Weights and Plates Podcast - Ep. 112 - Anabolic Tortillas & Road-Trip Regrets

Episode Date: February 10, 2026

A laid-back, funny chat about the irresistible power of H-E-B tortillas—so good they’re banned from the house. The hosts reminisce about demolishing entire packs on a Houston-to-Phoenix road trip, debating flavors and admitting that some snacks are just too dangerous to keep around.

All right, man. What's up? How much, man. It's a glorious Thursday night, isn't it? Yeah. You got those H.E.B. Tortillas over there? Hell no. I can't have them in the house, dude.

Why not? Why not? You know how damn good those things are. They are anabolic as fuck. You know, I talked about them on the last episode, and I'll never forget. We took a package, my ex-girlfriend and I, and drove from Houston to Phoenix, straight through. And I think each of us killed a whole package of those damn things.

Hold on. Now, were they the regular ones or was the southwest? Those red ones? Oh, yeah, those things are good. The web tint. Yeah. Yeah, we got one package of each and all that shit was gone. They're just so good.

Wolf through it. We were probably still in the country of Texas. Texas when we finish those. That's right. Remember that. I don't think they made it to Arizona. The nation of Texas. That's right, man.

Remember, when I called your ass up when you came down here that day, I was like, when are you leaving? You're like, oh, man, we're going to leave Friday morning. It's not a big deal. We'll make it there on plenty of time. I'm like, do you realize how big Texas is? What did J.D. say the longest three inches of your life? He did.

He did say that, didn't he? That's what he said. said when I arrived. He said it's the longest three inches of your life. Dude, we drove, we got to El Paso in five hours. I should say El Paso, since I do know how to speak Spanish, but I digress. So we got to El Paso, El Paso, there you go. In five hours. And her and I were like, shit, you know, we're in Texas. Okay. And then it was like another 13 hours. Oh, yeah. You guys made it to like, like, San Antonio by like 1 a.m. I think that's where we stopped

Yeah Like either right before or right after that Yeah I'd gotten so used to driving To Wichita Falls That's like 13 hours from Phoenix So I'm like oh What's another five hours

No no it's fucking long dude Yeah I mean I make the drive up there for the seminars From Houston to Wichita Falls And it's Oh man If I got the wife and kid and dogs It's six hours

If I buy myself I'll haul ass and I make it in five But still It's a whole, dude. I mean, dude, it's a nation. Yeah. It's the country of Texas. Don't forget it.

But, yeah, that was a fun, that was a fun time. That was a fun time. And I need more of those tortillas. I'm pretty pissed at Carl. Yeah, he picked up two packages of those and left him at the house. Asshole. I was ready for that. What would all the carnivore people say about this, man?

This is like heresy. They haven't had H.E.B. Tortillas. They haven't. They haven't. I mean. Should we talk about carnivore? Why? I don't know. Have you tried it? I've got some clients that tried to get me to do it.

Look, I'm a fat kid. We've talked about this numerous times. Same here. I can't have that shit in my house. I will eat it, eat it, eat it. And I mean, I'm in Texas. You know, I'm always surrounded by, I'm surrounded by, good tortillas, chips and salsa. I mean,

I can't do carnivore. I mean, we got great meat, but that's about it, man. I mean, you have some of the best meat in the world. Mm-hmm. But it doesn't end there is the issue. No.

No. Well, I guess we should talk about something important, huh? I mean, all that shit's important. Of course, food's important. You need it to train. Yeah.

I mean, at one point you understood that when you were 240. I was 240, man. If you guys look up the old starting strength, power clean with iron plates, that's me. I think I was actually over 240. I think I was close to 245. Was that the same day that you did the halting deadlift video? No, it was a different day.

Different day. So that was the first time I saw you. And I didn't know who the fuck you were then. So I guess it's probably a good time to introduce my guest. I'm trying this new format now. I think I'm stealing it from Rogan and all these other people. I just like talk shit to lead into the episode instead of doing the whole AM radio intro that Rip likes. Yeah, you talked about that in the last one.

Yeah, I think I like it better. It gets you warmed up at the same time. Because before me and Trent would talk for an hour and then record. Yeah. So you'd talk for an hour. I do the intro and then we'd record. And now I just talk to my guest and if shit just needs to get cut out, it gets cut out. But yeah, let me introduce your ass.

So my guest today is Josh Wells. He is the head coach at starting strength, Katie? Correct. Yep. And he is a legacy member of the WFAC. Legacy. Is that the right word for somebody who's been there from the beginning? Fuck.

Probably. I mean, it's. I think so. I mean, I haven't been there since the beginning. I mean. Well, that location, yes. Yeah, actually, yes. That location, we moved Rip from the old location to current location, yeah.

I think that would make you legacy for that location. Probably. So you're like my favorite person to get history on that building from, because you've got all the best stories. Some of which I cannot share and will not share. Yeah. You don't need to. There's certain things that got to stay in the damn circle. That's right.

I wish I had a fucking podunk gym like that when I was growing up. Dude. I swear. What the fuck did your mother let you go there? I still ask that question to this day. What's funny is both my parents and now my aunt all go there. So Carmen actually trains them. But, yeah, man, I 15-year-old, snot-nose little skinny turd rolls into this gym.

And I swear, it was like a bike. bar, dude. So back it up. How the fuck did you find this place? Because Rip isn't the advertising type. No, he's not. He's not at all. So, I mean...

To this day. He's not, no. So what happened was... So growing up in Texas, and I've told this story before, but growing up in Texas, you know, you got to play football. You know, you know... I'm going to get that mic closer to you, dude. I do.

Is this close enough for it? Okay. I'm just kidding. That sounds way better. I'll get closer to it, man. You know, Rips, the one who taught me to do this blowjob fucking mic thing. It's right in my face. Yeah, I'll just.

You're ready to have it right against your chin, Santana. So you can hear me breathe. It sounds better, dude. No, you're good. You're good. No, no, no. So, yeah, so in Texas, you know, you're going to play football. I mean, that's pretty much you do.

Wichita Falls, believe it or not, is a big soccer town too. Get the fuck out of here. Yeah, yeah, big, big soccer town. But I weighed, so it was a little over 5-8, excuse me, and I weighed about a buck 45. 5-8-1-45. Yeah, I was a skinny little turd, man. I can't even picture this. No, dude, it's terrible.

You don't want to. my wife would divorce the shit out of me if I even got under 200 pounds God bless her um no but uh yeah so I mean I'm just gonna play football so I get up there and man I suck I just absolutely suck but I'm the only person that can like snap the ball I'm a 145 pound kid and I'm gonna play center and you got old linemen that are my shit I think I'm in junior high, I think I had a guy that was 300 pounds that I had to go up against. I was like, this is ridiculous. But I did it anyways.

I was like, fuck it. This is what you do, right? So, but yeah, high school football coach goes, you're either going to play football. I mean, sorry, you're either going to do track or you're going to do powerlifting. And I'm like, fuck running. I hate that thing. so I started doing powerlifting I'm gonna say power lifting

because we actually only did one power lifting meat Um Get the fuck out Yeah we did we did only one high school of power lifting meat um But everything else was all It was all um Olympic lifting So yeah I mean you know I'm gonna go ahead

And go into this this jerk You know I'm gonna go down this rabbit hole But uh Okay Glenn Penn leg was brought in to be our weightlifting coach. This was back in the day before everyone

gets all pissy and shit. Look, I knew Glenn before Glenn was big. All right. So, Glenn and Rip used to be friends along with Kilgore, and that's Dr. Lon, Kilgore, by the way.

And we learned Olympic lifting. Well, in the summertime, the only place to do Olympic lifting was Rip's gym. That was it. So we had to go to Rips Gym to go practice this shit. So we're like, oh, fuck it. All right, let's go.

And so we get there and I'm like, fuck, man. Like I said earlier, this is a biker bar. And I'm like, God, dang, dude, what the fuck? There are legitimately strippers that used to train there. Did RIP recruit them or did they find the place? I don't know, to be honest with you. I think it might have been Cardell, the old trainer that used to be there. He might have done that.

I don't know. But, oh, my God, dude. Like, I'll never forget this. I swear, I will never forget this until the day I die. We're in there. We're training. And it's a Saturday morning. Cardell's back there with these two girls.

And this guy named Spanky. We called him Spanky. His name is Spanky. His name is Spanky. His name was Josh. But he, he's just a short, round guy. Hell of a football player, but a short round guy.

And he, he ran up to him. He goes, hey, are those strippers? Cardell just straight face just looks at him. He goes, yeah. He was, oh, man. I'd give anything to be with one of those. And one of the girls sat there in turn and she goes, I'd be bored and you'd be confused.

I'll never forget it. He just sat there, just dumb face, just like, huh? It's like, fuck, man. It was so damn funny. That was your first day there. It wasn't first day. It was the first summer we were there, but it was, God, dang, it was so much fun, man. But that place is great, man, and it's still, to this day, it is still filled with the same people that I've known for years.

Um, God dang, man. It's been, I rolled in there. I was 15. I'll be 42 this year. So, I mean, it's been a while. Been a while, man, 27 years almost. 27 years. Man.

Shit. So. And, uh, what was Rip like the first time he met him? I same. I mean, he was younger, so obviously, but, I mean, more energetic. But same damn thing, man. I mean, same rip. I actually think he's gotten softer, to be honest with you.

He really, oh, God, yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, I'll tell you this. Like the gym, the men's bathroom were filled with playboys. Great, great reading. Now, I mean, you're 15-year-old. You're looking like, you know, you're all stupid and everything. But, yeah, I mean, other than that, it was great, man.

Rip would come in there and just tell us for all a bunch of, like, weak pussies. I mean, it was great. Yeah. Dude. For as much as he makes fun of the high school football coach, he sure acts like one. He does. He does. But, I mean, he's more of, hell, I tell my members this now, I'm like, man, if I get fired from this gym, I'm fucked.

I'm legitimately fucked. because it's the only place I can sit there and be sarcastic as shit, say half the shit that I say, and not get reported to HR and get fired. I am becoming, I'm getting, I'm coming to a place where Rip is at where it's like, shit, man, like you just,

I'm unhirable. I'm unemployable. I'm unemployable, dude. That makes two of us. I mean, shit, you're like his age when you met him now. That's fucking scary, dude. You're exactly right. That's scary shit.

Yeah. Damn. I think all of us are basically unemployable at this point. Yeah, if we've been doing this long enough, yeah. Can you imagine working at like a lifetime and calling your client pussy? No. Like in front of people? No.

Well, I wouldn't put up with the bull. shit either. Right. You know, I mean, look, we've been doing this long enough that we know it works and we know it doesn't work. And, you know, people can say what they want to say, but look, you can only, you can't reinvent the wheel. I mean, that's as simple as that. Rips got this shit downy. We know it works.

You know, you can go do whatever the hell you want after the, the, the, novice linear progression, but the show fucking works. We've done it thousands of times. It's the most effective way to move. Yeah. I try to explain this to people all the time. There's just not a mass demand for moving well, unfortunately. Shit.

You watch people run. That's even more of a pain in the ass. Dude. Yeah, you need to move your mic closer, by the way. I'm getting feedback from it. That's why I'm not doing it. Lower the fucking volume then. Is there a knob?

It might be too loud. Because I'm hearing myself at a certain volume. How about that? Mango, before what I just said, mango is my code word for we fuck something up. Gotcha. Yeah, no, it's supposed to be like close to your fucking mouth, dude. This is as close as I can get it.

Is that better? Yeah, now you sound clear. Ain't that something? Ain't that a bitch? Ain't that a bitch. Yeah, dude, you put me to sleep over there with that low-ass fucking volume. Well, fuck, it's shit. What, nine, ten o'clock, or it's ten o'clock at night here?

It's nine here. So you train there as a youth athlete. Yeah. Then at some point, by the grace of God, you became a man. I became a man in Rips Gym. Prematurely. God, man. Like, had I been exposed to half the shit that I was at Rips Jim earlier?

I mean, I don't know. Things would have been different, man. Like, I mean, I've got a five-year-old son right now. And I'll look at him and I see myself, like just scared, never want to be wrong. I want to be outside. Like, just, like, just. Yeah. Want to be with my parents.

You know, I don't want to get away from that safety of my parents, that shit. And it's like, damn, had I been exposed to rip when I was six? I'd have probably been in jail. I mean, you know, you just don't give a shit. And you just, you see the shit that people deal with all the time. And it's like they put up with so much bullshit. And they don't say anything about it. It's like, dude, just who cares?

Get rid of it, you know? So stand up for yourself. Stop putting up with the shit. Yeah. A lot of it is generational, too. Of course. We are considered a protected generation if you go dive deep into people who study that sort of thing. So we've ended up with a bunch of pussies.

And it's still not nearly as bad as those younger than us in the later cohorts. Yeah. But it just is a result of the boomer generation going crazy and doing all sorts of fucking shit and then making all the shit they did illegal and deciding that their kids needed to be protected. Yeah. So now I don't know what's happening. You know, at some point it swings the other way, I suppose. I mean, there's still some hope out there. I mean, I'm seeing some of the younger kids that are, but it's too early to tell.

It really is. It's too easy to tell. A good chunk of them don't drink, which in some ways it's good, but the reasoning behind it isn't the reasoning we'd like. No. It's more fear-based. Yeah. Not education-based. Like, Max's girlfriend didn't drink because she cared about health and all those things.

She wasn't afraid of alcohol. She'd give her some and she'd drink it, you know, that kind of thing. But there's a lot of fear around things now. And it ends up being something that shows up when these people land in front of us. and I'm sure you've seen it. I see it all the time. It seems like every episode is about this where I have people running into fear

when it gets hard and they want to get the fuck out. And I went around in circles with the guy today. He's a fan of the show. I did a whole episode on this, dedicated to him. And then the motherfucker, and I don't care if you're listening,

he still found another excuse. Well, everything your guest said was good except I'm different because X, Y, and I'm like, no, no, you're not, dude. You forget that I've coached thousands of people. I've seen people in your situation times 10. And the decision making is the differentiating factor. Right.

You got to get through the fucking fear. That's why I think lifting is unique to other activities because when you, well, specifically lifting heavy. We're not talking about eights and tens here. No. That has its own challenges. But, you know, lifting five reps or less, when it's that heavy, it elicits a fear response, your fight or flight kicks in, whether you want it to or not. You still experience it. I still experience it. And if you learn how to overcome that, I feel like that shows up in other areas. You start feeling that and you're like, okay, I'm going to do it anyways because that's what you do.

Yep. And that's been lost. Of course. I mean, that's been lost. That's why I said, like, I see it in some of the younger, like some of those kids, my son's age, I see. see it where they're like, oh man, this kid's no fear whatsoever. Kids ready to go. He's just going to see what happens. And then I see my son and I'm like, like I said, I see a mirror image of me because I was

scared about everything. And I mean, shit now, I mean, now that I'm old and broken, you know, it's like you talk about lifting. You know, I thought about this. Oh, God. When Carl was, Carl came and stayed with me for two months, I got back under. underneath 500. It's been a while since I've been underneath 500 on squat.

And it's like, screw it. It feels heavy as shit, but let's take it for a ride. You know what I mean is what it is. Yeah. And you felt that adrenaline, right? Well, hell yeah. I mean, that never goes away. No.

No. I mean, it's, I forget, like, for the, 20 plus years of doing Olympic lifting, I forget what it's like to step up on stage and throw a heavy-ass load overhead. I forget. But, you know, sitting there in the gym and there's a whole bunch of people

and they're watching you do 500 on squat. I mean, yeah, granted, it's not that much compared to the people we fucking know. It's fine. But when you haven't done it in a long time, of course. Fuck, it's scary, but shit, you're going to put on a damn show.

you're either, A, you're going to fail epically or B, you're going to stand back up, but then people are going to go, holy shit. You know, it's fine. And this is where the online shit is really fucking things up. And not just in one area, in multiple areas, you know, I think in career business, but especially training. People got their home gyms now because it's all about saving time. And then they're working at home. And when you don't have a bunch of motherfuckers there, not necessarily to hold you accountable. You know, if you have a home gym and you show up, and that is great.

It's a whole other thing to do the hard thing that you're afraid of and put 100% in. Right. And I've always done it on my own in gyms, you know, with people there until recently. My own gym, I'm training at night. I'm kind of like rip. I'm by myself. And it takes a lot to fucking dig into that. I'm able to do it because I had the experience. Now, when people are there, that changes everything.

and I try to tell these guys all the time I'm like, you know, it's good to have your home gym. I know you need time, but you should get in somewhere where people are lifting more than you. I miss having people that are squatting a lot more than me in the gym. Oh, hell yeah. I don't have that right now, you know. Hell yeah.

I mean, that was... Go ahead. First time I went for a 405 squat, this was 10 years ago, the owner of the gym, and he wasn't even the strongest guy there. I'd seen way bigger lifts than this. He fucking did a triple or a set of five as a one. warm up with the weight I was about to try and max out with. And then I took it for a ride, you know, I'm like, shit, well, I got to do it. This guy just fucking tripled it in front of me.

There were guys benching it, you know, several feet away. When I moved to Arizona, there were several guys benching close to five, and I'm sitting there struggling and deadlift it. And I think it was, it's very crucial in those earlier years when you first start, you know, especially. It never, it's never not valuable, but it's very valuable when you're, new to that experience, you know? Oh, yeah. That's what I was going to say is the benefit of getting into Olympic weightlifting what I did, there were guys, like you met Schlegger, you met Justin Slager.

Probably. Looks like juggernaut. Okay. No neck. I mean, his neck and his trap all go into his head. You know, it's just, it's literally. Yeah. Yeah.

So, yeah. I've got him who was. He was, oh man, I think he won state and powerlifting. Another guy, Brett Croslin, state and powerlifting. And these guys were all heavier with me. I started off at like 69 freaking kilo weight class. I was tiny. That's the little guy.

I got up to 77, but every day we went into the gym, weight class didn't fucking matter. Didn't matter. Nobody cared about weight classes. We were like, what do you live? I'm going to beat you today. And it didn't matter. I remember there was a time at which we had this guy named Damon Fox. And he was our super heavyweight.

Strong-ass dude. Not flexible as shit, but strong-ass dude in the Olympic weightlifting. And we were going to do push jerks. And no, no, no, take that back. Push press. and you miss you're out and everybody we started off i think it'd make 100 kilos and at the time i weighed i was 70 either 77 or 85 kilo lifter at the time i got up to a hundred and twenty seven and a half kilos and nobody else like me and damon

that was it. That was all, we were it. I think Damon ended up beating my ass at like 135, but I was like, shit, man, like this is cool. You know, we're all, we're all sitting there seeing what we can all push for us. I mean, that was cool shit, but that environment, that competition just really drove at home like, fuck, who cares? Let's just go. Let's have fun. There's fear there, but you're showing off. You're trying to beat your, your buddy and all that other stuff, so. Yeah, I miss that shit, man. I don't know what happened.

I ended up swimming in high school. And that's where all the, it's for all the gay kids. I was, but now it's, dude, Eddie Hall was a swimmer. Exactly. When we were in high school, you were gay because you wore fucking speedo briefs, you know, little boxer briefs, speedos. And now they were fucking, I think, shorts, like spandex shorts, pants in some cases.

The pants were, they made shark skin pants my senior year. and it was for special races. But last time I watched a swim competition, they were wearing the stuff down to their knees. But back in my day, and we were young boys, you know, 14 years old. And like, I don't want to shoot my legs, bro. You know?

So I actually didn't swim my freshman year. I didn't swim until I was 15 because of that. Like, I didn't want to get in the damn speedo. Then when I was 15, this kid in my neighborhood decided to do it. his second year also, so then I kind of followed along. I'm like, okay, you know, let's go. And I did that and the, you know, I liked water. I liked swimming.

It's cool, you know, so it is something I liked. But I did like the lifting. That was my first exposure to the weight room, but it's not, nothing like what you're talking about. He wanted us all doing 15s for everything. The bench press was the pyramid, which rips that everybody was doing. Pretty much, yeah. So like the bench press was the only thing I cared about because it was the only thing

that got somewhat heavy. And every year the pyramid went up because of puberty most likely, not because of the damn program. But before all that, I used to go to the Y. My father lived in the Y. You know how some people can live there?

Yeah, he lived in the Y. Let me ask you, was the Glenn Penley, your father? Because Glenn lived there as well. You know this, right? Did he live in the fucking Y. Fuck, yeah, he did, dude. He was homeless at the time, and he actually hung out in the fucking Y or like wait for the wait for him to close and like sleep there.

So my father, he had a job. He was a machinist. He made money. He was in Chicago. But he liked living in hotels because he got the maid service. He was a single man. So the maid cleaned up his room. That's what he liked.

So he lived at the Y. It was like an upgrade from one of the motor ends that he lived at before. And again, he was never homeless or in a sketchy situation. He just wanted the maid service. service. Yeah. So when he was at the Y, that was my first exposure to, like, a gym like what you're describing. The one in Chicago was pretty grungy.

It was in the basement of the Y, old building, you know, stone block walls. And then all that old white 1980s equipment, you know, remember that? Yep. Sure do. And there were some big motherfuckers in there. But they wouldn't let me work out because I was under, I think I was under the age of 16 or something. It couldn't lift because I was, they wanted you to be a certain. so but I can watch.

So I'd sit there and watch and just put me on the parallel bars. He's like, well, you can't do a dip. Just hold the lockout position until I'm done my set. Oh, shit. Yeah, and that's what I did. So I cannot wait to get into a fucking wait room. Then you'd hear all the bullshit about, oh, it's going to stunt your growth. You know, my stepbrother was terrified of it.

I think I kind of believed it, but I didn't care. I still wanted to do it. So believe it or not, I did a lot of cycling until I got into a weight room. I wrote a One of those dinos Remember those? Yeah Yeah

But I rode long distances on it And understand that Hey this thing's a trick bike So I rode it everywhere That's probably why I did decent Squatting years later Because I was fucking riding that thing For miles and miles and miles

And there's a great bit of knee flexion there You know, knee extension Yeah So I was always bottom heavy When I ended up competing and swimming And to the point where if I put the thing between my pull boy is the thing they put between their legs and just pull

I would get lapped by people out beating races and swimming is not a lower body activity no so yeah I just I didn't get it man like all the guys had skinny legs and big shoulders and I was the opposite yeah I've already had leg musculature and I now I look back and I'm like well I'm riding a fucking trick bike for long distances so I probably hypertrophied my fucking thighs you know Yeah. Then when I got out, I had to learn how to do something. I picked some stuff up from my stepbrother. He actually played football at a different high school.

And at that point, we were reading the magazines, man. And he was more on the like men's health, men's fitness, all that bullshit. And they were like pushing periodization and hypertrophy. I guess now they call it hypertrophy. Back then I don't know what they called it. I don't remember shit. Dude, I don't know. Those magazines dialed it down.

They would never make it heavy. It was all about six to 12 reps. And that's why Rip always called it, you know, muscle and fiction and shit, you know, because it wasn't the shit they were actually doing. Well, it was worse than the health magazines. Yeah. The muscle and fiction at least had big compounds. Maybe not a squat, but they had your leg pressing and hack squatting.

Like they had something in there that had to get heavy. Yeah. Benching, you know. But when you'd go into these fitness magazines, It was like the precursor to this corrective exercise physical therapy bullshit where they'd have you do like a rep and a half. You know, like do one and a half reps. Remember those? Yeah.

Yeah. So bench one and a half reps and do sets of 12 and then do the lateral raise with one arm at a time. And like just weird shit that was even weirder than what bodybuilders were doing. Right. And the tempos and all this shit just didn't really work. And then there was one program I fished out of there where there. there was a strength phase. And that was the first time something worked because the reps got down to four.

And I remember I'm like, oh, shit's actually moving now. And then I read Arnold's book and followed the beginner program there. And the same thing. There were sets of four, I think, in there, sets of four to six. And funny enough, my stepbrother, when he was diving into shit, I remember him telling me, well, if you want size, you got to do five sets of five. This was back in 2001. Damn.

So this shit has been around forever, you know. It really has. And it stayed in my mind for years, but I didn't really grab onto it until it was like 27. My stepbrother knew. When were you 27? What year? 2011. Yeah.

I think I did starting strength in 2013, but I did versions of that type of training the year before. So 2012. Gotcha. Right before my 28th birthday, I started going a little heavy. beer. Gotcha. I started pressing when I was 26. Okay.

I didn't really press. I didn't know how. Arnold said to clean at first. I didn't know how to clean. I thought that you used your arms for that. And I'm like, everybody still does. Even half the Olympic lifters I know still use their fucking arms.

I mean, at least I had enough sense to not do it. I'm like, this is not going to serve me any purpose. But I didn't think, hey, maybe I could just press out of the fucking rack. Yeah. No, instead occasionally I would do it on that seated fucking station that everybody likes to use.

And then somebody told me, don't go all the way down because you're going to tear your rotator cuff. So I'd just go down to my chin and do a partial. I mean, you got something in, I guess, you know? I did something. I didn't really start training overhead until I was 26. Damn. Yeah, 25. No, 25.

Is that right? Yeah, 25 was when I started doing overhead. Imagine if you just started taking overhead. years earlier. I know, dude. Tell me. Dude, I was a fucking swimmer, bro. It pisses me off that the

motherfucker didn't think to have us press. You know what he had us do? I don't like, you know, I'm a little bit being too harsh because I like my swim coach. He's fucking cool. He posts awesome stuff on Facebook. His head's in the right place. He just ain't a strength coach. Exactly.

So I'm mad at the process. I'm mad at the shit he learned. I'm not mad at him. Because he was a version of Rip. He was really fucking cool. You know, he threw fucking poolboys at me, did other shit that would get him fired today. Didn't fuck me up in any way, people. I think it helped, you know. Yeah.

He just didn't, he didn't understand lifting. And, you know, I should get him on the damn show. You should, man. Because, yeah, I think I'm going to try and do that. Because I think he kept coaching for another 20 years, I think. I don't know when he retired, probably 15 to 20 years more. but when I joined the team

he had only been at that high school for what was this 99 so six years and before that he was at a Catholic high school in the city that had a bigger program, more money and higher talent so he had three state rings there at that school

and knowing what I know now from Rip that can give you a false sense of confidence as a coach because you're working with the best talent all the time. Right. When he went to our program it was a public high school further out in the suburbs smaller program less money and he had some talent in the first few years but a lot of the guys had a lot of work ethic they had to outwork people that were more talented than them so he didn't have this big talent pool that he was used to so he just

did what a lot of sport coaches do in different different uh in different sports just threw more at you You know, like, well, just do more freestyle, you know, endless yards of freestyle. Yeah. And I think after I graduated, he was forced to learn because I interviewed him for a class once. I took a coaching class, my master's. And I started asking him questions, and he was telling me the difference between being a 20-year-old coach to a 30-year-old, 40-year-old, 50-year-old, right? And I think after probably either after my cohort or the cohort after mine, he started getting even lower talent. and it forced him to have to figure shit out.

Yeah. But we didn't get into lifting talk, but the thing that always bothered me was that it was very clear to me that I wasn't strong enough to do what I needed to do in the water, and I wasn't athletic enough to offset that, right? I think when I tested my vertical, it was 24, so it's just slightly above average. You know, it's not impressive.

So I have to offset that with strength the grip talks about. Yeah. Right? So what would happen was I would swing. him and I put the pull boy on, I'd get lapped. And then he'd say that I was slacking off. Sometimes he was right, but a lot of the time he wasn't, I just had weak fucking shoulders, you know, weak shoulders.

My triceps got stronger, and you would see it. They hypertrophied in high school. My pecks hypertrophied in high schools because we were doing benches. But we did nothing overhead. We did nothing to target the shoulder at all. We just benched. We did behind the neck lap pull downs. So we worked some shoulder extension, I guess.

and machines, tricep extensions, reverse biceptials that everybody skipped. Some guys did LTEs or, no, the standing overhead extension was the favorite. We didn't actually do LTEs. People like doing the standing straight bar

overhead extension. But no pressing of any kind. No pressing of any kind. And then when he wanted to work on power, he had us doing pliometrics. Remember when that was popular? Oh, hell yeah. Hell yeah.

And I'm like, why weren't we one's clean or snatches, you know. Too technical. Yeah. Like it didn't even cross his mind. I'm like, you know, that when you jump off of a starting block, it's quite similar to a fucking snatch. Yeah. I mean, it made me, you just reminded me like when I was going through my, um, internship.

I did an internship at TCU. And, man, I thought it was funny shit that like all the quarterbacks, pitchers, everybody who who was the thrower basically they did all this stupid shit but they didn't overhead press. And I was just, I was like, why?

Why would you not? I was like, oh, they do so much work on throwing with their shoulders. We don't want to trash their shoulders. And I'm like, and like these are some really, really smart guys. Like I'm not kidding you. Like, it was a pleasure. to work with the TCU strength and conditioning coach when I did. Some really, really smart guys.

But I was just dumbfounded. I'm like, why? And at the time, I was still, shit, I was going through my master's program. And, God, I'm trying to remember how old I was, 22, 23, something like that. And I couldn't believe it, but I was just like, damn, like, these guys are supposed to be smart. they're supposed to be like ahead of the curve here. Why aren't they doing this? And I'm like, why just don't want to injure their shoulders?

And I'm like, but you're not. Like, you're getting the shoulders stronger. Like, I don't understand this, you know? I don't know, man. Like, none of them work there anymore. So they haven't for years, but it's fun. But, you know. But still, those guys, it was just, it was my first exposure to that.

And I was just like swimming, it makes sense. You know you saying it. It's like, oh, well, you're not going to do overhead press because you're doing so much shoulder work. We don't want to injure it. And it's like, that's not the case. It's not what's going to happen, guys. I would have probably swam faster. I don't know.

You got too much hair. Well, we all grew our hair up there is to add drag. Usually you think I have a lot of hair now. We used to not cut our hair for like six months, which was a long time for high school kid. then we'd bleach it at the end. Mine was orange because it's so damn dark. I never got it white. I could never get the, what do they call that?

The bleached white hair. Yeah. I was never a bottled blonde. Yeah, I used to be. Way, way back when, way back when. Now it's like all gray or falling out. Yeah, I read something about why blonde hair is considered a truce. attractive to a man.

And what I found was that it is a indicator of youth because as you get older, it's less blonde. Yeah. So there you go. There you go. A woman is a natural blonde. She's probably young. Well, I mean, yeah, I guess so. She's not going to teach you anything about anyways, who cares?

That's right. But every time I hear about blonde hair changing color, I remember that. I remember that random fact. Yeah. So, but yeah, man, like, that always killed me. I wonder how much faster I would have been impressed because I was not, I did not win the genetic lottery for swimming. I'm too short. My arms are long for my height, which is why I did decently.

And I'm not a muscular person either. So for certain, like the breaststroke, the guys tend to be more jacked. Yeah. Because there's more resistance in the water when you're doing a. breaststroke versus a freestyle butterfly or backstroke. You have more external resistance. You have to have strong adductors, strong pecks, strong forearms, triceps.

So the guys tend to be very top-heavy when you go to the state meets. They're just jacked dudes. They're doing breaststroke. So I don't have any of this shit going for me. And when you're mediocre talent trying to perform better, you've got to offset with other attributes that contribute to it indirectly or less directly, right? strength being the most fundamental one. And while we did focus on arms,

you know, tricep work and peck work, he didn't think that we needed to spend time overhead other than, but we pulled overhead, which made no sense. You have to pull overhead, but you don't push overhead. Yeah. And I think it goes to what you're saying about fear about shoulder injury back in that era. It was like impingement, impingement, you know? Yep.

So I tell all swimmers they've got to get their damn press up. You know, it's huge. There's an old client in mine. I think he's a listener. He sends me a message here and there. He was a swimmer. I think he did it all the way to the college level and he continued swimming in the military.

And I think he was swimming when I trained him at some capacity. Yeah. And he got his boys into it. And he was big on the press for the same reason. But yeah, I felt it, man. Like I could not pull fast. Like I needed my legs in a sport that doesn't require your legs to do much. Yeah.

Yeah. I did davell in swimming some. I never swam competitively, but like I was, there were some times where I was like, I'll just go be a lifeguard for the summer or whatever. And ironically, in New York, we, the company we worked for up there, they were like, oh, yeah, hey, you guys are going to,

you guys are going to do a New York City Marathon, but I bring this up because I'm not a runner. However, I did get with an awesome swim coach there. This woman has actually swum, She has swam around the island of Manhattan continuously, and she's done the English Channel. And so I got to work with her, and she's like, you know, I was taught, you know, pull yourself through the water. Pull yourself through the water. I'm like, okay, you know, that's, I was taught, you know.

And she goes, look, make a fist and swim with fist. I'm like, what the hell? Wait, what? I swear to God, dude. It's most bizarre shit in the world. You learn swimming in those fists. Like make a fist and swim like that. And I was like, what the hell?

And she goes, just trust me on this. I was like, okay. So I did it. And I was like, oh shit. Because like it, you know, usually I was like, I was taught, you know, don't make a splash. Make your hand come in and then pull yourself through the water. And she was. Open hand.

Yeah. She was like, you know, don't do that. And I'm like, what do you mean? She goes, can you move fast? master on top of the water or underwater. I was like, on top. And she goes, okay. So make a fist.

And she sit there and put yourself on top of the fucking water. And I was like, okay. I swear to God, dude, it was the most bizarre shit in the world. But I did it. And I was like, wow. Because let it be known. I do not float. Even with a 3mm fucking wet suit, I do not float.

I imagine you don't. I sink still in a fucking wetsuit, man. But I was just like, this is some bizarre shit. But, dude, my arms were tired of shit. Was it a drill? It was a drill. It was a drill. It was a drill.

Just to prove a point that, to prove a point that, hey, look, use your arms to sit there and keep your ass on top of the damn water, not to sit there and pull yourself through the water. I was like, okay. It worked, man. I was like, holy shit. It was crazy. workout, man. Oh, dude, it sucks so bad. Oh, God, it sucked. Man. What fuck did you end up in New York?

Jobs, man. So, I mean, you know, this goes back to shit, man. Let's see, I started off in Wichita Falls. There's no work in Wichita Falls. Did an internship at TCU for a year and a half, and then move back to Wichita Falls.

my current my now wife i said you say not current wife but my now wife she'll kill me um her and i've been that means he's only had one i've only had one wife and there's only going to be one she'll kill you or kill me one of the two um but you know she she was in rips gym for a while and then she moved off we both moved back and then we're both i mean wishville falls there's not much opportunity there for what we do. So we met up with some people in Wichita Falls and caught us jobs in New York City of all places in New York City. So we did barbell training up in New York City. We were the first ones to do starting strength camps up in New York City. And, you know, Patrugio, John and Rory, and then Nick Diagicino, all those guys at Wool.

full for all those guys. Hell, I think that was the first time we ever met Carter, too. That's funny. And then went down to North Carolina and now we're back in Texas. So, I mean,

it's been, we've been everywhere. It's been crazy. I've noticed. She hadn't been on the West Coast. Thank God. Oh, you're not missing much. No.

No. Except here. This isn't the coast, though. No, you're in Arizona. I don't wrap it in it. Arizona's cool. I guess. I mean, at least you have a bunch of outdoor shit you can do.

It's too fucking hot here and humid. Swampy. It gets fucking hot as fuck here, but not humid. No, I mean, it's like Wichita Falls. I mean, Wichita Falls gets hot, but but not humid. It's humid compared to here. You're a desert. Yeah, I started in Illinois, man.

Yeah. So I started in Chicago. Then I went deep in Illinois near Missouri, Iowa. Then briefly back to Chicago, then Ohio briefly, then L.A. And then here. And yeah, similar trajectory. Yeah. Well, I thought it'd get more experience in a city, which is true.

You know, volume. You see more things. Shit, yeah. Yeah. I had a client of mine. Yeah. When we got offered the like jobs in New York City, I was like, dude, this is one of the places I absolutely do not want to live. I was like even, I remember like one of my last classes in college.

It was like, you know, three places you want to live and three places you don't want to live. Dude, number one, New York City, don't want to live. Fuck, man. One of the guys I was training, though, at Rips Gym, he was a musician. And I was training his son too, and he goes, man, he goes, you got an opportunity to live in New York City and work there. And I'm like, yeah, he goes, do it. I was like, why? And I was like, I have no desire to go to a big city like that.

I've been there before. I was like, I don't want to go back. He goes, no, if you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere. That's what they always say. So, you know, it's cliche, cliche, yeah. But at the same time, like, Shelley and I, man, we worked our ass. off. We found out what we were worth.

And dude, we just, we did our thing and we made a living and made a name. And fuck, man, I, I, as much as we hated it, it was the best damn thing we could have done.

It really, really was. Because, dude, we were living paycheck to paycheck, fucking scrounging quarters around us to try to get on the subway and shit. we hustled. We worked at, we had our main job. We worked from 5.30 in the morning until about 3 o'clock in the afternoon. And then we'd have clients that'd call us up so we might have to come back for a couple hours and work there.

But, I mean, we were salary. We didn't get hours, extra hours for the shit. But then we'd also work at Crossfits. Then we'd do barbell camps across in New York. and do we hustled. And it was great. It was a great experience, man. So what was it like trying to teach this stuff out there in that era?

So this would have been what, 2010s? So we moved up there in July of 2011. And we were left in, we left in 2013. So, yeah. Man, this was actually a cross. FIT blowing and going, which was great because he got barbells in people's hands. But, you know, starting strength, rib veered off from CrossFit in 2010. So starting strength was, I mean, it was, it was rocking.

I remember, like, going to CrossFit's and, like, telling them what we did. And they were just like, man, let's, let's do. this. I'm like, okay, you know, and have people come in and they're like, hey, teach me to a squat and deadlift. I'm like, you know, 150 bucks. And I'm like, they're like, oh, shit, you want, you want cash, you want card. I'm like, you're not balking at this at all. I'm like, oh, shit, okay. Right. So then, you know, we bumped the prices up to like 225, 275 for an hour. And people were still like, sweet, here you go, you know. They wanted to learn it, man. we, Shelly and I actually talked about this before we left New York where we were doing camps that would sell out in two weeks.

Rip, you know, Ripwood originally started off, started off charging, I think, $185 for a camp. And we're like, dude, this is too cheap. And he's like, all right, well, let's go $2.25. I think we ended up stopping at like $2.75. I don't remember. But we'd still, we'd put it up. And in two weeks, it's sold out. These damn things would sell out like crazy

New York was a Oh my God It was a hot spot for all this shit man I mean You had so many starting strength coaches up there So many people wanting the stuff It was great It was absolutely great

We would have stopped our other jobs And just done camps Every other weekend And we would have made more money It was crazy Crazy time man It was fun though it's fun doing that so at the beginning of it and then shit then after that you know

just new york yeah you burn out dude i did experience in l-a um it's crazy so i met rip around that time in that window and went to the gym the first time and i remember there was a lot of crossfit uh members that would come in people that were doing crossfit and or either we're at a box or we're doing it at home, but there was a lot of cross-fit in the demographic that I would see at these seminars. And then at some point, it morphed in old fuckers. Yeah.

Yeah. And before I kind of go down that, the other thing I noticed, I've told this story many times, but when I went to the gym the first time, it was a December 2013 seminar. And I wanted to do one at the gym because he used to travel and do the seminar in different cities back then.

But I wanted to go to the gym because I was very impressed with everything he put out. And I liked his videos and I wanted to see his gym. So I went there and I had come across his material in probably bodybuilding forums. I think I actually found a YouTube video of him teaching the press of all lifts. So I tweaked my neck in 09 dumbbell pressing on a chair, you know, one of those chairs at the Globo Gym. Probably I had the wrong way, couldn't turn. Yeah. And then I'd had that recurring injury when later on I tried to do barbell stuff.

And I tried to find a press video. And imagine in 2013 trying to find a press video. Like you couldn't find it. You type in press, you'd be bench press, you know? Or like these videos that didn't make sense. I could not find a good instructional video on the press. And I find his, and he's at a CrossFit box. I don't know that it's a CrossFit box because I'd never been to a CrossFit box.

That was one fat I didn't jump on. So he just looked pretty legitimate. I'm like, ooh, colored plates, bars, stands everywhere, you know? Like, I'm like, looks like he's at a fucking legit, fucking, you know, sport gym, like a strength conditioning gym. And then he started explaining it in his rip kind of way. And I'm like, well, this guy's smart too. You know, it all makes sense.

So I started doing it. And then I started looking at other videos for other lifts, trying to simulate it. And then I hurt myself doing it wrong. And then I put a video on his board. And he told me I was fucking it up in his sarcastic kind of way. And then I hired a coach, got tuned up, then got hurt again, went to the seminar hurt. And then he found a way for me to do shit. And anyhow, I'm sitting there and I look around.

First, I see some of the members there, people that you've known for years at that point. And everybody's not a bodybuilder. Nope. You know. But people are lifting some big. weights, you know. So I'm like, what the fuck's going on here? You know, I saw like an old fucker, a young fucker, a kid, you know, a woman. Like I saw all sorts of different people. They're lifting. And not everybody was necessarily weak, but not insanely strong either.

The one that stood out to me was when I was at the seminar. You had some crossfitters with that, you know, more, I guess, athletic bodybuilder, like physique, you know. But then this guy comes in. He's an SSC now. Dave Abduly out in Chicago. And at the time he uh she a chubby guy you know didn't really have big arms like skinny arms at the time i wouldn't say skinny just didn't really have big arms you know just look like whatever look like a chubby dude and uh you know he starts loading the bar up and we're all lifting we're doing our squats and then all of a sudden my buddy that's with me you know he he's not he doesn't do what we do but he's into lifting he was a swimmer i met him through the he was in the rival swim team and i'd say

he was probably more athletic than me And, you know, he's lifelong lifter and he was really getting into this at the time. He's like, starts tapping me in the arm. He's like, dude, look at that fucking guy. And then it turned around, he's squatting like 500 for five or something like that, right? And I think he's squatted over six. So that sounds about right. Somewhere around 500 for five.

And I'm like, what the fuck? And I'm like, okay, I guess he's got big legs. But then later he's pressing like over two for five. He's benching over three for five. And the guy just didn't look like a bodybuilder. Right. And that was the first time it dawned on me that I wasn't getting all the information. Yep.

You know? Because I wasn't convinced that. You know, some guys would answer that by saying, well, you know, if you train for strength, you don't get bigger. And that's bullshit. That didn't even cross my mind. I'm like, something is missing. There's a piece of information missing here that I don't have. And the years that followed, and I spent time with RIP and other coaches and writing stuff and reading stuff and conversations.

I figured out that, oh, you know, there's a big genetic component to that, to bodybuilding. There's nothing to do with training. No. And, you know, the types of drugs and the amount of drugs influence, you know, how people look. So what Rip did a good job of is what he wants to do a good job of, what he takes pride in is dispelling this notion that, you know, you're going to train for appearance. You know, appearance is a side effect, and that side effect varies from one human being to the next. You know, everybody's going to look better than they did. look more muscular than they did,

but this whole idea that you're going to take a man's body in a magazine photo and reproduce that through training and diet. I wouldn't have learned that if it wasn't for all this shit, you know? No, you're exactly right. And I wouldn't have either. And, you know, that was one of the things, being a small kid in Texas, you know, I grew up around all these guys that were way bigger than me. And I'm like, shit, man, like, I want to be like that.

I mean, shit, you remember growing up watching, God, what, Commando, Predator, all the fuck, dude, all that shit, man. You're like, yeah. Well, he goes on to the enemy island in a speedo brief. And then he gears up when he's on the island. Right. Not when he's in the airplane. He has to ride the rowboat in a speedo and then gear up where they can actually get him.

Because that's what you would do, right? Yeah, right. I mean, you know, we grew. up watching all that shit and it was like shit man i want i want to look like that you know and yeah you can't do that when you're 5-8 and a buck 50 you know i mean it's just it's not gonna happen you know so you know and i god yeah chase trying to chase that and then when you're that small you know and you're playing football your o line you get picked on and everything and it's just like shit man like what am i going to

to do, you know, and found Olympic weightlifting and actually got good at it. And I was like, well, shit, all right. You know, I think my best squat weighing about 185 was right under 500 pounds. Nice. I pulled 500 weighing that and shit, I snatched. Shit, what was my best snatch at weighty 5K? Like 125 kilos, clean injure. 275.

I clean and jerked, actually I clean and jerked 155 kilos at 85. Nice. Yeah. And I mean, like, it's funny as like when you throw that stuff around, I mean, I wasn't a big guy. I was 185 pounds. I was 11% body fat.

Yeah, I actually got down to that, believe that or not. You had abs. I always had abs because I got so much damn visceral fat. But. At one point, you weren't a fat kid. No, dude, I have to show you pictures sometime, man. I was tiny, man. When Shelley met me, oh, my God, I was tiny.

But yeah, I was 85K. I was, my best clean and jerk, or my best total was like 2.97 and a half. That was when I qualified for Junior Worlds. And, yeah, I was funny as like, I was not big. I was not big at all. I was strong, but I was not big. And I had guys, I remember, in high school guys that were like,

they wouldn't fuck with me. Like, I stopped getting bullied when I was squatting, you know, over 400 pounds, weighing 185 pounds. People are like, fuck, maybe I shouldn't fuck with him. I didn't know what the hell I was going to do if they did, you know, but whatever. They didn't know that shit.

So, yeah, I mean, it was, it was kind of fun. I was like, damn, this is cool, you know. But like you, you know, if we didn't look the part, we were just like, well, shit, man, this is, you know, we're fucking this up. That's how it was, dude. You got fucked with. Yeah. Man, those movies were so damn.

Do we watch, we watched, what was it, Predator Badlands? And it's just, movies, it's not that great. But, in fact, it's terrible. But however, it just made me think of, yeah, it's a new one. But. Arnold was Arnold in it? No, fuck, no. I wish you would.

It would have made it better. They fucking teased us with Arnold cameo or some shit. It's just It just made me think of all the other Arnold movies. Actually, Carl made me watch Blade Runner again when he was here.

It's so good. We watched the new one, too. It's not as good. It's not as good, no. It's not bad, though. I was surprised. It was a different spin on it, but it was not,

it's not Arnold, man. It's not Arnold. You're talking about the Running Man. Oh, Running Man. That's right. That's right. It's right. Not Blade Runner.

You know, the new Blade Runner. It wasn't bad. The new Blade Runner is really good. But no, the... Ryan Gosling? Yeah, that was pretty good. That was pretty good. No, the running man.

It wasn't really. They put Arnold in the bill. Do you see that? No, I don't remember that. He was on the currency, yeah. Oh, shit. I completely missed that shit. I saw a part of it and I was just like, wait a second.

And I just... Yeah, that was an Easter egg. Damn. No, that... Dude, those movies were so bad. They were good. They were so bad. So bad.

But it was Arnold. Nobody cared. It was just like it was showcasing Arnold and the rest of the crew, like, you know, with Jesse Vinci the Body Ventura. Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. Those guys, they were awesome. I got no time to believe.

And Carl Weathers. Carl Weathers was a, that dude was so jacked. Yeah, dude. Even Rocky, he was. Oh, so jacked. So jacked, man. But, you know, when you read stuff that those guys were doing, And they would talk, like, you know, their programs would over-trained the average person, but they would talk about the weight getting heavier.

So, like, I remember, well, Arnold talks about it in his book. Yeah. You know, if you kill the 70-pound barbell, then go to 110, you'd buy a size to bigger, you know. But then, like, Stallone got trained by Colombo for Rambo, the second Rambo, the sequel, the first blood. Yep. And he said that he was doing 60s, and then he got to set. 70s or 75s by the end of the program, you know, and that put it in my head, I'm like, the weight has to get heavier.

Oh, yeah. But then by the time that I was getting into this stuff and the exercise science was starting to, you know, sprout out from under the ground as the, you know, marathon runners that started working in academia in the 70s started slowly filtering out. The old Joe Weeder guy started filtering in the physical therapy people started filtering in. And they started publishing their research. research around the types of programs they did. Hypertrophy.

Hypertrophy. And they would say that this whole idea of it being heavier is outdated. And it's really just a way to tell people that are to work hard and to shield themselves from liability. Yeah. You know, it's fucking stupid. Oh, yeah. They just lie right to your face. Oh, yeah.

But, you know, everything I kept reading was just counter to that. You know, like, hey, eight to 12 reps and 60 to 90. 30 to 90 seconds rest. That's what I kept reading. And the old timers, because I went to a gym, like a mini, many, many version of ribs. It was at a Salvation Army that was based on signups. They let them use the space. And it had all the old powerlifting photos and trophies all over the place.

It was my first exposure to that. I was 24. And the retired professor was a power lifter and gymnast. His wife was also a power lifter and gymnast. And the guy currently teaching the class was my professor. And when I was doing all this shit That was reading out of the textbooks He's like, you're not giving yourself enough rest

You're not going to be able to go up And I'm like, well, the book says to do this I remember thinking like this man And Recycling that shit so many times Every time it got to a strength phase Things would move and I would grow Yeah

Because it became about more weight It's always about more weight Things just got stupid I don't know how or why But it got stupid because even Mr. Weeder, sorry, Mango,

even Mr. Wheater said progressive overload you had to do more. Yeah. It was a weeder principle. So, I don't know where this shit came from,

but. I mean, it's back because there was a brief period there with CrossFit where it became about performance. Yep. But then, I think around the pandemic,

this hypertrophy shit came back. Of course. I mean, when you sit at home, you've got nothing else to do. I mean, fuck, what are you going to do? Just try to drum up other shit. And you're going to dig deep in the internet and find stupid shit that doesn't fucking work. You know? No. So, I mean, I do have to say, like, I was very fortunate to find RIP when I was 15 years old. Oh, fuck, yeah, dude. And like, I mean, don't get me wrong. I've dabbled in all this other bullshit. I've done CrossFit.

Yeah. You know, I've done it. And there's a place for it. But if you want to get really fucking strong, really quick, there's nothing better than starting strength. I mean, and I'm, I know I do this for a living. You do this for a living. But at the same time, it's like, fuck people.

Like, stop spinning your wheels. and just do this damn shit. You get really fucking strong. I mean, who else is squatting and deadlifting reliably for decades and not getting seriously hurt where they can't do it? And sure, some people get hurt easier than others. You know, there's obviously outliers,

but I'm sure if we plotted all this on the bell curve, we've had the most longevity out of any group of people that has trained with a barbed bell and has tried to make it heavier. Yeah. You know, squatting 225 high every workout for 20 years. You don't count, motherfucker. You're not even squatting. No.

But, you know, power lifters, you know, they're all fucked up by the time they're 30, you know. And there's other reasons for that. Yeah, I was going to say there's other arguments. There's a multitude of reasons for that. But just think about it. I'm 42. I'm still doing this. And I'm still adding to it.

And there's other people like me in the same boat. Oh, no. Yeah. So that's where I come from with it because people forget the book is 90% on the method. The programming book is written separately for a reason. So, you know, he's developed a method to doing this shit in a way where you can keep doing this shit. You know, even his fucking broke, crippled ass finds a way to do a version of it, you know? Well, I mean, like, so my thesis study was on genetic potential to, or strength progression based on genetic potential.

And, you know, you look at most athletics, you know, everybody kind of craps out between, like, 30 and 35, right? Yeah, yep. You know, and everybody's like, well, you've met your, you know, you've hit your prime. That's just, it's all downhill from there. No, dude, that's a social,

that's a social construct, man. I mean, most people at that time end up having a career, they have families and things like that, and you don't have time to train, or you put it on the back burner anyways. It was, it's been three years, I'll be 42 this year,

but it's been three years ago. I had a lifetime PR on deadlift. I've got a wife. I've got a kid. You know, I've got a career. But I pulled, I pulled to what, 639 and change. Way in 225 or 226, sorry. I was six pounds over what RIP's best ever deadlift body weight was. So I was pissed. I'm getting close to his. But, you know, it's funny, though, because you bring on this up, and I bring that up because as long as you keep training and keep training smart, they keep trying to add a little bit of weight, you know, listen to your body and shit.

Fuck, I mean, as long as the stress is appropriate, you should still continue to gain strength. You know, I mean, there is a turning point where you're, you know, you're trying to sit there and not take weight off the bar. But, right. Fuck, we're in our 40s. No one's here to say that you can't get any stronger than you already are right now. You know, I just had a guy, our age. He's a weightlifting coach and he sublets the back of my gym. And I think he PR the clean.

Now, I think his Achilles is fucked up. I think I think his jerk PRs may be done unless he just gets real strong. But he's a, he sits at, 75 kilos. I think he competed most of his career at 72. It's 5, 5, 5, 6. I think he's going up to 80, so I think we're probably going to see PRs out of him putting that weight on. But that's a weightlifter. You know, that's an impact sport, and he's still hitting lifetime PRs. You know, this isn't, oh, I broke a master's record and I'm weaker than I was when I was younger. He's stronger than he was when he was younger. Oh, yeah.

You know, certain injuries will prevent you from doing certain things, though, for sure. But that's no joke. I do find it interesting because as you're saying that, I'm thinking, okay, well, a deadlift. I've seen that PR for 50s, 60s, you know, that motherfucker will keep going up because contrary to what people believe they're so terrified of this lift, you know, you're not in compression. The bar's in your hands. You know, it's a tension lift for the most part. So it stands a test of time over all the others. You know, you don't see a lot of big benches in the 70s and you don't see a lot of big squats in the 70s, but you do see some big deadlifts.

people were in their 70s. But then I started thinking about my buddy over here in Phoenix, he's PR and his Olympic lifts, you know, in his 40s. Now he's definitely breaking more now, though. Oh, hell yeah. Which is as to be expected. I think he tore a tricep last year to me. Shit.

And Killies was already fucked up. I tore my vastest lateralis about, oh, God, four years ago, had a partial tear going for a 170 clean-injerk. So. Yep. Yeah, is what it is. You'll probably PR that again at some point. I got to get my elbow fixed.

I can't clean shit right now, so. Yeah. Yeah, the injuries become the issue. But, yeah, the point is, yeah, the method works. We swear by it for a reason. You know, of course, we're biased towards it. But, you know, when you got 80-year-olds doing this shit and not getting hurt, you know, every day is like a year to these people. that speaks something, you know.

And that's why I'm a big fan of it. You know, all the other shit I did, it just likes to focus on the minutia that, sure, it all works in certain contexts. But when you talk to the best of the best in terms of bodybuilding or just strength training, they're going to tell you these lifts or your meat and potatoes. And I don't know why this keeps, getting argued.

Well, I know why. It gets more clicks, you know, because people don't even try to coach anymore. You got people that don't coach lifters making content and getting paid for content. So they're entertaining. And they tell people that they want to hear and they make money that way without having to actually coach somebody from novice to advance. You know, you've got these fucking bodybuilders.

And there's certain people that come to mind. And they haven't coached anybody or they haven't coached anybody in years. and when they were coaching, they were incompetent coaches. You know, they were just big dudes getting personal training clients and getting the novice effect out of whatever they threw at them, right? They didn't develop any method.

They didn't use our method. And now they're sauce to the gills with drugs and they're entertaining in front of a fucking camera and people listen to them. Never mind that they're the bottom 50% of bodybuilders. They're also not winning either. No.

You know? So that's the part that makes even funnier. also not winning. So they're not coaching. They're not winning. And yet they're experts now. So all you got to do to be an expert is just get in front of a fucking camera and talk a bunch of shit. That's everybody, man. And that's that's the shitty part about what we do is, you know, we're dealing with people that do a shirt. Back then they at least used to coach. Yeah. Or at least try to. Some semblance of it. They'd have a human in front of them. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I hear it so much where people are just like, oh, I saw this person and this person.

and I'm going to go listen to them and do this. And it's like, what are they done? Oh, well, they won this meat. And I'm like, that's one meat, dude. Like, how long have they been doing this? Who have they trained? What do they do? These people don't care.

They're just like, oh, or even better, this is probably the best one. That guy looks like I want to look. I'm going to do what he does. Oh, yeah. Oh, fuck. It drives me nuts. He don't look that way because of his training. No.

This is hard for people to comprehend. Yeah. I feel like I have to say it over and over and over again. Training will make how you look better, absolutely. Yep. But you're not going to reproduce somebody else's body through a workout or diet. Sometimes what you're looking at is drug-induced. You start doing that, you start getting certain things to happen.

Yep. You know, our tall-tail signs of drug use, that still look good. You know, drug use doesn't always look bad. You know, people just take that as a negative because, you know, the government got involved with this shit 40 years ago and there's these stupid stigmas around it. But a lot of people do drugs because they work. Every time somebody says this shit, I think about what Rip said to me. You're saying, look, people do drugs because drugs work. It's like, no shit, dude.

Yeah. I mean, the rip line that I remember is, if I owned a professional sports team, I'd fire anybody who's clean. I remember that. I definitely remember that too. God. He's such a high school fucking football coach. He is, man. It's funny, but, you know, he's not wrong, though.

I mean, that's... He's not wrong. It's, dude. It's Roman Coliseum, man, since what, you know, at what point did sports and athletics get conflated with health? Like, I remember talking to a buddy of mine. We were in Belarus at Junior Worlds competing. And he met, he introduced me to this guy who's on the French team. And I'm looking at this French guy.

And I'm like, holy shit. Like, this guy is a 94 kilo lifter. And I swear to God, if you saw him, you're like, this dude is 8% body fat, step could step on stage right now and probably to place top five no problem no fucking problem and I'm going this guy's going to compete in a 94 kilo weight class I'm like holy shit so that's 207 207 man I'm just like 8% body fat 207 I'm like holy shit that's nice and I you know fast forward oh god that was that was oh four Fast forward to

five years ago. Yeah. Talked to him and I was like, dude, like we were reminiscing stuff because a buddy of ours had passed away and we were just talking. I was like, dude, like, I got to know. Like, I was so naive back then.

I was like, how much shit was this guy on? He goes, oh, a ton of shit. I was like, but we're competing in an international level. He goes, dude, what you don't understand is these guys are micro-dosing a whole bunch of shit. I'm like, what? And it was like, the more I know so much more now, and I'm just like, God dang, like, I was stupid.

Wasn't I? I was just dumb. It's like, how can this guy look this way? And I mean, this goes back to even like the ROI. I'm like, oh, no, he's not taking anything. He's clean. No, fuck, shit. Come on.

He looks clean compared to guys now. That's what's funny. That's really scary, man. But yeah, he's just nuts. Next to guys now. It's so stupid. It's so stupid. The amount of shit these guys are taking, it's unbelievable.

Unbelievable. I remember a guy talking to me about getting on testosterone. And I was like, you know, I was like, I just, if I'm going to do this, I'm going to get on it like therapeutic. You know, I don't, I'm scared about this other shit. And he goes, if there's. room in the syringe, you're wasting the shot. And I'm like, what in the hell? I was like, are you kidding me?

Yeah, if you're using a 3-CC syringe, you need to fill. I'm like, no. What the fuck? I was like, no, hell no, man. I mean, and I was just like, holy shit. Like, I'm, this is no, uh-uh. Like, I'm scared shitless, man. So.

God, hell not. And people don't understand this bad. You know, the fucking shit works. It works. Look at 90s baseball. It's never been better. Oh, God, dude. Those motherfuckers got yoked.

They did. They did. I mean, you look at any professional sport. Any professional sport, these guys are on shit. And it works. The reason they're on it is because it works. You know, we got to get off this idea that you're going to reproduce that result naturally. No.

That's the line of bullshit I used to get, was that people did drugs because they didn't want to work. And that if you just did the hard work, you'd get to the same place. That was the implication. Have you ever known anybody to get on steroids and not do the work? Yeah, and they still grow. Yeah, but they get fat. I mean, are you talking about dudes? nothing.

Do you do nothing. I had a guy that was on my weightlifting team that did that shit and he got fat as fuck. I saw guys do nothing. They get fat. They don't change much, but their forearms still get bigger. Their traps get bigger. Certain things change just from getting on steroids. But what I thought about what you said is I would remember there were guys at the college gym that would just get fucking yoked, dude, and their workouts were bullshit.

Yeah. They were fucking bullshit. And this shit worked because you just have to lift. Because it doesn't matter what you do. No. It's like, they weren't going to win anything, obviously. Yeah.

But these gym bros, they'd come in and they'd just get fucking yoked. And I'd be like, the fuck am I doing wrong? And I kept searching for the right program. I'm glad I was naive because it all led me to rip. And then I actually did figure out how to make the human body grow without steroids.

Yeah. But when I was younger and probably stupid enough to like fuck around with some of that shit, I probably would have done it if I knew. Shit, no, man. Like, I don't know to what level. Actually, no, I'll take that back. I'll take that back.

You know why? Because there was a girl I knew, and she was at a different college in the same state. She was like maybe four hours away from me. And she was dating a guy who was on a bunch of shit. And he started explaining, this was the first time somebody started explaining to me how this works. And she could have gotten it.

for me and I was thinking about it because obviously I was curious. I lifted. And the reason I didn't do it, you're going to laugh your ass off was because I drank a lot back then, dude. I was a college kid and I didn't want to fuck my liver up. Yeah, I mean, oh man. I remember that. I forgot all about that.

Yeah, I did not want to fuck up my liver because I knew about that part of it. Yeah. And I'm like, I'm not going to stop drinking the way I do because we used to just, it was like animal house, dude. I was out in the country. It's what we did. We did. We did get fucking wasted.

I mean, that was what we did weightlifting anyways. I mean, we would sit there and crash college parties and shit like that. I mean, we drank Thursday, Friday, Saturday night every fucking week. Didn't matter. Yeah, yeah, I was afraid of the liver. I didn't even think about that shit. I just thought about like, oh, shit, man, like, you thought I could come to my house tomorrow and I'd have to go pee in a freaking cup at like 2 a.m.

You know, I was, I was, dude. I'm telling you, man, I was a bitch. I sat there and I was so scared about getting pop for all that stuff that I mean I was an asthmatic and I literally had to go take a I had to go get a therapeutic usage exemption for my asthma inhalers just so I could go compete over in in Belarus and I was like to it's a stimulant yeah I mean it's inhaled steroid and shit you know it's fine whatever but I was like this is stupid, you know, but

I did it. They just need to allow all of it. That's why we have the enhanced games. Is that coming? Dude, this, it's your neck of the woods, man. I think this thing's going to be in Vegas

this in May. I have to double check. Is it supposed to be like the Olympics? So it's not like all the events, but like you've got swimmers, sprinters, uh, Olympic weightlifters. Dude. I'm not kidding. There's like a million dollars on the line if they break a world record.

Like, they're not screwing around with this, dude. Dude, like, one of the guys I'm excited to see U.S. Olympic lifter, West Kitts, dude, this dude, like, just looking at a picture of him, like, this dude has, he was big and strong before, but this

dude's scary now. I'm excited about this. This is cool. That's going to be entertaining as fuck. Right? No holds barred. It's going to be cool, man. Like, I mean, I want to go. I do. I'd love to, but

God. It's going to be cool as shit. I think it's in vain. I had to double check, man. I could be completely wrong on that. But I know it is happening this year. It's happening. It's hard. This is long overdue. Right. It's going to be cool as fuck, man. I'm excited about this.

You know, it's about time that people realize that like, oh, shit. Like, this is what these things do. Stude sports are not about health. No. I don't know when that got conflated. Like, put the drugs aside for a second. Think about what you got to do to your body to be an athlete. Yeah.

Like, the shit's not good for you. No. It's not dead at all. No. Like, if you got a meat on fucking Saturday and your fucking knee hurts, you might be shooting fucking painkillers to make sure you can go do the fucking meat. That ain't good for you. Dude, vitamin I was in my bag every competition.

Yeah. Abiprofen. Yeah. I mean, it was. Surprise you still have a gut. 800 milligrams, ibuprofen, I can't tell you. Like, my stomach should be really screwed up right now because of how much I took. Hell, I remember I came down with Mono on a Monday and had a competition on Saturday in Kansas.

And was in Rips Gym and one of the guys, one of the doctors came in and goes, here, he goes, you look like shit. Come here. Comes over, checks me, and sends in a script for some shit that most people wouldn't. wouldn't give, but like it was a Valtrax and a Zipack. Zithromycin.

Yeah, because I mean it's mono is a form of herpes. And so a lot of people won't use it, but dude, I swear to God, like within two days, I was over this shit and I competed that weekend. I'm not kidding. I was like, this was awesome

man. But like the shit you do for this, it's stupid. Dude, it's sport. It's the Roman Coliseum, bro. Yeah. Fuck, man. We've known this for centuries. For centuries, it was not about health.

It was about winning and entertaining the audience. Are you not entertained? I mean, I think a lot of the pro sports now are basically WWE. Oh, hell yeah. That shit's rigged. Oh, yeah. Who is it? It's in their legal contract, too.

Was it? We, oh, shit, man. I love WWE. you, man. Dude. I remember it was a Carmen, Carmen sent me a video

when John Cena rolled into Rip's gym. I was like, what the hell? She's like, yeah. It's funny, man.

Nobody called Rip. No. It's funny, man. Like, it's, like, thinking about,

like, all the professional sports and stuff. Like, I've had the, I've had the pleasure of meeting some guys who,

you know, have played like pro football. And, like, it's actually, I'll give you, I give you a, when I was at TCU, Andy Dalton, who he was a quarterback. I think he's playing for Carolina now. The guy weighed like maybe 225. And I saw him when he was playing for Cincinnati as a quarterback. And I was like, holy shit. I was like, boy, put on like 50 fucking pounds.

Like, holy shit, man. I was like, that didn't, that ain't natural, man. I'm sorry, but that ain't natural, dude. I don't care, you know, more power to you, but God dang, man, like, he, he looked massive for a quarterback. Yeah. And, I mean, hell, who is it, John Wellborn? I, you know, I've met John Wellborn numerous times, had dinner in his house, and

dude, before that guy got, like, when he got out of football, I mean, he, he shrank. If you've seen him now, he shrank, man, but the dude was. Massive. I mean, all these guys were doing the shit. You had to. I mean, imagine being in a Volkswagen Beetle driving down the road and you know you're in a freaking demolition derby with a freaking semi-truck. Right.

This makes no sense. What the hell? Why would you, why would you intentionally do this to yourself? You're going to die. You've got to level up the playing field. Let's go, you know? So, I mean, it makes no sense to me. No.

these people are stupid yeah in a nutshell but hopefully the enhanced games helps with this we got to check that out dude it's gonna be fun

maybe I'll go shit man should be cool if it's in Vegas man you need to go dude it'd be cool yeah be cool shit so

all right man we're we're an hour and a half in this damn thing I know I mean I can keep going but you can talk about you know it's funny

you and I were sitting there talking it's like what are we gonna talk about we could talk for hours about the random shit so I mean, that's kind of what I want to do. We made it, I think we pretty much made it about sports. So. Not, not H-E-B tortillas.

I mean, that's what we need. That's how they're getting big, man. It ain't steroids. H-E-B. Tortillas. God. Hyper-trophy. They don't eat H-E-B tortillas.

You're a pussy. That's right. You know, fuck these keto people, man. They're miserable. That's a whole other. They're miserable human beings. Yeah. We're not involved for that shit.

No. I'm fat. I like to eat. Me too. Me too. Let's eat. Rip says I need to be 225 for routine maintenance, 242 for competition. And Rip says I need to be 250, so.

He's right. He'd probably really watch you at 275. 275 is a fixture elbows. That's what he would say. No, I wouldn't. I can't, dude, I can't move my damn elbow. I can't move the damn thing. I need surgery on those things, but.

If you fix your fucking elbow, you should be $2.75. Shit, no, man. Hurry up. You're getting fucking old, well. That's what Carl told me. He's like, look, you only have one life, man. You only have one opportunity at this. Why not take advantage of it?

And I'm like, I mean, I don't want to be miserable the entire time. He said he's more miserable if he's leaving. leader. I mean, there's a fine line. There's a fine line. I will say that. I've been, I've been lean.

You know, I've been down to 11% and I've been, I've been up to third. I don't want to be 30. I've been up to almost 30, dude. I've been fat. Bro. I wonder what Carl is.

35. Probably. I mean, but, bro, I'm not doing it. No, I mean, there's a point.

And being an Olympic weightlifter, you've got to have mobility yeah you too much mass you can't move it's great if you're squatting and deadlifting and benching and pressing it's great more mass God it holds the structure better

but holy shit man there's a point it's just like it's just miserable just absolutely miserable so dude how do these big motherfuckers like why should do it I don't know dude I don't know

Because scary. That dude's fat and muscular. Scary. He's a scary human being. Dude. I don't care he's got a belly or not, man. But God damn.

He is a scary human being. Bro, he's going to clean 600. Scary. I think he did it in training, did. Dude, talk about being big. I remember being at a CrossFit in Fort Worth and Shane Hammond, who's a super heavyweight for the U.S., came down and did an Olympic lifting clinic with Mike Berger.

And I remember all these cross-fitters were like, what's this fat guy going to teach me? Oh, my God, you know? And it's like, do you understand that this guy can stand here and do a standing back flip and with no problem? Like, holy shit. This guy's a freak. And they were like, no, you know, just kind of like looking at him.

And I've met Shane a few times. and he's watching these guys fumble around with PVC trying to do a clean. And he's like, here, go give me a bar. And I was like, all right. I give him a bar. And they're like, they watch him clean a 45 pound bar like, you know, just a blink of an eye. And they were like, oh, you know, it's like, what the hell, dude? Like, this is nothing.

This is nothing. A phenomenal athlete. Yeah. Was it Discovery did a thing on him. He moves 400 pounds, two meters per second. Holy shit. Yeah. Holy shit.

I was like, this is freaky, man. So, but like, it's just funny. We live in a society that is all about abs and not about performance. And they somehow think that athletics are about health. Yeah. Stupid. It's the fucking circus, man. They're a bunch of fucking carnies, you know.

I had a girl at my gym that said that. She's like, they're carnies. Pro wrestlers, power lifters. the Olympic Games It's a fucking version of the fucking carnival It is It is man Anyhow

Let's close this fucker out I do Hammered all this shit to hell Yeah It's been fun You know Thank you Want to the audience

Where they can find you So you can either find me at Katie. Dot starting strength gyms You can contact me through there Or you can find me on Instagram Shit I don't even know my

Instagram handle To be honest with you Fuck I think he's like Josh Wells, SSC or something like that. Something like that. Yeah. But, yeah, you know,

find me on starting strength, too. I mean, hell, I'm everywhere. Anything dealing with starting strength, you're probably going to find my ass. He's not hard to find. No. You can find me. A little short show, but yeah,

I'm not that hard to find. Fat kids. Fat kids are easy to find. That's right. All right. You can find me. at weights and plates.com or on Instagram at the underscore Robert underscore Santana. If you are in Phoenix, you can come by weights and plates, Jim, get trained, or get your dog trained.

Because I do that too. That's a whole separate deal. Thanks for tuning in and look forward to the next one.