Unlocking the Secrets of Self-Coaching

Yeah, so as you know, what I do is I must fragile consultant. So I help companies plan for the future to determine how you are going to operate moving forward. So what I think your value proposition is actually quite different from how most services, most coaches, most, you know, figures in powerlifting, talk about what they do. Your value proposition is essentially, I will teach you how to move better and also how to coach yourself. And I think that's also part of why I gravitated toward you in the first place, number one, number two. I think that makes sense why you and Mike to sure have had in some cases a pretty, I would say pretty productive collaboration. Because I think Mike is of the same thought process and seeing general, same general concept. It's just, I think the way he expresses it is a little bit different as we talked about before. I'd agree with that. I think Mike and I are really coming from similar spots both with how we sort of ended this board and how much information was around. And so we're both solving the same problem using the same concepts. And as we talk about all the time, the concepts are few. There's not many of them. But the way you can go about hitting any of them is almost infinite. I can really play around with them, come at things from very different angles. And so I just really enjoy the perspective of brains and approaching everything as a movement issue because brains are for movement. So it's, and you know, Mike just solves the same problem in a slightly different way. We're all trying to find out what's important right now and what to do next. I think Mike is an engineer by training. I'm not entirely sure if that's right. So if it's wrong, someone shall be down in the comments or something like that. But it makes sense that he has a very mechanically based approach. And that's not to say that he's neglecting, you know, the importance of motor patterns or anything like that. And just think his bias is going to be more toward, I see this thing moving in this way. So let's change how this segment moves versus, okay, what's the thought process behind why it moves that way? Yeah. There's lots of different directions we could go from that. Wow. So I actually once a month, I give a talk to Mike's organization. So I, yes, I'm on the team there and I get on for an hour and I have an office hour, which sometimes one or two people will turn up and ask direct questions. But mostly it's me by myself. And I'll just record to an empty screen. So I've been using it as the opportunity to just clarify what I think is missing from most powerlifting concepts, which is what our brains are doing. We don't have a, you know, things like we don't have a nervous system. We are a nervous system. I was thinking about that this morning when I was doing cardio that from a neuroscientist point of view, your muscles are part of the, your muscles are part of the nervous system. They're not separate from it. They're not connected to it. They're part of it. Yeah. And I've talked a lot about, you know, yeah. Yeah. I've talked a lot about, or I've talked a little bit about with you this idea of paradigms thinking intellectual history. So I'm a big intellectual history, Eek, have a master's in history of science, worked on a PhD in history of science, quickly have dandered that. We'll get into that a little bit. But really, really what strikes me as the paradigm is the way in which thoughts are organized. So the dominant paradigm right now in powerlifting is that you have muscular movement, muscular control, and then you have nervous system activity. And I think that's really articulated by a lot of people saying, oh, I have nervous system fatigue or, you know, I can't do a heavy equipped bench after heavy equipped squat because my CNS is blown out. And it's like, that's the concept that you're operating is actually not, it's not exactly the wrong thing to say, but you're also not understanding that that's a little bit of this picture. There's a really big picture around it. Yeah. Yeah. It's with, and I know neuroscientists is always way, way ahead of the curve of stuff. And neuroscientists, yeah. I've had this conversation plenty, a terrible at communicating ideas to the general public. And they're not even that good at communicating ideas to the rest of science. So you know, you got all these, these nerdy brain people off to the side going, yeah, we know how it works. And it's not the way everyone's saying it. But I think as a community, we have terrible problems with being able to engage with other communities and tell people, this is what's actually going on when you're doing something. This is how it really works. And you know, it's my belief if people knew how the tools were working, how these things operate, that make different choices and now make better choices. You'd have more fun, be more productive, all those sort of things. Yeah. I think the issue is in a lot of ways that lifting weights is a relatively recent endeavor in the history of humanity, right? So anatomically modern humans have existed for like 50,000 years. Give or take a little bit. And we've only decided that lifting weights is a form of like recreational activity since the 1920s. So I guess a hundred or so years. Well, sand, sand, that was what 1870s, 1890s. So you had a lot of, like you had physical culture through the 1800s. But yeah, I think we're splitting his like a couple of hundred, a couple of hundred years at best. We've been doing this. Right. So this is right. So 50,000. Right. So they call it 150 years, right? So we can, we can take in those people who are going to yell at us for not talking about Lewis, your whatever. Man, I read his book. That's a great book. If people haven't read it, you need to read that. There's a bunch from the, from that era that I think should be standard rating for anybody getting into fitness and, and strengths, sports. Some of the stuff that they're talking about in those books is just so bizarre too. Bob Hoffman ended up in legal trouble in the 30s or something for talking about the, what was it? The sexual powers that weightlifting gave him or something like that. And he wrote, he wrote a book about this. Yeah. Yeah. The mechanisms, of course, were all wrong. And now we would be able to write that, that so-called book as a, as a one page summary of what's actually going on physiologically is, do why people's so-called sexual prowess increases when they lift weights? Well, yeah. I mean, Hoffman was the, the, if you ask the, if you think that physical culture, fitness culture, whatever we want to call it today is full of bullshit artists. We have nothing, we've got nothing on the mid 20th century. We had, I mean, all sorts of bizarre claims, just truly, truly bizarre. Bob Hoffman was, of course, one of the leading purveyors because he sold equipment, but some of the stuff that weater was putting out and even guys who were a little bit more responsible was just completely after wall. How many of the weater principles can you remember? I think it's, I love the weater principles. So they started developing those in what? Like the 60s, then through the 70s and 80s. And somehow, most, a lot of them have stayed in modern bodybuilding language, but we've just kind of changed the names of it, but they're still the weater principles who never investigated or researched anything. They just came up with it and it was great for marketing, so they could sell magazines. Yeah. I think muscle, isn't muscle confusion one of them? And then, yeah. And then there's, I think maybe Louis Simmons read that once and gone, yeah, I've got you. I've got you. Crossfit just, yeah, muscle confusion. Let's go. Well, the thing that's fascinating about that is that all of weater, maybe not all, but a lot of weater is a response to Hoffman, right? Because Hoffman is very interested in weight training, weightlifting as a Olympics sport and for athletic endeavors. So like, I don't, have you ever read, have you ever seen a copy of Strength and Health magazine? No, I never saw one. Okay, so when I was in graduate school, and this was like one of the best things that existed while I was in graduate school, but I wasn't at the top place where I could actually take advantage of it. I had access to a database of like 60 plus years of Strength and Health. Sorry, how did you come across that? Like, where was that? - So I was doing some research in something else, and I can't remember exactly what it was, but it came across, and I mean, I've been interested in the history of physical culture, if we wanna call it that, in strength sports forever, being a history to myself. So I came across that, and if you actually read the magazines, most of the magazines, weight training is like, page 37 of 38, like, weights are not the primary concern in a lot of those, and most of the, many of the covers are like, how camping improves your health, and how, like, the enemy that is constipation, I swear, that's the title of an article. - Okay. Wow. Yeah, I didn't realize. So it was more like recreation for health, rather than lifting weights for recreation. - Yeah, I think that's right, and I think a lot of the motive here is also based in the history of how people view this, because, I think rather unfairly, but if you were, especially in the '40s and '50s, really weaters the one who makes this a mainstream idea in the '60s, if you're lifting weights for physique, the default presumption seems to be that you're either gay or associated with gay culture in one way or another. And even that is interestingly enough, the Strength and Health magazines that I was able to get access to are part of an LGBTQ archive. It's not just like Strength History in and of itself. - Oh wow, that's really interesting. Very interesting. What sort of period did that change? - Yeah, that's a good question. I would, my bet. - Is that the, is that the, the swords and sandals here of, you know, like Steve Raeves, Johnny Weissmolo, Plank Tarzan? - Yeah, that's what I would guess. The action heroes kind of got bigger at one point, didn't they? They went from, yeah, went from, was it like, Errol Flynn and Fred Astey, like skinny little fellas. And then all of a sudden you're like, "Oh, look, there's Steve Raeves without a shirt "and that guy's jacked and he's got a good beard." - Yeah. - Oh, this is really different. - I think that's probably a good guess. I would say that that would make a lot of sense because bodybuilding gets going in the '60s for whole, I mean, bodybuilding exists beforehand, but it's dominated by often and weightlifting and all those things. So you have guys like John Grimick, who are champion Olympic lifters, but are also having had really good jazzeaks in the process. And then that changes in the, I guess, 50s and 60s, probably to cause the things you're talking about. - Right. Yeah, I think if anybody goes back through, the types of physics that won the first bodybuilding contest to now, you know what, yeah, that's, I'm not sure it's the same species, even. - Oh, that is a close, I mean, I mean, remember the bench press until, the bench press until the '60s was like an exercise that nobody did. - Yeah. - Which would have been bad for us. - What did people do for fun for thousands of years before the bench press? Like they just didn't know what they're missing out on. (laughing) - Agricultural labor, that's fun, right? - They probably had like healthy shoulders, everybody could reach behind their back without a problem. There was no shoulder pain. No, no guard. Oh, you know, to try and stretch out those tight picks from benching. - Your shoulder pain came from probably lifting, you know, heavy boxes or something into your attic or, but you know, physical labor. I mean, this is, but this is how a lot of people view it, right? I mean, physical labor is viewed as masculine and manly and what good men should do. And lifting weights as a form of recreation is viewed as, you know, suspicious and you're probably gay in some strange way, even if you don't know it. And to be fair about it, this isn't only, this is something that weeder and a few of the other magazine publishers kind of didn't grace, where they're not, I mean, they're not outright appealing to gay cultures, but they're sort of a wink and nod element to it. If you look at some of the pictures that they're pointing out there. - Okay. - Can you give an example? - I'm trying to think of one that, I'm trying to think of one, it's been so long since I've done this, but there are, some of the magazines especially show men in, there's this one called bigger that I don't know anything else about outside of the fact that I've seen it like three times ever, but it has men in positions that are more suggestive, I would say, and more reminiscent of certain, maybe Greco-Roman statues that are associated with, in some cases, homosexual love or something like that. - Right, okay. Well, the thing, I don't know, kind of makes sense to me that a bunch of guys working out together, getting really sweaty together, examining each other's for zigs, for flaws, and go, yeah, it's like, at some point you're gonna go, yeah, you know, there's a gray area, obviously. My friend Mark Lobliner, he described bodybuilding to me once, and this is an IFBB Pro talking, right? This is a man who makes his entire income, it seems, from bodybuilding and bodybuilders, and he said, Nathan, I'm fine with it. I'm fine with getting involved in a narcissistic eating disorder competition. Where other grown men judge me in my under way. I'm fine with it. Judgeway. When he said it like that, I'm like, oh wow, that's ruined bodybuilding for life for me. I, that's exactly what it is, it seems. But I'm very comfortable with it, I don't mind. It's like, yeah, cool, that's fine. - One of, one of the reasons I could never do bodybuilding is that I like beer and chocolate. So, any, any ability to adhere to a strict diet like that. I have a lot of admiration for guys who are able to do that and women who are able to do that, but I just, I can't see myself ever doing it. - Yeah, that's why I'm a bodybuilding fan and not a bodybuilder. - Well, we could like watching bodybuilding. - We could always go for the opposite, and people who've trained with me will know this joke, but I call it the Interest Bodybuilding Show, the band who looks most like melted ice cream with. (laughing) - Yeah, I like that. So, when would, let's go back to all this Bob Hoffman stuff. What else did you, when you've gone through all those magazines, what else stuck out to you? Like what was the, what was another one of the big takeaways? - A lot of the stuff that's, this is something that I was talking about actually someone last night is the development of a supplement industry. And the development of, and this actually kind of happens alongside the development of performance and fancy drugs, but Hoffman realizes, Hoffman does not invent protein powder, right? Hoffman, Hoffman like a lot of great businessmen steals the idea from somebody else. I think this guy named Rio Blair is the one who's really develops it, really in the late 40s, is my understanding. But Hoffman realizes that there's a lot of potential in selling protein powders to the masses because, okay, I show you a York plate, unless you're an idiot, you're never gonna have to buy a New York plate. Now, you might wanna buy more York plates, but that's a different story. So, it's really a one time, one time expense, right? But if I get you on, if I get you on a protein supplement, so he had this, his was called a high protein, I think it was made from like, god only knows what actual substance. - What every swept up off the garage floor, probably some soda in there and all sorts of filler. - So, York is, York is actually in an area, I've been to York a few times for competitions, I've been to college, imagine like a sad depressing, imagine a very sad and depressing Midwest town. Imagine going to Indiana and then that's a city, that's York, so. - Is that where York is in Indiana? Is that right? - It's in Pennsylvania. - Pennsylvania, right, okay. So, if I think the office, am I getting York about right? Yeah, it's kind of like all of all of central Pennsylvania's at least to me living your DC very similar It's all kind of post-industrial. It's gray. It's often quite cold. It's sad So York is in this area that has a lot of dairy farms and It's also where it's also not far from Hershey, Pennsylvania Home of the famous or infamous Hershey bar, but hey, okay now it's okay. Yeah, so I'm interested again because he is we got chocolate in this story. All right. It's gonna be good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so so often probably bought like grade like Z bill or something like that from these dairy farm and mixed it with Probably a vast quantity of like soy and god knows what else into a protein powder And he called it high protein starting advertising it around I Think it's the early 60s and at the same time American lifter start taking Diana because Diana bull is first synthesized in 58 or 59 I think and a few you know why Diana bull was first made I Thought it was to I thought it was originally for people who had who had developmental disorders of a thyroid or something like that Yeah, it sounds about right Yeah, okay anyway It's because this is pure bodybuilding because You'll take a every every major development in bodybuilding has come from a very very good drug being made for a very specific disease and bodybuilders just gone you know what we can use that Yeah, so so anyway he starts Yeah, Diana bull and Right and protein and you know with your start making progress and I start dating way because there are no performance enhancing drug and Hoffman starts using this progress to sell the protein powders as well as another line of supplements which one he's like Like weight gainer or by the way weight gainer at this time is probably the same quality of weight gainer today, so Few cups of sugar some flour a little bit of bad protein powder Pretty pretty much. Yeah, so yeah, he starts using it as a marketing tool as well as trying to sell his isometric power racks alongside it and that's how Eventually weir takes this over and apparently the weir the weir products are dramatically better tasting So that's how weir ends up dominating the supplement game, but oh He went on so weir can test it on flavor not on quality I mean the quality I think was all terrible so yeah That's what I figured as well because those years before like some of the technology developed for isolated. Yeah, yeah So weir competed on yeah, I think primarily flavor I have not been born at this time. I'm just guessing based on information that I've seen in magazines and from memoirs and that type of thing and What happened is that have been tried to put out this whole line of just bizarre supplements from like Brewers yeast which he thought was beneficial for lifters He he built that he made this protein Which allegedly was the most like discussing thing you can possibly imagine called protein of the sea So he bought like powdered bluefish or something like that from Delaware and made it into a protein powder at like We've talked about like eating various animals and this is probably a most gross task things I can think about Oh, that's gross Surely yeah, that would smell bad too when you go to mix it up. Oh, it was Yeah, I can't imagine eating it can't imagine taking a lot of these things You know you said brews yeast Hoffman wasn't far off water Australians do every morning for breakfast So you know, Vegemite is brews yeast extract We go yeah, it's really good makes us strong and healthy. I think what are the add that we all grew up with in Australia is that Vegemite puts a rose on every cheek So here's here's a question that will reveal my ignorance of Commonwealth cuisines What is the diff what is the difference between Vegard Vegemite and Maramite? To be honest, I have no idea I I think I think Maramite is British and And Vegemite is Maramite made it Australia. I don't I really don't know. I hope somebody I hope somebody does know and they tell me but There's some pretty robust debate about which is better and I think I had Maramite Maramite once as a kid and never again. It's like no Vegemite always It's a national pride There's some like it's funny you said Commonwealth food There's some stuff that is hotly contested in the Commonwealth as to where it's from and who does it better Maramite and Vegemite is one of them Pavlova is the other I've never been heard of the second. Oh Pavlova do this is the greatest the greatest dessert known to man it is Like the greatest meringue and then you fill it with fruit and cream and all sorts and then serve it as it's a meringue cake I guess with with cream and fruit I don't know when you put like that you got a when we get off the call like look it up Pavlova. It's the greatest thing ever is named after a ballerina and The Kiwis maintenance there's Aussies its house I really don't care who made it first. It's the greatest dessert you'll ever eat We that it is it's our it's our Christmas dessert. We make a mango my wife makes this she layers up layers of of meringue or Pavlova meringue with mango cream in the middle Make it into a big tower and we have it for days afterwards. It's the greatest thing More American poor Americans with your what is it pumpkin pie or all the million different pies you have Yeah, we've loads of you you haven't lived Fascinating. Yeah, we have we have a lot of we have a lot of cold of pies pies involving fruit Some are okay, some are interesting. Oh, I Every time I came to the US I'll try and eat a new pie some way Just fine pie like anything that we would see on on movies. I'm like. I want to eat that So cherry pie Key lime pie Really good of course apple pie and all the ah this is like a just I like it. I really like it. There used to be It's great to be a super in the US if There's a there used to be on around the North Carolina Virginia border on 95 there used to be a Restop that had a machine a bending machine that would sell slices of pie I don't know who's stopping Yeah, I'm no idea who stocked it or who thought this was a good idea, but Imagine how many preservatives would have to go in that to keep it alive for a couple of days and and intact Or six or six one good yeah, I mean we also we also are in the way the America's also the land of watery beer We've had and though I actually had a conversation with an Australian friend of mine many years ago that Australians don't actually drink fosters. It's just the crap beer you send over to the US and tell Americans that you drink Yeah, it's always it's always funny when people whip out fosters. Yeah, I got the fosters for you like a fuck off No, no, no not drinking it Yeah, we have similar ones to that Yeah, I think fosters and drop is Fruzen drop pairs They're both made up stories, but they're wildly funny and keep us entertained forever It's not a reason that the can is so gigantic or is that just a marketing thing? The can or is it the thing more? Yeah? In Australia if you ever see fosters it's a standard three hundred and seventy five mil can like everything else When you see it in the US you get those really big ones because they're marketing to you guys Okay, that makes sense. I mean it's like oh, yeah, we're Aussies. We drink big beer You yanks just drink the little bit have a fosters might kind of like that Huge quantities of terrible beer. I love it Maybe that's what they do with Viking beer and Denmark. I remember having a Lita can a beer and Denmark It's a giant tin and yeah, it was I got to fight all of it somewhere, myself and Ryan Carrillo from Texas. We both had one. And when we were drinking from them, finally a canned look normal size. I'm seeing Adam tomorrow. I have to ask him what the largest canned would be for D.V. Sins. Oh, yeah. I'm sure Adam makes good beer, even though he doesn't drink it. Yeah, he works for the Miller Coors brewery in Virginia. Right. So I want to go back to the history of science that you were talking about before. Yeah. Because so far we're doing a really good powerlifting podcast by talking about everything but powerlifting as usual. Powerlifting is not the most interesting sport. I'll just throw it out there and say it. It's really not. There's been a push in the US by a few people to try to make it a more spectator friendly sport. I'm like, do you realize how fucking boring this is? I got to admit, I've been asked for years. Like I will go to, for years since I've been in Perth, would go to Compton, just stand in the crowd and watch, but in order to get through a competition, I needed there to be a coffee van, maybe some food and a whole bunch of people to talk to while I wasn't watching lifting and then watch the occasional lift here and there. That's the only way I can really enjoy powerlifting if I'm not, if I don't have a job. So I would much prefer to referee, announce, spot and load, coach anything, anything to keep me busy while lifting is going on because you're right. I feel bad for the families that come and sit in the crowd. Even when I'm lift. Even when I lift, I'm frequently the guy who brings a bucket is reading the book and a book in the warm up room because I'm there in a bench, right? I'm going to bench and then I'm going to go home. I'm not going to sit there for the entire heat. Yeah, you're right. Powerlifting is very simple. There's people and podcasts that like pulling it apart and make it very complex and trying to reinterpret everything through a different lens and but essentially it's the first three lifts you get taught when you go to the gym. Pretty much. It's actually talking about history of science, little and not get sidetracked, which we will do another time in this podcast. Oh, I don't think we've ever had a conversation where we haven't got sidetracked at least five times. Oh, got no. But we always, we end up landing on something really cool. So I don't mind the sidetracks at all. History of science, you were doing a, what was the pathway, explain the pathway, how you got there and why you were there and what the purpose was meant to be? Oh, God, that's, that's fascinating. So I was, so my grandfather is a PhD in American history. My grandmother has a master's in, I guess is technically British history. And when I would, you know, over the summers when I was a boy, I would spend a lot of time with that. I just throw a little cap in there. Can we call that instead of British history? Can we call it American prehistory? We could, I mean, technically be accurate. So anyhow, I got brainwashing history. I got brainwashing history as a, as a boy. And I've said this to you before, I think a lot of kids grow up with, you know, Disney or whatever. And I grew up instead with, in some cases, some truly comically racist World War Two films. Like, I'm like, there's, there's, by nature, racial element to fighting the Pacific in, in World War Two. And then there's the propagandistic elements of it, which are just ridiculous. So I go to college and I actually the start, I want to be a doctor. And then I realized that this is, yeah, yeah. What sort of doctor did you want to, were you thinking of? I wanted to be an infectious disease specialist. Oh, gosh, that is very specific, very specific. We'll come back to that. Yes, yes. And it does actually, it does actually dovetail here. So I, I end up realizing about halfway through my first year of college that this is not really what I want to do. And that this is some sort of, this is one of those things that you have because of lack of imagination, right? So I then go down a different, slightly different path, which is I was working on really the historical development of the New Testament and the, how essentially do we have the gospels that we have today? And this is all, all in, generally in history, somewhat in theology as well. And I was talking to one of my professors at the time and she tells me, look, the job market for this is pretty grim, which I knew about to be fair, but I've been thought about it. And I said, you know, I'm probably not going to get hired. Most of the jobs, most of the jobs are in the South and are at dominantly evangelical institutions. So not, not, you know, the high level evangelical institutions, like we ignore somewhere like that, they're generally very small seminaries. And I thought to myself, there is no way I'm going to get hired there. Or if I do get hired there, there's no way I've got to survive, not be survived, and not get fired after the first year. So gave that up, ended up working in history of science, doing some interesting work. And I was 21. I had total lack of imagination. This seems to be a recurring theme in my life, by the way, of lack of imagination. And I'm applying for PhD programs because I'm like, well, I've been in school my entire life, I've been an academia my entire life. I'm being pushed by my family to pursue this too because it's what I thought I wanted to do. And I go to the University of Wisconsin, Madison, for a PhD in this group's science, which at the time, still had independent history science program. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Cool. Dave, don't the dough and family will be happy that I remember that. Go badges. Yeah. I didn't know. So at the time, I don't know anything about power lifting, right? So I'd played baseball in high school. And our baseball coach was kind of an old school guy. So very much like we don't lift weights. We do a lot of flexibility and we run a lot. So I believe our conditioning program was basically P90X, just kind of ripped off. Now, mind you, we all had great abs, great abs, but we weren't doing anything else. We were also not a very good baseball team. There was one night that, I think I'm on second base or something. And batter number four of the night hits a grand slam off the left field scoreboard. And my thought is, this is going to be a long night. Well, we ended up losing that game 26 to zero. I know this is a tangent again from the tangent. Did you have a mercy role in baseball? I don't know because I would have thought it would have been invoked in that situation, but I believe I pitch. I pitched in relief in that game and keep in mind, like I'm five foot 10. I was like 140 at the time. I do not have a 98 mile an hour fastball. So I had no, I had no future in the major leagues. I think I gave up something like eight runs and relief because I never pitched. And it's like, okay, we're getting creamed anyway. Just put this guy in. It'll get some abs. I remember we had, it was like fourth or fifth innings if you were 10 runs up by the fourth or the end of the fourth, you just stopped the game. I remember being on a couple of, like a couple of good teams that I played for. We would, we ended games early quite often. And it's like a, yeah. It seemed the, the, the gentlest, nicest thing to do at that point. I wasn't, but I think getting to 26, Neil, no one's learning anything. No one's benefiting. You know, you've got, you've got the best headers for the other team just going up and switch, you know, batting switch just to just for giggles. We also got doubles from the wrong side of the plate. We also got, if memory serves, we also got no during that game. And the only reason it wasn't a perfect game was because I think that or number two or three of our team managed to get hit by a pitch. So that game was a slaughter. I believe we finished one in 13 that year. I don't know how we won the one day we won, but hey. take it right? So you might have been brought up to University of Wisconsin, Madison. Yeah, yeah. So what happened next? So yeah, I don't know anything about lifting at this time. I'm doing, you know, some basic health, then stuff. But I'm there for about a year and a half and I'm working on, there's actually two things I'm working on, kind of simultaneously. It's just because I had the opportunity to do it. One is essentially how do we have the diagnostic tests for syphilis that we have today? And what are the roles? How did the Tuskegee and Guatemala studies, syphilis studies? Sheep those tests and it turns out that the blood that the US Public Health Service collected at Tuskegee and at Guatemala, they later used as a reference when they started developing new tests. So they they had people whom they were pretty confident had syphilis and they they used these tests to essentially evaluate how frequently do they do they get the right result? And the second thing I'm working on is something that was actually quite interesting, but would not have gone anywhere was the really how do how does how does heliocentric astronomy and how does that knowledge and that information get translated into English and get sent into English literary culture and English maritime for English maritime uses in like the 16th and 17th centuries? Oh wow. So how did basically how did Copernicus oh that's a hard word to say. How did that Italian dudes message get out? Is that what you're saying? Yeah yeah Polish, Polish, but yeah he was Polish. All these he is. I think he was Italian. No he was he was Polish. So he was well thank you. Tell us a bit more like Copernicus a very interesting very interesting figure was not a met was not an observational astronomer. So Copernicus is not doing observations where he's going out and looking at the sky and looking at the position of the planets or the stars. Copernicus is relying on information taken from or on observations done by in many cases Arabic astronomers in many cases other medieval medieval astronomers and his thought and he doesn't actually have any good he doesn't really have any solid backing for this is that the existing model where everything revolves where the universe effectively revolves around the earth the geocentric model that can't be right in essence because there's there's a whole list of reasons but one of his reasons is that the system that everyone accepts at the time is too complicated and God could not have made it that way. Oh okay so huh interesting interesting that really flies in the face of what I've believed about all of that for literally my life that's a very different story. Yeah it's it's the they're so part of the reason that people do not accept Copernicus so Copernicus puts his book out in 1543 and by 1600 you can count how many people are Copernicus on your hands there's like nine it's either seven or nine and it's not because Copernicus is it's not because the church really cares they don't actually the church itself doesn't actually believe in geocentrism they believe in something called the geoheliosentric model which is that the sun revolves around the earth but everything else revolves around the sun which makes it actually very complex. Oh really right yeah. And I would be a fun model to draw out wouldn't it's nice. Yeah it's sometimes called the teconic model after Tecobre who is the real progenitor of it and but but the point is that until Kepler determines that the the shapes of the planets orbit is elliptical and not circular there's not a really powerful observational reason for Copernicanism over geocentrism or the teconic model and the reason where gal so Galileo during the Galileo affair the problem is not that Galileo is a is a he is a Copernican or he was sent for a leason heliocentrism the problem is the problem is number one he's trying to use that to reinterpret the bible and number two every pretty much every astronomer in europe agrees with what the church is saying that your science is wrong and then the third problem that comes up or comes out is that Galileo's proof for the rotation of the earth is the tides and that's not true the tides are not the tides do not result from the rotation of the earth the tides of the result of the of the position of the moon and that by the way isn't known for for about a hundred years or so but so it turns out that this stuff is actually a lot more complicated than we're led to believe oh it really is isn't it and it makes sense it would be much more complicated because we're dealing with people and all of the all of the stuff all of the politics that goes around that and how we develop knowledge and how we share knowledge yeah but I think that what we're what we're sold a few hundred years later is that it was quite black and white it was this or that and it was a clear choice and so and there was I think and correct me from wrong it gets told a bit as a moral tile these days yes yes yes so and there's a there's a really interesting reason for that and and by the way I will take this opportunity to recommend a book because okay it's fascinating and I'll probably have the the author who's down passed away was a mentor of mine at university was constant his name was Ron numbers and it was Galileo goes to jail and other myths about science and religion if you want to get it I think you can get it on Kindle so it's like five dollars US at this point that books been out for a long time but the book does is it goes through some of the pretty commonly held conceptions in the history of science and says okay here's what here's what's been commonly told and here's what actually happened or here's what we can determine happened to the best of our knowledge now just just to get back to why this happens in the first place in the and I'm sure this will will not play as a shock to you in the early not in the late 19th century the US has really from like 1840 to like 1880 ish the US has a wave of Catholic immigration dominantly Irish Italian in some cases Spanish so on and so and the US up until this point is effectively it's effectively a Protestant country I mean whether or not we have an official state religion which we sort of do up until this point it's it's the England Protestantism and obviously reactionaries get concerned about this and start saying oh these these immigrants are going to take their orders and take oh their loyalty not to the US but to the Pope sounds kind of familiar doesn't it yeah yeah does so there's a series of books one comes out by someone named Andrew Dixon White who is the belief of first president of Cornell University and there's one other John William Draper who's actually a chemist writes a book called the history of the warfare between science and religion and what these books do is using Christianity primarily as a standard fork or using rather Roman Catholicism as a standard for religion they argue that religion and science have always been in conflict and it will only end when science inevitably pro triums and destroys religion and that was the dominant thought in history of science the relationship between science and religion up until really the 60s what changed in the 60s there's a few things that changed in the 60s one is that there it people start re-examining Galileo and history Science has a discipline really starts in the 50s, the 40s, the 50s, and the 60s. It's really a creature of the post-cold war. Right? So, we are behind the communists. We have to bolster interest in the science, in science. And this is actually how a lot of really terrible, so a lot of really terrible information about lifting weights comes into the US as well, but that's either here or there. And what happens is that a lot of the early historians of science do some very interesting work examining some of these key incidents or these key flashpoints that are told in a conflict, in the conflict thesis, and doing things like developing critical editions of tests, which is actually very interesting words, very, very hard, but this is like, this is just stuff the field doesn't do anymore, and it's also what I kind of dropped out of the field. But as a result, and due to some, due to the, to the efforts actually, primarily of a pair of diagnostics, Dave Lindbergh and Ron numbers, in the 70s and 60s and 80s, the field begins to understand that the story that everyone believes is actually a lot more complex than everyone thinks. So it's one of the common myths here is related to, you know, the medieval church teaches that the earth is flat, right? Everyone I think has heard that on one point or another. Yeah. Well, the medieval church knew that the medieval church should not teach that the world was flat. Everyone knew that the world was round. More testimonies knew that as early as the third century, as the second century BC. It's just that because of white entrappers influence, that was the story that was taught for debt for decades. And it didn't help that one of the most important figures in the history of American literature, this guy named Washington Irving, whom you might have heard from, heard of as the guy who wrote the legend of sleepy hollow, he wrote a book where he creates this scene, a biography of Columbus, where he has Columbus arguing with people, you are going to sail off the side of the earth or sail off the face of the earth. This is an entirely 19th century creation. Nobody thinks the earth is flat beforehand. It's, I mean, there's always a solution to things like Antarctic as like a projection, but. Okay. So, yeah, where we're, where I've gone in my head with that one is can you imagine that a couple of hundred years people coming along and believing memes we made about 20 years ago? Oh, easily. That would be the same. There is a great book. And I remember reading it when I was in the, I remember you being exposed to it when I was about 10 or 11, maybe even younger, colds. I think it's called the chamber of the mysteries. And the premise is that the world has been destroyed by nuclear wars. This book is like from the days. And in the indeterminate future, these archaeologists discover a roadside American motel that was frozen in time in like 1984. And they interpret everything as coming from a particular, as related to religious practice. So the toilet is the sacred urn or the TV is like the magic box. It actually isn't that part of the truth if you think about it. The remote is the magic communicator. Yeah, okay. Yeah, that's interesting. That's interesting. The thing about it isn't it? Anyway, let's get back to Madison, Wisconsin. And so you're doing them. And so this is the masters you're doing, is it all of this stuff? Yeah, so my master thesis was on the development of tests of diagnostic tests for syphilis. And I just wanted, can you tell me the total of your paper? The title was, it's been so long. It's been a long time. It's, I think it's the greatest contribution, the role of the Tuskegee and Guatemala studies in developing new serological tests for syphilis. There is nothing better than a thesis paper title, is there? Just, oh, they're all, they're always, it's like the driest information you can possibly provide. Yeah. What was yours? You wrote one in neuroscience, right? Yeah, what I can't even, it was something to, it was so dry. I can't, because the title had, like the title was exactly just what we did. It was like, skits, skits a tippy in something about skits a tippy in healthy subjects, comparing THC CBD and placebo. It's interesting. Yeah. Very interesting. Yeah. It was such a bad title, I think, I've tried to blank it out. Just out of the way. Oh, it's okay. I've blocked out most of my graduate school experience. I think that's most people, isn't it? You just go, all right, we got through that. Let's move on. Yeah. So, I'm not happy in Madison. Madison's really cold. It's really unpleasant. I have some of the things going on in my life at the time that are, you know, not super great. Not in a super happy relationship at that moment. And I end up applying to go to other PhD programs in the US. And in like March, like February, March is when we generally receive results in the US, I find out that I got into none of them, which I'm a little bit upset about, but at that point, at that point, I make the decision, I'm done with academia. It's time to move on. It's time to go do something else in my life. So, I get out of college, I get out of graduate school and I have to go figure out something else to do with my life. And I've always been sort of a, I've always been a pretty motivated goal for an individual. And for the first time in my life, I don't actually have any goals because I, I'm like, well, I've done graduate school, I have a college degree, the fuck am I going to do now? So, you've tickled the boxes from childhood, right? You get told is like a 14 or 15 year old, this is what you need to do for the next 15, 10, 15 years. Like, all right, done that. And then what now? Yeah. So, long story short, get through COVID as doing, doing work as a contact tracer, which was, that's an interest, that was an interest, did experience a lot of, a lot of moments of terror than a lot of moments of like, how are you people still alive? This is the most bizarre thing I've ever heard. Anyhow, back end of COVID, early 2021, and this is really how I get involved in power lifting the first place, I discover that there's this thing, I watched West Sideverse in the world in like 2019, just around when it came out, as I think so many other people did. One of my friends and I, at the time, we called it unemployment crew because we had nothing else to do, we're both unemployed. So we ended up at this like, terrible commercial gym at like 3 p.m. and we just do this stupidish shit known demand. We're like, what are you all to do today? Let's do Anderson's walk against bands from the bottom of my, okay, it was a fuck not. Yeah, what's the worst thing? Did we make a ton of progress? No, not at all, but it gave us something to do while looking for work. So that sounds fun. That sounds fun. Oh, it was so fun. I mean, I didn't get anywhere, but it was really fun. And then start taking this a little bit more seriously in 2021 and I realized that, hey, there's this thing called equipment and equipment seems like fun. Right. To cause I'm apparently from 19 to 21. Did you do any competitions? Did you like, did you find out about powerlifting anywhere in there? I knew that it existed as a like intellectual exercise, but I didn't really compete in it and I didn't really have a lot of interest at the time in doing it. So what was your knowledge of powerlifting as an outsider? Did you heard of big names? I was a little bit involved with Olympic lifting in 17 and 18 and then I, early night, mid-18, I ended up popping my back. I bulged my L30405 and had really bad sciatica. So I wasn't, I mean, and of course being 1,3, 24 at the time, I was like, "Eh, fuck it, I'm still gonna squat." Which was in retrospect not a good idea, by the way. That was not a good idea. I didn't know anything about bracing, didn't know anything about how to move right. Just kept going. And so I was like, "Well, I can't really snatch "your clean anymore because the sciatic cane I had "was the extreme one catching the clean and snatch "in the bottom position." - Yeah, I can't really. - Yeah. So I was like, "Well, I guess I can bench for us." And I was like, "Wait, this is a sport?" - Ah, yeah. Yeah, so how did you find out that it was a sport? - I found out that bench was a sport. That's a good question. I don't entirely remember. This might have been when I was spending a way more time that I should have been spending on Reddit. And discovered bench was a sport and ended up interested in equipment because I was like, "Well, there's a technical skill to this. "Roll is cool, roll is fine, "but there's not a lot of technical skill to roll." I mean, within reason, you have to know why I don't lower the weight without killing yourself and press it back up. But I ended up starting out at a, I did not, this was like the side of powerlifting that I'm very glad is dying out. I started out with a group in, from that omelisha out in Winchester, Virginia. And, you know, I didn't know anything about how the sports organized at the time, but I remember the last day I was there. They were very nice to me. They were very nice and very helpful. But I remember the last time I went there, we're getting this guy in his Leviathan or whatever giant canvas squat suit. And then this guy takes off his shirt in front of me and he's gotten his ass tattoo on his back. And I said, "Okay." - Hey, gosh. - Right. So I said, "I finished the session, got my car." I said, "I'm not coming back." And I found out later that mental militia was generally associated with that type of thing. - And I had no idea. - Yeah, that was the, - Is that always been that way? Or like I remember in the 2000s, we'd always hear from Bill Crawford and Sebastian Boots. That was the, the mental militia guys. I don't, - Yeah. - I, I, - I think, I think Bill Crawford still around. I think Bill Crawford still around. - Stonelifting now, that's interesting. - Yeah. - Yeah, I, I, I don't know, I can't, I can't testify with accuracy too if they're still super involved with white nationalist or not. But at that time, I was like, I, I don't wanna be around these guys. So. - Yeah. - I'm not blaming anyone. - I ended up going, yeah, I ended up going back to the commercial gym I was at. And ended up, there was a podcast at the time, which no one exists. It was called Strength and Anger. And. (laughing) - Yeah. - That sounds so palilifty. - Oh yeah. And, yeah, there's a very interesting story behind that one. But, that will be for, that's for another time. But anyway, I reached, so this is like the need to, even now, I mean, a quit powerlifting is not known for, it's like vast sharing of information or easy accessibility. But. I, I message on my Instagram, I'm like, look, I wanna get into equipment. I live in this area, do you know anybody? And they told me, go talk to Amber Hanson, who at the time was a WPO competitor. I think she's, she hasn't competed in a little while, but she's still, I believe active in Ohio. And. So I talked to her and she told me, yeah, we train these days, come on down if you want to. And like, so I come down on a Saturday, random Saturday. And I think that day, I see Jimmy called do 320 for 23 with a supercharged ramp on. And I think to myself, okay, I wanna do that. So. Just around this out, I'm back at 325, 23. Oh, I was insane. It wasn't safe. And keep in mind, the heaviest bench I'd ever seen up to this point is probably 405. Yep. So, and that's like one guy who's especially large, and I'm like, this is a big bench, right? And then it's like, bad, that's a big batch. That's not so when you say for a life, you mean 190 kilos, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then Jimmy called was doing 320 kilos or 700 pounds for reps. Yeah, so I. He, so. This is like April or May of 21. And Jimmy is getting ready to do. To break the all time more record in, in bench, in equip bench, which at the time I think was held by Lil Barotti with, I think tiny, with like 502 and a half or like 505, something like that. Whatever 1120, whatever 1110 works out to you in kilos. Yep. So. Jimmy and his guys are saying are going to go compete in. York Pennsylvania at the ITA strength spectacular, I think is the title of the need. And I'm like, what the fuck, I'll sign up. So I sign up for this meat. Probably like a 240 ish wall venture at this point, weighing like 190. So I'm not. Well, I'm not great, but I'm not. I'm not good by any stretch of the imagination. Go to that meat. Bench 225, miss 245 twice. And as soon as that happens, I'm like, okay, I'm like this bench press thing. And that that was 2021. And yeah, I haven't given up. I haven't given up yet. Yeah, right. Okay. That's. And so you were, so you were at in the competition where Jimmy called does the World Record bench? Is that right? Yes, I was so IP, IP meets at York where like the epitome of terribly rotten 90s powerlifting mates. So you have squat, an hour break bench, hour break, deadlift. So you would start theoretically, you'd started like nine ish. Fine was never really much of a consideration for this. You'd start at nine ish. And then maybe at some point around 536, they pull the last deadlift. That's a man. Yeah, I can't, I can't do those comes anymore. No, no, so I, so Jimmy was, so there's the two day meat. So up to 198 was day one 220 over was day two. So on day two, Jimmy takes the all time world record on a second attempt with, I guess it would have been 510 kilos. And it that was, I maintained to this day. That is the best bench I have ever seen over 500 kilos. And I think that, I think that lift could have passed in an ITF week. That's how good that bench was. Yeah, some of Jimmy's early big benches when he was going through the 500s, I had the same opinion that they were just good. They're just technically bang on perfect. We didn't have, there wasn't a million people in the comments talking about a soft lockout or, or not touching properly or anything like that. It was like, wow, that's a bench press. That's a, that's a hell of a shirt. But that's a great bench press. He wore, he waited, I think at 100 and 32 and a half, that 32 and a half, this is 24 hour away. And so like, it's really like here, right down how much you went a card and then just present me the card. It's 24 hours. So he waited at 132 and a half that day and he wore a 48 superkata with a 46 chest. Okay. Yeah, it was really tight. Yeah, it's legit. That's G. Yeah, that's Kevin, yeah, you get tight. You ever see Kevin, yeah, you get bench? No, I haven't. Oh, our great venture. German guy had, as a junior was, you know, every bit is competitive as the open lifters, but yeah, incredible lifter and the was the saying it was like putting I want to get it right 10 pounds of sausage in a five pound casing. How how he got in and out of that shirt is beyond me but you know his training partners were good at it and they could slide it in and sort of grease him up lots of plastic bags and he would get on this super tiny shirt and it looked like his fighting freeze life every single second of the lift but he would get big lifts. There is a I won't name names here because I respect some of the people involved in this in this circumstance but you also might have heard this story so in 2019 in Tokyo. All right I wasn't part of this one that good. Okay in 2019 in Tokyo a friend of mine who was who was part of this interesting experience told me this that a certain American lifter who should not have tried to fit in a shirt that was I believe either a 42 or 44. It took something like 40 minutes with two very large American ventures one of whom has already been mentioned here and the other whom I know is possibly a future guest on this podcast wrestling him into wrestling him into this shirt and somehow he managed to go out and not Bob. Now I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm guessing names in my head as to who this might have been. I'll text you when the calls. Can you give him give initials? Because most people won't get it most people won't get it from the initials but the people that know will know straight away and I think it'll be fine. So RC and JS were wrestling Q and into the shirt. Okay cool. I think yeah I think now now that I've said those names I think you could figure this out pretty quickly. Wow and that's that's the big boys wrestling somebody into a shit. Yeah yeah and and you know I want to be very clear here I'm not taking anything away from any of these three guys if I could fit in a shirt like that I would 100% do that. Man I used to say that all the time it's the same with sumo. If I could. If I could arch. Yeah if I could if I could arch like any Bergwund used to be able to you better believe I do that and I got a pretty good arch. Yeah dude I used to feel so but so bad for Eddie and the hate that he copped online for having a great bench because dude couldn't deadlift. He wasn't winning he was a three-lift powerlifter with a with a good squat and an amazing bench and because of the advantage that he got in the bench press he was terrible at deadlift. It was such a disadvantage when he came to the deadlift but nobody was out there going oh poor Eddie poor Eddie let me see the advantage on on one lift. I and I guess that we'll get a little bit sidetracked what the hell. Sure I'm sympathetic I'm sympathetic to the intent of the bench depth rule. I think the way that they'd gone about it for I think the way IPF is going about officiating it and determining how you determine everything around it is not great but I do like the idea. I think the set of rules are actually not bad rules. I just I the problem is I have seen that rule implemented and enforced in ways that I would consider very unfair against certain lifters while not being called against others. Yeah it did it does seem the IPF will make fairly political rules every few years and it does seem to be they do seem to be targeting a group of lifters with the rule. But at the same time you have a pretty it's always unfair I think. Yes and at the same time you have a pretty sizable contingent of let's be honest lightweight female lifters and in some cases lightweight men who carry the bar extremely low on their back in the squad and that's perfectly legal. I and I think if you want to criticize range emotion for bench you should at the same time say you have to carry the bar you know but here or higher. Well we used to have that rule about half of the half of the and that was it was it was one bar with from the top of the shoulder and it's really hard to tell where the top of shoulder is sometimes and you know what's low and what's now the rule I believe is excessive forward lean so what I find excessive will be different to what someone else finds excessive it's very very gray. It's like the sternum rule but somehow even worse. Oh gosh I love that sternum rule. If anybody wasn't around for it we had to touch like so there's my zyfoid process right about there base of the sternum. He had to touch higher than that but problem being is most people would often think the middle of your sternum is the bottom of your sternum. He goes no no no no it's it's actually a long way down but we were having to kind of touch up here and kind of in line with the nipples. So how would you touch and how would you touch in a properly fitting shirt? Well I will I became one of the guys that was great at touching light weights like high or what I think is high. I just learnt the technique to do it. Played around with the way the shirt loaded up. Sort of changing angles pulling it down pulling it up pushing sleeves in height into the armpits stuff like that. Yeah there was ways to do it and I think they threw it out after one year at Worlds like almost everyone bombed due to the sternum rule. Just like get rid of it. Just get rid of it. This is dumb. So I always always say hi to Ricky Flanders and because this is a Ricky was referring one day and I got done for I got red lights for touching too low in a bench shirt and I just sat up off the bench and I looked straight at Ricky and I go can you point at my sternum please because I was I was 170 kilos in a bench pressure like somewhere around here like I just said can you point out it for me and it did sound in hindsight. It did sound very aggressive and it did sound like the big bald man was was angry and was yelling at the nice little lady in the chair. But that was that was the frustration with that. It's like just tell me where to touch and I'll put it there but no one knew where this thing was. Yeah at the same time there and I've never understood I do understand this but I do think that it's kind of ridiculous because of whipped power lifting as a whole is not very large. When I started out with predominantly a multiply group there was a lot of hostility toward us a.l. and ipf and some of that I got and some of that I thought was kind of absurd and I remember someone telling me while someone telling me while I was getting ready for a us a.l. meet. Oh you're gonna have to touch your sternum and I'm like that rule disappeared 10 plus years ago. Yeah what we also had uneven. Uneven extension was the thing for a while and I yeah of the self- press call that was used and out again by 2006. It's just over it. Yeah just yeah Laura hold it there for a bit and when you when you think it's good enough go and then we'll tell you if you got it right. Yeah but in a tight shirt in a tight shirt you think it stopped as you've touched it. Oh man in a tight shirt you think the bar stopped when it's got about two inches to go. It's like yeah I must be on my chest let's go. Like trying to feel trying to feel the touch in a shirt is not easy as you as you well know. Oh no and if you generally if you do feel the touch something's gone wrong. Yeah you've done the bar. Yeah. There is a special skill that some listeners have and I'll call on my friend Mike Sapinski here for he was able to he told me at the oral one. For a second there I thought you were talking about Mike getting into the shirt. I was I was dead set you were about to say MC and I was gonna laugh so much. Oh no it was not Mike. I've gotten Mike shirt on Mike's Mike's shirt is not that tight. Yeah I've lifted we've lifted together often and I've never I don't think I've ever been around for him getting a shirt on. No it's it's not too dead. Yeah, but he he told me at I think it was the last Titan Pro bench bash or whatever the last time the Arnold had this That he took 606 like half dumped it on the way down had his wrist like this behind the bar And then somehow reverse curled it to lock out which I thought was the coolest thing Wow, that's awesome that is awesome Oh, there was actually there was do you want a funny story about I got a story for you about The sternum rule and having to touch high and the the experience would go to right so 2010 we still have the sternum rule in full effect and Was it oceania bench press was in Christchurch, New Zealand? I went across for that The idea was that we're gonna I was gonna do oceania bench and then 12 weeks about 12 weeks later would go to Texas for my first World bench press right Oh Ruben Smanter who was a great friend Incredible guy and passed away a few years back He was the guy in you know, she I mean no one could beat him on bench. He had all the records everybody knew that he was untouchable Except me I was arrogant enough to think I'm gonna beat Ruben one day I'll get him and because we used to swap training ideas as well He knew eventually I'd catch up with two of him and and all this stuff. So it wasn't really competitive We'd like to see each other lift a lot That's the setup Australia put Robert Wilkes as the chief referee for the session You're already fucked It's like all right Robert at this point in life was mostly on juries Like he didn't do much platform stuff anymore So his Robert in his red tie chief referee trying to appear impartial to the 100% New Zealand audience watching and Aussie in a key we do battle so Yeah, I Opening attempt bring to 80 or 2 90 I can't remember which I was no it was 280 brought to 80 to down Trying to get a touch trying to touch it really really high and so to do that I would leave my belt off and let the shirt move a little bit because I was strong enough just to press it But this is the old F6 high collar. That's right. So shirt slides Pushes up onto my throat Robert is being so fair and generous to everyone else but me is like as a killer hole just to prove that he's not cheating And where it's all above board and I can just feel my vision Getting closer and closer I don't remember dropping the bar on myself but apparently I got given a press command after I'd like I don't remember it but got given a press command pressed it halfway out before my hands just go complete relax and drop the bar on my belly Spotters catch it on the first bounce so the bar actually bounce off my gut. They caught it re-racket First thing I remember is Craig McGuiggan Who was kind of running the platform? He comes over offers me his hand to help me up and just says You had a wee nap big fella Was this a meat? Was this a meat you did with Stephen Pritchard as well? Yeah, yeah, Pritchard was there That was the that was the first time I'd ever done a meat with Neroans So I've met a couple of Neroan team that day got to know them at a wild time Yeah, Stephen Pritchard was saying He was on YouTube yeah it would be somewhere Yeah, I think I've seen this video you have you have the old school actually the same shoes that I apparently wear right now at bed Just like see few USA ones Oh gosh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right Somebody I gave them away if you use back to a strong man I love those boots. They're so thick and reliable. Oh great. That was I got them from liftinglarge.com My cantileum that's that's actually where I got my super katana from the one that I'm I'm gonna be in tomorrow There's still still going So those shoes are phenomenal and I I emailed Titan about hey, are you ever gonna make these again? I don't like I don't care how much they cost I'd buy them as long as they're not like the price in a small like a gold bar or something like that and They never got back to me. So I tried to figure this out through searching the internet for a um And apparently what happened is that Titan They were handmade by like a cobbler whom Titan would contract with and when that guy retired No one else knew how to make those shoes Hmm wow, okay Interesting interesting That sucks because that way you're right. That was great shoes really cool. Yeah, I Mean I I bought mine on ebay secondhand for like 80 bucks that was Some of the best 80 dollars. I spent it parallel to Yeah, I wonder where yeah, I wish I knew who had those boots now because I think they've been passed on a couple of times Yeah, you see them every so often in the US um Not frequently, but there are some lifters who still wear them Donovan Thompson wears them sometimes It's cuz donovan's really really old He probably he's probably friends with the cobbler They they probably they might have gone to school together I have no big deposit and things to say about him if he's listed on I loved don't I loved donovan and Yeah, he's great guy really cool guy gives me shit. So I'll give him shit back. I like that He um my first pension nationals was 2024 in green till south germwinner with us apl As this is the last us apl made up done I mean because of the US has its own weird situation Right now um and I I finished second with a whopping Rew 1442 and a half kilo equipped bench, which by the way is pretty much what I could do raw So I just want to put out there is that What we're truly getting a ton out of the shirt at this point and um, I'm standing so I become a you can I ask you Can I ask you if you've made a joke about his wife at that point? Probably did but that was my favorite every time he would you know some a guy would bench 140ish. I loved him listening Love listening to him reference Jennifer at that point So why does that yeah, that's cool man. I'm stiff So we're called out we're called out for the USAPL Pro Bench card presentation And I'm standing next to donovan Thompson and I say I don't I bet 142 and a half. Why am I getting this? He turns to me said you showed up It's more than 95 percent of people dead I just I think there's a picture of me. I just you're cracking up standing next to That was that was a fun me really interesting Donovan's a very interesting example of of how Powerlifting knowledge isn't always disseminated and it's not because of the source Yeah, the dude the dude is about one of the smartest people on this planet about bench pressing The one person he's coached from beginner through the world champion is his wife Jennifer She is as good as she is for a lot of reasons one of the reasons is is Donovan like he's so oh yeah He's influenced A bunch of world bunch of world champions A bunch yeah, and it's always with With profound inside and wisdom that seems too simple to work And because of its simplicity, I think people discount him But he just I think it's because he knows things at such a high level and he knows it deeply and profoundly that he can describe it simply It's the same thing with with coach go ask me um and and you know a lot of guys around him from his lineage too um You know none of the stuff that I've been fortunate enough to learn from Adam or indirectly from or from other guys who With bill um Not if it's very complicated It's actually is deceptively simple and people I think today there's a Conception of well if it's not super complex. It can't work or will work and yeah, I don't want it I'm not you know, I hope I'm not you know attacking anybody or anyone feels doesn't feel attacked by this but Good friend of mine Younger than me, but Yeah, you're younger than me is currently looking for a new power with the coach and Uh, I said he should go to Mike to share so do I get do I get like a referral bonus or something on that side probably not but um he He Is is talking with a guy who's well known in uh in the area where I live and this guy has His own [BLANK_AUDIO] like, propriet, he has all these types of metrics, like, how much volume are you doing? What is your maximum MRV? What is your maximum minimum volume? All these types of things, tonnage, volume, etc. And I'm thinking to myself, and you know, this is not, and maybe this is just the way my mind works. It's lifting weights. It doesn't need to be that complicated. Like, we can, and it's not, and it's not to say that data doesn't matter, or that things like this don't matter and can't be useful, but I feel like I've still, I feel like I've stolen from you on this one. I've seen to blow a lot of people's minds when I tell them the only thing you have to do for bench presses, speed and volume, everything else is, everything else is downstream of that. Yeah. Yeah. And of course, that's not mine either. That's Freddie Smolter. That is 100% Freddie. And I'm, yeah, I wasn't about to, I wasn't about to argue with one of the few guys on the planet that could bench 300 raw and 400 equipped without the assistance of trucks. Like I'm going, if you think it's that Freddie, then I'm going to probably, I'm going to believe you, and then, and find out why you're right. Because that speed and volume thing is an inch wide and a mile deep. Yeah. And you realize, and I've started to realize this too, that a lot of training methods that are popular today actually inhibit the development of the bench press, unintentionally, unintentionally, entirely. But I was down with James Townsend in your, in Georgia, about a month ago. And he says to me, all these new age MF rooms don't know how to train the bench press. They think it's like training the squad in deadlift. Yeah. It's just not. It's just not. No. And I, maybe, maybe a controversial take here. So if it's super controversial, edit it out. But I think super controversial, we put it on Instagram for rage baiting. Oh, cool. You just, you just disagree with whatever there is popular on the internet. And that's how you get views. I think, and I understand why people use these exercises because I think they're, I think they can be beneficial. But I think that the proliferation of tempo bench and long pause bench has been a net negative and has damaged more bench presses and it has actually held. Yeah. Yeah. Can I give you my take on that one? Yeah. Go for it. When they're saying tempo, like changing speed is a really valuable tool. Yes. It's just never going slow enough. I see. That is what I think, I think that makes a lot of sense. So when we're talking about training speeds, there's a, if you go super, super slow speed is your learning speed. That's the precise learning. It helps if you think about learning dance choreography. This is, so dance choreography is very complex. A squad is very simple, but they're still, it's the human movement. So we can put it in the same category. If I give you an elaborate sequence of dance moves and say, all right, just step that through slowly. Think about how slowly you'll go through each step to really work it in. Like it's very precise, moving, slow, pausing, stuff like that. So I'm, I'm talking about like a two minute squad or a one minute bench press, 30 seconds down, 30 seconds up. When, when I do it with people in my workshops, we used to do a two minute squad. Right. It's almost, it's barely perceptible movement. One minute down, or I'd do it with a metronome. So it was, there's actually 64 seconds. So we'll do four four timing. We go down for 16 bars and come back up for 16 bars. You find out which part of the motor pattern you do and don't own at that point. Yeah. That's, that's really interesting. Right. So that's that, when I hear tempo bench, that's what goes in my head. I've gone, oh, no, you're just going too fast. Six seconds down. One second up. Don't worry about it. It's not slow enough. The next speed, which is like super slow is, is going to get a lot of refinement, lots of learning fast. The in-between speed, which is also a learning speed, is uncomfortably slow. There's a speed at which you'll want to do everything, which feels quite coordinated. That's our that's our default. Everybody wants to do everything at coordinated speed. The four or six second tempo bench or a two count pause or a three count pause on the squad or a bench press. That's not uncomfortable enough. That's still within the comfort zone of what feels athletic and coordinated. We want to take the movement, make the movement so slow that now it's really painfully uncomfortable. Right. So if we, and I know I'm monologuing now because we're getting really close to flow, it's okay. I'm not a won't allow you to. That initial one, that frustrate, and we talk about it in the group a lot, right? We want that frustration. We want to feel a little bit that mental tension of, oh, this is uncomfortable. So then at that point, you can release. You do that little breath out. Let it go. Okay. How do we get a bit more deep in bottom and into the movement? And then you hit that sweet spot. If it feels good or if it feels comfortable, it's too quick. Just too quick. That I think there's, I think that makes a lot of sense. I, the reason I am skeptical of the shorter tempos is because I think people unintentionally train themselves to not explode off the chest. I think they unintentionally train themselves to press slow. Yeah. There is because you remember we talk about all the time that whatever you do, you've got to learn whatever pay whatever is paid attention to gets reinforced. So said principle specific adaptation to impose them. And so we adapt to the demand that you give it. So like you said, you just learned to go a little bit slower than what you need to be doing. Two weeks ago when we had a parry came over from Sydney for a few days training, one of the things that we worked on with both Ben and Perry was isometrics with no weight on the bar. Right. Can you can you generate full tension in the bottom position or in the lockout position, full body tension on the bar, like crank everything up to 11 like spinal tap. Can you hold that for 30 seconds? You're pushing into a pen or no? No, no, like just, so like a body builder, like flexing everything that needs to be flexed to maintain lack of movement. So you've got, you're pushing muscles are fully engaged, but you've also got your pulling muscles fully engaged. So there are so lots and pecs are on at the same time, biceps and triceps are on at the same time, all the antagonists, all the antagonists of working maximally to not move. Right. So it's just a whole body tension exercise. And don't worry, I filmed it all. It's going to go up on YouTube eventually. And I'll explain the theory behind it. It's horrible, horrible, horrible. And I know we're going to be talking about something now that no one else can see because we're talking about our private WhatsApp group. You can see the massive improvement from one week to to the next in Ben's SpeedBitch. Right. That came from not moving. It's it's very interesting, but I have to say one of the most interesting things about that group is that all of us have fundamentally different training methods in in terms of what programming looks like. And all of us see results. All of us are looking for the same things. And what that suggests is that they're within reason. Because if I don't say within reason, someone's going to come after me and say, what if I do Max effort floor press with six reverse blue bands? Okay, well, that probably won't work. But we have the neuroscientist in me. So to go, it depends. Right. There's probably a very unique context in which that would work for somebody with with their thing. So I was like, hey, but I once gave a I once gave a presentation where I said everything works until it doesn't. I mean, that's that's generally everything semi logical works. Now it doesn't mean that everything semi logical works well or works forever. But all for everybody all the time under all circumstances. Right. I mean, I've said this before but you know Jimmy Colms Bench training was effectively to extremely heavy days for week, where one day he'd be in the shirt and he would do some sort of overload board work. The other day he'd do generally some sort of raw high-board lockout work. That worked for him because he's very much built to Bench and has very short upper arms. This is naturally fairly explosive. I mean, for a man who was 330 pounds, he was able to do some things I didn't think were possible for a man that size. And if he were 6'1" as opposed to 5'5", he'd probably be the NFL. But whenever other people in the training group would try stuff like that, no one got anywhere. I mean, I was a great example of this one, an example where I did an F6, I did a 2'15" or 2'10" two-board. And then I went to the meat and I popped with a 155. Yeah, I think we've had this discussion before, having where it really matters how you got like how you got to where you are right now. That's absolutely matters because everybody gets, like if you guys all found yourself in the same place, you all took a different route to get there. And then working, if we worked the metaphor in practical terms, if we all drove, if a bunch of us decided to meet up at a restaurant tonight for dinner, we would all get there different ways. But there would be similarities. Like, well, we all had to move to get there and involved some working and involved some kind of motor vehicle, but they were different motor vehicles. Like there's so much individual variation in there because we get bogged down in the tactics of what it looks like drawn out on paper, we forget what the strategy is. And in terms of getting strong, the strategies are very, very minimal again. Like that just, and so as long as you're kind of hitting the strategy, whatever tactics are using doesn't matter. In evolutionary biology, there's an idea called convergent evolution where multiple structures will convert, will evolve simultaneously and then converge in something like a human eye. And that's something that I think is very applicable also to ideas. I think parallel sheets are a great example of that. There's also plenty of other examples you can think of in the intellectual space. But that's something that's always been very interesting to me. And if you look at looking at tactics is one thing, but trying to understand the underlying rationale or logic for why programs are written in particular ways, is actually a fascinating exercise. Why is Shaco do this instead? Why does Shaco do this and conjugate does that? Well, I mean, part of it is Louis Debra Understood when he was reading, but that's a different, that's a separate problem. But they're reaching for the same effect. Yeah, yeah, 100%. 100%. So that's why I like laughing at the online debates around the dogmatism of training programs. They sound like religious debates and the only debates that are worse than powder thing programming styles is when we start talking about nutrition. Nutrition was worse than any religion. Food walls are way worse than any religious war, I think. I think they're going to say that if we, when we have World War three, it'll be because maybe keto and carnivore are fighting with vegetarians or something. Because the old United Strength forum, which is how Shaco geeks like me ended up discovering a lot about stuff. Yeah, is that the one that was Stephen and Ben Polk, right? I think so. Is that the nutrition section has the subtyles, food goes in and that's how I think about nutrition. Food goes in. Food goes in. There we go. That'll do. I won for both Stephen and I. We had a friend called Warren Trent, old bull. Was this the thing? And so the old bull was there to keep the young bulls honest and had a great gym in Wellington, New Zealand. His, I still follow his nutrition advice that he said, if you can pick it, pluck it or pull it, you should eat it. And if it runs, swims or flies, it's good. That's it. I'm like, Oh, okay, I'll just stick to that. That's actually not that's actually pretty decent advice. I mean, I guess that is from that is it. If you want an 80 20 on nutrition, stick with that. I would be one thing. So I guess that does exclude certain animals, like trying to eat a koala or something like that because it. Well, it doesn't fly. It doesn't run swim or fly. So leave it alone. Apparently, they taste Laosie. Kangaroos, they run, Amy's run real well, Amy's is delicious. I told you I have the desire to that flock of knocks flying over the hip. That's a few meals. Let's get it. I have a and I think this technically is a federal crime. So maybe I do have the desire to eat a bald eagle. I don't know you they're protected in the US, but oh yeah, that's they should. That's they should be. But damn, I really want to find out what a taste like. Yeah, my mind is, but someone pointed out that we ate our our coat of arms in Australia. Like Amy's delicious kangaroos are delicious. They're on our coat of arms because they're two animals that never walk backwards. And now our motto is advanced Australia fair. Right. We go forward. So that's why we have kangaroos and Amy's. But we eat them. We're like, yeah, they're sacred, beautiful animals, but they taste the delicious on a barbecue. So that probably would have think what are what are the national animals are on the menu anywhere? And so yeah, bald eagle would be, you know, it could be nice to try. I recently finished a book about a Victorian naturalist in Frank Buckland. Rather titled the what's it? The man who ate the zoo and his entire he didn't like many more much more important things in his life. But my primary interest was in his consumption of various fauna. As I said, as I told you, he advised stewing wombat. And then he also, I believe he said he tried panther or some other large cat and described is not very good. I can't imagine any of the big cats being tasty because they're all carnivores, right? They just eat other animals. Yeah. So carnivores don't taste good. So fun digression here because why not? We're almost at two hours and we've talked about power, what did for maybe 20 minutes of it. And we'll end up on the food debate. Like we'll finish it here, but with the food stuff. But I find this stuff weirdly fascinating. Like what what people consume. Like how do we how do you look at an animal? Like how far think about human evolution? Were you looking at animals and gone? Eric and that would taste good. Oh, yeah. So during the siege of Paris during the Franco-Pression War, the Prussians had managed to encircle the city. It's a French. I mean, it could take it for what it's worth. And what happened is to combat starvation, the people began consuming zoo animals. So that's where there were two elephants that the people ate. And that's where we have, I think, some of the better information about what elephant tastes like. It is apparently very tough and oily. Which does not really surprise me. Tough and oily. And how would you cook an elephant? I don't know. Hmm. Yeah, there was an unnetflix. There's a series called meat eater. There's a hunting program. I really enjoyed it. And so he's often finding different meat sources that require very specialized cooking. And it's normally, yeah, like I said before, it's normally a carnival. Like bears, you'd need to do something with and they're kind of dangerous to eat. Same with wild boar. And it's, yeah, it's whatever, whatever animals eat, animals that eat other animals aren't good to eat. So it tells me we wouldn't be good to eat. But my vegan. No, if I ever get hungry, she's on the menu. Like if if there's a lot of vegans around this part, we're going to be okay in the apocalypse. We know who to target, right? History. I'm not serious, by the way. The diet, the history of diet is fascinating. Up until about even 50 years, about 60 years ago, Raccoon was a very common meat in the US. Yeah, right. Okay. I kind of imagine that would taste good. I don't know. It was like a traditional, it was one of these traditional things that people, so Thanksgiving is next week in the US. And for those of us who are not burst in American Thanksgiving, our traditional bird is turkey. But apparently for a long time, Raccoon was considered a substitute for turkey. I did not know that. That's very interesting. Very interesting. Let's go. I want to finish up on what's the five weirdest animals you've eaten. Let's go. We'll go back and forth. I mean, I'm not tremendously, I haven't been tremendously adventurous with meats. I've probably had crocodile. That's pretty standard one, I would say. Yeah, I love crocodile. Crockettos takes on flavor well. Really good. I mean, Venison is pretty normal. It's good. Then just really all the standard meats. I think I've had squirrel at one point. It's off-air. Okay. Yeah. I love squirrel hunting looks insane. Just shooting up at trees with little pellets. Catching tiny rodents as they fall out of the sky. Just to indicate how maybe strange some of the guys I used to train with were, we would make jokes about using a martini henry, which is the rightful the British used in the British Army used in the 19th century. Using a martini henry as a hunting implement. And I think it fires like a 570. We're not talking about anything that rounds here. It's not going to be any edible condition. Everything's going to be mincemeat afterwards. Oh yeah. Whatever left is shredded. Yeah, right. So I know I've said kangaroo and aamu. What else? Turtle? Jugo. So manatee. Yeah. That is really good. That is good stuff. And I'm glad it's protected. And that only my Indigenous friends are allowed to hunt it. And I'm so grateful that they share it with me. But yeah, they're the big ones. And camel. Yeah, camel's quite good. Yeah, I'm a fan. I'm a fan. So I want to, I want to be able to eat all of these different animals from around the world that people like to hunt. Because I just think it would be cool. And if they're on somebody's coat of arms or their national animal, even better. Because like I said to you the other day, I'm still looking for a griffin. I want to find a unicorn. And if I find either of those mythical creatures, because they're a national animal somewhere in a piranha flag, I'm eating it straight away. Well, the college, the undergraduate college I went to our mascot was a griffin. And there was someone who wore the griffin costume. So if we, does eating the costume count? Oh, it could. They're not safe anymore. But I've visited point the mouth. Oh, I made this comment to another friend of mine and I wanted to get your take. What do you think the most digestible bench sure it is? I was like, gestible. Probably the, what was the inser that used to blow out all the time? Oh, the bolt? Was that what was it? Blast or bolt or something? I watched, I think it was you were noticing a blowout two of them on back-to-back attempts in Texas in 2010. They're just like, they're just split down the sides. I think Joe Kapp busted one and there was a guy who's split one as well. Whatever, whatever bench shirt that was, I think that would, you could get that into a suit. It would probably just dissolve if you stood it overnight. I said that because I bet, I bet one of my friends is a multi-ply lifter. If a certain event occurs, then I will have to livestream myself eating a bench shirt. Oh, man, yeah, get that old inser out and just boil it down. You could tell it into it pretty easily, I'm sure. Oh, man, one thing I have never asked you when we've known each other for a while now, Stenal Stein. Stein. Stein. Okay. How did the difference develop? Like, do you know any about, because it seems like 50/50 if you say Stein, then someone will go, "No, it's Stein." I think it's dependent on. I don't know. I guess it's the. So I have a very Jewish name, but I also think that I think it, if you're, I think it's like the second part of your surname. And I don't, there's probably some linguistic title for that, term for that. It's pronounced steam, but I think independently it's always pronounced Stein. Okay. Oh, good to know. Good to know. And then let's finish up with the question that I was meant to ask right at the start. And this is where we're going to finish. So I really appreciate your time and having a chat. It's wonderful. But what I want to know is, why powerlifting? Well, I think it goes back to what I said at the start, which is that I've always been a pretty gold driven individual. And I have my goals for work. I have my other personal goals. But in terms of having something in. I'm one of those people who can't just go to the gym and train. I always have to be training towards something. If I go to the gym and train, I'm going to be that guy who does like two sets on a machine and is like, "Well, I'll fuck him up here." So I think what powerlifting does is allows me to orient my training and my time towards a goal. And that's really the best outcome. And you know, when the time comes when I'm done powerlifting, because I don't intend to be a. And Dave Ricks, I'm not going to beat you anytime soon. I'm fully aware of this fact. I think once that happens, I'm going to have to figure out how to reorient the goals I've had around powerlifting toward general fitness, probably weight loss, something like that. Injury management. Injury management. Well, we've already on that. Don't worry. We've already started. That seems to be where a lot of masters powerlifting ends up. What's your purpose for going to the gym? Well, if I don't, I heard a lot more. There's more pain in my life when I don't train. That's very common in a lot of high level NFL players as well, where a lot of the workouts they do are not. These guys are not developing strength, but a lot of the time they're just keeping their bodies in one piece. That's mostly training for me. I just don't want to. I don't want any more surgery. I've had two joint replacements. That's enough. I want to keep everything as is for the rest of my life. It's okay. I'm more than prepared for the future of arthritis in my elbows. One day, you play enough baseball. That's going to be in your future, right? Oh, yeah. But don't worry. I'll still. I know he's a friend that I have a lot of respect for him. If I have the Jeff Snyder problem, I will be very happy with my band. There we go. I like that as a stop.