Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1075: Dr. Stefanie Cohen - From Venezuelan National Soccer Team to 4X Bodyweight Deadlift & 22 World Records

Episode Date: July 15, 2019

Dr. Stefanie Cohen Her humble beginnings and how she came to the US. (3:33) How in some degree we are forced to rise to the occasion: Her journey to what she is currently doing. (6:27) When did the switch from soccer to powerlifting happen? (10:30) Did she find her body responded very quickly early on? How strength is a LONG-TERM adaptation. (14:09) When did she decide to compete in powerlifting? (19:13) Was her goal to be the first female to pull 500 lbs.? What did it take to get there and what bumps in the road did she experience? (25:04) The general steps you can do to alleviate pain TODAY. (32:50) Did she change her approach to her workouts after her back injury? (39:04) The differences between flexibility and mobility. (41:55) How should someone PRIME their body before a physical event? (45:05) What does her priming session look like? (47:21) The value of unilateral movements to powerlifters. (48:05) The benefits of unconventional training to powerlifting. (50:48) What information annoys her the most about the strength/fitness camps? (53:39) The story of ‘6 blind men who have never encountered an elephant’ and how people are so fast to draw absolute truths based on one single subjective experience. (56:10) What are her strength goals moving forward? (57:28) Featured Guest/People Mentioned Dr. Stefanie Cohen, DPT (@steficohen)  Instagram Website Noah Ohlsen (@nohlsen)  Instagram Professor Stuart McGill (@backfitpro)  Instagram Greg Lehman (@GregLehman)  Twitter Layne Norton, PhD (@biolayne)  Instagram Dr. Jordan Shallow D.C (@the_muscle_doc)  Instagram Related Links/Products Mentioned July Promotion: MAPS Anywhere ½ off!! **Code “ANYWHERE50” at checkout** Stefanie Cohen breaks two all-time world records in raw powerlifting history Stuart McGill - Amazon.com Pain Science Workbooks — Greg Lehman Mind Pump Ep 955: John Brenkus- 6x Emmy-Award Winning Creator, Host, & Producer of Sport Science Blind Men and the Elephant - Philosophy

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mite, op, mite, op with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. Stephanie Cohen, yeah. One of the strongest, if not the, well definitely the strongest female in her way class. One of the strongest girls I've ever even met. One of the strongest women in the world ever. And you know, she's this tiny thing.

She's like barely five feet tall, 120 something pounds. This girl has lifted weights that were thought to be impossible. Four times her body weight. Yeah, 530 pound deadlift squats with 400 pounds on her Instagram page. She's also very smart.

She's a doctor of physical therapy. So she understands movement and correctional exercise at a much higher level, the most strength athlete. So in this episode, we talk a little bit about past, and then things get really technical. So if you're into the technical aspect of lifting, if you're into learning how to prevent your body from getting injured, how to utilize mobility training, flexibility training to improve your performance.

We talk about some of the difference between mobility and flexibility and just some of the nuances of that. And so you can kind of peer into that a little bit in this episode. That's right. She's a 22 time world record holder. And her website is hybridperformancemethod.com. And then her Instagram page is awesome, because you can see here, lift weights that, I swear you'd think they're fake, but she competes in competition, so you know, she's a strong edge, she says she is.

Her Instagram page is at Steffi Cohen, that's STEFICOHEN. And before we get into the episode, Steffi Cohen that's STEFICOHEN. And before we get into the episode, I wanna let everybody know that maps anywhere, the program that we created that's designed to get people fit strong, healthy, lean, muscular. Any way. Without any equipment, without any weights,

without gym, all you need is your body, maybe some bands, and you can follow maps anywhere. That program is 50% off. So here's what you do to get the 50% off code of maps white.com that's M-A-P-S-W-H-I-T-E. Dotcom and use the code anywhere 50. That's A and Y-W-H-E-R-E, five zero, no space for the discount.

So without any further ado, here we are talking to the incredibly strong, Dr. Stephanie Cohen. I think the first time I heard about you was somebody tagged me on you deadlifting. I don't know what it was, it was like 400 pounds and you were doing reps with it. Probably 500.

Maybe, yeah, so you make it feel worse. And you're tiny, you're like five foot tall. How much do you weigh 120 pounds? On a rib. Yeah, around there. On a good day. On a bad day about 125, 128. Fine.

You're way as fine. You're way as fine. The laws of gravity. It's impressive as hell. Yeah, you weigh as much as a dumbbell in one of the gyms, tiny. But you're incredibly insanely strong. If I'm not mistaken, you're the only,

I think you're the first female to deadlift three times for body weight. If I'm not mistaken. Four times. Four times, sorry, four times. He's like undercutting. I know. I think it's given her real props.

I think it's my ego trying to make me feel good. Yeah, I know, right? Me too. I mean, that is beyond impressive. It's an incredible feat of strength. So when I saw the on Instagram, then I instantly started going through your videos and I couldn't believe some of the stuff you were doing.

But I'd like to kind of go back and take it back to kind of where this all started. Now you're originally from Venezuela, correct? How old were you when you came here? I was 17. Oh, okay, so you spent a lot of your life living in Minnesota. What brought you guys to the US?

You know, it's interesting. My mom really had a vision and just kind of knew or felt that the situation of Venezuela politically economically wasn't gonna improve. So she wasn't one that really pushed me to pursue, at that time I was playing soccer. I played for the national team back in Venezuela. And yeah, and she wasn't one that kind of pushed me pursue at that time I was playing soccer. I played for the national team back in Venezuela. Oh, okay.

And yeah, and she wasn't one that kind of pushed me to try to get a soccer scholarship here in the States. And obviously, you know, pursue a higher level of education. And so initially I got a soccer scholarship to play in San Diego State and that was kind of the first place that I moved when I came here. Oh, and now did the whole family come with you

at that point? No, no, I came alone. Okay, are your parents still over there? My dad is still there, they're divorced, and my mom eventually moved to Chicago. Okay. And so did my sister. Wow, what your mom was on point

because the situation over there is, from what I've read is very difficult. Yeah, I was so lucky. Like I moved at the right time, for sure. And so you still have a lot of family over there. Is everybody okay with the whole, or are you able to be in contact with them and see what's going on?

Being in contact is really difficult because now they started shutting down the internet and communication networks. So, you know, sometimes I'll go a couple days without really hearing from my dad or without him being able to communicate. So it's difficult. And it's gone to a point my dad used to have a business there.

He used to manufacture sunscreen and shampoo and different cosmetics like that. And now he can't even find the materials to make them. And obviously even if he did, so he had a set amount of products that they were already finished, but he can't even sell them because people don't have money. So it's gone to a point where there's really no where else to go.

Is this situation as bad as I've read where people are, those people starving and having difficult time just finding food and whatnot? Yeah, absolutely. Everything you've seen on the news probably amplify that times five. Wow, now coming here to obviously a completely different,

now we're dysfunction our own ways, but to a country that is obviously has a polar opposite approach when it comes to economics and politics and all that stuff. Does it make you see things and value things a little bit differently? Absolutely. I mean, things that you would take for granted, like just being able to leave your house and not being scared of whether someone got inside of your house or being able to get inside of your house without being scared that someone followed you in or walking down the streets or being able to get your driver's license in a day or having a passport, you know, they're not even giving away passports anymore, or being able to go to the grocery store and find your favorite olive oil.

Just simple things like that. Well, now you obviously have a tremendous work ethic. You're very young, you're in your mid to late 20s, and you have incredible accomplishments. Did some of that drive come from the fact that you came from a place where things were not as accessible, not as much opportunity coming here, and did some of your work ethic come from the fact that like, I'm taking advantage of these opportunities? Yeah, I think to a certain degree, you're forced to rise up to the, to the occasion. When you grow up and, when you grow up and stay in the

same place where you, where you were born, it is easier in the sense that, you know, probably your parents already have a lot of connections. It's a more sense of security, essentially, where you almost feel like you don't have to put that much work in order to succeed. Whereas like when you move alone by yourself to a new country or a new city, then you're kind of forced to making your own path, essentially.

That's how I felt at least moving to a different country. I just felt like I was a race against the clock, just a constant hustle, just trying to figure out what I'm good at, what I could, what I had, maybe like what were some of my talents, just trying to figure out different things that I thought could one make me happy, but two, I could also be good at.

So you come here for soccer. Did you immediately also enter into, because you have a, your PhD in physical therapy? Yes, a doctorate. Doctorate, sorry. Did you, was that where you went initially? You're like, I'm gonna learn physical therapy and stay in that field or was it something different?

No, to be honest, I really had no idea what I wanted to do. I started at an architecture major in college and quickly realized that's not what I wanted to do. And I switched majors about five different times. After that, I switched to engineering, I switched to marketing, business, nursing, pre-med, and eventually exercise physiology. So it took me five years to graduate.

I took classes every single summer. So I never had a summer off because I was always behind. Right? Because I was switching majors almost every year. Until I finally landed in exercise physiology, which from a standpoint of my genuine interest was the perfect thing to do. But from a career standpoint,

maybe not so much because I don't know, anyone who studied exercise physiology knows that there's not a big market for us after you graduate college. So maybe not the best business move to do because after I graduated college, I realized there's the only option I had was probably being a fitness manager at a gym facility or working at a hospital conducting exercise fitness tests, you know, VO2 max and cardio tests and educating people about nutrition, but that's kind of as far as the scope extends for an exercise physiologist. But you had a passion for it, which is probably why you got it.

I loved it, yeah, I loved it, but I also love making money. I'm ambitious. Of course. So, you know, that was a, it was tough. So that's when the idea of going to physical therapy came up. I wasn't sure where I wanted to take my career and Physical therapy at least had the had the other portion of what I was looking for which was I don't want to say validation, but

Maybe personally I wanted to do something more for myself I wanted to achieve the highest level of education for the field that I wanted to be in. And in my opinion, that was physical therapy. If I wanted to be a strength coach, if I wanted to be a personal trainer, I wanted to know the most that a personal trainer could know, the most that a fitness professional could know. Could know. Yeah, I've worked with quite a few physical therapists

and some are obviously better than others, but I'm always, almost, always impressed at the level of just the understanding of human function, and especially with the application of correctional exercise. And you have videos on YouTube and on your Instagram page where you're talking about mobility and whatnot, and the way you present it, you can tell you have a very deep understanding of just movement of the human body. And I really appreciate it, especially from someone

who's at your level in the field that you compete in, which I wanna get into, how did you switch from soccer to powerlifting? They seem like they're not connected at all. Did it happen while you were training through that process? You know, when you were training for soccer, did you really enjoy that process versus actually playing? Cause I know for me, playing football,

I attended to enjoy the offseason a little bit more just because of the process of, you know, battering myself in the weight room. Is that a something that you experienced as well? It's funny because when I say that I played soccer for the National Team in Venezuela, you're probably picturing something really prestigious, but we had a corner in the kind of like that it was the

military training field where we trained at. So we would post up, you know, a goalie that was not permanent and we would have just a corner in their military field and that's where 95% of our training would take place. The other 5% would be our condition or 10% let's say 90 and 10% would take place on the beach. That would be our conditioning session where we would play soccer just on the sand. And that's it. We didn't have access to a fitness room. We didn't have access to weights. We just played soccer. We just refined the skill. We were really good. We were actually the first female soccer Venezuelan soccer team that ever happened.

Oh, cool. So we kind of like found here that we had nothing. So to answer your question, I didn't know. I didn't lift weights until I was 21. And that was just basically our result of when I stopped playing soccer. I was just similar story to college when I was just trying to figure out something that I

could, was good at, that I also enjoyed. Same thing happened with sports. I stopped playing soccer and I immediately started looking for different things. I did have marathons for a while. I did eight in one year, just trying to see if I can improve myself. Yeah. And not being that, not too bad. I think my best time was like 135.

Oh, that's fast. Yeah. So that's really fast. So you're one of those annoying Oh, that's fast. Yeah, so it was good. So you're one of those annoying people that's born athlete. Yeah, you're good at all the physical stuff. I'm not. I'm not. I just stick to the things that I'm really good at and dump the ones that I'm not. Okay. You just get hyper focused.

Yeah, but but I know in a quit. So if I tried, say, skateboarding, which I did, I quickly realized that I was afraid of falling. And that's just a fear that I was never going to be able to get over. I see. You know, so I tried it for a couple of weeks and then quit. I even bought my own skateboard and I was criticized by my parents, by my boyfriend at a time, that I was a quitter.

But in my head, I was in. I was just a realist. Hey, you know, I'm going to try this. I don't have the skills that are necessary or I'm not good fit. It's not a good fit for me. Yeah, so I'm just not gonna do it. I'm gonna go look for something that I'm good at. So you started lifting weights and you felt right away like this is for me. So I started doing CrossFit. That was kind of my first exposure to it. You know, Noah Olson. He's a CrossFitter. He's a CrossFitter in Miami. He went to school with me in the same program

and he trained at a gym that was a couple miles away from school And he was the one that said hey, maybe you know, you'll enjoy doing this So I went there and obviously there's like nine different disciplines Well, however many different disciplines that you need to be good at in order to be a good cross-fitter The one that I was the worst at was weights so Olympic weightlifting and obviously anything related to strength because I had never done it before So I said you know, maybe I need to just focus all of my energy into first mastering these two, getting stronger and getting better Olympic lifting, and then I'll be able to be a better cross-fitter.

But obviously I never went back to CrossFit. I just kind of started doing Olympic weight lifting. I found a coach that used to coach at the national level in Cuba and Venezuela, and he kind of just took me under his wing, and that was my segue into lifting weights. Now, did your body respond? Did you find yourself responding very quick? I mean, obviously you're an athlete, so you're probably genetically speaking obviously at the level you're right now. This goes without saying, but you've got really, really good genes. I would assume that your body responded very quickly early on. Like, were you,

were right away where people like Well, you're really strong size. Yes. Yes Well, and what did that feel like to you and this is important to communicate because I think a lot of women sometimes are afraid Of lifting weights, but I don't think they realize how empowering it can feel to get strong. Yeah What was your initial impression? I mean that pursuing that and like the real strength aspect of that was that appealing to you initially? Oh absolutely. Yeah, that's what I was going to say that I was extremely, it was extremely empowering.

Just as a girl, just to do things that girls aren't supposed to do, be able to step to the other side of the gym where the weights are at, you know, where there's no girls at all, and you just go in and grab the heaviest stumble or just start cranking squats with two plates, and all the guys are just looking at you and all. You can't even believe it.

That's empowering on its own. So while you're doing this, are you also noticing that your body's developing muscle fast or are you one of those people that you were just strong and muscle came on a little slower? So mentally, obviously, that was one of the other appeals about lifting weights as a female that I found to be incredible was that, and I think most girls are like that. You're working out because you want to look a certain way. Yeah, most guys and girls, everybody, I'd say. Yeah, kind of like that. And it's common just body dysmorphia in the fitness industry in general is a real thing.

So it was nice for me to be able to switch my mind from, hey, what can I do to look this way, to what can I look, what can I do to lift this much? So just that kind of switch and mentality was liberating. I'm so happy you said that because, well, that was a strategy that I used with clients. More often than not female clients, because I just think generally speaking, they tend to have more issues with body image.

And that's a whole separate discussion about society and advertising a lot of stuff. But when they would come to me with these body image issues, one of the best strategies I had at helping them get out of it or improve was to shift their focus from how they looked to how they performed. And the place I would push their focus would be strength. And it worked very, very well. And you're saying that it did that for you too. That's awesome.

Because also it's strength is a long-term adaptation, right? You don't get strong from lifting weights for two weeks. And for some reason, that's a lot easier to accept than I want to look good and I want that now. Great point. That's a great point. How did you do power lifting from here? So from there, I did Olympic weight lifting for three years.

I even have the Olympic ranks that half of them tattooed in my arm. I took that very seriously. I wanted to go to the Olympics. I was very good. Then I got into grad school. I mean, I don't know if you know what competitive Olympic weightlifting entails, but in order to be really, really good, you have to train a lot. So I'm talking about nine training sessions a week. And you need to be supervised

by a coach because it's so highly skilled. The movements that you need to have someone looking at you and being like, Hey, that snatch was one inch forward. You need to pull more. You need to be more explosive. Hey, your mind is not into it today. You have to come back in the afternoon. You need to have someone looking at you and pushing you because it's stowed just so mentally demanding. Steph, I want to stop you there because that's a very important point that you made.

The Olympic lifts as effective and awesome as they are are easily the most complex, technical, barbell movements that you could possibly do. One of our biggest criticisms of CrossFit is that they include Olympic lifts in fatigue-based training, which, you know, form breaks down and they tend to be, you know, really dangerous. Did you identify this as you were doing Olympic training

and saying, oh, this is not, we probably shouldn't be doing this in a circuit. Yeah, I mean, yes and no. I like to believe that there's really no bad movements, just people who aren't prepared for movements. That's kind of like the ideology that I subscribe to. So I think the main issue there is people are unprepared and they're throwing them into these classes without having adequate shoulder overhead mobility, without having enough

thoracic extension, without having sufficient lumbopelic control, and they're being thrown into these dynamic movements that require a lot of skill, and they don't have the prerequisite mobility requirements, and they don't have the prerequisite skill to be doing that in that setting. It takes a long time. It takes a long time. It takes a long time. And which is why I took a step back from CrossFit, and I said, hey, and I didn't know much.

I just said, hey, it doesn't make much sense for me to be doing this movement 60 times that I don't know how to do. So I'm just gonna not do it. And every time that I snatch or a clean and jerk would come up in a work and a wad, I would just substitute for something else. And then I would spend a lot of time trying

to develop the skill of snatching clean and jerk. Incredible intuition on your part, probably saved your body, lots of injuries, especially with your competitive nature. A lot of people fall into that trap. So Olympic lifting, because it's so technical, you're just doing a lot of frequency, a lot of training, a lot of coaching, and you're saying that you shied away from that because you had so much school.

Oh, yes. So then I got into grad school. And obviously that was the first time in my life where I had to accept that I was no longer an athlete first. I was a professional student at that time. So my school had their requirement that you had to go there for you had to attend some was a hundred percent mandatory. So I had to be there for eight hours a day, which obviously made it extremely difficult

for me to be able to do two training sessions a day, right? Initially, I tried to make it happen. So I moved in with a roommate from undergrad who did the same exercise physiology program as me. And I walked in the first day, she was already living there. I walked in and I see the living room and I'm like, hey, her name is Maryl. Hey, Maryl, what do you think if we get rid of all the furniture in the living room, you know, the couch, the TV, the table, everything, we get rid of all of that.

And we put a squat wrecking a platform. Yeah. Right? We didn't really know how to do that. She was all about it. Really? Yeah, she said, oh, yeah, that'd be awesome. So we turned our living room into a training space in a second floor of a really tiny and old apartment complex.

And initially, that's what was allowing me to do my two training sessions. So I would do one in the morning, either before class, six in the morning, or I would come back during lunchtime, I would do my first training session then, and then in the afternoon I would go to a gym, or during midterms or finals week, that's where I would do all my training.

So my training session would last six hours because I would go do three squats and then sit down and study or you know for 10 minutes to like whatever I had to do. What were the conversations like when you guys would invite people over like you're on a date They haven't seen your apartment yet. They walk in they see weights. We both thought we were insane Yeah, especially people under us. Oh Yeah, yeah, how are you doing? So how did you switch to powerlifting, which is, you know, obviously less technical, but also very grueling?

I feel like I give going around that. Yeah, no problem. So, yeah, eventually it got really hard for me to be able to maintain the level of training that I needed in order to keep improving. And most of my sessions became, most of my training sessions became bad ones. From a mental standpoint, I was just tired. I was not there. From a focus standpoint, and I wasn't enjoying it anymore really.

I would leave most of my training sessions I would leave before finishing, because I just felt like I wasn't going anywhere. So that's when I met Hayden, and Hayden suggested, hey, maybe kind of similar to what happened with CrossFit. Maybe just try to get stronger and that will get your Olympic weight lifting better. And I said, okay, so instead of snatching, cleaning, jerking, nine times per week,

I started doing it two times per week or three times per week. And the rest of the sessions were just strength-related. It's a lot easier to grind through a heavy squad or a heavy deadlift session than it is heavy snatch session. If you're not there, that snatch isn't, if 50% of us, you're a snatch isn't going anywhere, that's staying in the ground. Whereas a squat, you can grind.

And so as you're doing these lifts, your strength is going up, up, up. And I'm feeling better. I don't have to spend that much time in the gym. I'm getting stronger, I'm looking better, because I'm focusing more on hypertrophy and on strength. It doesn't require that much mental concentration, so I'm just feeling better all around.

When did you do your first power lifting competition, and when did you realize like, okay, I'm gonna, I think I'm gonna be one of the best. So a couple, a couple months after I made the switch, I tried sumo deadlifting, and I was able to pull 315 the first time I did it. When my conventional debt lift was like 250 maybe. That's ridiculous. I mean, 120 pound or whatever, and your first debt lift, 315.

So that's in raging. So that's when I decided to compete. I had a fun time, I think, the contrast between the Olympic weightlifting community and the powerlifting community was interesting to see as well. Like what, like what are the contrast to the battle? I didn't know about that. I mean, I don't, I don't know if battles are right word, but they're just different in their own ways. I mean, Olympic weightlifting is a lot more formal.

When you go to compete in an Olympic weightlifting meet, it's not that fun. Like people take it really seriously like too seriously. Hey, it's a local meat, you know? Just relax. That's all I have fun, you know? Don't lean more far. So it's way more fun by. So it's way more fun by.

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or prevent injury at this point? That was, it was a little bit difficult because, and I could be wrong. I don't know what's being taught in other schools, but I felt like in my program, the beliefs were a little bit antiquated, as far as what lifting dust your body. Oh, you mean at school, it was antiquated. What were they saying that was, that was antiquated? I mean, I had a spine professor that that kept telling me that I was going to break my back from that lifting. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. That it's obviously it's not true, but

he was a he's a professor. So obviously I I was holding it him to a certain standard. I thought that I was believing what he was saying to a certain degree, but obviously that wasn't gonna make me stop deadlifting But it was a it was a tough point for sure because on one hand I Obviously wanted to keep our lifting on the other hand. I had these people with a lot of authority telling me That I wasn't the best or that it was dangerous that I shouldn't be doing it. I shouldn't be advertising it. I shouldn't be promoting it So so let's move fast forward to the point where you were able to pull over 500 pounds off the floor.

Was that your goal? Was your goal to be the first person to pull four times body weight, where you were female? Were you, what did your training and diet look like to get to that point, to be able to do that just insane feed of strength. No, I don't think it was a goal that I set for myself when I first started. I never thought it was possible. It was an all-time world record, so it was in fact not possible until I did it. But what did it look like?

I'm trying to think. It looked like a lot of ups and downs. The first time I pulled 500 was coming back from an awful low back injury. I think I spent three months rehabbing it and then two more months until I got back to that 500 pound after being stuck in a plateau at like four, I don't know, I wanna say four 60,

around four 60 for a long time. So it looked like a lot of ups and downs, a lot of frustration, a lot of failing. Do you think the back injury, let's talk about that for a second, do you think the back injury gave you a different perspective that allowed you to get stronger afterwards?

Was that part of, do you think that was part of why you were able to break through your plateaus? Yes, that was the first injury that I personally had that required me to take time off, dedicated time off. And the reason why it required that versus people that are able to just work around that injury and keep going on the gym and doing other things was because I was so stubborn. I thought that I was indestructible, I thought that I could, even though I was hurt, I thought that I could keep showing up to the gym and that I was indestructible. I thought that I could, even though I was hurt, I thought that I could keep showing up to the gym

and that it was gonna resolve on its own. So just be having that injury taught me that, sometimes you need to take a step back and you need to identify what the cause of the issue actually is and you need to take the steps required to fix it. Essentially. Now, how did you navigate around that? Were you looking outside to see who's like a back

specialist or somebody's information out there besides you're obviously going to school for this? Was there anybody out there too that had really good information that you're trying to get to help you through this process? Yeah, so the first person that I got exposed to was toward my gale. He's kind of a lead researcher in low back pain. And so I bought all of his books and didn't read them from start to finish, but took snippets here and there, listened to a bunch of his podcasts

and a bunch of his YouTube videos, looked at what other people were doing, were saying, looked on social media to see what kind of advice was being given about low back pain and then try to make it fit or try to make it work for me essentially. In a nutshell, would you be able to kind of talk about what his philosophy is around? Look, I hear his name all the time when it comes to low back pain.

I know, he's the first thing that pops up all the time. Yeah, our friend Lane Norton went to him for his back problems and in a nutshell, I have kind of an idea of how he talks about pacpain. A lot of it comes across as don't deviate from a particular type of posture and move in this way all the time. Which to me sounds, I could see some of the benefit of it, but I can also see some of the detriment being a personal trainer knowing that that's just not life. Your body moves in all kinds of different directions and ways.

How would you, how could you characterize kind of his philosophy around back pain? Like what is some of the things he communicates? I think most of his views are mechanistic in nature. So he believes that the main cause of someone's low back pain has to be able to be identified following a thorough evaluation. So that's why his e-vals are so long lengthy. Take so much time because he really believes that if you sit down and do a bunch of provocation tests

that you should be able, that anyone should be able to identify what the actual source of someone's low back pain is. Okay. And once he identifies it through his testing, then is his approach different than, or does he have a unique approach to correcting these issues? Yeah, so then that's where the Miguel Big Three came up. So he's all about increasing stiffness and stability through the Miguel Big Three and other different exercises that are essentially isometric exercises to increase stiffness or stability in the low back or in the segment that's unstable.

Okay. And then do you have any differing opinions with his approach or do you agree with it? Because it seems like his research kind of dominates that field. I don't know of too many other people that you look to when it comes to low back research. Yeah. Have you heard of Greg Lehman? Greg Lehman is a Dr. and Carpacar practice. He also has a master's in biomechanics and I think he also went to physical therapy school. Okay. This guy's like on another level Okay. Is it different than McGill's approach? Yes, so I

Do want to add something about my Gill's approach that I think I agree with. So part of his evaluation is identifying what the, what the, what the cause of pain, what the movement that's causing pain is and essentially trying to avoid that movement and trying to do more of the movements that don't, don't cause pain. So you call someone either flexion, intolerant or extension intolerant. So if you're someone that bending over causes you pain, then you're said to be flexion intolerant. If you're someone that bending backwards

causes you pain, then you're extension intolerant. And essentially he just tells you, hey, okay, don't maybe avoid. It's an avoidance sort of mentality. Yes, avoid forward bending for, I don't know, an arbitrary amount of time that he determines. And let's do more of prone press ups, let's do more superman's, ironman's,

how we wanna call it, let's do more bird dogs and extension, that kind of stuff. And just avoid this movement for X amount of time. And it almost makes it seem how he explains this as, it's a little bit, or to me, it's a little bit of fear mongering on his part to just deem this particular movement as bad and this other one as good. So I think you just have to be careful about how you present that information to people because we know that what you tell people can definitely exacerbate their pain just based

on how you're presenting that information. Yeah and and it reminds me of, you know, when I would train people and they'd come see me and they'd say, Dr. told me not to squat anymore and I said, well, you know, how come? Oh, it hurts my knee, so I'm not going to squat anymore. And I'd think to myself, like squatting is, that's a basic human function. I think the idea is for us to figure out a way to get you to be able to squat again without paying because that's a, you know, that decreases your quality of life not being able to squat. And that's why sometimes I shy away from that. Like don't do that because it hurts.

It's like, okay, well, what if that is a basic human function or the things that can do to move towards being able to get back into that position again without hurting. This other researcher you mentioned, Lehman, I think, is him. How is his approach different? So he talks about, first of all, giving a definition about what stability actually is. And kind of challenges the idea of how can you actually

determine whether or not there's a non-stable segment. And why does that segment have to be unstable? That's the, that's his whole premise. Now, how do you know that someone has an instability in the low back? Why do you think you need to fix it? And what makes you think that, that the pain is arising from that? That's, I like that because referred pain is a real thing. And oftentimes the pain comes

from areas you might not even anticipate or expect. You were mentioning before we went on air that there are these general steps that most people can take to alleviate pain, although there's an individual application, I'm interested in hearing what your general steps are for pain. Okay, yeah. And I haven't been here written down because I didn't want to miss anything. No problem. So obviously the first one is stop doing what hurts. Mm-hmm.

And this one is super obvious, but a lot of people miss it. You know, they don't want to stop doing what's hurt, what hurts, especially fitness people. They don't want to stop snatching, drinking, squat, benching, and deadlift because they think they're going to lose their gains. But it's absolutely necessary. You need to stop doing whatever movement is aggravating for at first or in period of time in order to let that tissue heal if there's an actual tissue damage or just in order to calm down the pain in that particular area. So that's your first one. Then obviously understanding that tissue adaptation takes time. In order for tissues to get stronger, essentially they need to be exposed to stress.

So think about for example, people that get a total knee replacement or a total hip replacement. What is the first thing that they do when they wake up? They walk. They walk. Or someone that has something in their heart. You have to stress. You have to stress the heart in order for that heart, for the vessels and the heart to essentially produce or go

around your genesis, which is the process of creating new vessels that go into the heart and for the heart to get stronger as well. Right, so it's appropriate stress. Appropriate stress. And also in that process, it's important to understand that everyone responds to it differently and everyone has a different amount of time that it takes them to heal. So it's common for people to just go online and say, oh, what's the healing time for a hamstring strain? And it says six weeks.

And then maybe your hamstring strain takes eight weeks. And at six weeks, you show up to the gym and you tried deadlifting. It's just understanding, hey, healing time is different for everyone. Don't go based on something that you see online. Just go based on how you feel and what your pain tolerance is and trying not to exceed that at that particular point in time. Yeah, that's got to be one of the biggest ones. It's like, listen to your body. I can't tell, I can't tell you how many times people come to me with, oh, I've been doing the keto diet for three months and I'm constipated and I feel terrible. How long am I supposed to feel bad? I'm like, it's probably not for you. Maybe try something different. And that one piece of advice right there, listen to your body, I think applies to, I mean, all aspects of life,

but especially when it comes to your workouts and your nutrition. Exactly. Yeah, because people are always always try to get the answer from something external, whether that's your therapist or the internet, and they wholeheartedly believe on what those people are saying and ignore everything that's on their insight. How are they feeling? Can they actually prepare to this particular movement based on their pain tolerance and so on? Then the third one is educating them about pain.

So we know that pain doesn't always indicate that there's tissue damage. You can have a lot of pain and very little tissue damage. You can have, it varies. They're not directly correlated. Yeah, I know. A lot of times, I used to train a lot of surgeons and doctors. And I trained one surgeon who did a lot of

back surgeries, and he'd say it's remarkable how many times people have bulging discs or issues, and they're asymptomatic. They have no pain. And other times when people have all this excruciating pain, and they cannot find anything wrong with them, pain can also be entirely psychological. People who are depressed experience pain differently than people who are happy or feeling good. Stimulants can impact how you feel about pain.

That's an important one to communicate, I think, because pain is such a subjective thing. Yeah, absolutely. I have a cool analogy here to kind of try to explain it. There's a big, I don't want to say fat or craze, but there's a big push, especially from physical therapists now, about the biopsychosocial model of pain, and they're trying to push that into their patients, just trying to explain to them how pain works and that pain starts in your brain. And I feel like it's a hard message to get across when people are in pain because, you know, you're knee hurt. It's real to them, right? It's real to them. Exactly. So how do you actually

convey that message without making them feel like they're crazy or that their pain is not there, or that it's less than what they're perceiving, right? This analogy came from actually one of Greg Lehmann's book that pain is like an alarm An alarm like a smoke detector It doesn't really tell you whether or not there's actually a fire and it doesn't tell you how much smoke there is sometimes that alarm can for some reason is more sensitive to Stuff that's in the air and it can go off for no reason pain is similar to that and it's very much so

Emotion context dependent Obviously pain is something that's there to tell you Do something about this, but it doesn't always indicate tell you exactly what that is Is there a way that you describe to your patients like how to identify what type of pain it is or like what kind of signal your body is telling you like because I know it varies so much right? Yeah, I don't know, not that I know of. Not that I know of but we just know that in the in the take home messages pain doesn't always indicate tissue damage and so. It means it just means something. Yeah. It just means something. Yeah, it means hey take action

Mm-hmm. Maybe don't move this way or try to avoid this position or maybe take it down a notch Don't squat seven times a week. Yeah, and especially for athletes we learn to Ignore pain to a certain extent because some pain is okay like when you're working out hard When you're getting sore when you're feeling, and then of course the competitive aspect of it. And so when you combine those two, sometimes you get to create the perfect storm of just ignoring pain, just keep going, push through it, which is a disaster for a lot of people. Absolutely.

Is that what happened to you when your back started hurting, where you're just kind of like, I'm going to keep going, see what happens. I was just totally ignoring it. Wow. What exactly happened to your back? You don't know. Okay. I got, look, I went to four different therapists and got four different diagnosis. I was just totally ignoring it. Wow. What exactly happened here back? You don't know. I got, look, I went to four different therapists and got four different diagnosis.

Interesting. Wow. Did you notice any compensations as a result of it, like going back into, you know, doing your workouts? No, like as far as how my movement looked. Yeah. No, not really. I was just really stiff.

Mm-hmm. I was having a lot of trouble bending forward. Did you change? I know it in my back. Did you change anything afterwards? Do you have like a different warm up or priming session that you do now that you didn't do before because of it? Yeah, there's several things that I changed.

Would you mind going into what they are or what the things that you do now? Yeah, absolutely. One thing was just monitoring the load better. Before I was just go, go, go all the time. I would, it doesn't matter whether I did a heavy squat or a heavy deadlift, I would go again for a heavy squat at the end of the week

without really paying attention to how that was actually affecting my body. You know, we know that for example, bone remodeling takes a certain amount of time from, say that you load your back. And there's your bones need to recover from that for a certain amount of time before you're able to load them again safely. That's just one example. Obviously, all tissues respond to load in that same way. So muscles, intendants, and ligaments also need time to recover after you've put them through

something strenuous, like lifting a ton of weight. So I've just gotten better at understanding how much weight I can do in a certain week before I start getting those aches and pains before I start getting, before that margin of safety starts getting really, really small. And I start exposing myself to more injuries. Now, is this based off of feel or do you now look at it and write it out and say, okay, no matter what, you know, I lift, I do heavy deadlift or heavy squat this time of week, and no matter what, the next session is going to be lighter and easier and maybe focused more on form. Did you do it that way or do you still just go off of feel?

Accommodation. So understanding how much work I'm doing every week, and if I have to obviously, in order for you to get stronger there needs to be a certain amount of progressive overload every week. So just making sure that you account you you're aware of how much work you're doing in a specific week and that it has a logical progression that's not too steep or too aggressive from week to week. And then accepting that even though you might be planning for everything, your body might not be on the same page as you.

Sure. It's just that combination. And the irony of this is, and some of us take a long time to learn this, I did. You actually progress faster. So it's like the idea, you know, the problem with always training hard before is you think that's what's going to make you progress faster. But but the reality is when you do what you're saying now you actually get faster results It's like you're working with your body versus against it absolutely every single time. So Here there's a there's a lot of confusion in our space around the difference between like flexibility and mobility for example

Would you mind going into the differences between like what does it mean to be flexible? To find the two because I know. And what is mobile is confusing. Right. Well, we know that flexibility doesn't necessarily pertain to the length that a muscle can change to in order to allow you to do a specific movement, but it's more so central nervous system dependent.

So your brain essentially is controlling how much tension that muscle is going to have at a particular point in time. And that's what you can train yourself to be able to tolerate more stretch or less stretch, but there's not a real change in muscle length or muscle fibers at that particular point in time. Whereas mobility, I think there's many definitions, but I'm more so interpreted as related to joints. Can you access different or a full range of motion in a particular joint? Now, for athletes who require flexibility, is it just flexibility, or is it the ability

to be able to connect to different ranges of motion? In other words, should it just get flexible, or should I be able to own that range of motion through that even a good idea to get flexible? Yeah, a lot of times. It depends on the sport. So there's a couple of examples that I usually draw from. For example, sprinters.

Sprinters need to have really tight calves in order to be able to generate the most amount of power when they touch the ground every stride. So would it be a good idea for them to be stretching out their calves? Their calf muscles probably not because those muscles need to be tightly wound in order for them to be able to produce the most amount of force into the ground. Another example is basketball players. We know that the hamstrings that attach to the back of your leg bone, the back of your tibia, and so they actually are protective against one of the major injuries that that basketball players suffer from, which is ACL injuries.

And so it would be a good idea for basketball players to stretch their hamstrings aggressively before a game Or do you want those suckers to be taught and to be able to resist against Translational translational forces when they switch directions. You in other words and correct me if I'm wrong As the hamstrings lengthen you want them to have a certain amount of tension to provide that support If you do lots of static stretching before the game, static stretching being, I'm sitting there, it's a classic stretching, right, that what you did in PE, where I'm sitting there holding the stretch of my hamstring. Now I've told my central nervous system not to hold so much tension in this stretch position,

that's going to provide me with less stability and potentially increase my risk of injury. Yeah, and less ability for those muscles to generate force. that's going to provide me with less stability and potentially increase my risk of injury. Yeah, and less ability for those muscles to generate force. Imagine if a muscle's like a rubber band, how would that rubber band be able to generate the most tension when you leave it, when you stretch it out for the entire night

and then you go grab it, it's all loose, or if it's tight. So how should somebody then before an athletic event, before powerlifting competition, before basketball or any sport, how should they get their bodies ready then? It doesn't, it sounds like we probably shouldn't do a lot of static stretching. Right. What would you recommend? So first, it depends on the demands of their particular sport.

So let's talk about Olympic weightlifting, for example. Obviously, those athletes are going to have to be able to put a barbell over their head. and some of the demands of their particular sport. So let's talk about Olympic weightlifting, for example. Obviously those athletes are gonna have to be able to put a barbell over their head. So it would be necessary for them to do the drills that they need to do in order for that barbell to be able to land in the position they needed to land on. And that most likely is gonna require some amount

of static stretching. Good point. So you need to be able to access the range of motion that you need for your particular sport. That's the first thing. So why are you stretching is the first question you need to ask yourself. Are you stretching because there's a range of motion

that you need to access for your particular sport? Are you stretching because it feels good? Are you stretching because you feel like there's a restriction or what's the reason why you're stretching? Okay. For me, the most valid one is I need to access it for whatever activity I'm doing. Now, are you more likely to do static stretches personally or like a

kin stretch from FRC, something like that? So, in FRC, there is actually a portion of it that suggests for you to do static stretching. So, I think it's like a three step process where the first one is a two minute long static stretch and then you do some PNF style contractions to access even more range. So you gain the range of motion, but now you have to access it. So there's like two parts of that.

Exactly, and then you do the cars, bailed in rails, where you strengthen the range of motion that you found. Now you take it through its's full. Yeah range now I know I know Individuals can vary dramatically, but do you have a general like pre squat Pre deadlift pre bench press those are the three big power lifts Like priming session that you like to recommend to people is there like a general one that you like to recommend?

No, I like to recommend for people to find whatever they need to do personally for their squad bench and deadlift. It doesn't why would you ask me what I do? Because my mobility restrictions or my requirements are probably completely different to yours. Yeah. Well, let's talk about that a little bit because I think that you see that a lot like on YouTube and Instagram and you'll see people talk about it, what work really well for them and that becomes what

they're providing everybody in a sense. Yeah, what are some of the ones that you do for yourself? Not much, to be honest with you. When I'm pretty comfortable with squatting, there's no particular mobility move that I need to do in order to get in a better position. Same for bench. And for that lift, maybe if we're soon a little bit to open up my hips, I do some hip 90-90s. I do some co-sack squats side to side to open up my hips a little bit more. Maybe some bulgur and split squats with a reach for my QL. Because those are areas that you've identified for me that

I feel like it restricts me in my movement. How do you feel about split stance in unilateral type exercises for power lifters who obviously they're lifting both legs together, whether you're deadlifting or squatting, how often would you program? Yeah, what are the value in doing a lunge or a Bulgarian split stance squat for somebody who just wants to get a better squat and deadlift?

Is this someone who just started powerlifting or is this an experienced powerlifter? Let's talk about both. Let's talk about both. Let's say someone just started. Okay. So, I like to think about people who just... So, powerlifting is an extremely specific sport.

Obviously, there's only three movements that you're being tested at and they are only in one plane. So, I think the mistake that a lot of beginner powerlifters make is they specialize too early and they completely ignore any other plane of motion, any other movement. So I think the mistake that a lot of beginner power lifters make is they specialize too early, and they completely ignore any other plane of motion, any other movement, any other skill, any other thing that might benefit them that is not directly resembling that movement. So I don't really have a name for it, but I like to think about it as kind of broad-based training or GPP however you want to call it, where when someone's getting into a specific sport, I think it would be beneficial for them to master

a wider way of movements and be comfortable with jumping, maybe some snatching, maybe some cleaning, sprinting, moving side to side, jumping side to side, just for them to be able to understand their body, how it works, how it moves, and be more coordinated, have better proprioception, better awareness. So when they go into a more specific movement, they're just more athletic, and they are able to refine that skill even better. So start general. This is actually, we had a coach on a while ago who worked with kids, and he said the same

thing when they first start out, it's far better to give them general performance, you know, improvements. And then as they got older, or more, then it becomes more specialized. That's the honing in on that. Yeah, and it sounds like it's the same advice that you give.

Absolutely. And it's a great question because a lot of times I get asked on podcast story or interviews what my training looks like today. And I get asked that question by other aspiring ask power lifters as well. And I think they're asking the wrong question. Because what I'm doing today is not what got me here

in the first place. I mean, I told you, right? I started lifting weights eight years ago. I started with CrossFit. And when I was doing Olympic weight lifting, I was training nine times per week. That is a lot of squats. Yeah.

I was squatting nine times per week. So that's a lot of reps. That's, that was a lot of opportunity for I was squatting nine times per week. So that's a lot of reps. That was a lot of opportunity for me to refine one specific skill or a group of specific skills. And while I was doing that at the same time, I was always doing strongman exercises, carrying stones or carrying sandbags and doing yoga, and sprinting and doing all sorts of different movements that allow me to become the athlete I am today.

Yeah. So, and I read that you do some unconventional stuff for your training. And I say unconventional in the context of powerlifting, like circuits and athletic type of, you know, training things that you typically don't see powerlifters typically do not do circuits. They typically don't rest less than, you know, a minute. That would be their fancy. I don't think power lifters typically do not do circuits. They typically don't rest less than a minute.

It would be their fancy. I don't think anything cardiovascular with powerlifting. But you do that as part of your training. Why? Mostly, I don't do it all year round. That's the most important piece of the answer. I think that the delineation of on and off seasons is particularly important for power lifters and only big way of lifters too.

We don't have, at least in powerlifting, we don't really have kind of like a main event that everyone's training for, everyone in powerlifting trains for. Like, for example, crossfiters have the Crossfit Games. Oh, I see what you're saying. So then they'll have a season where they focus on strength, a season where they focus on endurance,

a season where they're focused on improving their, refining their skills, et cetera. But for us, we're not all training for the same needs. We're, everyone trains for whatever meat is more convenient for them in terms of maybe the location and the time of the year, right? But what happens with, what are these people doing the rest of the year?

Are they taking time off? Are they taking enough time? Or are they doing some cardio to improve their cardiovascular system and improve their work capacity and endurance? What are they doing the rest of the year? And that's what I'm trying to get at is that these circuits, these unconventional training that I do doesn't happen year round. It happens based on just the season. So if I'm, let's say three months out of a meet, you'll likely not see me do a lot of those things.

But if I'm six months out of a meet, then most of my training is actually going to be circuit based, just trying to have fun in the gym, trying to get out of the, or further from the powerlifting mentality of coming to the gym and having to hit a specific number, just coming in, having fun, moving in different ways, improving my cardio, being healthier, et cetera. Now, some people I think would think, oh, if I change my training, even though in the off season, I'm going to lose my progress for my specific sport, which may be powerlifting. And so I don't want to move away from that because I'm not going to get the same strength gains.

Do you think your approach is leading to better performances or do you think it's holding you back in terms of extreme performance and powerlifting? I mean, my performance speaks for itself. I've been able to improve every year, but I don't 100% neglect powerlifting movements when I'm in the off season. Say, well, right now I'm only squatting twice a week in prep for my next competition, but if I'm in the off season, maybe I'll squat once every 10 days, you know, that would once every every two weeks. I'll keep doing those movements just not at the same frequency as I would if I was preparing for a competition.

And then the closer you get to the competition, the more you do those and the less you do of the other alternative. Now, you're in a unique situation. There's very few people like you in the sense that you don't see a whole lot of extremely high-performing strength athletes that also have the educational background that you have. It's actually quite rare. One of our good friends, Jordan Chalow is one of those people, strength athlete, but also very very educated. Yeah, late Norden. Yeah, Lane Norton, another guy. But you're like at the top of your game, and you have that education.

What are, I have to imagine, because in our space, there's a lot of annoying information that comes out. Like we see things like, gosh, that is just not correct. That's not accurate. Are there things that you see that just, because of your background in education, where you shake your head and go, like that's not right.

Are the things that just annoy the hell out of you? One of the things that annoy the most about strength and building muscle and all the information that we get through the fitness industry. I mean, I want to fire any shots at anyone. I don't know. There's a lot. There's a lot. I can't think of a particular example, but it's a big problem just with everyone being

in control of what they post and they're being absolutely no regulations as far as what anyone can say and what your credentials have to be in order for you to be able to put that information out there. I think it's become a real problem. What about when women say, I don't want to squat or deadlift because I heard it's going to make my waist big. I'm going to get a big block. Are we still talking about that? Do you think? Yeah. Believe it or not. Yes. I still hear that

all the time. You don't hear that anymore. Maybe a little bit. When you're talking about the general public, I know it's hard because we get a lot of times in our own bubble and even the podcasting bubble in general, we think everybody is, you know, privy to all this stuff, but it's still out there. Yeah. How do you reply to that? Is it true that it grows your...

Do I think it's true? No, no, not at all. That's why I picked that one, because I think it's so frustrating and annoying. Maybe you don't hear it as much, but we hear it all the time, where people are like, I don't want a squat, I heard it gets my waist big. I don't want to keep a small way.

Now I'm getting, I know it happens. I actually made a video, a two minute long video about it. Oh, did you? Oh, you did. Yeah, where I think it was titled, Just Lifting Make Me Bulky. And it got like maybe 5,000 shares on this area. Oh, wow.

Wow, yeah. So yeah. And people tagging other sea told you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, totally. It's such an absolutely frustrated one.

There was an example you want to bring up in regards to. I think it was research. It was, I never heard of this. We have it written up there. Six blind men and an elephant. What was it that you wanted to bring up about that? There was something you want to say about how people view research. And it was fascinating, but then we stopped, and then we started to apologize.

Yeah. I heard this analogy before, but go ahead. I can't remember exactly where it originated from, but basically it's a story about six blind men that have never encountered an elephant in their life. They've never seen it. They've never been in contact with it. You don't know what it looks like or what it feels like. And so they go to a room and they each are told to touch a different part of the elephant,

just one part. So one person say touches the belly, one person touches the trunk, one person touches a tail, and they each have to say what they think it is. And they say it with absolute confidence. This is a wall, this is a snake, this is a broom, this is, I don't know what else. And it just, I think that that's one of the things that happens with research or, and let's just stick to a topic of fitness in general, how people are so fast to draw absolute truths based on one single subjective experience. Hmm.

Yeah, that is a good analogy because they are all right, but they're all wrong at the same time. Hmm. That is a good analogy because they are all right but they're all wrong at the same time. Exactly. So looking forward, what's in store for you? You've done some amazing things already. Do you have any goals that you could err on the podcast and things that you're training towards that you think you'd like to accomplish moving forward? I want to, at some point, drop down a weight class and compete in the 114 class. Hopefully take some records in that class as well.

I also wanna bump up a weight class and just see how strong I can get without being a color restricted state, which I am most of the time. So I'd be interested to see just how strong I can get and eating as much as I can and how heavy I can get to. That sounds exciting as well. So you have the record in the current weight class? Well, I have the deadlift record.

The deadlift record, which was 501? Uh, 530. 530. What is the record at the lower weight class that you want to try and get down to in the break? It's like 405. 405? Oh.

And then I also have the deadlift in the heavier weight class too. Oh, you do? Okay. Oh, yeah. I feel like you'd be able to do that then. No problem. That's a pretty big damn difference. If I can cut down and not lose. Oh, you do. Okay. Oh yeah, I feel like you'd be able to do that than no problem. That's a pretty big damn difference. If I can cut down and not lose any strength,

which is a challenge. How would you approach that and try not to lose strength to get as lean as possible, and try and shed body fat? Yeah, a long cut. So say I'm starting around 128, 129, cut to about, if I can get myself down to one, one, twenty one, then I just do a water cut to one, fourteen. That doesn't sound too bad.

Yeah, I think you would own that at that way. You think that it's hard because the leaner that you are, the hardest it is to lose any sort of obviously body fat and water as well. Yeah, and you're lean. You don't walk around heavy or whatever every every time you post a picture or whatever. I'm looking at you now I'm lean all the time. What do you walk around that body fat percentage wise? I don't know. I've never should really I should yeah, you're in the teens You're pretty damn lean all the time. It's yeah, so well, I tell you what We really appreciate what you're doing because the information you're presenting is accurate

And you're somebody that is performing at a very, very high level and that's good because you're reaching more people with the right information. So we really appreciate that. That's why we invited you on the show and thanks for coming on. Thank you for having me. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at MindPumpMedia.com. The RGB Superbundle includes maps and a ballac, maps performance, and maps aesthetic.

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