Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 105: Powerlifter Lea Swenson

Episode Date: June 29, 2015

Sal, Adam & Justin interview powerlifting competitor, Lea Swenson.

Hey, Sal, what have you ever made creepy voices for your wife? What are you talking about? Yeah, my go-to is me go. Oh, me precious. I've answered. I've answered. Put the- She hates that.

What is your precious? What are you referring to? You know, it's getting some. Is it the, it's not the maps at a baller program? The movie has six-packed formula in your shirt, the survival guy, the fasting guy? What I was alluding to was that I'm not getting any unless I'm doing our program. Mindpumpradio.com click on the yellow button or just get a big neck creepiest. I'm asking you!

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind, pop, mind, up with your hosts, Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. Renamella, Walmart! Oh! That's all I got. That's all I needed. I didn't mean anything else. Not did it.

So what's going on? Who are we here with? Hey guys, hey everybody, I brought this one in today, so you can going on who we here with hey guys? Hey everybody. I I brought this one in today So you can thank me for this. Thank you. Actually what what spawn this was on the forum A couple of people had asked me about hey, when you guys gonna talk about powerlifting when you know when when you're gonna bring that up and So I thought hey, I know somebody in my own gym that is doing it at the moment and it's a female. And I thought that was a pretty cool thing.

That's awesome. Yeah. So in it with us in the studio today, we got Leah Swinson. Hello. All right. Thanks for having me guys. Yeah. We're stoked to have you on here. She's a NASM certified FMS specialist and Z health movement restoration specialist. Tell us about that. What's that certification? I'm not familiar. So Z health is a training modality that talks more about tapping into the neurology of training. So we talk about the brain being the most important part of training that all we basically take in information all the time. Our brain filters out what is important, what isn't important. And we can we can sort of a listen adaptations based on the most you

guys are familiar with the said principle, right? Yeah. So what basically what ZHe Health says is the most specific information you can give your brain. You will elicit the most targeted response. It's just very, so it has to be very specific. The goal is to be specific with your, what the, everything else is noise. So you want to just get like the most the most the clearest most concise Chinese Yes, now is it similar to like neural linguistics?

Neural linguistics. Am I saying that wrong linguistic? Neural linguistics Exactly I'm not actually familiar with that neither am I I just felt like Say a big word. Yeah, smart words too. Okay. Yeah, I didn't even mention that you have a biology.

Yeah, a biology degree. Yep, went to a Cal State. It was Cal State Hayward back then, no, it's Cal State East Bay. Okay. Been a public health microbiologist, a clinical microbiologist, decided to start a family, wanted to get out of that, and went back to my former passion, which is strength training.

Here's smart. Yeah, I like it. You know what else is interesting about right now? We don't have Adam in here. I know. It's the elephant that is in the room. Oh, god. Why, what is this?

There's so much more room in here for my head now. My big head now is massive. He is this presence about him. He didn't come in because he's You know he's he's dieting I don't think his brain would have worked. No, he's cut. He's cutting for a show Yeah, Saturday's show and we've been getting you know hourly updates with selfies I know Well, I'll be selling them actually if you go to

You can buy selfies of Adam just kidding. He gives him away for free. Yeah, I'll be selling them actually. If you go to my home, you can buy selfies of Adam, just kidding. He gives him away for free. So I'm gonna use, so I wanna describe what you look like to the listeners because you're doing powerlifting. Okay. And a lot of women men too are instantly gonna get this image of a stereotypical powerlifter, which stereotypical male power

lifter, big burly, belly, you know, big chest, not any definition, you know, someone that looks like they, they, you know, after the workout, they eat four burgers and drink two beers. And for women, you think of these really big burly, you know, looking women. Well, she doesn't look like that. She's very toned. She has what some, you know, advertiser would say is long lean muscles, which she lifts heavy weight. And she doesn't have any descriptions that we totally are against.

Right, and I'm using that because people can picture that. Yeah, they relate to that. But if you looked at her, you'd think very fit. You wouldn't think, oh, that looks like a stereotypical power lifter. So, and I wanted to describe that because there's that stereotype out there,

and I love to shatter those types of myths, and especially with women when they're afraid to lift heavy. Yeah, you know how many times I've heard, I don't wanna lift heavy weights, I don't wanna get bulky. And I think, you know how hard it is. Oh, so you've heard that too, yeah.

Yeah, interestingly enough, I have heard that. And it's what they don't understand is, we, our hormone profile is so much different than a man's. It's gonna be so hard to put on muscle. It's hard for a lot of guys to put on muscle. If you're not fueling yourself properly, if you're not dialed in and you're programming, you're not gonna get big.

So it's nice to see that the movement, like the girls gone strong movement, Nagar Fonuni, Molly Galbraith, all these girls that look fit and toned, but they're lift and heavy shit. And you don't, we don't need to be afraid to do that. And actually you are going to get closer to your goals quicker if you lift heavy weights. If you're doing Trace Anderson's workout and lift and eight pound dumbbells for 365 reps

every single day, you're not really going to change. Not much at all. And it make it sound like building muscle is so easy. Like I'm going to lift this heavy weight. And I'm going to get huge. Yeah, I'm going to wake up tomorrow and I'm going to look like Mr. Olympian. Seriously, I wish. I wish it was that easy. Exactly.

And there are very few women that can build a lot of muscle. But even in that case, the fastest way to get to your goal, just like you said, is to lift heavy. That just gives you the most visible changes. So it was always been heavy lifting, have you always done that or is this new to you? It's new to me. So a little bit of background, my dad was a bodybuilder. We had a gym in our garage when I was growing up.

So I've always been around it. He was a gym owner, been a gym rat since I could walk. No way. So he was competitive. Yeah, competitive. This is awesome. Mr. San Francisco, not a winner, but it, you know, I mean, it was, it was up there.

That's fantastic. Yeah. So I, I fell prey to that same mentality that most women have that, you know, just go in the gym and do your little workout and, you know, let's do 150 reps of whatever with your dumbbells. And my training was mostly aesthetic based back then. I wanted to look a certain way. I didn't focus on performance so much. And when I shifted my mindset to more of what can my body do versus what my body looks like, I had, I mean, I mean, I feel like I look better than I did

when I was maybe 10 pounds lighter than this. So. This is such a shift. I know that a lot of times on this show, even for me, I kind of hold my tongue a lot. A lot of things that we talk about are very cosmetic base, very aesthetic base. And that definitely is a selling point for a lot of people

to be motivated, right? To see change. However, I've always had that same sort of mentality where it's, how is my body performing? What can I do to improve my strength and my movement patterns and get quicker and faster and all these kinds of things? And just so, you know, the listeners know, it's, like the fitness industry in general, there's just, it's so diverse. Like there's so many different ways that you can approach it. And, you know, it's refreshing for me to hear,

you know, somebody with that mentality. Yes. Well, nine out of 10 times, if you take the average person who doesn't work out and you train them for aesthetics, they're going to get less aesthetic results than if you train them for performance. Absolutely. So performance, let's be frank here, muscle has one function. It's to move, to flex, to contract, and extend.

And so if you make it better at that, it's gonna look different than versus me looking in the mirror and saying, I'm gonna work on this, my new area and that my new area and try and sculpt, I hate that word, sculpt the body. Which comes from bodybuilding, but let me tell you something, bodybuilders are already very muscular. So at that point, then maybe it makes sense, but most of us are not,

don't look like bodybuilders. Right, that's the thing, I mean, that's a genetic predisposition. It's not, yeah, are not. But it's like, right? Right, that's the time. I mean, that's a genetic predisposition. It's not, yeah, it's not like it's not for everyone. Right, so how different, you said your body looks different and feels different now versus before when you weren't training this way. What are the major changes that you've noticed?

Well, like every woman got a nicer butt, nicer legs. I was a swimmer in college, so I've always been sort of long lean. I have more curves now than I used to. More curves from weights. I know. Right? Yeah. What else is the?

How do you feel? Do you notice any changes in things like energy? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. My mood is always, I feel, for me, it's a release to go into the gym and lift like energy. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. My mood is always, I feel, for me, it's a release to go into the gym and lift heavy shit. I mean, it's, let's just call it way, it is what it is.

My mood is generally more, just a little bit more mellow. I don't do the type of workouts that I used to do where I would run myself into the ground all the time and I would have to do the type of workouts that I used to do where I would run myself into the ground all the time and I would have to do 40 minutes of cardio and then I'm angry because I can't eat and you know this is just when I start to think about fueling my body for my workouts. Just my overall well-being feels better. Would you say it's easier to be lean now versus before when you were working out way more and... Oh god yeah, I don't do any any cardio zero cardio. I told you did she's like right.

I'm fine with. Well I mean I'm I'm I'm asking you these questions because coming from we've been talking about this but coming from a woman. Yeah it's very important for other ladies to hear this because you can either a burn calories manually, which is fucking hard, or you can make your body want to burn more calories on its own. Exactly. Which is passive, which like right now, you're just sitting here doing this interview, you're burning more calories than you were 10 years ago when you'd be sitting there, and you're burning more calories overall.

Exactly. My furnace is bigger. I mean, the more muscle you have on your body, the bigger fat burning furnace you have, basically. People don't realize that, too. The metabolic changes that come from working larger muscle groups and the hormonal changes that come from working larger muscle groups and doing big compound movements is going to serve you much better than doing your isolation sculpting work, like you were saying. Let's talk about the hormonal changes, okay?

So we've gotten a lot of comments from people when they switch their training over to like some of the programs that we promote. Saying things like their libido was stronger, which is an obvious sign of, did you, so you said yeah. So basically, We're gonna go there, yeah.

So basically, on a scale of one to 10, how horny, no, yeah. So Adam's not here to ask the sexual questions. So you're definitely noticing your libido is stronger and healthier as a result. I mean, at 41 years old, I feel like way more, I don't wanna use the word horny, I hate that word. Way more, my libido has increased from even when I was

in my early 20s. And so gentlemen, get your girl feds the lift. Seriously, if you want to get laid on a regular basis, get your girl feds the lift. Get your girl in the gym. And they look better at you guys. Get your girl in the sack. Yeah, so building muscle requires anabolic hormones, which fuel these feelings of virility. So if you're not, like if you're training

for massive endurance all the time and running yourself into the ground, you gotta get a reduction in anabolic hormones. And lots of oxidative stress. Oh, that's a big one. Not big words. Locks of access. Throwing them out there.

Yeah, I don't know what that means either, but no, I don't need it. I don't need it. I do. No, when you see two people in their 50s, one person who does lots of endurance training and has done lots of endurance training for 20 years, and the other person who does proper strength training, you can just tell on their face,

oh yeah. You can see it, you can see the oxidative stress, they look more worn down, they look less healthy, and they've done studies on extreme endurance athletes. Their T levels are in the toilet. In the gone. Yeah. Gone, and they'll also look at their hearts.

These are, I'm talking about extreme endurance athletes, but they'll have damage done to their hearts similar to people who are much older and much sicker than they are. So your body has a certain capacity to recover from certain things and that type of training tends to have issues. I wanted to talk a little bit about the powerlifting you're doing now and maybe the competition. So at what point led you to decide to do that and then also what does your training look like for that? So, um, you guys follow Brett Contreras, that all, you know, that he's another strength trainer.

Well, he had an interview with a woman named Kelly Davis and her story was very similar to mine. Her training was very similar to mine. She was encouraged to do a powerlifting competition. And she said, you know, there's no way I'm not built for this. My levers are all wrong. lifting competition and she said, you know, there's no way I'm not built for this. My levers are all wrong. She heated the advice. She did her first power lifting competition and she killed it. And she just talked about the changes that she had made both externally and internally what it did for her.

And I thought, it had been floating around in my mind, especially once I came to Noracal because I saw, you know, a lot of the trainers there that were that were training for power lifting. Yeah. I liked to deadlift. That's my favorite lift. And I thought, okay, well, where else do I get to? because I saw a lot of the trainers there that were training for powerlifting. I liked to deadlift, that's my favorite lift, and I thought, okay, well where else do I get to do that and get recognized for it? So yeah, I talked to a trainer,

and I said, you know, I'm thinking about doing a meet, I'm thinking about it, and he said, I said, I'm not ready. He said, you're never gonna be ready in the only person you're competing against yourself. So just go do it. So I signed up for a meet in October of last year. I trained for eight weeks prior to the meet.

I was nowhere near ready, but I, I mean, I came in first in my, I'm a master's lifter. So I, I did all three lifts. I mean, look at my levers, my bench sucks. I'm going to, I'm going to go ahead and go on record deadlift. There's 10 to have bad What's your top your top deadlift? 253 holy shit. Oh, yeah, and I think I had more in the tank my my coach Made my third attempt. It was a pretty far overreach and I missed it. It was glue to the floor

I think that I think I think the ref looked at me like, did you, did you begin your attempt? Because I just walked away from it. I can't do this. So yeah, I think, you know, I probably have 265 in the tank. How much do you weigh? 125. Wow, that's, that's a huge lift. That's fantastic. Yeah, that's awesome. That's excellent. What did your training look like? Well, I was following a very specific training program given to me by a good friend of mine who's also a very knowledgeable trainer and he's a ZHe health trainer as well. And I just do, you know, it's a six day a week program and I squat in dead on the same day. I bench and row on the next day. I just do some unilating periodization. I use percentages of my one rep max and the goal

is to never stall in the training. And so every three weeks, I'm putting 5 pounds on the bar consistently. So in, I think in a matter of, I see, October, to April, however many months that is, I put 30 pounds on all of my lifts. Not my bench, sorry, not my bench, but my bench is sort of stalled. That's fantastic, yeah. Do you notice changes in body weight when that happens? I do. As I work up towards my heavy singles, I notice that a little bit of my muscle

that I've built has gone away. So it's easier for me to make weight as I move closer to the meat. I'll be a little on the heavy side, eight weeks out or so, and then I'll get as I move closer to the meat. Weight'll be a little on the heavy side, you know, eight weeks out or so, and then I'll get, as I move closer to the meat, weight drops down a little bit. What is your auxiliaries, as far as, like, you know, training on your opposing days, or what does that look like? So I'll usually front squat to help with my deadlift. I do some accessory work for a rotator cuff that issue that I've just been dealing with

sort of chronically. I think it's from swimming, from my former swimming career. I don't do a lot of accessory. I don't. When I meet prepping, I don't do a lot of accessory. That's what we talked about about the being very specific in the training. It's like, let's drown out all the noise. Let's get very focused in terms of what we want our body to adapt to

He just says do your three lifts every day. Yeah, it's a grind. It's a grind and I mean, I think for most people who want to get in a powerlifting You need a very clear program because To go in and think that you all I'll just do this. I'll just do that. No, it has to be programmed out specifically for you You need the accountability of having a coach say this is what you should be doing. Because... And to give you the right cues and everything. Yeah, absolutely. I did most of the training on my own. He wrote the program. We'd meet a few times to tweak form if I said you know something was bugging me. What do you notice? I mean, did he bring up any specifics like that you you can think of for a dead left or anything that really helped you?

Something he noticed in your form. No, I had a lot of tweaks with my bench and a lot of tweaks with my squat, but my dead is pretty solid. Talk about your bench because it's a little different when you're powerlifting, how you want to focus with bench. Yeah. So his philosophy differs from the typical powerlifting philosophy where it's scapula, retracted,

forced into the bench. She said that that's not necessarily healthy. I know that most powerlifters aren't interested in general health and wellness. They just want to move the way. It's performance. But as an older athlete, I think I have to think about those things. When I was in my 20s, I probably would have done whatever.

It wouldn't have mattered. So we just focus on definite lat activation, definitely thinking about pulling the bar to you, how to work on arch big time, because I have such long arms that I had to decrease that range of motion somehow. So we worked a lot on T-spine mobility. Just being explosive, that was the hardest part for me, is learning how to be explosive. Now in the organization that you compete in,

are you allowed, are your feet have to be flat with the bend? Well, so USAPL requires feet flat on the floor and USPA will allow the heel elevation. Because that helps with the arch right when you're able to take your heel off. Yeah, absolutely. Well, and I trained for a very long time that way,

and I read the rule book prior to this meat that I did in May, and I thought, oh, shit. Oh, yeah. So I just started benching in my only shoes. It just gave me that little, that little, and people looked at me sort of weird Why was it? Well, that makes a little lift right?

Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, that works. So just for the listeners because we have some listeners that have you know like you said auxiliary movements auxiliary movements are basically Any exercise I guess we could say any exercise that isn't a squat a deadlift or a bench right any exercise That's not one of those competing lifts. Another thing that some people might be confused about when they start to learn about powerlifting is you hear kind of this debate about competing equipped or competing raw. What does this mean and which one do you compete in?

So I compete raw. I think the three others raw, there's classic raw and there's equipped. So, equipped means you can wear things like a bench shirt or a squat suit, something that's going to have some stored elastic energy in it that's going to help assist you in the lift. So, basically knee wraps, things like that where... Yeah, it just acts... Your muscles...

Store their own elastic energy, these just help facilitate the process. And you can lift more. Oh, yeah. A lot more. A lot more. But I sort of feel like that's a little bit of a cheat. I don't want to offend anyone, but I just, you know, I want to know what am I able to

hold. So the hardest part of the lift, I mean, that's where it's really benefiting you. So, you know, it's a lot more. Well, it's a lot more. It's a performance enhanced. What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do?

What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do?

What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do? that's how tight these things can be. It's how much energy you can throw. And you come over looking like quasi-modo when one of those things are just so locked down.

I've seen a couple of people do it. And raw actually what people think that that means you know no belts, no we can wear knee sleeves, we can wear a belt. I mean there's a has to be regulation belt, wrist wraps. And I think classic raw allows for knee wraps. So those are the three that I'm familiar with. Fantastic. And I don't see many people lifting those are the three that I'm familiar with. Fantastic.

And I don't see many people lifting equipped in the meats that I've done. So. It seems like raw is getting more popular than equipped. And it makes sense. It's less confusing. And the numbers seem to be more real. Because I think with a bench,

like the difference between a raw bench, like a world record and equipped is like two, 300 pounds. It's like a ridiculous, like the difference between a raw bench, like, you know, a world record and equipped is like, it's like two, three hundred pounds. It's like a ridiculous, yeah, it's like a huge or squat. You know, people can squat a thousand pounds equipped and without, you know, raw is very, very few people that can do that. I just couldn't, I couldn't say with any confidence

that I actually squatted that weight if I was using some sort of tool to help me. Right, that's my mentality too. I was gonna ask you to like, what do you prefer in your deadlift, a great sumo versus conventional? Oh, sumo versus conventional. I'm like, why are you spreading your leg over there?

Look at me, look at this. Look at this. Yeah, so I think everything it really has to do with your lever system. Some people, you know, just are better has to do with your lever systems some people you know Just are better able to pull with a with a wider stance. I'm I'm built pretty narrow. So the conventional deadlift has worked better for me I'm the same way. Yeah. Yeah. I've got long arms long femurs. You know, I don't really want to Mm-hmm. I don't want to mess with the sumo. I'm gonna start messing with a hybrid

Assumo conventional hybrid, just to see if I can get a little bit more hip activation. Yes, yeah, I could do way, I could do a lot more conventional, but I do train sumo also just to keep me more balanced. Do you ever throw them in? I started to throw them in, they tweaked my hip a little bit, so I backed off.

Any, do you do any psych up techniques before you lift? Do you do the smelling salt? No, no, no, no, I usually slap your face a little bit. I have someone else not me. No, I usually put my headphones in. Is there where the breakup happened? Oh, I usually, um, I put on some ludicrous and listen to that. Yeah.

And then move bitch. No, actually my favorite is my chick bad. That's my. Oh, yeah. All right, all right. Yeah, so I'll usually listen to music. I'll get myself psyched. I go up there, I have my little routine that I,

my checklist I go through. And then just hammer it. Hammer it. Have you tried the smelling salts? I haven't. You haven't tried them in, sir? No, no. Dude, Ben gave them to me one time when I was benching.

I've seen him use those in the gym. I got like a 400 pound lift like he's doing. Are you kidding? Pfft. Dude, so I'm not quite sure about the science behind them, but so the first time I was introduced to smelling salts, we had them, you know, I managed big gyms, and we'd had them there for emergency.

Right. If someone passes out, you wave it in front of their nose, they're supposed to wake up. Right. So we had these little box of them and these are the ones that you, you pop, you crack them or pop them whatever and then you smell. Yeah. So I took one out and I'm like, what is that? I popped it and it knocks you on your ass.

Well, that's what I'm afraid of. I was seeing into the future. Oh, it's like, it's like boom, right. So then we would have fun with them and I'd crack them and put my hand in and then I'd like grab my, when my sales then we would have fun with them. And I'd crack them and put my hand in, and then I'd like grab mine or my sales guys and like rub it under his face. How productive was he after that? Yeah, so and then power lifters use something called torque.

No, it's torque. I don't, I am not actually familiar with that. Which I think is, I'm not either. What is it? So it's smelling salts on steroids. It's like much stronger. Really? Yeah.

And I'm not quite sure about the science behind it, but I do think- But your brain bleeds. Yeah. Does it really? I think no. Yeah. It's bleeding. It could.

I think when you sniff it, I think it just- it lists it's a quick sympathetic response. Okay. You know, almost like getting slapped in the face. That's why people will slap themselves in the face when they're- Mm-hmm. Before they go lift. So, damn, I wish I had some hair. Yeah.. Because we could do a little train here on the table. Yeah.

Getting higher. Get in the mouth. Not each other. On the smelling stuff. Do you have a lot of clients that you train for powerlifting? Sadly, no. I really, I would love to have people with the movement capacity to do some powerlifting. I usually train them towards the lifts. I mean, everyone that comes to me, I feel like you need to

be able to hip-hins, you need to be able to squat, level change, push and pull. If you cannot get there as a result of some movement deficiency, I will regress you, and then I will get you there. That's the goal. Yep, that's always the goal. Those are primal movement patterns. We got to do that. That should be the goal for every, that's the idea, the same thing Yep, that's always the goal. Those are primal movement patterns. We gotta do that. That should be the goal for every, that's the idea, the same thing. That should be the always the goal. Like to be able to squat, to be able to do all these basic movements.

Yeah. And if we can't, then we train to get there, right? Right, precluding some injury that prevents some, I mean, I have one client who I love, but she's got, you know, in Achilles injury, she's got bilateral patella tendonitis, she's got a shoulder injury. So like, there's some things that you have to work around,

but I always, the goal is to always get people to be able to move that way. Now, do you have to do anything in particular with your diet in order to maintain, you know, stay within a certain, you know, weight, you know, class, or is it that just your natural weight? And it's not that hard to stay here. It's not hard to stay here.

And USAPL and USPA, they have, their weight classes differ slightly. And they also require day of weigh-ins, one requires day of weigh-ins and the other ones require day before. So, I mean, I may experiment with trying to get down into the 114, just for a meat. It would require a lot of ups and salt baths

and sweating under a blanket But you know at least I can compete. What is your diet consist of now? Oh God anything I want really Yeah, but you eat healthy. I do eat healthy. I love beer. So that's probably my my biggest downfall. I love good beer and I'm a stone brewery girl. I like self-righteous. I like the rewination. She's legit in the beer. I know, right? This is like a double IPA girl. Maybe a triple. So far you're like every guy's driving right. I know and I used to drag race cars when I was a little out of you. Nope. I did. Yeah. Like at Sears Point. Like I was a bracket racer and I helped my dad build the engine and Jonah.

That's so awesome. Just as a bull. Oh, yeah. Control yourself. No, because me and my dad, we have classic cars. I have a 56 GMC and he's got a 56 Bell air and he actually grew up in Southern California and his uncle owned a car lot and he would take out like, you know, porches and all these hot rods and all the time and like my uncle and the weekends would drag race. He had a car and so.

So we have so many things to do. So many things to comment because I sometimes dress and drag. So it's all in you race and and then I And then we sprint okay Train that's the way I drag race. That's your condition. You ever want to deal with let me tell you something Oh, dude, that's I don't run unless someone chasing me So awkward so when you date someone do they have to be able to deadlift more than you because there's a lot of guys

I can't deadlift to a very point., or is that like a turn off like? Okay, so it would be a turn off boyfriend. They you know you can out muscle right no god no no no no That would be embarrassing Little little Justin Bieber on your side A little spinner a spinner My shout out. Actually, Doug can pull about 400 pounds. He's a strong little spinner.

Yeah. I find that size is not ever indicative of how strong someone is. So size doesn't, wait, I didn't know that. I didn't know that. That size matters. I could deadlift without my hands, about 100. Oh wait, what's on my side? So 100? That that size matters. I could deadlift without my hands about a hundred oh wait So a hundred a hundred pounds. Yeah, that's heavy. Nope. It's not bad. That's by itself though. What that way so so

But it's really thin. Yeah That's the problem then but it's it's angry Angry so then what kind of guys are do you go after? Because you're in the industry of being stronger. You're in the fitness industry. You might, well why not? Yeah. So you're, you know, I wanted it to go here. Do you find that you and you might intimidate, you don't look intimidating by the way.

You just look very fit. I've seen female bodybuilders who might look intimidating. But do you find that that that that that sometimes it can intimidate guys? Because let's be real. We have really fragile egos most guys. So, yeah, I feel that like the typical guy that's in the gym is not going to be intimidated by a woman that's strong and so I would I would definitely it would have to be somebody who could yeah, lift more than I could who Is not afraid of, you know, having a girlfriend that's got shoulder,

you know, nice shoulders and nice arms and... And grants every now and then, right? And drinks beer, races, and drag races, cars. I don't see many guys having a problem with that. No, you're right, you're right. I feel bad for, I feel bad for people like Ronda Rousey. You know what I mean? Well, I mean, she could kick the shit out of you.

She could beat up almost every guy on Earth. Like, what does she do? She has to date you have C-fighters, it's it. Yeah, you know. Yeah, they got to like... Her pool is pretty, her pool is pretty cool. Train together and roll and hurt each other. That must be an awkward thing.

They must injure each other. If you're listening, Rhonda, and you need guys to let you try and improve my Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. You could try and go choke me if you want. She's isn't she beautiful, yeah. She sees awesome. Stunning. So supplements.

Do you use supplements? I do. I supplement with creatine and beta-aligning and that's about it. The two that work. Yeah. So you don't use supplements that don't work basically. Exactly. And they're all, I mean, I'm getting like pharmaceutical grade stuff. It's not, it's good stuff. I actually am repping a line of supplements from a company called All Force, and they make a great pre-workout. It's not that sloppy in the face, you know, where everything like is tingling. Right, and it doesn't have the big crash, and sorry,

that was my shameless plug right there. We were going to give that to you later, but you told I took it. I saw the opening and I took it. All right. So we'll give you more opportunity for that to you this year. So how would would you say a power lifters diet would differ versus let's say, you know, a physique competitor, somebody who competes on stage like for figure, besides pre-contest, you know, just overall. Is it that much different? Should it be?

I don't, that's a good question. I don't know much about what a physique competitor needs in terms of macros. And I would imagine that most people are afraid of carbs right now, and I would say if you are trying to train for performance and muscle growth, you need carbs. You need carbs. Your body is going to get the sugar anyway.

You will die. Yeah, well that's the way it will crush you. Yeah, you're gonna cannibalize your own muscle to make the sugar that your brain needs sugar, and it's gonna do whatever it can to get that. So you can spin your wheels, like like a mad person and then not eat carbs and basically stay the same. Yeah, low carb, you know, low carbing can be effective for fat loss, but when it comes to

performance, it's not that's not the bad. No, and that's why you train and that's, I mean, you basically you carb cycle or carb cut in that small window because you can't really live and that's, oh, I can't, I'd be angry. Yeah. We'll go back to that mood thing about, about you know how that I eat more now and I'm just generally happy or not angry as often as I eat. But you're not you're not an advocate of like donuts you know and I like the occasional crispy cream and I have been known to wake up at three in the morning and eat a few Oreos. Okay.. Well, I can like a pre-workout. No, no, no, no.

And even when you see meets power lifters, you know, they're like shoving Snickers bars in. Really? Oh, God, yeah. Right before they lift. Yes. And in between, I mean, you know, you're waiting, you know, your flight, you go through your flight, and then you're waiting for the next one. And that's, that's their usually.

That would make me crash. Yeah. Yeah, I know. Or share. Or share. Which either way, I'm not going to be strong. Yeah, or shit myself, which either way, I'm not gonna be strong. You don't wanna do that on a max of a dead man.

You don't have any hands watching anymore. That's what I'm saying, I don't wanna eat a bunch of shit and then go squat as heavy as I can. Because we might have an issue. You might have an issue. It's far as you. Might have a little blast off there. No, I typically will bring sweet potatoes,

a fairly complex carbs, so I have the sustained energy. No, I don't, I'm not a huge advocate of eating crap all the time. And I think some some powerlifters think it's like their, it's their ticket to eat whatever they want. And I'm not fine if you're into it, but I typically like to eat healthier, fairly clean eater. What are some trends in fitness that you see now that you think are damaging, or do you think of waste-trainer? That are just stupid, I don't know how to say it.

How does that sound? Oh, is that that modern day corset thing? Yes. I think that that's the stupidest thing of it. I don't wanna offend anyone, but that's for you. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, just go, yeah, don't worry about this.

We will offend way more people than you will, so don't even worry about this. Oh no, I just don't have your back. One, do they even people than you will. So don't know. I just have your back. One, do they even work? I mean, when you take that thing off, does it make, we had atrophies, the shit out of your core muscles. Well, that's stupid. Yes, it is. It's a waste cast. That's stupid. It's very stupid. Yeah.

Keep hammering. No, no, no, that's not. That just seems ridiculous because everything that we do in the gym is, I mean, the core, the most important part of it. Yeah, it evades my understanding. Yeah, I guess everyone's got an angle, right? And they're selling like hotcakes. I think that's why we have to talk shit about it constantly. Absolutely, yeah.

Are there any other fitness trends that you see that are kind of crazy or out there? I don't I don't really pay attention to a lot of the other stuff. We think across it. Oh I think CrossFit is Fantastic. No, I just every every person that I've trained that's been injured. They they begin the interview with well I used to do CrossFit and then I got her. So, I think that you take these people who have done a weekend long certification. But actually, if you make it, oh, I'm sorry, keep going.

Sorry, you know, you get a weekend long certification to train someone on how to do an Olympic lift to failure. Sorry, if you can't sense the sarcasm in my voice, let me go on record. Those are highly technical lifts. They should never be done to failure. So I don't know what's going on with that. I don't know what this glorification of like making ourselves throw up and do these crazy things

in the name of fitness. I don't really. Let me, Lint, now for the listeners, let's just be clear here. Have you, did you listen to our CrossFit episode at all? No, I've only listened to a half of one episode. Okay, have you, have we discussed anything about CrossFit before even going on?

No. Okay, because you've literally said exactly what we've been saying. And you are a extremely qualified trainer, be very smart, and you've been doing this for a while. And this is an e-power lift, right? This is exactly what, you know, really, really good qualified trainers will say, exactly that, especially the Olympic lifting aspect of it.

They're putting it in circuits. It's very scary. Yeah, it's craziness. Well, and not to say that the elite crossfitters are not beasts, and I'm, you know, they're I'm not going to make a blanket statement and say that everyone of those crossfits an idiot. But for the average person, Crossfit is not the way to start a fitness. Our angle was very much on the certification.

Like you mentioned, the weekend, crash coursing. And I mean, I kind of want to bring up, like, we had this like epic, you know, online battle with the official CrossFit. Oh, yeah, they got this. Oh, really? It was so amazing because Sal, I love this guy because he just like has a way of baiting people, you know, into arguments. Master baiter.

He's very masterful with his baiting. And basically got them to say outlandish claims. What? So I'm describing. So one of them, oh, dude, they brought up some study and they said, so according to the study, CrossFit literally is as safe as gardening. That was the first ridiculous statement. Really? Yes. And then they said that the weekend's

cert is not only as good as a national academy sports medicine cert, but it's actually superior in every way. To the national academy's part of medicine. Okay. Which is anybody who is in the industry and knows anything about the certification. What kind of clearing do they do for these people? What kind, I mean, they don't ever, do they even test for people's movement patterns before they do this?

Where's the academic institution that support you? That recognizes it, yeah. That recognizes it, gives you any CE's for it. Now, you hold an NSM store and there was something, some other letters in front of that or after. What kind of store does that? Oh, the FMS. FMS, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Yeah, the functional movement screen. So explain that. That is basically a test that was created to screen athletes originally for, you test some movement patterns and you assign a score based on how well they do. And it's a indicator of the likelihood of injury for a particular individual if you were to train them.

And it was originally intended, I believe, for college football players. I think so. It's a good tool. I do, I find it can be slightly flawed people because it's a subjective test. Right. So sometimes what I may score as a three is a two and it's, you know, and if people have pre-existing injuries, you can't FMS them. You're supposed to refer them out to a PT, and they do something called the SFMA, which is some other test for movement.

It's another great sort of tool, I feel, out there that it just helps with the assessment process to kind of nail down a lot more information and what to address in the protocol of like how you're going to address these things and build it into their program. But yeah, like, there are, I do feel like there's some flaw, but it is, it's a great, it's another thing in your toolbox. Exactly. And don't you think that now, you're at the point where you can just look at someone and you don't know? That's it. Yeah. And even going through that process and learning about how they articulate each part of that,

I'm like, yeah, this is all kind of what I was doing anyway, but just from observing their movements. Right. So, how long have you been training? I've been in the industry for about six years. Did you start as a private trainer? Or did you work for a gym? I interned at a private gym in Mountain View

that specialized in endurance athletes. So triathletes, ultra marathoners. We had a woman who did the race across America. And a very knowledgeable trainer that I trained under. I learned most of my corrective exercise protocols from him. And I went out on my own, that Jim closed. He referred me out to another trainer at NorCal, and I've been there for, I gotta wanna say two and a half years now.

So back in the day, I was, I did the step aerobics. I was an instructor and worked at Golds and worked at 24 and worked at a little gym out in San Bruno. So. So you've been doing this for a while, obviously successful as a trainer in the industry. What, because we have a lot of people who are either aspiring to become trainers

or who are trainers now, what would you say are some of the most important things for them to be successful in this industry? You must, I feel you must intern with someone. You must shadow another trainer. All the book reading, the Nazim barely scratches the surface, I feel. I mean, it's definitely there so that you don't injure a person. I think most of the book was written with a lawyer standing over sign. If I if I OPTed everyone they would just stand around on a bosew ball for the for the

hour. Definitely definitely in turn with somebody who's more knowledgeable than you surround yourself with people who know more than you don't be afraid to ask questions. Don't be. Don't be shy. That's you know watch what other trainers are doing. If you, if something doesn't make sense to you, ask, you know, most people are, most people in this industry are very accepting of sharing information. So it is, it is a very inclusive industry. Do you, um, any sales training? I had some sales training. Just, um, I worked in retail for a while, so I was a manager of a retail store.

So no, I don't have any sales training. I feel like relationship building is the most important part of retaining and getting clients. I think that that's just an inherent thing for me. But I don't have a hard time closing people. Awesome. Well, I mean, I bring that up because having train trainers for as long as I have.

That's probably the one of the most important thing. Yeah, it's one of the hardest. So you've heard a lot of trainers, yeah, because they're very great technicians, like they're very focused on, you know, and it's a lot, it's a lot to handle assessing somebody, creating a program, you know, running them all the way through it. But it's like, it becomes a day-day thing and they don't really think ahead.

And like, how are you going to get your next client, you know, how are you going to maintain the current client? Yeah. How are you going to expand? Where's the growth, you know, so? Yeah, that part, that's part, that I need some, I need some work on that. The marketing part, I don't, I don't devote as much time as I could to that. So that, I would say definitely networking.

I'm someone mentioned B and I the other day that that was a good. Oh, the business net, yeah. Yeah, those are the local business groups that you can meet with. And I think when you've been a trainer for a little while in a private facility, you start to get referrals. You get a lot of referrals. And that's probably where you get a majority of your business

is what I'm assuming. Yes. Do you charge per session or do you do like a monthly fee like Justin tends to do? I typically charge per session or do you do like a monthly fee like Justin tends to do? I typically charge per session and the yeah the fee is based on how frequent and you know I make them pay for the month up front Typically I found that that's just a better way because they've already committed I have a specific cancellation policy that sort of keeps the the onus on them to to show up Yeah, you know if you give people too many outs.

So they don't necessarily use, and I'm going into detail, because we've got a lot of questions on this kind of stuff from anyone who will listen. So when they pay it the month up front, you're saying, okay, you're gonna pay for two days a week for a month, if they miss sessions, do those sessions go on to the next month

or is it per session? I actually have instituted a new policy where if you cancel, you must reschedule the session within the month. I feel like that's definitely a fair policy. And if you, if you cannot, then you forfeit the session. Got it. There's always, there's always, there's always an emergency. There's a lot of different ways that trainers will do. The most common is probably just you buy, you know, X amount of sessions and then we use them up. I think most trainers do it that way.

Do you typically then say you have to use them up by a certain date? Cause I feel like if I did, like sometimes it gets just dragged on the track. Yeah, you put an expiration date on there. But, and then there's Justin, you do like a fee. You do a monthly fee for a fee upfront. Okay.

And that's it. You're, it's similar to what you're describing as far as the price point being different to, and really only have two different price points. You're full time or you're part time. And I'll charge you, you know, X amount. And so you can go up to a certain amount for a part time. And then full time, you know, I'm running you maybe five times a week. Oh, wow.

Okay. So, yeah. And if you can't make it, you maybe five times a week. Oh, wow. Okay. So, yeah, and if you can't make it, you can't make it. So, yeah. Do you do a small group training too? No, I'm not into group training at all. How about, well, you taught classes for a little bit. I taught classes for a little bit. I only do buddy training now.

I feel like my training is too individualized for me to handle a big group of people. Even for two, sometimes is, if the movement capacity, I try and pair people up based on their movement capacity so we can run through a circuit that's fairly similar and I'm not having to do two different programs basically for in one hour session. Yeah. Do you find differences between men and women in terms of when you have a female client versus a male client in terms of the challenges that they may have in the gym or questions that the, you know, things that may come up that tend to be different between the two of them?

I would have to say it's, that's a difficult question to answer. Most of my male clients are athletes and they're all performance driven. So they are my easiest audience, I guess I would say. I mean, they're definitely compliant. They're doing their stuff outside of the gym. Ladies, you know, I don't want to hear about your, oh, I had a hard day and I couldn't do my cardio. And I tend to hear more excuses from women

about why they couldn't do their workout. Then I do from men. I love you, ladies, but come on. I've got to make it a priority. I love you ladies, but come on. I've got to make it a priority. Yeah, I feel so bad sometimes, because we'll bring up stories of like, you know, past clients that, you know, we, like we had one episode the other day where you're talking about clients,

we had to fire. And, oh yeah. Each one of them I noticed were female. And I was like, you know, I felt a little bit bad about that. And we ended up making the voices. You know? Because we don't have a female in here to kind of voice it. So I was like, oh man, you know, you're

training too hard and all this stuff. But it's like, I've had men. I've had problems with men too. Don't get me wrong. But yeah, you're right. There's a lot of, there's a complaint factor there that has been happening. I found that one common thing that I'll find

with men and women is that guys don't want to work out their legs and the women don't want to work out their arms. You're right, you're absolutely right. I found that a million times, women were like, oh, let's do legs, let's do more legs. Talk to them. They're not athletes here, not athletes. Okay, and then I'll have guys that'll be like,

let's just do more chest stuff for our children Yeah, guys really yeah, they want big arms. You want a big chest guys girls don't like skinny legs So don't skip leg day. There you go. If you want to get laid You don't get laid Yeah, yeah and lift more than your girl. So do you have any you have any any good stories from past clients? You've had to get rid of or anything crazy? Like, you know, that's happened. No, not really.

I've been fairly fortunate. I had one client, you know, high profile client who wanted to train four days a week and who would cancel all the time. And I just finally said, like, you know, if when you're when you're ready to commit weekend, I went and walked away from quite a bit of money for that. I just couldn't, I couldn't handle

the the last minute cancellations all the time. We can I went I walked away from quite a bit of money for that. I just couldn't I couldn't handle the The last minute cancellations all the time But no, I I think I tend to build a relationship with my clients So it makes it easy for them to want to come So no, I don't have any good stories I guess we're the only assholes. I know we just like could be Shit the bed on that one Hey How are we looking on time Doug good? All right Shit the bed on that one. Oh, hey. How are we looking on time, Doug?

Good. All right. Well, unless we have any other questions, I think this has been excellent. Very informative and awesome. Yeah, thanks so much, guys. You have been great. Thank you. She's, I'm going to say this right now.

I've loved all our guests, but you have been awesome because your input has been, I think people are going to get a lot out of just this short interview. Well, I hope so. So I'd like to probably have lot out of just this short interview. What helps though? So I'd like to probably have you back in the future. That would be awesome. I would definitely do that. I'm competing again in the end of August at the boss of bosses to meet. So maybe after that we can talk about how we did and go set some records.

Excellent. Are you on social media? Do you have anything you want people to find you on, follow you on? I do have my next level strength coaching Facebook page. I have a Yelp Yelp whatever page I'm on Instagram personally just as Leigh is Wensen, but I do post some Professional stuff there. So yeah, I'm not a big social media person. You don't post selfies every day I don't understand that whole that whole selfie like

understand that whole that whole selfie like I this yeah, those people are crazy. I don't know. Those people who post selfies are crazy. I don't get it. I mean, it's like this virtual validation that I don't get. Keep going. Oh, really? Want me to keep going?

Please. Well, I thought we had to wrap it up. I don't know. It's time for this. Oh, my God. Do you put that? Are you supposed to put? Are you supposed to be single?

But hold on. Hold on. Sofie King. Hold on. I just got on there. I've only been on Instagram for maybe a year. And I did it. We have 760 posts of easily. And it's for business. It is for business. It is for business. As you mentioned. It is 100% for business to promote the program that I developed and then of course now with with my Impumbment everything and here's what happens I Instagram is excellent for fitness. It's probably one of the best social media platforms you can use for fitness It's just it's just

In terms of interaction in terms of what you're gonna get You get you get clients from that not only do you get clients you get Question so here's what I did so a lot of interaction in Instagram initially turned me off because it's like it's like You get clients from that? Not only do you get clients, you get questions. So here's what I did. So a lot of interaction. Instagram initially turned me off because it's like narcissism hell. It's all pictures.

However, they allow you to post a caption. And the caption can be relatively long. It's like two can be like two paragraphs. Oh yeah, I've seen some novels. So I'm like, I'm going to post pictures, but then I'm like post-smart. He's like the smart phobia. Yeah.

So then I post lots of information. Here's the thing though. When I post a selfie, I'm gonna post pictures, but then I'm like, the smart Fabio. Yeah. So then I post lots of information. Here's the thing though. When I post a selfie, I get way more interaction than when I post like, you know, words or whatever. So I'm just using it. You're just going with it. He's pouring himself for the great deal. Yeah, so there's a lot of selfies on there.

Oh wow. Yeah, I can't get behind that. I don't know. Help throw in your business. I have to post a picture of my abs to get more clients. I can't get behind that. I don't know. I just, help throw your business. I have to post a picture of my abs to get more clients. I bet if you did, I bet you'd get a lot of, you would definitely get lots of interaction. It's just the nature of the beast, isn't it?

Actually, you know. Tell my soul that way. You know what though? Because you compete in a, in such a objective sport like powerlifting, I think if you post the pictures of you lifting heavyweight, I bet that would be way more successful. Yeah, that would do well. Because that's your thing, right? Right. You're a competitor in a sport that where you lift heavyweight plus you're a woman.

I think that that seeing women lift heavyweight and training that way, I think that's awesome. And so the utilization of like the proper hashtag is how you have to go with that to your collection, right? I mean, to get people to see it. I know I didn't understand hashtags for the longest time. Now I'm like hashtag champion. Yeah, it's scary. Yes. Yeah, good times. Good fun. Well, thanks for coming. We'll have you come back soon and that would be awesome. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. For more information about this show and to get valuable free resources from Sal, Adam and Justin. Visit us at www.minepompradio.com. Until next time, this is MindPom.