and forth with you on that all day until they think they won. Right. And, you know, with my wife and I, like I'm in the public eye and she's not, so I have to tell, I've had to tell her before, like, you can't under any circumstances comment

on anything. Cause somebody says something about you, they're done. You know, I'm like, you can't, we can't have that happen. So a lot of times, yeah, like sometimes we'll delete it or sometimes, you know, she'll just have to just, you know, see it or whatever, but, uh, it can be painful when it's happening to, you know, a loved one. And how did you just, you get pissed when you see something on her Instagram? Yeah, always, always. But, um, it's, it's something that I've worked on for a while to just let it go you know um i i was upset more in the past because it was very new to steph being so in the spotlight yeah

so every comment that was negative really impacted her right and that's what bothered me um but since then you know she doesn't care i'll do something I'll tell you something that I think it's interesting. And since we're talking about that now, I find it so interesting that if you see a video, let's, let's just talk about YouTube for here for a second. If you see a YouTube video of whoever, who has a good YouTube, Johnny Candido or Calgary Barbell, whatever, you never see anyone commenting about the way that they look just because they're guys, right? You maybe see them commenting about other stuff. We talked about this earlier a little bit. A lot of times what they say about women is way different than what they say about men.

But it's insane. Go look at any YouTube video where I'm spotlighted. I did one for Omar Yusuf. And all the comments are related to the way I look. Oh, she has super long arms. Oh, I can see that she has a Jewish nose. Oh, her this, that, and the other. Everything related to the way I look.

I've never seen any comments like that about guys. And it's just crazy to me because that's not what you should be. Smokey, is this a Jewish nose? Totally is. Yeah, it's unfortunate, but it's unfortunate but it is um it is part of it right and uh i think it's it's like new you know when people were on tv years ago if you were on like uh if you were fortunate enough to be on tv or be in a movie or any of these things you wouldn't like you wouldn't feel those comments you wouldn't see them uh And how many negative comments have you gotten in person?

None. You're right. Yeah. It's like maybe one out of like 10 years of lifting or something. Right. That you can even recall maybe some sort of weird backhanded comment or something. Right. Yeah.

But other than that, it's like, it never happens. And so people just do it. And I just think that people, they should just be a little bit more mindful. I understand like somebody may be frustrated with their own life and that's probably why they're making the comment. They just want to say you took steroids or they want to say that you did something that maybe they don't believe in or did something. They want to feel like they were, they feel like they were cheated somehow because you lifted more weight. And it's really pretty fucking lame. Well, the number one comment on the US Open footage that we filmed for our channel, the number one comment is she's cute.

Oh, nice. Yeah. So you got to love on our channel. Are we allowed to say that, Hayden? Oh, I didn't say it, though. You know, the people said it. I didn't say it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, damn. Yeah, I mean, it's always going to happen, right? And it is way different for women because, you know, men will make that decision to take testosterone and they'll make that decision to get as big, as strong as they can. And everybody like kind of loves it almost like, not everybody, but a lot of people just applaud it. They're like, oh, that's fucking cool. The guy's jacked and look how strong he got. Right. And it's like, you have an option to be like a Ray Williams and lift some heavy ass weight

in a drug tested fed, or you have an option to be somebody else like a Eric Lillibridge or whoever it might be. Right. Sure. And there's not that same, that same stigma as, as there is with the women, when the women make that choice and go down that rabbit hole, everyone's just like, oh man, what'd she do? It's definitely, uh, it's definitely just different, right? There's no other way to, there's no other way to put it. Um, you mentioned, you know, changing your, uh,

changing your mindset in the gym. How has that helped you outside the gym? changing your mindset in the gym, how has that helped you outside the gym? It's a hard question because I don't have a lot of things going on outside of the gym at this point in my life. I just recently graduated, so I've been out of school for a little bit over a month. So all my time has just been focused on growing my business and training. But even in terms of that, even in terms of growing your business, which is online training, uh, training. But even in terms of that, even in terms of like growing your business, which, which is online training, correct? For the most part. And, uh, and even in terms of like your nutrition, has it helped with any of those types of things?

Absolutely. Absolutely. But the thing is, uh, factors outside of the gym have never been that big of a struggle for me. So it's just, I'm assuming that, yeah, it helps me in every single aspect of life. But my biggest struggle is what happens inside of the gym from the pressure I put on myself. Yeah. There's a lot of people that do that.

A lot of people have the weights kind of define them. If you miss some lifts in the gym, do you have a tough time with it? Before. Sorry? Before. Not anymore, right? you uh have a tough time with it uh before sorry before not anymore right honestly i think that's one of the things that i'm i'm the best at uh like in terms of my own training is just not letting that stuff uh bother me i thought you're gonna say miss lifts i was like hey join the club that's

great i can do that too yeah no i i i've never really been the type of person to beat myself up over uh you know having a bad day in the gym and stuff like that um there's been just this last year i had a really long period after an injury and some stuff where i didn't know if i was ever going to make progress again and that was a little bit frustrating for me just because of how long that period was um was that your back uh yeah i had bilateral what is it, doc? He actually broke his back. Bilateral spinal lestesis. Spinal.

Spinal. I broke my back. What's wrong with your back, Mike? Spinal. So I had that issue going on for a while, and I'd never had any back injuries prior to that. And the way that I heard it was really stupid. Too much wild sex?

I wish it was that cool, but it, uh, it wasn't, I was picturing there was a sex swing involved and all kinds of stuff, but, uh, I just wrapped a wrap poorly and it popped off in the middle of a squat. Holy shit. Um, so I had one that was fully wrapped and the other one popped as I was driving up and I just twisted really hard. And, uh, that was that. So. Damn, fucking back adjustment. Yeah.

Um, so it was a long recovery process and, you know, I was super stubborn with it. I did everything I was supposed to do. I did all the PT stuff that Steph told me to do. And, uh, you know, I had a breakthrough after that, so I'm glad I stuck with it. When somebody gets hurt, what can they do? You know, like somebody gets hurt and they're really stuck and they can't do some of the exercise that they love. Uh, where should they do? You know, like somebody gets hurt and they're really stuck and they can't do some of the exercise that they love. Where should they kind of refocus their attention to? I think finding ways to achieve movement, using movement patterns that don't hurt you.

So I think the biggest thing for me was just always doing squat bench deadlift. I now associated pain with movement and that was a big problem for me. And that was something that, uh, Steph was super helpful with, um, just giving me exercises that I could apply to my training that didn't cause pain. So, you know, it wasn't like every time I go to the gym, I'm going to hurt. And that stuck in the back of my mind. So when I did go back to the compound lifts, I wasn't thinking, Oh, when I pick up this barbell, my back's going to hurt. It was just, you know, I had reprogrammed the way that I thought about movement. And I think that was, that was huge for me.

Did you do anything different with your diet at that time? Cause I know some people will like, they'll lose weight or, I mean, not that you're heavy anyway, but. No, I just, I tried to keep things in check as much as I could just kept as many things consistent as I could. And then just adapted the way I was training around, uh, around that. There were some really weird things that bothered it. Like tricep extension was probably the most painful thing, really, which was, I thought was weird because totally an upper body movement, but there's just little things like that, that I had to avoid. Um, and then obviously the big lifts, but, uh,

everything else I tried to keep really just consistent and then obviously the big lifts, but, uh, everything else I tried to keep really just consistent in the way I was doing it and stay focused on, on everything I was doing. So you're a doctor, right? How, how, uh, how's that helped your training? Like just the more awareness of the human body. What kind of doctor are you? I'm a doctor in physical therapy. Uh, I definitely feel like it's, uh, it's made me smarter in terms of training just because I understand the risks that come with being injured for long periods of time, not doing anything about it. Also, as far as like exercise selection goes, what to do when you're injured, what not to do when you're injured, that kind of stuff has been huge. You think it's helped your progress? Like with,

uh, just the training in general. I mean, especially before you met him, um, you were relatively strong anyway. What kind of weights were you moving around then? When I met,

before I met him? Yeah. Man, I was just doing Olympic weightlifting. So I don't, can't even tell you. Any idea what, like you squatted or anything?

I think I was squatting around 300. It was something like that, right? Yeah. Benching 95 and pulling maybe. 95 pounds. Pounds. Yeah. 95 pounds.

And pulling what, around 250? Yeah, something like that. So deadlift has really moved a lot. Oh yeah. The, uh, the bench press. I remember, uh, last time you came out, you were like, Mark Bell, you're teaching me how to bench. And there I was teaching you how to bench.

Um, you struggled with the bench for a while. Still do. What was, uh, what's your best bench now? Uh, 220. 220. You doubled. 220 for two. Right.

220 for two? Mm-hmm. That doesn't sound like you struggle with bench anymore to me it's good it's not that great but what do you want to bench 400

just more 400 400 400 pounds yeah that's a lot no I don't know 250 would be great

yeah that's a big bench what weight class are you usually in 123 you move around a little bit right I've actually, what, uh, weight class are you usually in? 123. You move around a little bit, right? I've actually never competed in any other weight class.

Oh, okay. Oh, you don't, we, we usually don't talk about last year's Open. Yeah, that one doesn't count. I cut down to 114 last year for a competition, but bombed out. Not because of that, I was actually injured, but. Yeah. What are you most proud of with the lifts that you've hit, uh, in, in competition? Or, or most proud of meat wise or that you've hit in competition? Or most proud of meet-wise or anything like that? Anything that stands out that's different than everything else?

Last year's Boss of Bosses, I think that was one of my best meets. It was the first time that I ever hit a four times bodyweight deadlift. And it was actually the first time that I was ever vocal about a big goal like that. I usually am pretty reserved with the things that I want to accomplish. I don't usually talk a lot, but I talked a lot. I was on the barbell shrug that I said publicly that I wanted to deadlift four times my body weight. And I actually lived up to the expectation.

I, um, I actually missed my first deadlift attempt on grip, came back for the second one, hit it third and got a fourth for the four time body weight. So that was a pretty neat milestone and just a good time. You think talking about it publicly, it's good? Or do you think it just maybe depends on the person? Definitely depends on the person. But I think personally, for the most part, it's better to keep things to yourself and to your close group of friends, especially now when it comes to social media.

You're just putting way more pressure on yourself than you need to. You know, you're, you're, you're raising the level of expectation from not only the people who know you, but hundreds of thousands of people who don't know you, who might want to see you fail. So it's just a lot of unnecessary pressure. I think that it's way better off, you're way better off at just keeping it to yourself and then letting your lifts do the talking.

Yeah, that is a great way to handle it. You know, I see a lot of people lift, we were talking about missing lifts and getting frustrated. I see a lot of people, they'll lift, it's good to be intense, but it's not great to be like too pissed off. How do you manage some of that? And did you used to lift pissed off?

Do you still live pissed off? How do you train? Train with a chip on your shoulder or no? I don't think, I mean, I try to get a little bit crazy in my head before a big lift. It's never something that I show. Like I'm not someone to, you know, scream or hit my head on something. What do you mean when you get crazy in your head? I don't think I know. I don't, you think whatever you got to think to amp yourself up for the lift. I don't know. I

can't tell you now, but in the moment, you know, I don't know. I don't know. I think anyone who lifts could, could, you know, understand what I mean. Um, yeah, maybe like, uh, you think about how other people doubt you or you think about how you missed it last time or like just whatever the, whatever the, whatever fuel you got. Right. Um, but I'm definitely not one to like show a ton of aggression. Um, and I, I've, I've tried doing that in the past. Um, and it just, for me, it just wipes me out one lift and I have no energy. So, um, if I'm going to be in a competition and I know I'm going to have to do nine lifts, you know, I can't be just going crazy every lift and wasting energy and using all that adrenaline

and, you know, crashing and peaking so much. So I'm pretty reserved, uh, as far as that goes. Both of you guys are jacked. Both of you guys are in really good shape. Um, what's the diet like? Uh, we both do flexible dieting. Um, so we track our macros. We adjust it based on, uh, you know, our progress week to week. Um, and without diving too much into it, that's really the gist of it. Um, you guys weigh your foods and stuff like that, or you've been doing it for so long. It's kind of not necessary. Yeah, the latter. Uh, we've been doing it for years now, so I can pretty much estimate the individual ingredients that go into what make my food, like the amounts. And then if you plug it into my fitness pal, you know, that's pretty much as accurate as

we need to be, unless we're cutting for a meat or, and we have a deadline, then we'll be a little more, uh, accurate. But other than that, we're pretty, we're a lot looser with it. Tell me about the gym that you guys have. Uh, so we have a gym in Miami. It's called, uh, the hybrid performance method gym, and it's a 24 hour gym.

Um, basically we're the only, we are the only powerlifting gym in Miami. So it's, it's a pretty great environment. There was another one there for a little while, wasn't there? Yeah, sort of. It went down in a blaze of glory, right? It sure did. Uh, we were actually members of that gym before we opened our gym.

And one day the DEA just came in full SWAT gear, closed the door, said no one in or out. Damn. Uh, interviewed everybody on the way out. And then, uh then the next day or next couple of days they said hand over your imported singlets get on the ground yeah so that was pretty crazy

you know and a couple days later all the equipment was gone it was just an empty warehouse and we were like what are we going to do now so that was really I mean we had been thinking about opening a spot for a long time just because, uh, even at Iron Addicts where they had all the, the equipment, they, uh, there wasn't really that team environment and coming from weightlifting, that was something that I really missed.

You know, I was part of a weightlifting, an Olympic weightlifting team and we all trained together and everybody knew what numbers you could hit. If you're having a bad day, they would get behind you, all that stuff. So our goal is just to sort of create that environment, um, for ourselves and for other people who are like us. And, uh, I think so far we've, we've done a pretty good job with it. We've got a pretty good thing going down there. Do you, uh, do you lift when the team is there?

And that probably helps a lot. You know, we're talking about having good workouts and bad workouts makes a big difference when you got other people there, especially, uh, helping spot, helping load, helping you, you know, all kinds of different things and just even encouraging, right? Absolutely. Yeah. Somebody freaking cheer for you. It feels good, right? Absolutely. Yeah. And the guys at our gym are so great. Uh, when I was preparing for the U S open they, for me, would be like a competition day. You know?

Everyone would help me load. Everyone would, like... That's because you're a girl. Guys don't get that treatment. I can't find one fucking person in here to help me out with anything.

You need to fire them all. I know, I know. Bunch of dirtbags. Freeloaders. I have fired all of them quite a bit. Actually, I did get fired this morning. Yeah. Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, see? And they don't listen. And I've kicked them off the team and everything else, and they still just keep, look, they just keep plugging away. They're just like, they're like robots. So you also, in addition to the gym, you have an online business as well. Yeah, that's really our main business. Like I said, the gym was sort of inspired just out of our own needs. Right.

But the online business is, you know, what makes us our living and what we put most of our time and energy into. Cool. How many people do you guys manage on the online business? In training, we have close to 6,500. Yeah. Currently enrolled, paying monthly membership. And in nutrition, we have close to 1,000. Wow. That's a lot of people. How do you manage all that?

Luckily, the way we built the software that we have, we pretty much made it infinitely scalable. So we have, uh, specific coaches for each program and they field questions about the program in the Facebook group to the members. Um, but the way our software works, you can plug in a year or two, three years, however much programming you want. And, uh, it just gets released to people as they complete weeks of the program. So I can only see two weeks at a time. That's pretty cool. And then they can interact a lot with somebody, you know, if they're having a hard time or if they're making great progress, the weights feel too light, they can tell somebody, right? Yeah.

Our members only Facebook groups monitored 24 seven. So you get to interact directly with all of the coaches and Steffi and me. 24 seven. So you get to interact directly with all of the coaches and Steffi and me. Uh, and then if for people who don't have Facebook, we have a forum, uh, which is a members only forum on the website, um, where you can, you know, sort of like Reddit style, where you can make a post and people can comment on it and help you with whatever you need there too. Are you guys pretty hands-on with that? Like, uh, do you end up getting a lot of people that are, you know, in person as well? I mean, it's an awful lot of people, but do a lot of people come to your gym to check it out

to kind of get form checked and some of these things? Uh, I don't know if like specifically for that purpose, but you know, Miami is a very popular vacation spot. So we get, I mean, a lot of drop-ins, 20 drop-ins a week. Yeah.

Um, which is, is a lot for, you know, our little niche sport. But yeah, we get a ton of members and any hybrid member who comes in for a drop-in, we don't charge them. It's just, you know, they're part of the team just like everybody else. You sometimes hear people make the excuse of, that they don't have time for certain things. You guys have built your relationship together. You've built two businesses simultaneously, and you've knocked out a bunch of world records, um, along with going to school to be a doctor. How are you able to manage all your time and kind of, what do you think about people that say, I don't have time for that? You know, it's funny. I get a lot of comments on, on Instagram about, you know, anytime that I would

say that I did another semester or that I just, whatever, finished that rotation and them saying like, oh, you're so great at time management. Like what are some tips that you can give me about that? And truth is I'm terrible at that. I'm not really good at managing my time at all. But the way that I see it is I just kind of prioritize. So while I was in school, school was a top priority just because my school was very rigorous in the sense that if you get anything less than a 75 on any test at any point, you get kicked out. test at any point, you get kicked out. So my main priority at that time was to get over 75 or actually crush every single test that I had. So if I had a week of midterms, then training simply took the backseat and all of my, most of my energy and my time would be spent studying for this week of tests. And then once that's over, then training takes the front seat, the front seat again, and school kind of takes the back seat. And, you know, you just go back and forth with that. I think the most important thing actually is instead of being so strict,

learning how to be more malleable and learning how to adjust to a situation, learning how to be more fluid, more than being strict. Because if you you're that strict then you end up getting disappointed because things are going to get thrown at you that you didn't know were going to come up you know you might uh be really struggling with a class and instead of having to put four hours for that for that particular test you have to study 12 and what are you going to do you're going to get upset that you you know you just you need to just go with the flow and do what you need to do to achieve a particular task at that moment that And that's kind of how I go about it. I think a lot of people are just, they're put very simply, people are just trying to be happy.

You know, and I think they, they sometimes struggle with trying to figure out what's going to make them happy. And I think some of that struggle comes from the internal battle of not being happy with yourself. While you're lifting and while you're lifting these heavy weights, you look different than other females. How are you happy in your own skin? How are you happy with yourself? I think from a,

from a young age for me, happiness has always been competing and or winning. So regardless of how I look or anything else, to me, what makes me the happiest is just going on that platform and competing and pushing myself and getting better. That is what happiness is to me. You probably get a lot of people when you guys go out in public, you probably get a lot of attention. Both of you guys got some massive traps going on here. Mostly him. Yeah.

Yeah, his are coming right from his ears. But you guys are jacked and you're a fit couple. And a lot of times it's rare to see people that clearly look like they work out. You know, you don't usually see that too often. And then it's even more rare to see a female. You get a lot of people coming up to you asking about working out and lifting and stuff like that. Yeah. I think the biggest one we get is if Steph wears shorts anywhere, you need to expect to get comments every two seconds. Quads and hammies.

Yeah. So, but they're always positive. Honestly, all the comments she gets are just like girls will come up to her and say like, damn, are those from squats? Like, how did you get those legs? How can I get are those from squats? Like, how did you get those legs? How can I get those legs? Or how can, how did you get your arms to look like that? More so in admiration than anything else. Yeah.

I think it's pretty cool how there's, there's, uh, there's more women lifting for strength, you know, than there ever was before. And I think, uh, CrossFit might be part of that, you know, and then obviously just, just powerlifting and Instagram and social media and people seeing it more and more and, and being, uh, more used to it. You know, it doesn't, people don't have to be like rail thin to be accepted anymore, which is pretty cool. People can be more jacked. You know, what's one place that it's impossible to go through without a comment? Airport. Airports. go through without a comment?

Airport. Airports. Every time you go through the security line, what's it called? The metal detector? Main joke. Those guns aren't legal. Every time. 100% of the time, I swear to you.

Oh, man. That's great. You got to tell them, hey, come up with something new, buddy. Yeah, that's the worst. It's always some old dude, too, thinking he's so funny, right? Laughing at his own joke. And then you have to be like. Yeah, that's, that's the worst. It's always, uh, it's always some old dude too, thinking he's so funny, right? Laughing at his own joke. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You gotta just, you gotta just, uh, uh, roll with the punches. Do you guys have, uh, people in your gym? Uh, is it, is it mainly like a personal training style gym, um, or like a team power thing gym? Can other people come and work out in your gym?

Uh, yeah, I mean, it's, it's very similar to the way, a smaller scale version of what you have here. So we're, uh, you know, we have our team training times, uh, where everybody comes in and trains together. Um, we usually do Saturday events that are free drop-ins. So what's the events?

What goes on at the events? Well, it's really just lifting or, you know, lifting and we'll get food for everybody. We'll do like a barbecue or order pizza for everyone or whatever. And, uh, you know, just sort of as a way to, to make it a more inclusive community. You know, you get a lot of people who say, uh, you know, they see the videos from our gym online and they're really intimidated and they need more than just them walking into the gym by themselves to do it. They're not confident enough to do that. So if we make a more approachable event where people can come in and hang out and bring their dogs and do all that stuff, you get a lot more people showing up and just either coming to watch coming to, to lift with Steffi and meet her

or, you know, stuff like that. It's still a little more of a, a more, uh, approachable environment. You guys have any family around where you live? Uh, my brother lives like 45 minutes North with his family. And then your family's in Canada? Yeah. My family's, uh, mostly Toronto and, uh, some in Ottawa too. Uh, they pretty supportive of the lifting and the gym and things like that?

Oh yeah. They love it. Actually, my oldest brother, he lives in LA and he drove to, where was it? San Diego? Yeah. Yeah. He drove to San Diego to watch me lift, which was cool. Both my parents flew from Toronto to come watch her lift at the US Open too, which was

pretty cool. I think it took him, it definitely took him some time to truly understand what powerlifting was and what the hell I was doing. Uh, some, there was some resistance there in the middle where they didn't just, they didn't understand why I was doing it, why I had to look the way I looked, but eventually they supported me. They probably don't understand a sumo deadlifting cause it's cheating. Like why is she up there cheating so bad?

Those comments are always great. What kind of weight can you deadlift conventional? You know, I haven't maxed out in years, but. We got to max out. You got to have you max out for the haters. Yeah, I get this question all the time. She did 225, but couldn't quite lock it out. No, I did.

I did 400 for three. From a deficit. From a deficit. Fuck you guys. She's strong regardless. See? You did some work with Andy Galpin.

Yeah. He helped me do. What'd you do with that guy? Did he like rip muscles out of your body like he did to me? That shit hurt. Did you do a biopsy with him?

Yeah. I've never gotten a muscle biopsy done. Oh, it's awful. How did they do it? He was like, oh, it's not that bad. They like open up your skin and then they fucking snatch muscle out of there. Did you do it back to him?

Fucking disgusting. You gotta get your revenge. I should have. I didn't even think about that. I didn't even think about that. But he, him and all the people that he had working there, they were all like, oh yeah, we do it all the time. It fucking hurt.

I mean, it hurt for like a month. Did they do it to themselves all the time? That's what they said. That's a weird hobby. They said it's hard to get people. It's hard to get people to... It's hard to trick people into saying this. It's hard to get people to do it. I need to go back and find out more about my results because he said they were just... My muscle fibers were all weird or whatever. I told that to Joe Rogan. He goes, yeah, steroids are a hell of a drug. But they haven't really tested a lot of power lifters in those terms.

Yeah. They focus more on Olympic weightlifters, at least for that last study they did. Yeah. Andy's great. I actually met him a couple of years ago back when we did a podcast for Barbell Shrugged. Super smart. Super smart. Yeah. I've kept in touch with him.

He's been actually one of my mentors, if you say some way, as far as like the academic world goes, I always ask him questions about school PhDs and he's really receptive and helpful. And just this last time I actually ended up meeting up with him. He was doing a seminar with, um, what's his name? Lael, what's his name? The surfer? Sir? The surfer? Laird Hamilton. Laird Hamilton. And so I met up with him. And I asked him if he had any ideas of how to help me cut for the US Open. And we stayed in touch.

And he gave me some pointers. Especially, you know, one of the most. He works with some fighters, I think, right? He does, yeah. One of the most useful things that he helped me with was post weigh-in stuff that I usually don't think about it much. I just kind of like go to a diner and pig out just like everyone else. But that was one of the main things that he drilled. That's the most important.

Ladies, no more donuts. Yeah, no. Stop posting those donuts. You can get serious with your lifting. Yeah, no. Stop posting those donuts. Get serious with your lifting. Yeah, because what happens is you go to the diner and you pig out and then you're full for four hours after that.

You can't really fuel up the way you need to, right? No, and you're eating shit. So why? So what I did, he wrote me a whole protocol of how much water I needed to drink of what kind. It's a science, right? Yeah, it is. Coconut water, three liters right after, then Greek yogurt with granola then I don't know I just followed it and I actually felt amazing I caught quite some weight and did an IV for you too which helped a lot I'm sure yeah it makes a big difference and they can't do that anymore in like UFC but

uh power of thing we can take it take advantage of of those uh 24-hour weigh-ins which are nice right uh what kind of weight did you put back on did you like you know put on a lot of weight or Take advantage of those 24-hour weigh-ins, which are nice. What kind of weight did you put back on? Did you put on a lot of weight or just intentionally just go back to whatever weight you were? I was back right up at my starting weight within a few hours. Two or three hours, I was back up. Like six pounds up or 10 pounds? Like 13 pounds up.

Oh, wow. Within a couple of hours. Yeah. That's quite a bit. That's a pretty big drop um for uh someone your size you know like percentage wise it's a you know it's almost 10 percent of your body weight or probably is a 10 percent um how did you how'd you drop the weight um i know it could be complicated but yeah so the way i did it i start i cut my water and my food about 24 hours before weigh-ins then eat or drink it pretty much anything i mean i had one protein shake

throughout the day and half a protein bar just if i started feeling dizzy or anything like that and then the rest was just done via a bath hot bath which is this was the first time that i actually try something like that i usually go crash cut inside of the, which is, this was the first time that I actually tried something like that. I usually go crash cut inside of the sauna, which is brutal. I don't know if you've ever done it, but it's just, that's not for me. I can't breathe. I feel like I'm getting tachycardic. Like, it's just not good. So what I did this time is I just, throughout the whole day, I would just get in the bathtub, put it at a comfortable temperature, nothing that was too, too hot. And I would just stay there, put some podcasts on for an hour, an hour and 15 minutes,

or until I was tired, I would get out, do some other stuff, go back in. And so I must have done maybe four or five rounds of an hour bathtub. And throughout the day, I just, it just fell off. And throughout the day, it just fell off. I felt great. That's a big-ass weight cut. What makes you want to continue to break these records? You already broke a bunch of them. Why are you still fired up?

Why do you want to still keep crushing people? I have no idea. That's a question I ask myself all the time. Why do I get so much excitement out of it? Why is it so important for me? And I really don't know. I think it's something that's just kind of ingrained in my brain since I have memory that I just wanted to compete and be the best. Yeah. I think a lot of times you don't really figure those things out until later on, you know, like when you're a couple of years retired, you'll look back and be like, that's why I did it. I think, you know, it's important for, I talked yesterday on the podcast too, about just keeping yourself busy.

Right. And so it's like, what else would you do? Like you could invest your time in other things. It's not like you couldn't be successful with anything that you try. But this is what you're doing. You feel good. Might as well keep going. Exactly.

You know, I, my last clinical rotation was inside of a hospital and I had a lot of time to think about life and what life meant. And I asked myself that question all the time, like, why am I doing what I'm doing? Like life is too short. You know, what, what is it that I should be doing really? And I got to a conclusion that actually life is too fucking serious, And this kind of stuff, just lifting for fun and being with friends and interacting with other people, that is what life is to me. You have to cut some of the seriousness of life with something. Not everything you do has to be so serious. So that's what I thought.

Yeah, it's a morbid thought. Yeah, it's a morbid thought but like yeah, you know when you pass on, you know, are people gonna be like, you know Is it gonna say on your stunt? You know your head stones gonna say you squatted 440, you know Or is it gonna say that you were a good wife and a good husband and a good or good? Mother or whatever whatever it would say, right? Like it's probably gonna be more general, you know and the thoughts that people have about you probably more general and they probably just think and the thoughts that people have about you would probably be more general. And they probably would think the same way they think of you

would be the same way of somebody that doesn't hold a bunch of world records. They would just think, man, she really loved exercise. She really loved lifting. That was cool. And she shared it with a lot of people and she inspired a lot of people. And that would be it. It wouldn't be like these numbers wouldn't be attached. Actually, now that you say that,

I hope mine has squad bench and deadlift in my bed. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, you know, I've learned the hard way that it is important to set up those kinds of things, which is very morbid as well. But I have a lot of stuff set up that, you know, for when I croak that people will be taken care of. And there's certain things in place just because they're my wishes and you know recently had my father-in-law pass away and he was somebody that was just he was

super smart and he was always ahead and then sure enough when he passed he had fucking everything all taken care of you know and i think he knew he was sick because he he left his safe open which had like all these instructions on everything to do. And it's really, like I said, it's fucking morbid. But it is a good point that whatever you wish, whatever you desire when you pass, you should communicate that to somebody. What's in your guys' future? You guys got any plans? You're not married, right?

Not yet. What do we got going on here? Working on it. Working on it. Wait until something happens, or what? I don't know. You might be spoiling

a surprise right now, for all you know. Oh, yeah. It's gonna... Yeah. Right here on the podcast. He's like, actually...

You never know. you never know you never know what's this chain about with the key on it because I see you actually lifting with it too this is actually just a classic Tiffany's key oh there's no story

no fuck key to your heart or something he gave it to you you know he gave it to me he did give it to me

some special circumstances or something it's the key to you. He gave it to me. He did give it to me. Some special circumstances or something. It's the key to Hayden's heart. I don't know. I don't know about that. No, not convinced. Got some stuff going on over there? Yeah, people want to know

what a normal week's worth of training looks like for you guys. Usually we do some variation of squat four times per week uh bench usually three uh for stephy a little bit more because she's been working on uh bench to the extreme because that's the the lift she feels she needs the most work on um and then deadlift uh one to two times per week and you know the intensities vary uh like we said it it's usually going up to a max set for the day and whatever rep scheme we

have programmed and then dialing it back, doing back offsets, tons of accessory work. She's usually the mastermind behind the accessory work. Is the assistance work, is it like kind of like haphazard in some way or do you keep the same exercises for like a period of time and then kick them out? It varies more depending on what phase you're in or

how far from a competition you're in. So the further out you're from a competition, then it's kind of more, there's more room for play, more functional type stuff like yoke walks, farmer carry, searcher walks, there's more room for play, more functional type stuff like yoke walks, farmer carry, searcher walks, kettlebell swings, double kettlebell lunges, front squat, whatever you want to do. And then as you're getting closer to the meet, it gets more classical. So more just like bicep curls, rear delts, stuff that has less

risk and the same reward. Do you guys put a lot of emphasis or do you guys care basically about Wilk scores? I think not until the US Open was in the forefront of our minds. Yeah, when there's victory on the line. I didn't care about

it until I was at the US Open this year. Pretty much. And then someone was asking his name was Edgar and he said with all due respect to hayden he also thinks stephy is cute but he was asking um because he wants to get into physical therapy school as well so he wants some recommendations because it's a little hard to get into since they only accept so many yeah yeah so acceptance rate is about 6% currently. So it is pretty competitive, but the best advice I can give you is to pick one or two schools that you have your mind and your heart set on and do everything you can to get into those. It's way better to do that than to spread yourself thin and just apply to a million schools without intention.

So you do have to apply to more than two schools. But if you focus on those two, so I'll give you an example of what I did. For me, my top two schools were the University of Miami and Northwestern in Chicago. So what I did is I contacted the School of Admissions. I set up an appointment. I physically went there. I met with the dean of the department. I asked to sit down in a class.

I went to lunch with some students. Like I did everything in my power. I sent a thank you letter. I did everything. And it's funny because I got into those two schools which are ranked number seven, number eight. And I got rejected from schools that were ranked 200 and 250. So to me that it tells you a lot. Yeah.

Doing those small things that no one else is doing. Exactly. And showing your face, going above and beyond. Yeah. And then, you guys were teasing a poop story

before we went on. Oh my God. You guys are up for it. I thought I was off the hook. No, no, no. You know, I was thinking, so apparently,

apparently Smokey sent a list of... I think it's off the record is what you were looking for. Yeah. Apparently, he sent a list of things that we it's off the record is what you were looking for. Yeah. Apparently he sent a list of things that we were going to be talking in this podcast, but he only sent it to Hayden, so I didn't see it. And then like 10 minutes before we got here, they asked me if I had a poop story.

I'm like, what the hell is that? I've never heard of that before. And I actually thought of one. And since that moment, I've been thinking about how I'm going to say it in a way that doesn't sound that gross just don't say it in english one of us will understand it in this room okay okay this is the story i'm just gonna get this over with okay this is the story we were opening up we were opening the gym and the bathroom was still not running like it was was, we had no water. We didn't have a toilet.

We didn't have a toilet even. Okay. And we were there and we were about to work out. So that means I had pre-workout or some sort of caffeine. I was pumped to work out. I was probably going to deadlift or something like that. So I'm like, oh my gosh, I really need to go to the bathroom. But there's no way that I can make it to like

the next local that has a toilet I can't do it and I literally just opened the gates the bay doors to the back of the gym and did my business got below parallel well below parallel

the funniest thing was I don't think until he sees this, he'll know. But our friend Marcus was there at the time and he went out there and was shocked by Dexter, our dog's poop. Holy cow, Dexter.

You're an animal. His world's going to be turned upside down when he realizes it was Steffi all this time. Did he take a picture of it? No. Dexter. oh my god. What did you eat? Poor dog, he's been blamed this whole time.

I got a question for you. This is more a personal question. More than the poop story? Yeah. I don't think it can get more personal than that. So I deadlifted like two days ago. I deadlifted 465 pounds, right? And I'm old and I'm trying to regain my strength. Here I am trying to feel good about myself, getting in some work.

I work up to 465. I do a set of three. I nearly die, right? And then I go on Instagram and you're doing 463 pounds for four reps. Was that on purpose? You're trying to hurt my feelings. Absolutely not.

You saw what I did and you're like, I'm just going to do one more rep and make it look a lot easier. I'm going to start doing that. I'm going to just try to one-up you. Every time. That sucks. That's awful. What's next for you guys? What's up? Whatup you. Every time? Every time. Fuck. That sucks. That's awful. What's next for you guys?

What's up? What do you got going on? Any meets or anything? Boss of bosses you were mentioning, right? Yeah. Are you going to compete too? I'm going to compete. We're going to send a whole team from the gym. So that'll be fun.

Dan and Sparkle are friends of ours, so we like to go support that meet every year. Cool. Also, just before that in July, we're doing a trip to Ireland. Steph speaking on a panel at the, what's it called? European Powerlifting Conference. European Powerlifting Conference. And then we're going to go to Iceland from there for a week, I think. Just to kind of kick it?

Yeah. We're already over there and I think it's just like a two-hour flight. So, turn it into a little vacation. How's your training going and everything? Uh, okay. Yeah, it's been good. It's been great. Like I said, that whole thing we talked about

earlier, uh, with me being kind of stalled out and dealing with injuries and stuff, that period just ended. I did my first meet back and hit all, uh, a competition PR total at that meet. And then really after that meet is where my progress took off a lot more. So,

um, I'm feeling really good and, and hopefully I can just ride this wave going into the next meet. You have some, uh, goals in particular? Uh, yeah,

I'd like to go, uh, 700, 400, 700. Nice. That's, uh,

that's my goal for this year. So what about you? 701. Um, yeah, I'd like to take the, the squat world record that was just set. So at least squat like 210, bench 220, 225, or wait, I did kilos and pounds. Yeah. So let's just do kilos. So squat around 210, bench around 100, 102, and that lift around 240, 245. That'd be nice.

That'd be huge. Who do you guys look up to? Who do you look up to? Um, I think my biggest motivator power lifter is Dan Green. It's just kind of one of been, been one of the first power lifters that i ever uh learned about and who has actually been extremely supportive towards me since the first time i ever met him to a point where i keep very close contact with him and he helps me out with my training and especially the mental aspect of it and yeah he's been fighting uh coming back from some injuries and stuff too right yeah yeah he

had a quad or a patellar tendon retachment and then a biceps and then hamstrings too or something yeah the bicep was kind of more recent right or something like that but he uh has come back and he's you know still like he seems like he just keeps coming back i know you know and at some point i think we'll see him back on the platform and, um, he's always competitive. He's always hitting world records. He doesn't lift any other way.

Um, he's fucking huge too. Like he's one of the bigger, I don't know how he does that. He's got a lot injured. He's huge. Yeah. He's got a lot of fucking size to him.

It's pretty, it's pretty crazy. How about you? Who do you look up to? I mean, uh, Dan was definitely the person who sort of caught my interest uh way back when i was a snobby weight lifter and thought all power lifters were fat guys you know i saw him and i was like oh wow you know power lifters can look like this too so that was uh sort of an interesting interesting thing to see.

And then for me, really, there's not one particular lifter that I look up to. But I think just anybody who's competing at a high level and pushing themselves, and especially guys in my weight class showing me what's capable in that weight class is always something cool to see and something for me to strive towards. Would you ever go up a couple of weight classes or you like, you're around 200 pounds now, you probably compete at 198. Uh, usually I do 181. Um, but I think in the future, uh, I don't know how soon, but I think I'll end up 198. Yeah.

And that'll probably be the heaviest I go. I think even if I get up to 220 or something heavy, which would be very, very heavy for me. Right. I think, uh, I could always cut back down to the 198 class. Yeah. It's hard to, uh, you know, with newer lifters, it's hard to, you know, it's hard to discourage them from doing that, but they always want to, with the new people that you guys have, do you kind of discourage them from, from dropping weight going into a meet?

Especially if it's like their first, second meet. Yeah, absolutely. We, we just tell them don't especially if it's like their first, second meet. Yeah, absolutely. We just tell them don't. If it's your first meet, don't cut weight. Your goal in meet number one should be obviously to have fun. That's why we're all doing this. And then two to go nine for nine. So set yourself up that that's as likely as possible.

And that means don't cut weight. Yeah, especially at the beginning of your powerlifting career, you need to start developing positive associations with competing. You know, the first two, three, four times that you go to compete, you should be going into it fueled with energy, going seven, eight, nine for nine, and just building up that positive. It's pretty great in the beginning when everything that you do is a PR. Then as it gets harder

and harder, then it's just you're like, what's happening? How come I can't figure out how to gain one pound of strength in anything? You get really stuck. Any other questions over there, Andrew? That's all I got for you, buddy. Hey guys, appreciate your time. Thank you guys so much for being on the show.

What's the website people can go to, to get programming or, um, we're hybrid performance method.com that has everything from our nutrition programming to our, uh, training to the gym. It's all on that one site. Uh, on Instagram, you can find us at hybrid performance method, or if you're interested in the gym page, it's at Hybrid Performance Method Gym. Cool. What about you? Where can people find you? Same and at Steffi Cohen. All right.

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