Massenomics Podcast - Ep. 13: Benching 865lbs w/ IPF World Bench Press Champion Jona Leo

Episode Date: July 4, 2016

This week's episode is a very special one. We had the whole Massenomics crew present for this episode, and we had an awesome time hanging out with IPF World Bench Press Champion Jona Leo. Jona and his training partner Phil Brinks filled us in on what it takes to become the best in the world, and hopefully some of the knowledge they share can help you become a world-class badass as well!  It was a real honor having Jona on the podcast, and we really, really, really hope you enjoy this episode as much as we do. Make sure you LIKE and SHARE this episode on Facebook, and give us a 5 star rating on iTunes...  And if you'd like to help support the podcast so we can travel and interview more awesome guests like Jona, just head over to The Massenomics Store and score yourself some sweet merch. You'll look awesome, and we'll keep making awesome content. Thanks for listening...  Stay Strong.  

M-M-M-M-M-M-M-Massanomics Welcome to Massanomics, the world's strongest podcast. Find us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at Massanomics. Make sure you go visit massanomics.com. There you'll find the rest of our powerful content. While you're there, check out our store and buy yourself some of that sweet Massanomics gear. and buy yourself some of that sweet Massanomics gear. Everybody, welcome to the Massanomics podcast.

We are here in Sioux Falls at the Casa de Nash. Next to me here is Tommy DeFay. What's up? And we are joined finally in person with Austin, Professor Shanz here. Howdy, folks. And across from me is Tanner. Yellow. And we have two special guests here. We have IPF World Bench Press Champion

Jonah Leo. Jonah? I'm here. And next to him is Jonah's training partner, Phil Brinks, such as the Brinks truck. That's correct. That's correct. Awesome. Okay. Well, thanks a lot for joining us, guys. I know this is kind of probably like a weird request to just get out of the blue,

but we're enthusiasts, if you will. So we just came here to talk to Jonah and see if there's some things we can learn from you guys. You guys have been training for quite some time, and I don't know. I sure haven't. So I feel like there's something we can put together here. guys you guys have been training for quite some time and uh i don't know i sure haven't so i feel like i feel like there's something we can something we can put together here um jonah just uh just won gold at worlds and was that denmark denmark yep denmark that's what do you have to do you have to like pay for your travel for that whole thing or do you have some does some sponsorship help you

out or how does that work yeah it's gotten a little bit better over the years with sponsorships. But, yeah, we're amateur athletes. Lots of hitchhiking. So you still have to have a job, unfortunately. Unfortunately. A couple of them. It's funny. I just emailed back and forth with, I don't know if you're familiar with Dan Bell, powerlifter, and he squats 1, squats a thousand pounds per

year and we're trying to make arrangements to get him on the podcast and you know he's got he works like a lot and travels all the time i was like i just thought you could squat a thousand pounds you didn't have to work anymore but apparently that's uh that's not the case but we've got we've kind of got uh i don't know. I just assume there's a lot of things that we can learn any, any questions and we'll just kind of fire off right away as far as if there's anything we'd like to, we'd like to ask. Yeah. We, uh, maybe you could just tell us about IPF worlds this year, what you benched and you know, what second place was, or if it was a personal best for you, how, how much it was this year and everything.

personal best for you how much it was this year and everything it was uh this was the first year in what four or five years that there hasn't been a world record broken to win it so it was a it's just a little bit different makeup than past years but this year it took 865.5 or 392.5 kilo to win uh second place was smolter from finland who beat me last two years at 859 so a little bit of a rivalry there you could say that yeah yeah i don't like getting beaten neither does him so yeah i believe that the fins those darn fans but you know they're they're really good bench pressers over there they uh the fins won it for decades straight in 13 i broke that decade and then smolter beat me the last two years and then i took it back so literally they've won what 12 of the last 14 years so do you think there's something with their training style

that makes them good benchers or ah they got hobbit-like features. No, no. If Kenter or Freddie or Ove hear this, I'm just kidding. They're actually huge fans of this podcast. Oh, we'll tag them on it. Don't worry. No, they are just phenomenal athletes, and they take the sport serious. And I think there's just a lot of tradition there, and they do a great job at it so you've had the world record before at times when what it was it 2010 i know

you won worlds in 2010 also 13 okay 2013 okay and it was that the world record then it was uh you know i've held the world record four different times. Two of those times for less worth were less than 10 minutes long. Wow. So that's kind of a killer, but you know, and that was one of the, the 2013 was probably one of the ones that'll go down in my mind is one of the best. Cause you know, it was a three for three day for me and Shinji Uda. I was, I broke the world record on my second attempt. Shinji Uda from Japan came up on his third and broke it.

My back's against the wall. I had to hit my third to get it, and I hit it, got it, and broke the world record, took it back. How much was that? That was just $8.94. Just? Just back then. It's amazing how much it's gone up in the last few years.

$8.94? $7.94, sorry. What do you think and that's like we were kind of looking at it going through, seeing $7.94 to $8.65. That's some crazy progression at that level. What's made it go so much in the last few years, do you think? It's been a lot of things. Ever since I got to my first national meet on the first world team, you get exposed to different viewpoints and coaches and styles and technique.

And part of it is just getting your equipment at that level to work right. Obviously still devoting your raw strength. And it's the other players in the game too. If it wasn't for Freddie Smolter, if it wasn't for a Freddie Smolter, if it wasn't for a Shinji Uta, there'd be no reason to try and keep pressing past that. So it's really been kind of the rise of the whole talent pool. Yeah, that actually is like an awful lot for a world record to move

in general in that much time, not just one person, but for the record to keep getting just drove up in that much time, that's pretty impressive. Really what's happened in that time, though, that a lot of people don't realize is in the IPF, they used to have the belly bench rule, so to speak, which was really, you know, you had some judges that would dang near bomb out a whole class and you have other judges let it fly. You're saying because they were touching too low for their standard. Yeah. And they did away with that in what 13 was the first year so that's why i mean i think that's why you've seen a big progression over those years and you

know as us athletes we don't have to think about where we're touching we're just bringing her down and go for hell so was that a really tough it seems like that would just i mean a lot of people give the ipf flack you know for their squat rules and i'll strict air with that but that belly it seems like that would be a really hard one to enforce or judge consistently even. Well, it really was. Yeah. And I think that's why they did away with it, just because you got guys with different sternum lengths. Yeah, that's crazy.

And us bigger guys, how do you really tell? Yeah. It's not like a perfect line that you draw on everyone and say, well, don't cross there. Yeah. So I think the way they got it now is pretty favorable for the lifter anyway. Yeah. Well, ultimately, I mean, you're not just trying to arbitrarily push the numbers up, but at some point it's got to be consistent.

Now, you two have been training together for some time? Too long. Too long? Far too long? Let's get this right. We're training together. We're not friends. That's probably the way it should be.

Now, we had had, you know, one of our listeners had posted a question. Was it Jacob Heidenreich posted a question just asking about what does a training session look like for you guys? Once you get above a certain level where you're moving just so much weight, what does, say, even building to a heavyweight take? I mean, you don't still just throw on like 500 pounds for your first go-round and then just build from there. I mean, what is that – how much time does it take for you to build up to, say, like your working sets, and do your sessions take forever compared to the average person?

You know, well, we only train together once a week. Thankfully. That's all I can stand on. And you're benching that one day off. Yeah, that's the heavy one, good meat and potatoes day. It depends on where you're at in your training cycle. You know, the older I get, I guess the less I can be in that bench shirt just because the hands hurt, elbows hurt.

Things are painful. Whereas, you know, four or five years ago, I could probably be in that bench shirt two out of four weeks, maybe three out of four if I push it. And now it's like one out of four, you know? So really I'm building up for that one shirt a day. And then you're eventually building up for that contest time. So how long does it take? You know, our normal raw workouts, what do we get in there, about 230 out of about five, two and a half hours? Yeah. Roughly. Phil's usually a half hour wait, so two for him.

First half hour's him waiting on me to get there. I get a lot of warm-up in. He's really warm by the time we get there. Phil's sweating when he comes down the stairs. He's already warmed up and then uh is that mostly benching for that long or is it accessory stuff or i mean the way you you bench it probably takes a while to do that much benching it takes a while to get up there you know just because obviously your goal through all this is to eventually kind of incorporate volume

that you can recover from and uh over the years of incorporating more and more volume, yeah, those sessions do take longer. What do we got? Probably 35, 40 minutes of accessory stuff at the end. Yeah, and we usually hammer through that pretty quick. Yeah, and that's kind of where you pick up the pace and shorten up the rest period and so forth. But realistically, the older I get as well, the longer it takes to warm up.

It's like I'm thinking about going to bengay route now and you know a little more ibuprofen a day of so so oh well so you're saying then you're more so raw training three out of four weeks in a month okay and then are you doing a lot of board pressing on those raw days or what what does your raw benching look like you know i'll let you on the inside of how i do my training stuff i do one like on a four-week training block and this is just a generalized example yep i'll have one week where it's a full range of motion press i like to change the angle so i like to do an incline or decline. Week two, I enjoy throwing in like an accommodating type resistance to where you're doing a banded, reverse banded, something of that.

Something that's going to change up your bar speed and basically your weight as you're pressing. Do you do chains at all or mostly bands then? We'll throw chains in. And then week three, I'll typically throw in the shirt work and in week four is going to be deload so because that's about where I'm at. Yep and your deload are you doing some light benching on that day or off or what do you? Still light I'm still trying to hit. Well I should say light for maybe like a normal. Light for you.

I mean, extremely heavy for other people probably still. You know, the realistic goal is, and even in the book by Verko Shansky with Super Training, was trying to encompass 80% of your training volume at no higher than 60% of your one rep max. So that's what I really try and do is just increase the number of sets, decrease reps, and then keep that percentage down. So it's as close to cardio as I like to come. So then what type of numbers raw are you benching on these days? Honestly, it's the start of a training cycle. It could be sets of five at three and a quarter,

just because you had a two-week layoff, you had a peak for a meet, two-week layoff, and then just trying to build that foundation. Actually, we start with eights, don't we? Eights suck. We'll do three, four weeks of eights. How do you breathe for that long? It sucks. Towards the end of the training cycle, getting closer to meets, really working into the low 500s. I usually do doubles and triples. I don't go down into singles raw.

I don't really like to grind my raw movements out. I still believe in increasing that raw strength. But when you really grind it out, I think that just increases that likelihood of maybe injury. And plus, when you're trying to have a good carryover and do equipped, I look at duration of that lift and i could probably do two ross repetitions to one equipped so that kind of time under tension is sort of something you're paying attention to so that's kind of how it looks do you track uh say volume total volume over a training cycle and look at all of that then it all goes

into factor in what you're doing for sets and reps and everything. Let me handle this one. Go right ahead, Phil. No, Phil, we're talking total volume weights, not calories. Oh, okay. We are actually going to get into that eventually. If you know anything about Jonah, he's very, very, very meticulous. Okay.

So when we track volume, when we track reps, sets, everything, it's down to the pound. I mean, it's very outlined, almost borderline anal. It's OCD. Here's one question. You're a top-level IPF competitor. Do you have in your head the kilo to pound conversion built in? Do you just know that? At certain weights, I do.

At certain weights at certain okay at certain ways but what if you're just not at a meet and you're just thinking about weights in your head do you still think in pounds or are you around it so much that you think about it in kilos now that's good yeah at times yeah you know what i really love doing is i love like switching my scale at home to kilo and then stepping on it because like 150 looks way better than a pound version of it i must be looking good like dang i lost a lot so we did uh we did we did mention calories a little bit and i i have a question here from one of our listeners from uh off of. This is Grayson Phillips at Phillips22. Asked, to keep up with the heavy training,

and I assume also because you guys are bigger guys than most. Is that a fat joke? No. No, sir. We don't even know whatever it was. They were wondering what a normal day looks like or do you have targets calorically that you try to hit? Or as a heavyweight, do you just go wild while you're training just to try to keep up?

Do you want to tell people you guys heavyweight class? Yeah, we're super. And there's no top end to that, is there? 264 plus, or is that what it is now? We're super for a reason. Everyone goes to circus, watch the elephants. Tanner likes to refer to it as SHW. The caloric thing, really I got Phil here today by offering free donuts.

Shit, I didn't bring any donuts. Uh-oh, damn it. The old bait and switch. No. You know, realistically, getting into meat time and even talking to some top-level lifters, like Blaine Sumner is one of them. I mean, you're a human garbage disposal going in. As a super heavyweight, anything you can get the calories in.

You know, post-workout, you're slamming it down. Chicken shakes. It's gross. I don't know how that guy does that. No. He's no gorilla. can get the calories in you know post-workout you're slamming it down chicken shakes gross how that guy does that no he's no gorilla uh you're talking about blaine yeah something the vanilla gorilla correct yeah okay you know from what i heard blaine he posted a picture i'm weighing 376 the other day and i'm pretty sure carl christensen from norway weighs 377 that's what i love doing, just everything Blaine does. I love adding one pound to it, and St. Carl did it.

So it's pretty fun. But realistically, yeah, just a ton of calories. You obviously try and get your meats and potatoes and everything else in, but it's going to have to get dirty with food. But, you know, that's the ultimate tough thing is coming out after the meat, cleaning it up, and just i guess restarting yourself trying to make it something sustainable yeah so so as you're peaking for the meat your weight your benching weights are increasing and to compensate for that you are

eating you're eating more over that period of time to really try and keep that recovery correct stable okay this may or may not be scientific but I found that if you hit a PR on the scale, you hit a PR on the bench. It's at least really hard to do that when you're headed the other way on the scale. That's for sure. But that body weight is going to improve leverages and everything, right? I mean, it's going to make it. There's a point in which that strength curve is going to diminish returns. And that's where I kind of felt I was at.

I was gaining enough weight that my bench really wasn't climbing at the rate I was gaining. So that's kind of my next goal is to kind of drop a few pounds off and then kind of recorrect and build back up that way. What else did we have, you guys? I've got some more questions here. Go ahead, Tommy. I think one that

came up one of the lifters in the gym um nick i believe he recently had a hernia surgery and he's kind of coming back from uh or he's in the recovery process and i think he was wondering if you guys have ever had any major setbacks from injury and if you have or even in smaller injuries how you work through them work around them i got hit in the head with a five-pound plate from Jonah once. But did you deserve it? It was a bad liftoff. Well, you'll have to circle back around to our early training days to make for a great, great, great segment on this podcast, I'll tell you.

Injuries, yes. Back in, it was April of 07, I partially tore my left supraspinatus rotator cuff. Didn't require surgery. It was right in the middle, so I was able to, you know, let it self-heal. And then I no longer got myself built back. I did a meet that winter, November of 07. That next summer, I partially tore my right supraspinatus. November of 07, that next summer I partially tore my right supraspinatus.

Along with that, I have a bulging labrum, so to speak, on that right side. So that shoulder was really PO'd for a while. It took me from literally I was doing the board, like two and three boards with the bar with pain. And going through, finally get cortisone shots work through it it took until about march to to train you know pain-free and that's i heard it in august so went through all those and then it was just kind of one of those things where i'd almost let two years slip by me wow and i know this know this is pretty cliche, but, you know, that old Rocky movie around that time came out, the Balboa one, where, you know, you got something left in the tank.

And I remember watching that going, gosh dang it, you know, I got stuff left in the tank. And, you know, that next year is when I went to my first Nationals and won. So it's been fun since then. That's wild. How about you, Phil? Any real major injury setbacks? About two years ago when I started getting back into the competitive bench,

which was kind of a whiplash effect where I went to my first Arnold Classic where Jonah was pressing. No, you didn't do that well. I never could do well when Phil's there. So I try not to go with him. Bad luck charm. Pretty bad. But I had some big muscle imbalances.

Come to find out my back strength wasn't where it was and had some referred shoulder pain that I had to figure out for about six months. So benching was not as heavy volume, just trying to get the back strengthened up and, you know, your, your back muscles play a bigger role than, than most people think. Yeah. That's, uh, that's interesting. I've been, I've been fortunate. I think you guys have all been pretty, pretty fortunate too, but I don't think we've had as long of a road either. But, um, what else did we have? Do we have other questions here? I got another one, a question on Instagram. This is from Derek Gray. He does some competitive

powerlifting and he kind of wondered when you got started powerlifting, if you did any in high school, two questions. That's this first one. You know, if you, if you were doing any competitive stuff that early. Oh, you bet. I was, I was actually pretty blessed. my older brothers uh were into powerlifting my the oldest brother he just did his senior year he won the state in Nebraska and then went on to ADFPA and won nationals for only year competing so I got to see that as was I in seventh grade I got to witness that and then my parents wouldn't let me start lift until I don't know what birthday it was but middle my eighth grade year and went in the first day and I tripled to 200 first day as an eighth grader I probably weighed close to 200 and just I don't think I missed a day all spring end of my spring eighth grade year bench 295

I still remember that because I still wanted 300. And then I ended up going on, and one of my first major goals I ever set out was to win the Nebraska State championship, and I won it all four years. So that was fun. And then I took a little hiatus to play small college ball. Football? Yep.

What position did you play? I was a nose guard. And here's the kicker. Phil went to the same college. He left before I got there. They had one year in between us. And I so wanted to dust him. Like the moment I met him, I just couldn't wait to just head slap him.

Jonah might be the better power lifter, but we all know who the better football player was. Phil didn't even remember his own snap count. I was center. So is that how you, did you guys get introduced to each other through kind of the former college players, or where did you? In a roundabout way. That's a story.

Phil, go ahead and take that one, buddy. Having come from Northwestern, and we had stories of Jonah that some of the older upperclassmen had told me when I came in. These were stories of him in the weight room all hours, him waking up at midnight and then 4 a.m. and then 6 a.m. to take creatine and protein. Just this obscure craziness. And so I actually did my internship at Sanford Wellness, the power program over at Sanford, and I knew Jonah had worked there. So I kind of sought him out and asked if I could train with him, just very blunt.

So I'm sitting in the gym office one day, I'm reading the comics, and here comes this just goofy-looking dude standing at my door. How can I help you? I'm hoping it's a gym member needing to know how to start a treadmill. Are you saying I need to get on the treadmill? So it's Phil. And I'm like, all right. And so he can't introduce himself

and asks immediately. You ever have someone come up to you and just ask to join your lifting group? Yeah, I mean, it's like asking to join an outside poker group. Don't do it. I didn't know any better. He's like, I'm like, well, tell you what.

What's your credentials? I'm going to put this kid through a little work period here. So I literally walked back to a computer, typed in his maxes on, like, the Gillingham Jackals Gym website, 12-week, 8-week program. Really long. We've got a bunch of guys at our gym that run that 8-week program. It's pretty common to do that. I hit print and I gave

it to him and said, see you in 8 weeks. Do this. Come back in 8 weeks. Here's the bad thing. I figured he'd burn off and he came back. It's like that dog you scratch its ears. He came back to you. I was like, dang it. Let's update your numbers again because I wasn't quite ready for it. weeks so then finally comes back after 16 weeks like all right

dang it i'll take you on so then we've been kind of pretty much trying to get it and how long ago was this that was uh 2005 oh that's when i graduated college so it's been on and off there i mean there was the first couple years we were still both doing three lift. And then jobs changed and things changed. And we took a little hiatus. That sounds really like a relationship. It's horrible. Dude, you took your time off.

You just needed to take a break. Things got complicated for a while. It's been 11 years. It's been great, you know. It wasn't him, though. It was you. I had to sort some things out, you know? Wow.

So you said you guys started kind of on the three lift thing. I guess where kind of did the transition happen that you switched to bench only or what was the reasoning for kind of a bench only approach? You know, I was three lift until right before a 2010 state meet. I'd actually just pulled a groin like a week and a half before the state meet. And I'm like, darn it. And I called up Jeff Blindauer, who was the state meet director at the time, and said, hey, Jeff, can I just do bench only?

And, you know, it sounds really bad. I think we all are sick of and you know things we enjoy and love and i i love power lifting i love doing the three lifts but i didn't like really competing in them anymore you know and how long had you all so at this point you've been doing it for a while i'd done four years in high school and then came out and i did another six years is open three lift yep and this is equipped at the time and uh i just did bench only that day and i remember being done and i had the most fun i've had in a while and i'm like you know maybe it's a good direction so went to my first bench nationals and i won and got on that first

world team and it was kind of like oh geez uh my deadlift was the weakest of my lifts. What were some of your other lifts? I guess, what would you consider some of your PR lifts at that time when you were doing all three? PR lifts, well, here's the thing. We didn't train the equipment as well as we probably should have. We did, you know, we did Gillies 5x5 a lot. So Gillies 5x5, my best there was 535. a lot. So Gilly's five by five, my best there was five 35. Uh, and then deadlift, my best pull in the gym was six and a half. And then, and, but see, I couldn't, I never use equipment pulling

cause I never getting out of it. Yeah. And, and I mean, it's like six 33. So I just totaled just barely over 2000, which is still an awesome total. But I knew that, you know, just looking back at it, if I'd spent more time in the squat suit, you know, my best squat was a 738. I know that it would have been much higher. But I look back those days going at deadlift. That deadlift really would have kept me back

from competing with some of your top three lift guys. And rather than being an okay decathlete, I'd much rather be a great shot putter. Right. Which I was actually a better shot putter than you too. Just throwing that out there. Phil, I've talked to your coaches. You're scratching every large meat known to mankind.

But I hit the one that counted. The second part of Derek's question that I was going to ask too you kind of answered this too he's wondering if you know you had anyone that you looked up to at that time that lifted and you kind of talked about your brothers and then uh but he also wondered if you had any favorite power lifters either then or now you know that were competing on the world level or that you looked up to or anything you know gillingham uh brad gillingham i met him is probably in about 2006 five or six in omaha and he's just a class act all the way around yeah tommy and i got the chance to go train at jackals last year and we talk about that all the time still it doesn't get much better

than that yeah it's just it's just an awesome environment there and everyone's kind of on the same page of just taking care of business there's so much to learn from that guy just the fact that you know you walk into the room hey I'm a world champion hey I'm this and that isn't the first thing out you know that's kind of you wouldn't realize he's a world champion like no and that's like you walk in if you didn't know any better it'd be that's just the guy that's been at the gym a long time yeah he's one of my faves you know on the on the bench side of things you know bill gillespie he's become a mentor of mine that guy you know sometimes his numbers don't reflect on the platform at times but as just as a role model as a an athlete as a competitor boy that guy's giving me pep talks

i mean the night for this year's that guy's giving me pep talks. I mean, night four this year is Worlds. He gave me a pep talk. I don't even know if I was worthy of it. It was crazy. And Momoa and I were standing there and just gave us a pep talk, and it was like, dang. Jeff Snyder, you know, that guy's just complete aggression and power.

Jeff Snyder. Yeah. He doesn't get the calls and the breaks that he probably ought to get sometimes, but he's always coming back fighting. I mean, he's a fighter. Blaine Sumner, I mean, he's really good. Love the guy. I heard he got shot in a zoo over in Ohio. Oh, my God.

I don't think that's true. Wait, is that not true? That gorilla wasn't vanilla. Blaine's still alive. So then Blaine's still one of my faves. There's some great, good class acts out there. Does he have the world record right now? Not for much longer.

Okay, that's what I was going to ask. What is it at now then? Shots fired. 886. Okay, so what what I was going to ask. What is it at now then? Shots fired. 886. Okay, so what's the 890 or what's it come out to the next up above that? At the IPF, you can chip it, so that's 1.1 pound. Okay. We had talked about the, what was the guy that was hosting some of those events?

The guy I saw, I ran into him at the – I was at the Arnold this year. The announcer. What's the announcer? Gino? Gino, yes. Because you're also – I mean, you put back into the sport. You're also – you've hosted push-pull competitions before, and then you're doing our state meet for this upcoming year.

That's right. Okay. And what – tell us about Gino then you have him lined up I got Gino locked in to come come support South Dakota so he will be a blast and he just brings an element to the sport it's just fun I was really fortunate the the first power lifting event I ever attended was the Arnold this year I've never even been in the presence of one before so I go down to the Arnold just because it sounded awesome and I go in there and I'm walking down and I hear like Slayer playing down some dark hallway and then and then and then you hear Gino you know just screaming over top of

everything like 555 pounds you know just going and he has that he has dialed up the entire time it's just yeah he was he was incredible so for my first first show ever was down there at the arnold with gino hosting it and it was an absolute blast to watch some really impressive stuff but he he was a riot that'll be awesome seeing him here they fly him all over the world to have him announce a different powerlifting meets he's like the bruce buffer of powerlifting. Yeah. Maybe like a little lighter on the wallet than Bruce, I suppose, if you're hiring people. Yeah, he has some pretty good taglines for most of us lifters.

Boy, I don't know how, for me, it's like straight from the belly of the whale. Oh, no. In his black Titan socks. It's like, come on, man. in his black titan socks come on man so i guess touching maybe even on the the titan socks when you are lifting what type of equipment are you using you're using a titan bench shirt correct um do you prefer to lift with a belt when you're benching i do uh mainly just for positioning of the bench shirt and how many belts do you have and what material are they made of? I got four belts.

One is from an unnamed sponsor. They're not a sponsor. Unnamed equipment company that bought before I sponsored. And then I got three from Titan Sports Systems. And then do you prefer single prong, latch? I like the lever. When I'm squatting and pulling, I have just a good old thick belt, four-inch, whatever it is.

And I like the double prong on those just because I like my squat belt tighter for squats, a little bit looser on deads. And then for Banchai, it's just right. No, I'm kidding. It's levered up perfect. Cool. And then another thing, me and Tanner talk about this once in a while, and I feel like it's a thing.

You don't see a lot anymore, but you know the guys have been around a while. I think I've seen some videos of you guys having the big Titan powerlifting boots on. Are they maybe even safe? Safe, yeah. And those are kind of a – You know someone's pretty old school if they got the safe on. Because now people are starting to show up with – they have their Nike squat shoes or adidas squat shoes and

when we see guys with those are kind of a it almost seems like a relic of the past and so uh are those what's the do those have any type of raised heel on them or do you just feel more secure when you're benching them what's the reasoning behind those the reason i use them on the bench side is just because in a tennis shoe you get that softer footing and just any roll of that foot could be misconstrued by those judges as if you know your foot moving so they're flat soles they're locked in they're obviously very stiff are the safe are they wooden no they're very thick okay dense rubber okay and you know i've got my safe ones and then i've got a pair of titan and Titan's going to kill me for saying it. I just took a, took a picture, but Titan now owns safe. So just so y'all know the, Oh, that was Phil. Nobody worried about that. Donuts arrived. Uh, the,

my safe shoes were on the left side and the Titan shoes are silver. They're beautiful shoes are on my right side. And I said, the difference between these two shoes is the ones on the left have two world championships to them, and the one on the right, the silver one from Titan, has two silver medals. So I know which one I'm not wearing again. But, yeah, it's all Titan, you know, from head to toe. And they are one of your sponsors, right? Correct.

Yep. That's cool. And actually, Phil's Titan from head to toe because pretty much whatever they send me extra of, Phil decides to use my old stuff. That's not bad. That's not bad. It's got the mojo on it. He locks up the good stuff.

I really do. Yeah. One thing you had mentioned was earlier you were saying how you had gotten this great pep talk, and you've had the opportunity to compete on some really large stages and throw around some pretty heavy weight. What do you do getting yourself psyched up going into something maybe you've never done before, something you know that does have an opportunity, there's some risk there, handling weights this big?

There's a nervousness about it, but that's why we do it. You know, the Friday night football that we probably all play that just said in the gut, just nervousness, you kind of look forward to that over time because you don't get that when you have three kids and you're married and you're 39 years old. So when those elements and those times come around, you savor them. Now, bench press, I mean, it's number one, most practice thing I do. So you really, your performance,

I'm not nervous about. Uh, it's just nervous of the natural competition day, you know, obviously tough to eat everything else, but you know, that's, that's the ultimate tough thing is it's after doing worlds for six years, it's very tough to get myself up for even nationals. Yeah. That one's a tough one, but it's still there. I mean, the fundamental intensity is still there. Nervousness is still there, but it's just not to that level.

That's kind of a segue and a question that I was going to ask. Not many people handle 700 or 800 pounds ever, but what's it like from a descriptive standpoint, what's it kind of feel like to have seven or 800 pounds coming down on top of you, ready to crush you if you mess up? It's heavy. You know, I don't know. It's, it's one of those things where just over the years of handling the weight, you just get slowly accustomed to it. You know, and just I think all of us have to have mental breakthroughs on whatever weight, whatever sport we're doing. And some of our mental breakthroughs, unfortunately, have come by accident.

I still remember a day where we were going to load the bar at like 790 for like a two board or one board maybe. And we misloaded by like 50 pounds we are you phil phil every misload in the gym is phil even if it's not really my fault and uh so it was like 8 45 and we pulled off my voice feels heavier brought her down pressed it racked it it's like man that felt heavier than it should have then we started started counting it out, right? Well, 50 pounds more. So, you know, it's just that slow, I guess, maturation and getting used to it. So when you start to handle these heavier weights, does 5, 600,

does that ever feel lighter? Oh, yeah. Like when I'm in a shirt and even anything under 700, it's like just lights out and gone. It's fun. So that's got to feel good having that confidence oh yeah yeah so and even getting ready for some of the meets you know i'll move 800 just fast that is the coolest thing i've ever heard i think i put it put an instagram post up earlier this week

to try and put it in perspective to people and it like if you're looking at standard 45 plates instead of kilo plates it's like nine plates on each side of the bar while you're bench pressing which is just if you picture that it's insane you know yeah and with me doing olympic lifting that is not even possible to fit onto a bar that i have with bumpers not even half of that i don't think that's wild now um one of the things we were – what was the other thing we were missing? Oh, I wanted to give you the opportunity to talk about some of the stuff you're doing. We had gone through your website a little bit. We want to give you the opportunity to talk about some of the coaching stuff

that you've been doing or offering. What exactly do you offer through that stuff, and what does that service look like? When did I start that up? About two and a half years ago, roughly? Well, I mean, you've unofficially been coaching for many years, yes. So I officially kind of brought it online about two and a half years ago. So really, I want to sit back and just not exactly just be a coach and general person that trains.

So I want to dial it down to what I'm really known for, which is benching. We've seen a huge influx of people from CrossFit coming in. A lot of those people can squat and pull really well. A lot of them can't quite bench. That's usually kind of the chink in their armor. Also, you know, doing the full three lift programming. But what I do is pretty much online training. If they're in the local area, I'll do it face to face and, uh, pretty much set them up on

their complete daily regimen of training, video analysis as they need it. Uh, I'm just a little bit different than your average guy. Cause you know, I'm doing this really cause I love it and it's for fun. And, uh, so I keep kind of my roster at about 20, 24 people at most because that's all that I can physically handle. Now there's other systems and programs out there that, you know, you bet you're going to sign up with them, but chances are, you know, XYZ coach isn't really writing your stuff up.

And with me, I want to be the only guy seeing and touching and working with these athletes. And I've got guys all the way from alaska to texas to you know helped out a couple overseas last year and then of course this easton schuster he goes to south south kota state uh he won gold in the juniors this year how old is he and he's 19 and what did he bench uh 573 in the 205-pound class. If I remember right, too, he absolutely smashed everybody there, too. Is that correct? Yeah, 66 pounds.

Yeah, that's not even close. Yeah, he only weighs about 196 on a full stomach, too. So we're working on putting some more muscle on him. So next year he's maybe 205, 207 walking around. So you probably got to take some pride in that too. I mean, you worked with him and got him to that level. It's his work. I mean, I'll never take that away from athletes.

And that's why you probably don't see me posting a ton about, hey, my athletes are doing this because I'm the X's and O's. They're still doing the work. And I never want to take away from my lifters at all. But, yeah, he's he's i mean i can put down eating cockroaches three days a week on that program he's gonna do it and i mean that kid he's got that tenacity and you know he comes off the world stage after securing gold and first thing he looks he hugs looks me in the eye says i want the world record which is 629 so it's like i love

that whole you hit it but then you reset it immediately so it's fun how many how many pounds have you put on easton in terms of body weight uh he came to me from a gorman benching was at 290 at about 145 pounds now he's 196 benching 573 so how long have you got to work with him for? What? How long have you been working with him? Two years. Two years.

But, you know, he was cutting. Let's couple things straight. He was cutting to make 145. His bench technique was horrendous. He'll show you videos of that at 290. But he had the talent. He has the structure to do it. He just listened very well.

And then he just started eating. I mean, that kid kid he was out eating us heavyweights in denmark there's there's one time that he actually ate a full plate of breakfast along with his drinks and he drank some concoction we didn't know whether it was runny yogurt or thick milk but he drank it it was amazing he's like badger milk off animal uh and he like brought back a second whole helping of food before he sits down he goes i'm gonna go weigh in like who the heck weighs in halfway between their meal that was easton i mean he's up there he weighs in comes back down i got plenty of room just keep snarfing it's amazing

i i got a i got a couple just kind of general powerlifting questions. You guys, you've always lifted equipped. I mean, when you got into it, IPF or USAPL, whatever, whatever. I don't know if it was even USAPL at the time, but it really was just equipped, I imagine, right? And now there's both. There's raw and equipped. Like when Tommy and I got into competitive powerlifting just within the last two or three years. I don't know which is more popular, but raw is definitely a lot more popular now than it was then since it basically didn't exist. So that's probably why we got into it because the barrier to entry is a lot easier.

It's easier to figure out how to go bench wearing a t-shirt than it is to figure out the ins and outs of uh of wearing an actual bench shirt but i just wondered what you thought about uh there being both if you like it or if you've seen it changes over the last you know 10 years of the way the ipf is with that yeah you know you're really starting to see obviously the surgence of the raw and and it's being fed you know the usap i'll tell you this being fed by the crossfit movement you know, the USAPL will tell you this, being fed by the CrossFit movement, you know, but the CrossFit movement is there's box gyms kind of closing down at a faster rate than they're starting up. Who knows if, if we're going to see that influx of new lifters coming through. Uh, I think raw is definitely probably a great way to start. I mean, that's how my kids are going to be starting. Uh, I think you have to learn that you have to be very good, strong, raw lifter to be a great equipped lifter. There's been people out there that are pretty weak, raw that have been great in equipment,

unfortunately, which kind of gives equipment a bad name because by and large, a lot of your guys that are at the raw level right now that used to be equipped, they're in the top, you know, top tier of those, tier of that lifting group right now. Where do I see it going? It's tough to tell. I can tell you this much, the injury rate and the longevity in equipment, to my belief, is much longer. So it kind of depends on that athlete.

Sometimes we all just yearn to to improve and gain and how long will lifter maybe just go and pound out the weights month after month year after year for five pounds in their totals 10 pounds in their total they're hurting here hurting there before they're gonna go you know let's play around let's change this up a little bit obviously if someone was doing crossfit games came to power if then they wanted to change too so i think it's just cyclic i think you're going to see equipment circle around and you know the the equipment really is though about about longevity i think more so than it is about just saying you lifted more you know what i mean that's and i think that's kind of the point you made there you also mentioned about you know people coming from crossfit i think that at least when when

people are on a good decent crossfit program it seems as though they do seem to learn to to deadlift well and they do seem to learn squat mechanics fairly well but um me personally that's the one thing that like with bench mechanically is almost hardly addressed you know through through crossfit it's one of those things that it's not that they don't do it but it's really just not taught in the in the power lifting method it's almost like it's taught lay your back flat and just you know you're just trying to build some pecs and don't use your body don't arch your back don't not that any of that specifically is taught that way, but it seems like it's almost cast aside. And you see that quite a bit.

And those guys are usually the ones that are not going to be in the top echelon because their bench is holding them back. Yeah. So you look at a guy like Blaine, I mean, he's got a great three lift setup, raw and equipped. So I feel like we have a world bench press champion in here, you have to tell us what are three things I could be doing that could help my bench right now,

or three things I should look into doing? Technically or programming? Maybe a little both. Let's start with technically first. Technically, the thing that I see a lot of lifters not doing correctly as a setup i mean and that goes for all three lifts it's amazing how in any other sport they will spend a full practice working on a stance in football and not address a proper setup and stance and you know i've never really even thought of it that way but now that you said that makes perfect sense

and you know with bench just simply i mean retraction and shoulder blades not shrugging your shoulders but pulling them up underneath of you uh you're naturally getting a little bit of an arch getting that because obviously your chest is coming up to the bar you're shortening your bench stroke and then just leg drive off of that i mean number two you know you see lifters left and right that don't leg drive. There's a video out there by Jen Thompson, just Bench 101, and she explains it so great on just the technical aspects. You should be acting like you're driving yourself off the end of that bench. One is the technical setup. Two is just following the program.

I could sit and tell you that I got the greatest system or greatest method in the world. No, I follow principles, and I troubleshoot very well. So you follow the principles of strength training, and then as things lag and lack, you alter and change, and you troubleshoot. So get onto a program, and you've got to write notes on that stuff.

Uh, my old past training logs, I wrote down how I felt game day, how I felt training wise. I circled the weeks where I was off and I went back in, looked at what's happening. And then probably the last one, I mean, just not only in bench just training in general it's just taking one subject at a time and you know taking everything you see on the internet with a grain of salt right yeah and looking for your true proven guys and you know what that's what i did with a lot of mine i felt that some my training was probably on but my recovery wasn't right so then i would sit and study on recovery modalities and look in super training. That's, they got chapters on that stuff in there, just reading on each independent. And then you might have a few weeks where you were just dwelling on supplements. So, I mean, just taking each one of those components and just

breaking them down and just becoming great at each one. I wanted to ask about that super training book. I actually own that book. And, uh, you know, when the massonomics fans, I know me, I'm a big science guy, but that book is like quantum physics of strength training. Have you read that whole book? You got to dissect you. That's why, you know, you got to break down what you want to read out of that thing, because it's, it's not a fun read.

And for those people, it's not sitting on the beach read for people people that don't know what can you explain the book a little bit here well it's yuri verko shansky and mel sif who are two old soviet coaches that basically came over here after the fall of soviet union uh west side they they based majority of the whole you know their method and system off it yeah louis kind of took you know, it's almost kind of like the Bible, you know, people have their own interpretation. Louie's kind of got his little interpretation of it. I probably have mine,

but that's where it's not fun to read. But if you know that you're studying recovery, you can go in there, go through the, you know, index and find out what you need to on contrasting baths, salt baths, you name it. And they got the prescription for timing and everything in there. Jonah's super training book can actually be found underneath his pillow.

Actually, my wife has made me move it to under, by the bed stand. So that's a good question. How's your family been? You know, through all this, you probably have done a decent amount's your family been you know through all this you probably have done a decent amount of travel and um you know meets all this stuff being in the gym alone just takes time a lot of people you know they get later on in life and they just say there's no time for it anymore and people use that as a reason to not you know exercise even yeah you know it's uh i've got a very great supporting cast you know I'm gone, my wife uses a great opportunity to load up the kids

and go up to her parents' place. The kids spend a week on the farm competing. That's been good. I wish my family was there with me more. So this Denver meet in September will be nationals. It'll be the first one that my whole family is going to. So that will be pretty fun. But as far as training times, I've really got a flexible enough schedule

that I'm in the gym around 2.30, 3 o'clock every day. I'm out by 5. So family's a real priority for me. If I couldn't be home picking up the kids at 5, having supper, and spending the evening with them, I don't know if I could do it. I'll be honest with you. It's that much of a priority for me. And if I did do it, they would be definitely an evening with them. I don't know if I could do it. I'll be honest with you. Uh, it's that much of a priority for me. And if I did do it, they would be definitely in there with me.

Cool. Yeah. I've got a, another power lifting question. And this is almost like a, this will almost be like a political question. So it'll be all right for you to say no comment if you don't want to, but, uh, uh, you're obviously a big ipf guy uh timey and i have both done a couple us apl meets and i've done an apf meet before and like we're novice enough at it that we don't really care what federation it is we just want to go lift somewhere and you know be able to get the experience and hopefully get better at it but uh how do you feel about the different there's so many different federations and uh you know you stick to one and it ipf's kind of no matter what federation i guess it's

still kind of recognized as the gold standard in some cases but i just wondered what you thought about the other federations or if some of them are doing it wrong or you know i don't think any of them are doing it wrong and i don't think you anything I say here, I'm not taking away from the athlete. There's very strong athletes in every Fed. You know, there's certain things I think in every Fed that turn people off. It could be the politics within it. I mean, it's the name of the sport that doesn't have a little bit of that. You know, in the past, USAPL has kind of gotten a bad rap.

You know, IPF, there's certain things those guys are doing for sponsorships. It's to really ultimately further and better the sport. It's not to ruffle an individual's feathers. The strictness of the rules is what really attracts me to it because you know I'm getting beat on someone who's truly stronger, not someone who happened to manipulate the rule in their favor a little bit better. I enjoy the drug testing part of it, trying to keep the sport as clean as you can. So that's another thing the IPF is known for is their strict drug testing stance,

whereas some federations might not have anything at all. I know I had heard things and people talk of IPF when you're a world competitor that they could possibly test you at any time. Is that something that you've been subject to? Oh i'm uh they we we laugh because we call it the adams family but it's uh i don't know what it even stands for adams wada drug test list but they you can find it on the ipf website there's a depends on the size of the nation but i think in the united states there's 12 of us around this considered top considered top tier. And we got to go. I got an actually app on my phone for WADA. Really?

That I have to basically. And WADA for any world anti-doping association? Agency. Okay. And so where I have to put down where I am every day, addresses, phone numbers, whole bit. And then I have to give them one hour with address of where I'm going to be that they can test me. So mine is always set up like 10 to 11 PM at my home. And if I'm going to be on the road, I update it with the hotel.

And then, uh, you know, if you're not where you're supposed to be, I believe it's two or three times and you're automatic failure. And, uh, you know, that's the way it should be. I mean, it's keeping the sport cleaner. There's no sneaking in some quick steroids before. I don't think so. Do you, have you ever had people show up though like how does it work do they show up or do they tell you to report somewhere i got tested uh at my workplace on uh february 16th i just picture it's like the men in black or like the guys from the matrix are like showing up in suits and be like mr leo one dude but you know there's so many things that people don't really realize on the feds.

But going back to feds, the one thing I do like about USAPL is also standardizing equipment. You know that if you're equipped, you're using the same stuff as the next guy. And that's really nice. But going back to – boy, I lost my train of thought. We're bouncing a lot here. The drug testing. At your workplace. Going back to that workplace. Boy, I'm trying train of thought. We're bouncing a lot here. The drug testing. At your workplace.

Workplace. Boy, I'm trying to backtrack this. I can't remember. How many times have you been drug tested? Probably, I've never counted them, probably 25, 30. Substantial. That's so much pee. That's a lot of cups.

It is. I'm not bashful anymore. Yeah, you're not gun shy. I'm not fair. You know, and it's so amazing because it's just like I'm like ready every time. I don't know what the deal is. There's guys that have to sit there and drink water and wait. It's really interesting that people don't understand the methods behind everything.

But you understand that USA powerlifting, when we win nationals, we get on the world team, the IPF world team. USA powerlifting, when we win nationals, we get on the world team, the IPF world team. So you have a lot of people out there sitting bashing IPF that have never even made it to the IPF, that probably never would. I hate to say that, but, you know, so there's no reason for people to worry about the IPF too much until they get that USAPL bid to go. Now, USAPL is going to do their out-of-meet testing because we send over a United States athlete and we fail. They have, I believe it's a 2,000 euro fine for the United States. And if they have more than three tests, failed in a year, it's like a suspension sanction.

So USA Powerlifting does it on our end to make sure they're sending clean athletes and keep us out of financial trouble but then also obviously keeping the sport clean so there's a lot of that stuff that people don't realize how much we really got to go through but it's good alright so we have some

rapid fire questions for you guys here before we call it so you can both answer there's nothing really rapid with Phil here before we call it. So you can both answer. Yeah, we're going to. There's nothing really rapid with Phil. I'm going to. Wow. Phil, you probably, if you're like us,

you at least eat pretty fast. I mean, we got that covered, don't we? So one of them is each, you guys, what's your, if you have one, what is your go-to like pump up song if you had to pick one song right before you're trying to PR? What is the one? Taylor Swift. Now, Taylor Swift has a pretty comprehensive catalog.

I was thinking more Katy Perry roar. That's actually a pretty strong selection there. Jonah has a unique taste in music recently. I really do. But I have pretty much my standby is Disturbed. Okay. If you can't train with Disturbed, you probably maybe shouldn't be in a gym. And the old white zombie, Rob Zombie, and Rammstein.

I don't know if there's a single song. Every once in a while, ECDC does it for me. Guns N' Roses. Kind of old school. Along the same lines of the music, but I'll throw in Metallica there. That's probably my favorite. Do you two fight over the music when you train together?

No, it's my domain. I don't get a choice. It's like when I'm traveling somewhere with my wife and kids kids they know very well that they do not get to touch the radio or have any input into what's getting played i can make fun of it sometimes the music sucks and i'll tell them that that's how it works in my car that's one thing i will do i'll throw like charlie daniels or something on before my big list because you never know what they're gonna have on that radio when you're listening to me that's actually true. You can probably lean on your music intensity a little too much. I see it all the time. What is your guys' least favorite

accessory exercise or the one that you dread the most? I mean, everybody has something that they just hate doing, but you have to. All of them. Can I answer yours, Phil? Not bench. What's yours, Phil? Jonah thinks it's curls. Look at him.

He's got two toothpicks sticking out of his shoulders. He gives me so much crap. He took a picture of me doing curls, framed it, and then put it in his, what do you call it,

your studio, and then takes a picture of that and sends it to me just to show me that there's a picture of me in his gym doing curls because that's a picture of me in this gym doing curls because that's a rarity apparently how about you jonah uh least favorite yeah it's got to be that bicep range you know just you get done with those mass movements it's tough to really

bring it back to something like that you know you're kind of a hardcore sob when your least favorite thing to do is curls when like that's the most common thing you know you're kind of a hardcore sob when your least favorite thing to do is curls when like that's the most common thing you do you walk into like a commercial gym that's what you'd see everyone doing is maybe curls or something you're gonna think i'm crazy on this one i hate doing them but you know really our muscles really work on antagonists your triceps can only be expected to get so strong if your biceps are always so strong. So, I mean, it's really working that full body in unison. I mean, you still have to be squatting and pulling and everything else. But believe it or not, my bench did go up once I started hitting the arms pretty hard

because it just felt like my triceps were more, whether they're more stable or. Do you do like hammer curls or anything specific or whatever you feel like that day? You know, I'm an old-fashioned straight bar curl. I love the old straight bar curls. They're so boring. That's actually my jam at home too, though, because I've got just a scrap barbell. It's easy to do. It's easy to set up.

I usually curl on the bench on Mondays just to make people mad. Usually with their training bench weight. We'll just leave the weight on for you yeah don't worry just just leave it there um what is your guys ultimate post-workout meal oh what's like your go-to go phil i want to hear this so many choices I love grilling in the summertime so if I can do you know slice of potatoes sweet potatoes mixed veggies big fat steak on the grill afterwards that's perfect put that with you know four or seven beers and we're good mine is leaving a gym with about 30 grams away followed up at home with about 16 ounces of chocolate milk

with extra chocolate and then uh while the steak is grilling probably a sweet potato loaded up and uh some veggies and uh that's mine i'm a steak guy that sounds good to me yeah why aren't why aren't we eating right now and of, ice cream at the end of all that. That's actually my very next question. Go-to ice cream flavor. My wife says I'm boring, and I'm boring. I like vanilla. That's really boring.

That's horrible. You could do other things with vanilla, toppings and whatever else, but that's the base of it all. Mine is bunny tracks. Play Blue Bunny. Hands down, that stuff is like cocaine. If you had cocaine.

I don't know what it's like. I heard it's awesome. Speaking of... Just try bunny tracks sometimes. Bunny tracks or cocaine. I guess we've got the whole weekend ahead of us. Speaking of cocaine, when it comes to chalk, are you guys powder or block guys?

Well, doesn't the block eventually turn into powder whatever and get my hands on i uh i go i go straight powder and seems to be i know some people that will only apply with the with the block indiscriminate chalking for you guys yeah my last program i had to pay for in chalk yeah literally when I write up his programs I make him pay me this last time I tried to make him sign a contract which is due on Monday now the next question here is going to be our last rapid fire question

what is the best Arnold Schwarzenegger movie is it Terminator 2 or Predator Predator? Predator. I think so. Actually, the correct answer is Kindergarten Cop. Have you seen Jingle All the Way? Actually, funny story about Jingle All the Way.

I heard somebody talking about that movie. Matthew Broderick was in that movie, right? Do you remember that? I think so. So Matthew Broderick had such an awful time filming that movie. I don't know why I'm talking about this right now. So he had such an awful time. He was actually quoted while they were filming it saying,

like, this is the worst day of my life. The funny thing is, like a year before that, Matthew Broderick had actually killed somebody in a car accident, and making Jingle All the way was such an awful experience that apparently it was worse than killing somebody. So on that note, I don't know why I actually retained that information. But anyways, guys, thanks a lot for coming on. We really appreciate it. We had a really good time.

I think we got a lot of really, really, really valuable information. I think we all had a pretty good time. This is the first time we've got to have someone on that's really done something before so it's pretty cool for us. Well, I appreciate being here. Just for the record, Phil is still the state record holder for Benchpress.

And what number? I think it's at 699. which that doesn't seem like 0.97 and yeah phil we didn't really touch on your numbers can you tell us some of your some of your obviously 699 bench do you train the other lifts very hard like do you max out on the other lifts ever um jonah's just looking at me um i started three lift, but I've got a knee that's got bone on bone, so I mechanically couldn't get depth on squat. So I did pull decent mid-sixes back in the day.

That's awesome. Do I train them terribly heavy anymore? Not terribly heavy. You guys do both train them. I mean, you have one super heavy bench day a week that we talked about, and then do you train the other ones? Is that a part of your training? Not necessarily maxing out or whatever, but it's all a part of it.

I usually drop them off about any sort of poundages, about three to four weeks out, and then just still training very light leading up to the meets. I know we were kind of wrapping up, but I just have so many questions. But wait. Okay. That 699 is the best i've gone on bench so it couldn't hit 700 it's 699.97 and i think there's enough chalk on there to call it seven no no okay so um that'll do it for today you guys um everybody can you can get a hold of jonah jonah is on Instagram at Leo Strength.

And it's also a website is? LeoStrength.com. LeoStrength.com. Phil, your website? My website? I don't have one for training. Phil owns Google.com. What about Instagram or anything, Phil?

I think it's Pbrinks on Instagram or Phil.brinks on Facebook. Awesome. Awesome.. I'm Tyler. You can reach me at Instagram at Tyler F. N. Stone. That's Tyler E-F-F-I-N Stone. Hey, what was your old email though? What was the old one? The old email was daddyfatsex

at hotmail.com, which I still technically own that. I just had to detach it from my social media account. Because I'm not 18 anymore. I'm Tommy. You can find me on Instagram at Tomahawk underscore D. Yeah, I'm Austin. I don't have anything.

So just find me on Massanomics, I guess. Tanner, you can check me out on Instagram at massonomics and and jonah real quick before we go do you have any uh you want to plug any of your sponsors real quick uh you know science nutrition here in sioux falls huge uh he is definitely the most knowledgeable guy in town titan support systems whether you're already equipped awesome uh sanford health they're going to be we're going to be partnering up for these the state meet so they plan on Sanford Health, we're going to be partnering up for the state meet. So they plan on giving us a venue that's going to be, bar none, one of the best in powerlifting.

So I've got some great sponsors out there. And T-Care Practic keeps me in line periodically when I need them. But thanks for having us out, guys. Appreciate it. Absolutely. Thanks a lot, guys. That'll do it today. Don't forget to go to massanomics.com, check out some of our articles, videos, the rest of the podcast stuff,

and go to the Massonomics store and please buy some of our stuff so we can afford to travel around and interview cool people like this. Make sure you go to iTunes and give us a five-star review and check us out on Instagram and Facebook. And remember, stay strong. Instagram and Facebook and remember stay strong you just heard the massonomics podcast with your ears you're welcome check us out on Facebook find us on Instagram at massonomics and make sure you visit massonomics.com and buy some of that sweet Masinamics gear. From your friends at Masinamics Studio, home of the world's strongest podcasts, stay strong.