Mark Bell's Power Project - Power Project EP. 47 - Ed Coan

Episode Date: May 7, 2018

The Greatest Powerlifter of All Time, Ed Coan. Ed has set over 71 world records in Powerlifting and has a 2463 lbs total. Mark Bell invited Marcus Sannadan aka, "Filipinothunder" onto the podcast to talk to Ed Coan about everything Powerlifting and more. Re-Watch the Live Stream here: https://youtu.be/llSNOieye2Y ➢Subscribe Rate & Review on iTunes at: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/mark-bells-power-project/id1341346059?mt=2 ➢Listen on Stitcher Here: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/mark-bells-power-project?refid=stpr ➢Listen on Google Play here: https://play.google.com/music/m/Izf6a3gudzyn66kf364qx34cctq?t=Mark_Bells_Power_Project ➢Listen on SoundCloud Here: https://soundcloud.com/markbellspowerproject ➢SHOP NOW: https://markbellslingshot.com/ Enter Discount Code, "POWERPROJECT" at checkout to receive 15% off all Sling Shots. FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell Follow The Power Project Podcast ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/MarkBellsPowerProject Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz

You can go, you can make it as alive as you want. All right, guys, we're live. I think I'm just going to talk to Marcus the whole time. Oh, hey. Hey, man, how's your lifts going? Things going okay? They're going pretty good. Falling asleep over there, bud?

Oh, my God. You see who this is over here? Well, you didn't know because I just stood up on my little booster chair. Oh, looking handsome, buddy. That's all I know. What's going on, Ed? Just hanging out here this weekend doing a free seminar and having fun. What's been going down?

You've been kind of traveling all over the place, doing seminars everywhere. A few times with Mr. Efferding, which is really cool because he's a lot of fun. I don't have to be alone, and I get to learn a lot from Stan. He's really fat, though. He is. So is it hard? He wouldn't take his shirt off near me. He was embarrassed. He didn't want you to school him once again. I was showing him up. How did you meet Mr. Efferding? I met him at the Mr. Olympia

contest when you brought him along. That's right. That's the first cover of the magazine. That's right. That's kind of how we all came together. Andy and I decided to do a magazine and we thought there's only one person fit to be on the cover of the first power magazine that we ever made. I was like, we need to have Ed Cohn on there. And so there it was. I had never talked to you. I had only known you from the old elite stuff as Smelly. And I didn't even know your name i just thought it was this funny sarcastic bastard which is pretty true anyways but uh and i had no only known about

stan because he had started coming to your gym and you were the one of the first guys that started putting up videos and everyone's looking at this jack guy and he's getting stronger and bigger the whole time yeah it was pretty cool yeah Yeah. Stan was a freak right out of the gate, but something that you said that was really cool in that interview of that first publication of Power Magazine, you know, I said something like that. My dad said to me, you know, part of knowing who you are is knowing who you're not. And I said, that was really helpful to me because I was kind of chasing after these numbers. And it can be a very dangerous thing.

Sometimes you chase after numbers that you're never meant to actually lift. You end up not adhering to the process to get to it, not doing dotting your I's and crossing your T's to get to it. And you're trying to jump levels that you're not at. And you never get there. You skip. You sometimes skip some of the uh steps uh but i said something like that to you in this interview and i said uh you know it was a good realization for me it was healthy for me to recognize that i'm not ed cone that i'm not

sean frankel that i'm not some of these guys that were uh breaking all-time world records and uh you wrote you you uh in the magazine, said back, basically, oh, I wouldn't worry about that. You're going to do your own great thing someday anyway. That's all it is. And I was like, and when I got that back, that really meant a lot to me. That really actually helped me with a lot of things, because it's hard to kind of figure out your own way, your own path.

I always say I wish i had me to train me both physically and mentally right because i would have done i think i would have done so much better because when you get inside your own head and you got your own ego and stuff like that it's it's it's hard to take the steps needed you don't look at yeah this guy doesn't skip any steps you've been watching him not anymore i will let him filipino thunder i will beat his ass he but he's in here um on off days i mean it tell us about it marcus what are some of the stuff you're doing you're doing all this you know uh almost rehab prehab stuff that nobody wants to do he's over there doing it well i have the normal four training days a week and then every other day i'm in here

i try to get something done usually it's just a little bit of like warm-up rollout stretch a lot of prehab that's what i like to call it just because i don't want to get hurt again so i'm trying to like prevent that from happening preventative medicine yeah so i mean i just try to get make sure like i'm moving take care of my adductors try to have my hips mobile keep my pecs good my elbow happy so i can train because like when i can't, I have to back off my training. It just like fucks everything up. And then I'm not happy with my week. If I can't go at it at the pace, I was supposed to go at it. Then I get stressed out. Cause I'm like, okay, in 10 weeks, that means I'm not going to squat 750 for my single before me,

but I'm only going to get 740. And I'm like, now do I have the confidence to take like the squat I want to take it to me? Or am I just going to be short there too? Right. You're setting, you're setting yourself up on your on your off real training days to be successful yeah that's right i mean i think it's a lot better too for me at least to just do something and not just do nothing like doing nothing and sitting on the couch going home and like i feel like shit the next day you're coming into train. Doing those tiny little things a whole bunch of times, though, adds up. Right.

I mean, that's what you were talking about today. You said you were like, I got to do some kind of lifting today. And just to. You got to move. But it doesn't always have to be this monumental big time exercise. No, training doesn't have to be power training, so to speak. It doesn't have to be bodybuilding training. It has to be movement.

All the exercises you're doing actually can make you healthy so you can do the other stuff. That's still training because it's still hard work. Yeah. A lot of people don't realize that in your career. I mean, things have changed over the years. People have different ways of going about things like a prehab type work. And some of the movements have changed a little bit. But some of the work that you did, just day in and day out, doing behind the neck presses, leg extensions, leg curls, calf raises.

And then on top of that, whenever you're done with all your workouts, it seemed like every single workout you ever did, I think you always stretched. And so a lot of times people don't recognize that, well, those movements, leg extensions can be looked at as a prehab movement. Leg curls, you're making the muscle bigger, stronger from different angles. Exactly. You're not always going to be in the perfect position with a real heavy weight. Yeah. And if you're not, then what's going to hold you in place? All the other little things.

Yeah. So that's why I used to put into place, as in the New Power magazine, I talk about making your body into this abominable force like a suit of armor. Right. So wherever you go to hit. Indestructible. Exactly. Wherever you go to hit, there's chunks of muscle and tendons and ligaments and bone structure that is strong now because you dotted your eyes and crossed your teeth. You made everything strong.

It's like an old power bodybuilding type thing. And then get ready for a contest the power way. So you never had a weakness and what's going to show up so instead of doing like five sets of regular heavy squats i would do two and then i would do my heavy pause squats or high bar close stand squats and then leg extensions leg curls and then on the deadlift day after regular deadlifts or i would do stiff leg deficits or regular deficits, all stuff without a belt, bent rows.

And I would just make the whole body strong to withhold everything for the future. Right. When it comes to powerlifting training too, we're training like it's the movement and not necessarily the muscle group, or at least that's the way a lot of people have shifted. When you were training, is that the way you looked at it or was it different back then? Was it like a leg day, like almost like a bodybuilding routine or was it a squat day? The squat was the most important, but you knew you had to do the other stuff to fill in the blanks.

That's what I made up the volume in my regular squats by filling in the blanks with heavy compound assistance exercises plus the little stuff for balance and health. Right. Do you think a newer person or a more experienced person has to worry about getting their volume from accessory work more? A newer person has to because they have to build a big, big base. You can't go up unless you build a base. They just don't really have the strength to hammer it all out in the squat necessarily.

Too many weaknesses in too many areas. So it's good to be more power bodybuilding. And then in the middle, I think like after a contest or to get in shape, your GPP, you have to do that stuff. And then you can get ready for a power meet. And then at the end of your career, you have to do a lot more of you can get ready for a power meet. And then at the end of your career, you have to do a lot more of that stuff to hold everything in place. It comes full circle. Yeah.

I truly believe, and this is kind of, it's kind of new, is that how you trained when you were younger is how you're going to end up training. And it'll be the most comfortable way for you to train when you're older. Like when you started doing all your power lifting stuff, the main stuff you did was a lot of the old conjugate and all that with box squats and stuff.

And that is the most comfortable for your body. Right. So why wouldn't you go back to that? And it feels great and comfortable. That's what you did. Exactly. And every time I deviate from it, I kind of feel like shit. I'm like, why am I just box squatting in my briefs?

Like that's what I'm used to. Then do it. At this point, you're not going to compete. You want to be healthy. You want to be strong enough. So why not enjoy it? Yeah.

And the thing that makes it feel the best is that actually just have a good workout. Yeah. And the only way for us to have a good workout is we are defined by the weights that we move. So there's gotta be some weight on there. Yeah. It's not like we're training for a contest,

so we don't got to worry about it. Right. Yeah. But you can't train with nothing. No, no. Cause you've got your own ego. You know,

like I said, I just, I just train enough, heavy enough to look stronger than I really am. That's when you whip out those CrossFit plates. I have to do a little bit of a shrugs and curls now and then now. Marcus does a lot of the programming here for super training gym and has helped a lot of our athletes reach some of their goals. And we've noticed a trend where a lot of people are adding in more volume to their workouts.

But I personally have always kind of liked to train a little bit more the way that you're training. And I always liked the west side stuff where it was kind of a one and done type thing two two sets three sets uh i never obtained the kind of strength that you had so sometimes uh depending on the movement i might do a set an extra set or two to get that extra volume in there i was never really a big fan of like five six seven eight sets i I felt like I could never really recover from it. Your speed can slow down. And when you get fatigued, your mental and your breaks down

and also your technique. Right. So that's what you have to be careful of. If you're going to do that many sets, the intensity level would have to be a lot, lot lower. Right. Or else you're going to burn out. And so maybe, but maybe for that reason,

maybe it's good to do that sometimes because it is nice to have that mental challenge from a different angle, right? It's all good and it's all not good. It depends on how you pick your numbers and your intensity and your workload. If it's too high too often, you're going to burn out. You won't be able to do it. Right.

Do you disagree with the way some people are training nowadays or do you think it's just highly individual it's highly individual it's all the same and different like do you look at and be like oh i wouldn't do that or do you think or do you say i wouldn't do that for me because that's kind of different definitely for me for for some of the guys you watch that are the best it works but a lot of times the best are gifted to be able to do that. It won't hold true for the masses. So it's kind of like a disservice sometimes. Yeah. It's cool to show big lifts, but what's the actual routine that got you there?

Right. That's what you want to know. And, you know, with Marcus, you know, he's an efficient squatter. And so when somebody's efficient at something, they have a little bit more leeway on the frequency they use, the intensity that they use. They can flip-flop and move around a little bit more. Someone who's inefficient in a squat, they might not recover for a week. Yeah, the room for error is a lot, lot smaller. It might take a long time to recover.

When you're planning out some of the stuff, Marcus, what are some of the things you're looking for? In myself? Yeah. Just the progress. I liked linear progression. I was doing it a long time ago, like right out of high school. Before I knew it was a real program, it just kind of made sense.

How much weight were you squatting when you first came in to super training? So when I came into super training, like a good depth was probably like 620. I took a pretty ugly 645 the first week I was in here. And then I think by the first meet, squatted 638, had squatted 680 in training a couple times. The following meet, squatted 700 for the first time. Was it 700 even or 699 three quarters it was 705 that's the worst that 699 number 317 and a half kilos those uh those numbers are real

those numbers are real bitch it might actually been 727 the first time i went over seven oh yeah i think i think you're right i think you had where you – I think I squatted seven in the gym going into that meet. But for me, it's just like I've – since after my first year of lifting weights, I love the squats. First year, absolutely hated it. It was fucking hard. I wasn't strong. Didn't like it. I had a training partner.

He used to talk a lot of shit. He was stronger than me there. I had a bigger bench. I caught up to his squat, and then I just took off. And it's my favorite lift. Like, if I could do never pull again, I would be completely happy, and I would just squat four days a week. Like, I would be totally fine doing that. Have you always had motivation to go to the gym?

I mean, you had a long career. You're still training now. motivation to go to the gym. I mean, you had a long career. You're still training now. But in your competitive days, was there ever a need for like, you know, quote unquote motivation or you were just excited to train all the time anyway? I always knew that I could get better. So I always had a reason to go. Yeah, you always knew there was an opportunity for you to Always. I knew, I knew when, before I walked in, would walk in the gym every day, I knew I would get what I was programmed to do all the time. I never had a doubt in my mind.

Did you ever work out like frustrated or mad because you were trying, like you were just so driven that I wrote out the program like a hundred times to get every set rep and, you know, weight down, including assistance exercise. And so I knew every step of the way what I was going to do and how it was programmed. So every week built upon for the next week. It was easy because I knew the whole step of the way was figured out beforehand that I would not miss. Yeah. You made that post the other day that had, that had your buddy on there, Captain Kirk. And, you know, he was banging out some squats, but he always, he always lifted pissed off. What was the quote?

What was it? Let's see. I'm trying to get it okay my phone to work but uh i i know i kind of uh power lifting was just uh uh my way of showing it yeah i really am on the inside about the world so that was kind of his his way of training for myself um you know i've i've trained that way plenty of times. It's worked a couple times. But it didn't have any legs, you know. The inner aggression is fine. If I let it out, it's too much energy I let out.

And it has a tendency to lead to a mental doubt in your head, which Marcus and I talked about that earlier. A lot of times, ammonia and stuff like that is just to break a negative thought. Yeah, that's kind of the way that I've always felt about that, getting charged up and hitting each other and all those things. Whatever you got to do to make the lift. Well, you saw what happened to the guy when he cracked Jesse. He got it right back.

Yeah. you got yeah you got it right back yeah you know a lot of times i think it's uh it's us talking ourselves into saying hey you know what this is going to be really hard but it's okay like hey it's okay big guy like you're gonna you're gonna make it through this you're gonna be able to get it you gotta talk yourself into it from the inside out it can't be an external source what is that that mr effort ding-a-ling-a-ling says is there's nothing that anyone can do to or for you that is going to be better than what you can do to or for yourself. So if it comes from you, Marcus can't make me feel confident about my weight. He can hype me up, but when I grab the bar, it's got to be me.

Right. He shouldn't be able to have a negative or positive impact on your lift. No, no. You should have your shift. Just block out the noise. Right. But maybe he says something that gives you a little bit of a- There are certain people's voices that you like to hear, but that just blocks out everything else. Right.

It's always going to be you. Right. That makes a lot of sense. No one lifts the weights for you. Right. I mean, that makes a lot of sense. No one lists the weights for you. When did this powerlifting career start? When was your first meet? 1980. I was 16. Yeah. I was a, it was class three novice back then. I had Ernie France and Bill Ceno who were world record holders as a couple of my judges. I weighed like 150. I, so I didn't cut, you know, I wanted wanted to be big so i didn't cut to 148

and my opener was 485 and they didn't have squat racks that went low enough so they had to physically take the weight off and put up my back and i missed my first i missed my first two and then the third one i just i nailed and then i benched 295 that day and pulled like 495. And I won like best lifter and stuff like that. You squatted 400 at 150 pounds. 485. 485. That was my opener. I would have squatted a lot more.

That's fucking ridiculous. Yeah, you basically squatted around 500 pounds. But here's what I did. Twice a week, I squatted and maxed out both days until I got to 500. And it was just nothing but a really really low good morning I had like these skinny legs and this big back already because that's all I used well there's also not a there wasn't like a lot of video and stuff there wasn't a lot of information of somebody repeatedly telling you that you did it the wrong way like if you would have posted that up on instagram you would have got roasted right away right oh god yeah the flame the flames would come out and maybe roast uh lane norton all the time about how his squat you know

that's just how he built just have fun yeah do it shut up that's kind of the way you squatted right you kind of almost like lean into your belt kind of i have this you know short little oompa loompa legs yeah a long torso so I was going to lean over. So where do you put the bar when you squat? On your back. What do you lay on when you bench? Your back. What do you pull with in a deadlift?

Your back. So I just concentrated on getting my back as big and strong as possible. That was my base. How do you think your back was able to handle that? Is it because you have a short torso? You think your back was able to handle some of that? you have a short torso you think your back was able to handle some of that i built it yeah just kept just kept smashing all the different exercises yeah and by going back again and building that new base and hitting those reps the way

your body it's like darwin's theory it's gonna evolve or die you uh you didn't really run into a lot of injuries until you got a little older. You ran into a muscle tear at the Mountaineer Cup. Yeah, even before that. Or a ligament tear, rather. But you stayed pretty healthy, though, considering the amount of work. Little tears, but no surgeries to the knee. And that's going to happen when you push the limits of your body at a certain weight class,

all of a sudden that little tweak is going to be a big thing. It's not going to be a pulled muscle with a, you know, 900 plus pounds. It's not going to be pulled. It's going to be a little tear. And that's what happened. You know, we learn a lot from helping and from coaching other people. And, you know, having Marcus here, he's always helping me. He's helping pretty much everybody in the gym and we all help each other and we all learn a lot from- That's called teamwork. We all learn a lot from all that. Who are, what team in the history of major league sports, of any pro sports,

has ever won without being a good team? Right. No, it has to be a good team. And you need a leader. Yeah. You know, you need somebody that's willing to say, hey, this is the way we're doing stuff around here. You know, and then people need to kind of follow suit. Otherwise, you don't have much of a team. No. It has to work together.

Yeah. And, you know, what I think is great is like, you know, going to do a seminar or seeing so many different people. We've got a lot of people that visit us, you know, on the weekends here. Sometimes have an extra five, 10, 15 guests sometimes. And I've learned a lot, you know, by looking at some of these people. Sometimes you just simply learn, hey, you know what? I'm actually, I'm pretty good at coaching people. Makes it feel good.

You know, like. You put enough time into it. All of a sudden you watch someone and say, no, that's wrong. hey you know what i'm actually i'm pretty good at coaching people makes it feel good you're like you put enough time into it all of a sudden you watch someone and say no that's wrong like you you and you start saying a lot of stuff and you're like wow i guess i do have an opinion on something exactly you put enough time in yeah and you see it all and you do it doing it is really important because then you can you can watch someone and know not just how it looked but you can say no that didn't feel right for you i can tell because the stuff didn't work right for for me watching someone's technique is i don't necessarily say your technique sucks it's more of if it looks natural for your body to do and it's comfortable that's what you stick at

and then you just build on top of that because everybody's different. Right. And for myself, what I've learned the most from that process of working with a lot of other people is I've learned that I'm not always going to be right. You know, I might say, hey, Marcus, bring your stance in. And it ends up being a shitty call. And I'm like, oh, shit. Okay. Go.

Then you learn. Yeah. Go back. But then again, you could take another guy who's built like him and you could say, pull your Then you learn. Yeah, go back. But then again, you could take another guy who's built like him and you could say, pull your stance in and it's going to work. Right. So that's what the thing is. I think that's important for coaches to understand.

You might be wrong. Your first guess sometimes is going to be wrong. Pay attention to what you're doing and actually see if it's working and communicate with that person. What I learned from that Dr. Bo Hightower, you know, that elite ortho stuff of Jackson Wink, is he put a post up one time of like four or five different MRIs or whatever, or x-rays of people's hips. And you could see the angles and everybody was completely different on the inside, but on the outside, there's a good chance they looked all the same.

So that's where the little point your toes the outside, there's a good chance they looked all the same. Right. So that's where the little point your toes out this way, take a wider stance, high bar from low bar, that's where that stuff comes in. Right. But you don't know until you try. Right. And you might have a doctor say, hey, like this has to happen this way. This is the way that we produce the most amount of force. But until you've had that weight on your back and each person's going to even just have the bar in a different spot on their back.

They're going to hold the bar differently. So everything. It's thrown out the window. Everything's completely thrown out the window. Then it goes back to it's got to look and feel comfortable for the athlete to do, or else his body and mind are not going to want to do it. And then there's a struggle, and you're never going to win the struggle with heavy weight. Yeah. How good is that play that the coach wants to run that everyone fucking hates?

How good does that play work? Never. Never. Everybody puts, remember that in football? Like everybody puts like half-hearted effort, you know, into it. What's some stuff you learned from coaching some people around here, Marcus? A lot, just coaching people and watching people a lot. I can learn a lot about my own here, Marcus? Just coaching people and watching people a lot, I can learn a lot about my own lifts, right?

Because you see it over and over. You see what they're doing wrong. Because there are times like I can't take a step back from my lift and figure out what I'm doing wrong. Right. Then you watch other people and just kind of pick up on it really fast. What I've learned a lot of in here is just like just kind of what you guys are hitting on.

Everybody's a little bit different. I tried for the better part of a year working with Smokey to like get his back to just get his back erect, get it flat to pull. And every time we try. Nothing's ever going to be erect for that guy. But every time we try, his pull goes to shit. Right? The weights go down. It's slow.

It's uncomfortable. And I'm like, okay, well, fuck it. You can have a little bit of rounded back. I'm like, just stay tight. Look at my back when I lift it the same way. My conventional. it you can have a little bit of rounded back i'm like just look at my back when i lift it the same way my conventional and i think a lot after you get the experience of coaching i think a lot of what you learn is that there's they're different there's a lot of error in different people and you can't just like teach people out of a book you can't just teach people off of what's supposed to be perfect or or the way you do it right yeah because a lot of people they want to

lift the way i want to lift right i get people get people like, I want to squat like you. And I'm like, well, you know, you're tall, you're lanky, you're skinny. I'm like, I don't think a wide stance squat is going to fucking work for you. I'm like, there's just too much shit moving around. And you've been thick and you've been good at squats pretty, I mean, pretty much your whole life, right? Yeah, it took a little while. Thick?

At thickness. But, yeah, I mean, it's just, it was a lot of trial and error in the beginning. I went through a lot of injuries and then just kind of slowly found the path that I'm on now. Yeah. 804 squat, not too bad. What can we get this guy to? What do we got to do over here? I actually think his next meet with knee wraps, he's going to squat at least 870.

Not too shabby. I'm in for that. No. that's pretty and so you you've been helping him right yeah i'm teaching well you know what you've been he's been giving him some programming yeah a lot of it and then a lot of the stuff we talk about i'll be like well that's your body telling you the path that you have to take with this where it'll be the same but just little things will be different like he needs he needs a little bit more time to recover from deadlifts a lot with the way as the doctors are but i'll be working with him in a deadlift tomorrow a little bit and just with her squat and we'll do a lot of videotaping with that and learn the cues and stuff right to try to correct things and most of the time it's easier for me because I've seen it a thousand times, and I know exactly how it's going to feel. So it comes a little easier for me, but I do this all the time with people.

So like you said, when you help people, you start learning so much more about yourself. The biggest compliment I ever got at a seminar was when i turned around at uh omaha barbell and stan and i were there doing a seminar together during the workshop part and stan was following me around videotaping stealing all my stuff and that was the most awesome feeling i ever had in my life yeah he he's crafty that way yeah we all learn from everybody it's tough with that guy too because he's got a photographic memory. Except for faces. So, yeah.

He forgets everyone's face. Yeah, he forgets faces and names. He's not the greatest with that. But usually, the way he describes it, though, what sucks. If he made it a competition, he'd probably still beat us in it, though. Is he ends up describing it better than you did, and it was your idea. That's true. I hate him. I hate him, too. Is he ends up describing it better than you did and it was your idea? That bastard. I hate him.

I hate him too. And, you know, every time we have him on the podcast, I think people just want him to just take over the podcast and kick me out of here. I think. He does it without trying though. I know. I know. Jerk. That doesn't help that he's ripped and he's like in his 50s and stuff too.

What are we going to do? Just live with him. Just, just live with it. And rather than trying to. Yeah, just let him go. Rather than trying to fight him. Let him talk. Let him talk.

Just put a mirror in front of him. He'll forget about us. That's, that's actually very true. A mirror or a camera. And he's like, Hey, where's the camera? Her steak. Yeah. Salted.

That's true. Don't forget the bone broth and the uh and the rice when you were when you were lifting um there wasn't as much information there wasn't as much people talking about recovery wasn't much people talking about the nutrition side of things nobody really knew it i think bodybuilders might have been talking about it and you know there's some, but the old bodybuilding diets weren't really good either. These were just big monster guys who busted their ass in the gym, ate a lot of chicken breast and rice, and that was it. Right. So even the diets were the old style stuff. Yeah, and it wasn't really enough fat or calories in a diet for a power lifter.

It wasn't really enough fat or calories in a diet for a power lifter. It was only based on how good they could look and not on health at all. Right, right. Yeah, not on how they can actually perform. No. Some people kind of had some decent ideas of it, though it seemed like Bill Kazmaier was like a meat and potatoes kind of guy and like a whole milk kind of guy. It seemed like there was a couple people back then. But there just wasn't as much information.

Did you follow anything specific when you were lifting or you tried just to eat stuff that just didn't make you feel like crap? As long as I was in the weight class, I pretty much ate whatever I want. I would finish every night at midnight before I went to bed with a filet. Yeah. That was that night. So you always had some steak. Yeah, but I pretty much ate whatever I want. Do you think when it comes to like the actual pounds that you lifted, do you think there would have really been much difference from a food,

like if the food was perfect or something? I don't know. Yeah. I think there would have been as far as a cumulative over time because you would have built more quality muscle in your body, your digestive system, everything else would have been working properly. So you were going to always be in a perfect state to lift what you wanted. I mean, you notice how much better do you think now that you're eating so clean without all processed stuff and how that affects your mind. Right.

It's huge. No, it makes a big difference. And having longevity, you know, can lead you to a bigger lift. But the only way to get to longevity when you do it right is you have to be healthy the whole time to be able to do it. Right. So it sets it up. So it's not like I'm going to eat this way so then later on i'll be able to lift this it's not i'm gonna i'm gonna set my diet and my rehab or stretching and all that

stuff out this way so i never get hurt all those years in between that makes me last that long right it's all the work that's done at the beginning that sets you up for the end that makes sense with you uh helping out marcus what are some of the things you're working on? Well, we cut down his volumes a lot and we filled it in with exercises that would directly support his structure to help him out. That was the biggest thing. Like the high bar. Yeah.

Like, you know, when, when, after he was done with the last cycle, he had to do high bar, a little bit closer stance because he's so hip, hamstring dominant, which I was too, except I used a little more back than him, that his quads would suffer. So when we did that and did a training cycle with that, those first few workouts, when you come back, all of a sudden your weakness is brought up a little bit. So now it's less of a weakness. So all of a sudden out of the hole, your quads push more. Boom. Yeah. Fires you up. Right.

Yeah. I see like, you know, he'll come in and he's got these like insane amount of like reps and stuff going on with these big weights. You've always been a big proponent of reps why is that it's such a it gets you in shape you know like your gpp or hypertrophy whatever you say those words you got to pay someone extra money yeah yeah it's just you got to be in shape but it builds a certain amount of explosive power and speed it solidifies your technique because doing that reps you have to stay and keep that technique for a longer period of time yeah and um mentally it makes you have a lot stronger remember like matt crock would do it as sane amounts of stuff just

to see if he was mentally strong enough to be able to do it yeah yeah i mean and uh you look at some of these guys doing these deadlifts too, and they'll, they'll do one rep and it looks like they're going to die on the, on one rep. And then they'll hold the weight at the top and they'll proceed to do like four or five more. How are you going to do a whole meet? You gotta, you gotta be,

you gotta be in shape to be able to do it. Your body is a, basically a flesh machine. Right. You gotta keep it healthy and make it work over and over and over and perfect it. And that changes from cycle to cycle. That's why I always went back and did those exercises again with all the reps and all the volume filling and stuff, is to make it a bigger, stronger base.

Did you ever get bored with it? Like, were there times in your career where you're like, well, I just squatted 950 for a double. I'm just going to go home. No, it's like, this is going to set me up to squat a thousand. You squatted 950 for a double. And you're like, if I don't do this extra work, I'm not going to be able to get that thousand pounds. Exactly. Exactly.

I want to, I want to feel strong and solid the whole time. So that's it. First of all, because we walked it out in those days, it made the walkout better because there's no wobbling, less weakness. And the confidence, when you get under the bar and you pop that up and it feels like nothing, where does that set up mentally? Right. You can't miss. You used to do that sometimes, right? You used to overload the weight.

Yeah. And you would do some walkouts, right? Some holds. The last heavy day, after my heavy double, I would take, like, after the 950 double, I took a 1040 walkout and held it for five seconds and walked it back. Just to feel some weight, central nervous system stimulus. Right. Mental stimulus. It's where it all starts anyway.

It's about a week out from the meet yeah and then the week of the two weeks actually about two weeks out the uh the week before the meet what would you do um it would be usually some light reps at 500 or so and same in the bench so a big a big So a big taper would happen. Yes. To make sure I'm fully recovered because you did just put your body through a whole cycle or year of hell

because every off season kind of melted and blended in for the on season or whatever the next step was. So it's not like I have this cycle, this cycle, this cycle. It's all one cycle. It just changes course and blends in.

A lot of your old Eastern Bloc Olympic weightlifters would have one year-long training cycle. That means there's already written out every set and rep on every single exercise that you're going to do. Sometimes four years. Exactly. They call it like an Olympic cycle. So it's all planned out. Yeah. How can you miss?

Yeah. So if you do the work and you make the reps, then you get the prize at the end, basically. And that imitates life. Look at your business. Right. And the steps you took. You basically do it like a power lifter. Yeah.

You set it all up step by step. I said to somebody the other day, I said, I've power lifted everything. Go as hard as you can and then rest for as long as you need and go as hard as you can. Rest as long as you need. Come back up and do your thing. Yeah. Just kind of keep going. Sometimes it's boring.

It doesn't always look pretty. Sometimes you've got to gut it out. Sometimes it looks like you're going to miss it. Sometimes you fail. A lot of times you fail. Fail a bunch of times. You reanalyze, sit down, ask other people. Why did I fail?

Yeah. If and when I ever missed something in training, it was never a negative. First it was throw down my belt scream and yell that always helps yeah mf this mf that then it's over with and then it was like i didn't miss it because of strength i missed it because of this then i was okay with it now i knew what to do not correct it and change do you think that's important to blame it on something else rather than just saying hey i'm not strong enough yet uh that for like 30 seconds it on something else rather than just saying, hey, I'm not strong enough yet? That for like 30 seconds it works.

And then all your training partners are like, you dick, shut up. You didn't have the right collar on that side. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you walked in front of me. Yeah, that's always a good one. Yeah, why didn't you move that dumbbell? Did Goggin squat similar to you? Because I know he leaned forward a lot too. Yeah, he bent over a good one. Yeah. Why didn't you move that dumbbell? Did Goggins squat similar to you? Because I know he leaned forward a lot too. Yeah, he bent over a lot, lot more.

Yeah. He had, for squatting, he had one of the strongest backs in the history of all powerlifting. I remember being at that contest when he did the first 1,100-pound squat. Yeah, I was there right on the side. Absolutely unbelievable. The first 1,100-pound squat. Now we have guys doing that in a pair of knee reps. There's some evolution. You know what it is?

It's someone does something, and then it opens up the minds of everyone else saying, yeah, that can be done. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I was talking about it a few weeks ago, saying, you know, Roger Bannister, he's the first guy to run the four-minute mile. I believe he did it in the fifties. And since that time, 200,000 or sorry, 20,000 people have run a sub four minute mile, including like high school kids.

And so, yeah, once one person does it, then other people and Roger Bannister's record stood for like 50 days. Didn't stand, didn't stand for very long. So once people realize it can be done. Yeah. Yeah. we're watching uh here he is lining up on that big ass uh remember that huge guy that would spot the wpo finals all the time that just monster that was a guy from uh chris uh weirton or something from uh from maine huge he was one of, who was the head judge back then? I forget. Yeah.

He was one of his guys. That was... Chris Wears was his name. Yeah. Chris Wears. Yeah, that guy was... He was a large man. Marcus, you would have loved

this timeframe of powerlifting. It was, the WPO finals were really. Because it was at the Arnold in one of the ballrooms and it was beyond packed in nothing but testosterone filled energy in the room. And card girls in bikinis. Yes. No, from the local strip joint, he usually went and got them. And I mean.

In Ohio. If Callie went to one of those meets, she would come out with a full beard. The intensity was insane. I think we need to bring this powerlifting back. It was great. Yeah, there was a lot of energy. You would see all the busted capsules and syringes and shit. Oh, my gosh, yeah.

No one cared. It was just, you know, that's an interesting thing about powerlifting, how there's, you know, there is a drug tested Federation and there's a, you know, non-drug tested, but like people just don't,

they kind of don't care. Like some people choose to live. Yeah. Some people choose to lift this way. Some people, I guess what people do hate is when people lie. Right. And when they come into the drug tested and they're taking shit,

they try to slip one pass. Now it's a different culture. It's more they come into the drug tested and they're taking shit, they try to slip one pass every day. So now it's a different culture. It's more, it's not drug tested. You're supposed to be drug free, which there's a, there's a big difference from that to the old days because I was guilty of that in the old days. Yeah. Drug tested men.

Yeah. Drug tested back then. It's like everyone, everyone was jacked and just trying to pass a test. And nowadays it's, it's more. You got to get on mic a little bit more right there. Nowadays it's more drug free. Right.

Yeah. It's, it, I remember that with the, some of the Russian lifters when they started hitting these huge lifts and, you know, like Yarmosh and some of these guys were hitting these huge lifts and then it wasn't,

it wasn't too much longer that they got booted out. You had all kinds of weird stuff happen in your powerlifting career. There's the Ed Cohn squat rule. Can't have the bar too low on your back, right? And it was funny. That was in Philadelphia, and they red-lighted me. And I actually took off my shirt, went over to the jury, and showed them the line with blood marks on it that was sitting on top of my back delts. And they all just went, they looked the other way.

They don't want to see the truth. You should have pulled your pants down. They could have really seen the truth then. I would have really got red lights. No, they would have given you white. They would have felt bad for you. I would have lived with the women later then. Oh my God.

And then also you, I mean, I remember when I was a kid, you know, I was trying to follow whatever I could and it was just through power for the USA. I mean, my brother would read it.

Occasionally you'd end up in like muscle and fitness and stuff too. And we were super excited for that. But, you know, I think there was one time power for the USA. It said like you were banned from power lifting. Yeah. And we were super excited for that. But, you know, I think there was one time Powerlifting USA, it said like you were banned from powerlifting. Yeah. And we were like, what?

This can't be. Just for the IPF. We were like really sad. Like we were like, what's going to happen with powerlifting? Like who even cares about sport anymore? The best guy, they ban him because he's too strong. What's going on here?

What happened with some of that stuff? I failed a drug test or two. And that's really what it was. And they just booted you out of there? Yeah, pretty much. They gave you a lifetime ban, didn't they? Yeah. Some of it was, I mean, I'll take the heat for what I did.

Right. But there was like the last instance where I really wasn't run according to how it was. Right. Your A sample gets split to A and B, your one sample, and they opened up the A sample twice. Well, you can't open it up twice, but they still went there. But back in those days, the IPF would say, well, we're going to follow IOC rules, but as promulgated by the IPF, which meant we're going to do things the way we want, even though

we say we're going to do it the way we want, even though we say we're going to do it together so they can never be wrong. And back in those days, it was just, okay, I was banned for life. Well, come 20-something years later, now they're saying, well, you can't even go to an Ed Cohen seminar. But see, that wasn't an IPF rule then. Have they let up on that now? Yes and no. They say it to other athletes behind closed doors

because like in sweden and other places like i'm still the devil to certain people and like in kuwait when we were that's just there at least 15 people wouldn't come over from dubai because they were afraid what they were told from the ipf people over there is that uh does that hurt you yeah because i kind of hurt? Because it's done on personal because they mentioned me out by name. Yeah. But see, it wasn't an IPF rule then. So I didn't violate an IPF rule. And they're saying, well, we uphold water rules.

But see, water wasn't even invented yet for two years later. So actually, it really is bad. And I mean, I've contemplated getting a lawyer a lot. And I got a really good one that you know. Yeah. And who actually said, I could take care of this for you really easy. Yeah. And a friend of mine who's an FBI agent.

Nothing better than a mean lawyer. Yeah. They go overboard where you're like, whoa, like, hey, just. Yeah, one that knows what he's doing. And, you know, even a friend of mine who's an FBI supervisor, and he's actually a U.S. attorney, assistant U.S. attorney also, he says, well, you know, these federations and stuff get a lot of leeway because no one challenges them. Well, a federation or association can have any rule they want, but it will never, ever trump the U.S. law and constitution.

So they can do all things they want, but if it's illegal, it's illegal. And I've actually been treated really bad. It's been 22 years. And they still mess with me. And actually, I had a conversation before with the IPF president and another guy, a technical director. And they actually admitted to me that they know that. But they're afraid of what some countries might do and say. But they're just trying to work their way into the IOC, and they're using their tough stance on me.

But if and when I decide to end it, it'll end really bad. Yeah, what do they even gain from that? Nothing. Nothing. It's just that they need someone to pick on who's still a big name. When you were in your prime, we had – it was geared power thing. There was – some people, I guess, would choose to lift raw. Some people would make a decision.

Very, very few. Because like they maybe just didn't like something. I mean, back in the old days, the gear was a lot different. But it still helped. Yeah. Why would you not use it if competition is going to use it? Right. From what I recall is the only people that didn't wear powerlifting gear were the pussies.

They were new, and they were not strong, and they didn't want to commit to wearing the stuff because they were kind of scared to wear any of the suits or anything. But the squat suits back then, from some of the stuff I heard, they were just passed around sometimes in the warm-up room. One guy would just bring them in. I guess it was George Zangas. It was one of the first. The old marathon suits. One of the first squat suits, right? And he just came to the warm-up room, and he was kind of handing them out.

And guys were almost like a slingshot. He did that the first time when he came out with his own double gold-line knee wraps as he came to the warmup room and he was like, you know, kind of handed them out and guys almost like a slingshot. He did that the first time when he came out with his own double gold line knee wraps as he came to the nationals with a whole bunch of them, gave them all lifters in the back. So people tried them that day and they were like, oh, this is cool. I'm going to wear, and they wore it on the platform. And they were able to squat 30, you know, 40 more pounds. It was less learning curve, but it still gave you support.

So everyone used it. But I thought it was cool that no one cared. No, no one did care. No, no one was like, hey, you can't, you know, it was just like. Cheater. It wasn't like today. If you open up your stance in a deadlift, you're cheating. Yeah.

I think that actually started off as a joke and now it just kind of. Well, yeah, it gets a little serious sometimes. Said by guys that couldn't sumo. I remember watching a lot of these videos. We're watching you squat 981 pounds in a meet. I mean, this is always just unbelievable to watch you. You're always aggressive on the way down. And the speed at which you go down is almost identical to the speed at which you come back up.

But I remember as a kid trying to watch these videos, I'm like, I remember being super excited. I was like, I'm going to watch. You can see that video of Doug Furness. That's Doug Furness' butt right there. Yeah, I remember this. This is a really cool video. I bet he remembers his butt.

I do. Is it? So this is, no, wait. This isn't the, is this the meat where you pull conventional at the end? Yeah. Oh, it is. Okay. That looked familiar.

You hurt your hip, right? No, no. I actually had torn my adductor and I decided to, in one year, and I decided, well, what the hell, why don't I see what I can do conventional. That guy next to you is huge too. There's a, the guy with the white shirt is John Binkowski. He was about 375 there. And the-

He benched 600 pounds at least. Look at that guy. And the guy in back was Tom Milanovic, the old owner of Quads. He used to do a bunch of movies and stuff. Oh, yeah, yeah. Some of those old videos where you guys are like by the fireplace and stuff. Yeah, yeah. Those are incredible.

Those are classic. But I remember being so excited, and I was watching these videos, and I'm like, I'm going to learn how to deadlift. I mean, this is going to be so cool. And then I'd watch him walk up to the bar, just super calm and pull like, I don't know, 700 pounds or something. And he just like, he walked up to it calm and he'd like lifted it like a, like a damn savage. And I was like, I didn't learn anything from that. I don't understand. And you're explaining it, but I'm not understanding it because I just didn't know anything at the time. So I'm watching and I'm just like, oh, my God. It wasn't explaining you in cues that you would pick up at the time because you didn't know the cues, what the cues meant.

I didn't know. All I learned from it is that I was a piece of shit. That was the first 1,000-pound squat. 1,003. Yeah. Here we go. Do I make it? That was the first 1,000-pound squat. 1,003. Yeah. Here we go. Do I make it?

Every time you make it. We should rewind that. I'll rewind it. One of the questions that came in, actually, was what was your mentality going into these lifting meets? Basically, what was your mindset going in? Make the first one and see how it goes. It was never like a preconceived, what am I going to do? It was, this is what I did in training. Let me do this for my opener, make it easy. And that'll tell me what I'm going to be good for the day. So I'm not going to say, let's say, I think my opener was 920 at that contest.

Smokeshow. So went right to 970 to feel it out. Because all the time I'm thinking total, total, total. I wasn't thinking, let's just go for a big monster squat and hope for the best. I wanted to build upon it. I was in shape. So doing another squat wasn't going to be hard. It was just mental focus and I already had that. Did you ever get caught kind of reaching in a meet? What do you mean reaching?

Like taking? No. No? No. Never taken too big of numbers? No. How do we teach people that now? Because in my opinion, it might be a little harder now because we have Instagram and everyone wants that Instagram gratification. Everything is an all-time world record. It's not like an IPF all-time record. It's not a UPA or USPA or SPF. Right.

It's like it's just given it's an all-time world record. Larry Wheels, Eric Lillibridge, Dan Green, and Taylor Woolham, all within the same week, pulled 900 pounds, and none of it is in competition even. No. It's just on Instagram. No. Or in the animal cage. See, to me, that wouldn't work for me.

How do we stay in our lane nowadays? How do we not get so excited? Mentally and physically, it would have burnt me out because you can only handle so much as the the old russians when i was one of the first guys to go to russia after fred hatfield and another guy named dave keggy and i was in the first powerlifting meet ever in russia and what a lot of the old timers said is you only have so many max attempts in your body don't waste them not in competition i remember um i asked you about the animal cage and you were like nope don't do it and i was like but you told me that if i get invited to meets that i should go and you said yeah meets it's

not a power it's a purpose it's not a power for me a a purpose. It's not a power thing. A demonstration. And I was like, oh. If you're strong enough, a demonstration at a meet that you do your regular workout in is going to be way good enough. Right. Like some of the stuff that you did, like for Vince McMahon, like when he had his bodybuilding federation, right? You did an appearance. I think you pulled like 80 or something, right? But it was something that you knew was going to be super easy. It was probably part of your plan. No problem.

No problem. I did something in Santa Barbara once where I had a full Superman outfit underneath a suit. And it was at like the Central whatever. It was a big bodybuilding show there. And Fred Hatfield, Dr. Salaria, those are the guys that started the ISSA. And Tom Platz were on stage and behind them during intermission, as they're on stage doing a Q&A for the crowd, they kept loading weights onto a bar. And when they got up to 700, Fred Hatfield turns around these guys, he goes, guys, what the hell are you doing? Oh, we're loading weights for

somebody. Well, there's nobody here. This is a bodybuilding contest. There's no one here that can do that. And then Fred challenged the crowd. Well, I was sitting in the crowd warmed up with a suit and tie on with the Superman contest, a whole suit on underneath. And so I said, I can. And no one really knew who I was there at the time. So I walked up on stage and the house lights went off and only little spotlights on us.

And Fred said, what do you mean you can do this, kid? I said, well, listen here, pops. Just because you're too old and you can't do it anymore doesn't mean anyone else could. I think I could. And he challenged me. So I kind of kicked off my shoes, took my jacket off, put my jacket. I pulled his arm out straight and I put my jacket over his arm. And then, but I had reached into my pockets and grabbed chalk.

And I grabbed my shirt like this. And when I did that, they played Superman music as loud as they could. And I ripped my shirt off and let the chalk go. And I pulled 700 for like seven or eight reps right there. And with the, you know, it was pretty funny. That's cool. reps right there and with the you know it was pretty funny that's that's cool um i remember you know in this uh in this meet um you pull conventional uh for those of you that have been under a rock or not paying attention uh ed cone at 220 pounds uh not only pulled 901 but uh and

i was sumo this one was one was a real light 242. Oh, okay. So in a 242 pound weight class, he also pulls 887 and he does it conventional. The only reason I didn't go over 900 was because the total record was 2458, which was the biggest one ever set by like Anthony Clark or something at the time. So I wanted to beat that. And that put me at 2463. I think it was Bill Kazmaier.

Bill Kazmaier told 2425. Anthony Clark and Dave Passanella had totaled a little bit more than that. Dave Passanella. Yeah. Damn. Dave Passanella was. He was very strong. What do you think?

Like maybe one of the greatest of all time, right? I mean, just to. Oh, definitely. He could. He was very strong. What do you think? Like maybe one of the greatest of all time, right? I mean, just to. Oh, definitely. He could. He was ridiculous. I saw him walk out a 1030 squat like it was 135. That's what I, that's the, what I remember was so damn cool. And he had a decent bench and an 850 deadlift.

I think 854 he had pulled at 275. Yeah. He was, yeah, he was insane. He was built. He was like the strength coach at Georgia. He died in like a car accident or something. Yeah, I think he had a small car and he came out of whatever parking lot

at school or something and somebody had T-boned him but then his car went into a light pole and his neck snapped. We recently lost Dr. Squat. Yeah. Do you ever have an opportunity to work out with him?

Yeah. I used to. Fred helped me get a contract with Weider back in the day. Oh, no way. And Fred worked for him. And Fred lived. That's when everybody was nice. Yeah.

Nobody would do that now. Nobody would help anybody do anything. Fred lived down there. And I would go and stay at Fred's house all the time. And Fred would teach me stuff. And we worked out in his garage all the time. And then he'd take me over there and I'd go hang out with Joe and that was it. Fred Hatfield's power thing career was a little bit before yours, right?

Yeah. A couple of years before. He squatted, it was his- 10-14. 10-14. And I did 10-19. When he went over a thousand pounds, is that what he chose to hit? It was 10-14 or was that later on?

That was later. He hit a thousand three or whatever first and then a thousand eight and then a thousand 14. He could, Fred could actually like take 10-50 and do it to about parallel and still come up with it. No problem. And Fred was actually shorter than me, but weighed in at like 258. So he was,

he was, he was actually drinking salad oil that you're getting weight. Really? Just for leverage for the squat. Oh my God. He just, he just couldn't hold onto a deadlift. Oh,

especially when he was, or after squatting, he had a nerve impingement or something. I know you have, you know, huge hands. Can I get a hey now? How were you able to build up grip strength? Did you ever have to work on it in particular, or you just were always pretty strong? I don't think I really had to work on it, but I did anyways because of how it made everything feel when I grabbed the bar.

Even when I grabbed the squat, when I grabbed that bar and my grip was really strong, it went all throughout my whole body. This guy's got a strong grip. Marcus, what are some things you do for your grip? Or when someone struggles with grip, what do you tell them to do? Not just do their accessories without straps now. I used to do a lot of... Huh?

Reps. Reps? Reps. Like repetition? Oh, yeah. a lot of reps. Reps? Reps. Like repetition? Oh, yeah. A lot of reps. I used to do a lot of grip stuff when I was competing in Strongman, but that's just because we always had different shit to hold. But for powerlifting, we're just holding a bar.

I just do reps without it. If we have to implement something, we will. But for the most part, I think it takes care of itself as long as you just hang on to the bar. Yeah. Or like some of us, we lose mobility. That's a big one. If your arm doesn't want to turn under and you're someone that lifts it under over. That's why I tore my bicep because of that.

Yeah. Yeah. We've done that multiple times in here too. As of late, yeah, I've been playing with rolling out my forearms and biceps. I've been able to restore a good amount of my grip and range of motion to turn my hand under. And it's helped me and i had you do that a little bit yeah no you don't really have to train it again it'll still be there but if you went back to trying those same grip exercises you'll be weak as shit off them yeah i think some of my grip was actually kind of lost from all the heavy uh shirted benches over the years.

I think I just. So much pressure. I've heard of that. I think it just beat the ever living crap out of my arms. And it's hard for me with my left hand. It's hard for me to really, you know, bear down and squeeze on something. But I don't bitch too much because I'm still able to do all the things. Nobody cares. Yeah. No one cares.

Yeah. That's that's one thing. But the other thing is just that I'm still able to do all the things. Because nobody cares. Yeah, no one cares. Yeah, that's one thing. But the other thing is just that I'm having fun. You know, like I got bumps and bruises. You're not going to train if it's not fun. I got this and that. But it's still a lot of fun. The best times of our lives are going to be in the gym. Yeah.

We're too much of meatheads. Yeah. I'm fine being a meathead. I love it. I agree. Look at what's the rock. Here's like his own gym that he travels around with and stuff. And that's the, even with lack of sleep, he'll go in and work out because that's the one thing that keeps him grounded because he's a muscle head just like everyone else.

Well, you know, what I always kind of say is the less that you do, the less you want to do. The more that you do, the more you want to take on. You're like, sure, what's next? Like you landed here. You're like, let's podcast. Let's train. You want to do stuff yeah you're in shape though right you can do a lot because when you're in shape physically

mentally you're even better off what was something that uh drove you during these times because um i forget i used to i used to obsess over the numbers i forget even what they look like anymore but i mean you were outlifting most super heav like anymore. You're outlifting most... Super heavies. You're outlifting super heavies. People in your own weight class, you're out-totaling by 200, 300 pounds. Okay, 400 pounds. You're out-totaling people by 400 pounds. What makes even care? What was driving you back then? I didn't care what anyone else did. I only cared about myself. Not like in a selfish way.

I only cared about my numbers. I never wanted to deadlift, set out to deadlift 900 or this number or that number. I just continuously got better. And the process worked because I paid attention to it. Every workout, every set, every rep I ever did was not for a purpose. Everything I did had a purpose to it every every workout every set every rep i ever did was not for a purpose everything i did had a purpose to it and it worked it wasn't just okay i'll just do this today because i don't want to do this no i have to do this and you take and you you know yeah when you um when you look back at some of this stuff um is there uh you know, because you had an amazing powerlifting career.

And then at some point, the career has got to stop. You get banged up. You get injuries. And it's just everything ends at some point. Things end. But when you look back now, and now because of social media, you're still on everybody's radar. It's a good way to stay relevant. You're doing seminars now and people still want to hear from you and know what you're doing.

When you look back, is there any, you have any kind of regrets that maybe you didn't like take it all in better? You didn't like understand almost what was going on or did you feel like that you lived it up? I was probably better off not understanding and the, you know. You might've got caught up in some bullshit otherwise. When I was a little kid, I had no hand-eye coordination. So I was going to IIT, Illinois Institute of Technology at night with like horse blinders on and glasses trying to learn how to bounce a ball in a line and stuff like that. Yeah, for real. And I was always.

People like Smokey would call that retarded which i don't i don't think is the right thing to call it smoky i think it's not anymore so i was yeah i was sorry he's so rude by the way he just i know he is he's such he's angry he's so vocal yeah he's i think it all has to do with lack of deadlift yeah how do you how do you think you were able to stay so focused for so long? I think everything is from when you're a kid. So I was really introverted as a kid. And I was tiny.

I got teased a lot and stuff like that. And I think your coping mechanism ended up being a laser focus. Okay. Where I could walk up to a bar and this is all I'm thinking of the whole time. When I went in the gym, when I trained, when I did all that stuff, anything relating to training and stuff, it was this. Nothing else mattered. And everyone says, well, you have to give up this to be a champ.

You have to give up that. You have to make these sacrifices. I think that's absolute positive bullshit. I think everything we did and everything we got out of it was a blessing and a reward for what we really wanted. That's the lifestyle we chose because we loved it. So everything, we didn't give up anything. We gained everything we did. We gained from everything we did.

Or as people say, gave up. That wasn't even in the equation. It was a gift being able to be in the gym and being able to make that progress and doing that stuff. So I didn't give up anything. This footage that's on here right now. That's my last meet. Yeah. It's my favorite video to watch because it's all just veteran experience.

That's when my hips were starting to go. The strength is still there. I mean, it's obvious that the strength is still there. But you don't have it physically. No. You don't have it at all. No. My right hip was already starting to go.

You can't walk. So, yeah, it was pretty- You shuffled up to the platform for this deadlift, and you just fucking squatted 939 or something like that. Yeah, 931. That's insane. I could barely bench anything, so I put a loose shirt on, and I benched like 501 or 512 that day and i just pulled like 510 was any of this driven by you know you mentioned the way that you were as a kid was any

of this driven by like i'm gonna show you motherfuckers i'm gonna show everybody kind of what what i'm made out of what i can do the last meet it was um my cousin who did my knee actually came the surgeon he actually came to that meeting after I got done squatting. He said, see you later. I saw enough left, but it was, it was, I had to prove to myself that I could still do it. I had more in the squat. I had more in the deadlift, but I knew it was time and I knew I had to stop.

It wasn't like, oh, I'm going to keep going. You just become a tragedy then you don't become, you know, it's just pitiful to watch. And I didn't want to be that guy. Yeah. And I knew it was just time. Your body can only handle so much for so long before it says, fuck, I'm tired. You need to rest. When you retired, what was something that was gratifying or satisfying to you that you found?

Because you've got to kind of replace it with something. There's no direct replacement, but you've got to get something in there. At first, it was really tough because it sucked. Because you can't be the guy that you want to be, that you used to be, I should say. In your mind, for a long time, you still think you've got it. Yeah. But you don it. Yeah. But you don't. Yeah.

As soon as you try to start going heavy for too long, your body says, no, don't do this, dude. And then you have to replace it with a different kind of training to set your mind. But actually, I said that wrong. Your mind has to set the tone for your body. Right. Because you have to think and believe it and accept it. Accepting it is the hardest thing. But once you accept it, you're free, man.

You can do whatever you want to do. And now you can go back in the gym and train how you did when you were a kid and love it and not have to worry about those numbers. You'll still be strong because you still have that base from being a strong power lifter. Your bone structure and tendons and ligaments are still strong as hell. When I had my last hip replacement from my cousin, which was like just a few days ago, the two-year anniversary, the hardest part, well, besides keeping me breathing, the hardest part of the surgery was my bone density was so thick that it took them an extra 30 to 45 minutes

to do the surgery. And you know, for us, that's like a badge of honor. Right. And so you're, you're always going to have that, but then there's certain parts that can't really do what you used to do, but you always have that same structure. So you figure out what can I do to replace this powerlifting training that will still keep me enthused to be able to do what I want to do in the gym and keep me happy. Yeah, that's kind of hard part is like trying to find that motivation because before you're so driven by the numbers and you're like, okay, I did this at my last meet, time to reload, time to rebuild. We can't always just go in the gym and pump. There has to be some type of purpose to it.

Or usually like some type of number related. So now it can just be reps and technique and feel. Right. And then it's not just about the numbers anymore. It's I want to be healthier. I want to feel good. I want to be able to sleep. I want to be able to walk without pain.

Yeah. And then it shifts. But then you realize too that, you know what? If I can actually get healthy, I can lift and do whatever the hell I want to do. And you can still lift pretty well. Yeah. You can satisfy your own ego. You can still lift some weights how you used to and have fun. You enjoy it because you just let it all go and now you're free. We've had Amadeo Novella on the podcast before, and he works with a lot of fighters. And he said his whole job is dedicated to making people feel better. He's like, when people come in for strength and conditioning stuff, he's like, yeah, there's going to be some workouts that are tough.

But my job is to make these guys that fight for a living, they're working on their striking, they're working on their jiu-jitsu. They're wrestling. They're working on all these different things. That's a capital strength, right? Yeah. He's a really nice man. Yeah. Working on mobility. Working on all these different things. They've got their nutrition.

They have their own lives. They've got tons of shit to worry about. He's like, the last thing I need is have them be overstressed from something that we did. Yeah. So in this period of time, how do I make them feel good about it with a good workout that will be functional for them? Marcus gave me three exercises at the end of the workout the other day and I thought I was going to die, but it was all just like movement stuff.

He was able to pop in and out of them pretty easy and they were really difficult for me. But those are the kind of challenges I'd like to try to take on more so I can move better. I'm going to feel better. So it's easier to tie my shoes. Did you ever see some of the stuff dorian yates does now yeah he does yoga and stuff like that he goes this is something i never dreamed i'd be able to do and a lot of it is just body movement because it makes them feel good it's so ridiculous i think i have to do that because i i just don't like the mobility stuff so i need to go to like a class where i do that for like an hour or 90 minutes or however long however long those damn

things are yeah you have a you have a class here you have one teacher come in and have everyone jump in smoky can you teach oh of course get him some uh get him some hot pants and oh yeah the best ability i've ever seen oil oil boy um so with such a huge squat i know all the people that are watching right now they want to know how they build their own squat um i really like a lot of the stuff that you say when you talk about getting into a competition first of all anybody listening just go just get yourself in a competition if you're too shy to do one just go to one first just check one out try to find a coach find Find somebody in your area. Learn more about it.

You'll love it. And then sign up. Just sign your ass up. Put your ass on the line for a powerlifting meet. But I've always liked what you said is it's all about the foundation. And after every competition, no matter how strong or how weak or how whatever you are, it's time to work on building that foundation up. Yes. Your strong points are always going to be here. Your weak points are always going to be here.

The thing is, is you can't let your strong points get this much farther ahead without bringing your weak points up. Yeah. Or else you're dead. No, it's pretty simple because the more that that gets skewedwed you start to lose athleticism you start to lose health um you start to lose mobility when i was at 220 i could actually still run jump and climb and do all that crazy stuff i could actually take one one step and touch a rim on a basketball but then after a period of time the rim job yeah's called a rim job. Is that what that is? In a different way. Andrew, you want to look that up for us?

Yeah. Google rim job. Okay. Backslash smoky. But when I got, when I went up in body weight, and the reason I went up in body weight was to lift more weight, but to keep me healthy, because I getting lean at 220 where it was going to be really dangerous. So I went up in body weight. Dangerously lean. Yeah.

I've never felt that in my life. Yeah. Did you ever see like, what was the bodybuilder? John Paul Fuchs or something. Oh, yeah, yeah. When he blew out both legs, he was getting ready for a contest. something. Oh yeah.

When he blew out both legs, he was getting ready for a contest and I believe he went too heavy for a photo session in a squat and both knees blew out. You can't. Too lean to lift those weights. And Andreas Munzer, they say that he basically died from being too lean. Yeah. Which is,

which is fucking insane. Not enough fluids, not enough fat. Right. That's why Mohammed Benaziza died. Did you have to do anything, you know competition or when you were done with each competition? Did you take a week or two off? I tried.

It was too hard. And it actually made it worse. So if I lifted on a Saturday or Sunday, by Tuesday, I'd go in the gym and do some light squats and benches. Then on Thursday or Friday, I'd do some light deadlifts. Then I was ready to start right away on the following week. Because I was all, I was in shape. Yeah. I was really strong.

I wasn't beat up, but that helped me recover. Did you care about anything else? No. Just all powerlifting all the time? That's all I wanted to do. Just power lifting and hega and that came later your parents well she always comes later than me you've always you uh your parents always been a big part of your life oh fantastic yeah and they they've gone to

like every meet right i took them with me to austria before too that's so cool and then after that we on the way back we we spent like three days in england and got to see like a francis lloyd weber play on their version of broadway in the castle and the food and everything else it was pretty cool that is that is uh my mom would actually be awesome they would never sit in the front row because you know you're going to spot your parents no matter what. And my mom knew that she couldn't yell anything out as much as she wanted to. She knew that's the one voice I would hear. You'd be squatting and then you'd go.

You know you'd do it. Because the mom voice right away. And, you know, usually. Mom, you're embarrassing me. Yeah. So she would kind of like hide behind someone and watch. And in between the test, my dad would be there with the paper. That's me. Yeah. So she would kind of like hide behind someone and watch. And in between the test, my dad would be there with the paper. That's awesome.

Yeah. Any other family members get to see you lift a lot? My brother came to one of my meets at 198 that was in Chicago. And all my buddies, old buddies came, my childhood buddies, and they were on the back drinking beer with my brother. And I missed my second attempt squat, which was 859. I just fell forward. So I ran out right away to the bathroom in the hallway. And I'm going to the bathroom and my brother walks up, blasted.

The urinal next to me goes, nice lift, asshole. So I had to come back and get the get the next one that's the way brothers are always there to uh i think i think my sisters uh have seen it and uh my nieces all came to my last one in vegas which was pretty cool what are uh some of your favorite exercises like what's your favorite exercise period i used to say well back in the day it was whatever didn't hurt i was good yeah because then i was i knew i'd be good at it right um probably the deadlift yeah yeah i mean i was really good at squatting

but uh but i was good at both styles of deadlifts, whether it was conventional, deficit conventional with no belt, stiff legs, deficit, sumo, it didn't matter. I was always good at that. What do you think built your deadlift up the most? Deadlifting. And then it was bent rows. Brian Schoonfeld, the old strongman, and I, we would actually have bent over row contests. We would cycle like our heavy compound movements

and all the lifts, all our assistance lifts, we would cycle them just like a regular squat, bench, or deadlift. So we would have them peak at the same time as our other lifts. So it's basically like, oh, well, you shouldn't do that. You're going to overtrain. How do people do a Shaco program? They get in shape. Right. well, you shouldn't do that. You're going to overtrain. How do people do a Shaco program? Yeah. They get in shape.

Right. So we made ourselves get in shape the way we wanted to. Prepared yourself to be able to handle whatever's coming next. Yeah. And we just built on that and built on that. I mean, I remember doing bent over rows with no belt with 578 or something for doubles we used to do. Jesus Christ. And we used to have challenges like that.

And obviously there's some body English going on, right? There's a little bit because if you – we'll show in some video stuff tomorrow. That's at 198 in Hawaii in 1985. Record breaker. I was still actually 21 years old. Pretty jacked. Yeah. I was hot.

That's the first meat I bench pressed 501. Raw. I love this. This is amazing. Like, when you get a singlet for Smokey. Like that? Have his titties out. His nips out.

Those tiny little nipples? Yeah. Oh, they're not tiny. Oh, no, no, no. He's got like silver dollars. You see behind me, that was Ted Arciti. He was my roommate at that meet. Ted Arciti first got to bench 700 pounds.idi. He was my roommate at that meet. Ted Arcidi first got a bench 700 pounds.

Yeah. He did 705 in that meet. He said he kind of regretted later on even wearing a bench shirt. He kind of just wore it just because it was kind of an Inzer thing. So he just chucked it on. Yeah, that was pretty good. I was ripped too. It looked like you lift the most efficiently at that body weight.

Yes. That and at 220, I was ripped, too. It looked like you lift the most efficiently at that body weight. Yes. That and at 220, I was the strongest. Yeah, your body just seemed to just move well. Behind me right there is Bill Ceno. Bill Ceno is like the only guy to win a national championship in bodybuilding, powerlifting, and Olympic weightlifting, I believe. Oh, my gosh. He actually beat Sergio at a contest for the most muscular. Wow.

Yeah. That's insane. Yeah, it was cool back then how a lot of these guys did a lot of different things. You know, a lot of guys would power lift or do strongman. Bill actually, that's Doyle Kennedy coaching me there, too. Give me some words. He pulled 900 pounds, right? Yeah.

He was, or Bill Ceno shook so much in the squat that you see those big glasses on his head. They actually popped off his head one time at, uh, Ernest Francis in the basement. That's pretty funny. It's cool. Watching some of these, uh, some of these, some of these old videos, do you miss it a lot? I missed the feeling of being the tight and the strong there. But I don't miss having to go through it all because I've done it. And just thinking about how much it would hurt right now mentally and physically.

Yeah. And also you're around it. You're around it all the time. I mean, I love it. And I actually love pretty much all the people involved in it. Right. love it and i i actually love pretty much all the people involved in it right and like you said when you it i used to be a really angry little fucking troll and my life got so much easier whatever my life got so much easier when i just relaxed and

be nice yeah you don't hold anything in anymore. It's like, okay, you don't like me. Fine. That's fine. I don't care anymore. I'm having fun. I'm enjoying my life and it's my life the way I want to live it. It's funny. That's what everybody always says about you.

And I'm like, well, it's easy to be nice when you've kicked the shit out of everybody. Well, the old days, yeah. Now I think I appreciate the lifting in the competition. When I watch it, I can appreciate what they went through. Yeah. Now I, I think I appreciate the lifting in the competition. When I watch it, I can appreciate what they went through. And when they lift, it's like, as they're like dead lifting, I'll be like going like this in my seat, picking my chest and my head up. And, you know, you, you, you, you had that, that feeling never leaves your brain. You know exactly how it's, how it's going to feel. And. And, oh, there's nothing about it I don't love. You mentioned band over row being one of your favorites for deadlift. What's another favorite? Behind the neck presses, seated. I love those. I think those carry over.

To the bench really well? It helped my bench really well. The problem people have with them is they don't have the mobility to do them, and they start off too heavy. Well, I was doing them for a million years since i was a kid yeah so i conditioned myself to do that yeah we watched this the other day you did 400 i think for a double yeah no for one i did uh 370 for two doubles then i said you know i gotta do 400 for a video seated uh behind the neck do you go down to about your ears or so? Just barely below my ears, and that was enough, especially with my ape-like arms.

It's still a pretty long-range motion. And then on the bench press, people, they see your bench lower than some people today, but they lose sight of that you're a 220-pound lifter. And also, you weren't relying much on a bench shirt back then. No, the old school ones gave you like 10, 15 pounds. Yeah. Took some stress off your shoulders. But you benched the same amount in and out of a bench shirt.

Is that right? Yeah. You did, what, 585 as your best touch and go in training? I did a pause raw with 565, but I did a pause raw with my feet up in the air at 550. Wow. So I really didn't, it was just a flat back bench. Yeah. I think I've seen a video of you doing close grip with like 545 for.

Yeah, it was a 520 for two. Yeah. Yeah. That's a great video because you got such a long stroke when you're benching, but you do it kind of effortlessly from what I remember. You make yourself strong from every angle. Right. So where's your weakness?

You ain't got one. No. Yeah, there's 505. I mean, it just looks like it's freaking launched out of a cannon. I used to, a lot of times, touch and go my benches, but I'd pause my close grips and inclines because it was less stress. Right. You know, I find it interesting when people are just intuitive like that. You know, who was it?

Ronnie Coleman. You know, Ronnie Coleman, they said, you know, why don't you lock out your, you know, when you have the dumbbells, why don't you lock them out? Why don't you go in full range? He said, because it hurts. Period. Yeah. Next question. Yeah.

Well, see, I didn't have any authority telling me what I was doing was wrong. Right. So I was fortunate in that regard. Well, first of all, you learn the hard way. So you learn your way, which is going to work best for you and what feels natural for you. Right. I didn't have anyone teach me how to do sumo. I felt and wiggled and felt the right spot that felt the best.

And that's what I went with. We'll just throw out some questions for him, like some frequently, you know, questions that you and I run into when people ask. So I'll kick it off with my butt shoots up in a deadlift. What do I do? Usually what happens is they're loose. When you drop down to the deadlift, you have to take the slack out of the bar. So you pull against the bar and you pull your body tight into it, but you can't lose go of that. If you lose that, everything crumbles right away. You got to stay connected. Yes, exactly. Exactly. You connect with it and you wiggle, you know, like the Duffin thing,

what Duffin told you, how I wiggle in to get my hips closer to the bar. You're wiggling into a tighter, more perfectly efficient position to make everything work at the same time. perfectly efficient position to make everything work at the same time. Your whole body has to work at once in order for it to go up properly. It can't be, oh, legs, oh, then back. It all has to work together as one chain. I think that's good advice because a lot of times people are like, oh, it's an exercise.

Your glutes are weak. They overanalyze it too much. Who knows? It's hard to figure anything out. They overanalyze. What you do is you start with them light. Cut the weight down. Yeah. And then you, and you build up properly.

Usually a technique flaws are the reason for everything. Right. And same in the squat. You know, you can, you can have someone and say, no, do this with your, your grip. No. Okay. Now I want you to bend the bar, squeeze your lats, and pull your triceps into your lats and pop up your sternum. Okay? Now, that had a domino effect and five of

the things you were doing wrong and are fixed. Yeah. So, it wasn't all your rhomboids were weak and this is, you know, this is off and, you know, it's, no, it's just, usually it's a technique flaw. A comparison would be every time I throw, like if you're a professional football player, every time you throw a five-yard out, it gets picked off and goes the other way. And you're thinking, your coach is telling you that it's your footwork. Your technique is off. It's your footwork.

But you're working on your arm strength because you think you need to throw the ball harder. And it's, it ends up being all about efficiency. If you can move better, you're going to lift better. With every sport, it's biomechanics. Yeah. Every single sport you do, how you run, how you jump, how you throw, how you hit, how you, all of it. It's all the same. I'll throw out a question to him. Yeah. Like when people ask, like, how do you stay tight in the bench, in the hole? Like, how do you engage your lats? If you, I never thought about, I have to engage this or engage that. If I would squeeze my butt, pop my sternum up as high as I could, look what happens to the effect on your back and on your lats.

The higher it gets. Yeah, you can't push your chest up with that. You don't even have to try to squeeze it. If you just pick this up and keep picking it up and keep picking it up almost like that without as much massage. I feel that. Should I put this between it? Just a little closer.

No, no. And then it stays tight. So if you have to consciously try to do that, it won't work. Yeah, you shouldn't have to consciously try to do it. It's all in the setup. It really is. You shouldn't have to think, I want to engage my lats. If you do that and try to engage your lats right away, you're going to go like that.

So if you keep this up, do a curl with a barbell, pretend, without joking. Do a standing overhead press. Yep. When you do a squat, when you do a bench, when you do a deadlift, every exercise, this is the factor. It has to stay up because look what it does to the position of your shoulders. Look how it locks up your back and your whole core. Yeah. Just keep that up.

Which is just good posture. Yeah. But it's your body's way of protecting itself. You're protecting your back, your shoulders, everything. You have some exercise you have people do sometimes, like because, you know, back years ago, they used to say big chest, you know, when you would go to do a squat to try to really lock it in. It seems like the deadlift ends up being the same way.

It seems like the bench is the same way, right? It pretty much is. It's just different cues that mean the same thing. Right. Whatever. That's why somebody's voice will get to you as compared to someone else because they give the right cue. Right.

And do you have any particular exercise you like doing for that? Is there any sort of like row or face pull or stretch or anything like that? Nothing that I ever thought of. It was just how to position myself in the lift. Just do it while you're lifting. Yeah. And then it comes down to after that is what are the exercises that will benefit me based on how I lift that I feel best to help me get in that position and stay in that position. You were able to arch really well, like your

upper and mid back when you'd squat. You attribute that to anything other than just squatting heavy and taking a trip. I wiggled into the weight. So when I set up a squat, I actually almost fell off my platform and killed myself, is I would put the left shoulder under first, pop it up, put the right shoulder over, pop it up, then step underneath it, and now I would pop everything up. And if you look at it from the back, you'll be able to see how your whole back just locks up. Now, as long as you can hold that, your position, even if you bent over or whatever, you're still in a position to be able to do the weight in the squat or deadlift because the back doesn't break.

It's impossible. Yeah, it just doesn't bend. No, it won't. What about some assistance movements for the squat? It's impossible. Yeah, it just doesn't bend. No, it won't. What about some assistance movements for the squat? For me, high bar, closer stance in the off season was best because my hips, hamstrings, and back were so strong as compared to my quads. So I would still, the only assistance exercise that helped me for the squat bench deadlift the most were variations of that lift. So then they would actually transfer over easier. So for bench, you know, watching some of those old videos, it was close grip bench usually. Yeah. Close grip bench, bench with your feet up,

heavy inclines in a certain way. And then for your deadlifts, a lot of times it was just a stiff leg deadlift. Stiff leg deficit deadlift, no belt or conventional deficit, no belt. And then in the squat, like you said. High bar, closer stance squats. You didn't really mess with pause squats, right? I didn't mind pause squats. Pause squats are good as a training tool to teach you how to stay tight in a hole. And what they do is they fix your squat.

If you have to stay tight on the way down, stop on the bottom, hold your breath, still stay tight before you push. And then when you push, the only way for you to stay in perfect position is for everything to be perfect at the same time. for you to stay in perfect position is for everything to be perfect at the same time. If this happens, you know, you're not, you're not using your back or using too much leg, or you're not using your legs and not using your back one or the other. The biggest problem people make in the squat is they think it's only a leg exercise. So all they do out of the holes, they try to push with their legs. They don't use their back. Well, if there's not, just like the deadlift, if there's not even push going down, which is your legs, and even pull going up, which is your back, your hips won't come through. Kind of like a hinge on a door.

Yeah. They have to come through. They won't come through with one or the other. Yeah, I tell people pretty often, like, don't be afraid to use your back. No, you got to. It's where the weight sits. It's your base of everything. It's what makes us strong.

You know, if you have a bad shoulder, you can walk around. You can function. If you have a bad shoulder, you can walk around, you can function. If you have a bad knee, you can do the same. If you have a bad lower back, you're screwed. That's true. And that's pain. Yeah. So if you can lock that and make it healthy and build that, then everything else falls

into place. About how many exercises would you do in a given workout? Three to four. Because the main lift takes a while, right? Yeah. If you lift, if you hit that main lift, how are you supposed to in the numbers, you accomplished a certain amount of work already with intensity. And for you, if you could come back and put the same intensity

into all these other exercises, well, you didn't do that first exercise how you're supposed to. That's why the other ones are called assistance exercises. They just, you know, just dotting the I's, crossing the T's, making sure everything transfers over and is strong. Your weak points aren't as weak anymore, but that's how you bring them up. Did you use any visualization in your lifting career? Let's see. After I left the gym until I got in the gym was all visualization all the time. But I can visualize

it and feel it at the same time. That's the important part. Because then you're able to identify from the moment you walk up to the bar, which was going to be the same every single time. When I didn't squat in deadlift for two years after my first hip replacement, when I walked up to the bar, I took the same exact steps, got under it the same way and took it off. It felt like home. It was so perfect that it didn't feel like anything again. So you've got to do everything the same way all the time, the way you're going to compete. But I had the steps, how I put my hands on the bar, how I wiggle under the bar.

Everything was always the same. So that part of the lift was always done. So it wasn't confidence. Walk up to the bar, you knew you could get tight, walk it out. Walking out was easy for me. Now all you've got to do is just go down and come up. Yeah, I remember watching those videos of you walking the weights out and just look like you were shot out of a cannon. Practice it right. I was like, I don't think I'll be able to do it

that way. Yeah. You just look like you almost fell. The controversy with the monolift and not, of course you can lift more with a monolift that you don't have to walk out, but that doesn't mean a guy that uses a monolift can't learn to walk it out and squat big weight. Right. People forget that. They use it as, everyone wants to use it as an excuse. Yeah. And look at, you know, like Milanochev, like he would still partially use it.

You know, he would kind of halfway walk it out. Yeah, he still walks it out. But I have a, I actually use a monolift back at the gym. Cheater. Yeah. But I walk it out, but it's so much easier to walk out of a monolith because it's so big and you've got so much room that it's safer. Well, sometimes there's other racks you might lean into, you know, unless you don't get far enough away. No, thanks.

We've got some questions popping up over there, Andrew. Yeah, real quick from, I mean, it says his name is Mario Lopez. I don't know if he is the Mario Lopez. Thanks for joining us, Mario. Yeah, yeah. Appreciate it. Big fan. He wants to know some advice on fixing hip tilt in the squat. You mean leaning forward, probably.

Maybe. Yeah, he didn't specify. Well, I'd have to... You could be talking about like that butt wink deal. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. If there's nothing wrong with a butt wink. Yeah. If you go low enough, you're going to have a butt wink deal. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. There's nothing wrong with a butt wink. Yeah. If you go low enough, you're going to have a butt wink. If you have a closer stance, you're going to have a butt wink.

It's no big deal at all. He's just got to make sure his groin is open. Open the taint. Yeah. And he's got to lock his back in, or else what's going to happen is that if that's the tilt he's talking about this way, then what happens is he doesn't open up. So he closes and locks up his hip flexors so nothing opens so the hips don't rotate like this. If your hip don't rotate like that, you're not using your hips, which a.k.a. your butt and your hamstrings aren't going to activate on the way down. So the first thing you do is going to be bend over.

It becomes like a two- to be bend over. Yeah. It becomes like a two-part lift. Yeah. Yeah. Do you guys want to get into diet at all? We can try. It was just an early question. Somebody was just wondering if.

He's more than me. Yeah. Yeah. What were your thoughts were on the carnivore diet? Because that's something we've been talking a lot about lately. I never did it. What I will say when I was talking to Mark early is everyone has

their own opinion about what's healthy and what's not. A better alternative is always going to be healthier. His brother Chris used to be

puffier and soft. This is the first time I ever saw Chris both mentally and physically look way better than he ever has end of story yeah i think uh when it comes to a carnivore diet or keto diet they're mainly for losing weight um that's kind of in my opinion it's mainly what they're for and i do think that you need rice

you need potato you want to lift big weights you i i just think that you need carbohydrates and i've been saying that for a very long time and i think that's your goal yeah and what is going to be sustainable for you in the future right you there may be certain times where i'm going to do the carnivore or the keto for either so many weeks or so many days out of the week and i'm going to have a day or two where i eat a little more carbs. Then it becomes a little more sustainable. Right. And still healthy. Right. And then also too, if you're, if you're somebody that is totally uncomfortable with your body

and you don't feel like you're in the shape that you want to be in, then put a freeze on your strength for a little while. Just don't, just don't worry about it. Go ahead and take care of what you need to take care of. Go ahead and drop your weight and your strength will come back. And, you know, have an ideal idea of how much weight you want to lose. You know, don't think you're going to lose 100 pounds and gain strength on your bench. You lose weight, any significant amount of weight.

If you lose weight fast, you're going to lose strength. Don't let anybody else tell you any different. That's just what happens. Too many people get caught up with, if I weigh this amount, I'm a big, strong guy. And you may be stronger, but you're still fat. There's no replacement for being healthy. There's no replacement for being healthy. You may lift more for a certain period of time, but at the end of the day, eventually, you're going to have to get healthy to be able to live.

And what we talked about earlier, if I am healthy, if my body's not hurting and I'm healthy, I can go in the gym and lift almost whatever I want because everything's working properly. That's the bottom line. And for me, during my career, I lifted some heavy weights without sleep and with shitty food. But I would have lifted more weight. I would have lasted longer. I would have been able to do an 1,100-pound squat. I would have been able to bench 900 pounds. I mean, I would have been more efficient.

And who knows? Maybe I'd have less. Maybe I'd be less banged up if I did it more efficiently. So that's the dying stuff. Or you'd be the same amount of banged up but would have lifted a lot more weight yeah exactly but either way it's good yeah exactly yeah that's actually i have a question for marcus though um because we've spoken in the past about like because i have arthritis in my back i use it as my number one excuse for being so skinny uh you have arthritis in your back right

okay yeah so i so go ahead. No, I was just going to say like what the hell do you do to yourself to fight through the pain like initially? Most of the time just warm up. Yeah. Have a good warm up and then like I'm going to lift. Like that's the bottom line. I'm going to lift.

So I'm going to do something I want to do versus not doing something I want to do because I'm uncomfortable. Because like the arthritis will probably never go away. You might feel better from day to day or be feel worse, you know, with weather or whatever, like if you had to sit all day. But I mean, if there's something you want to do and there's some discomfort versus not doing it and being equally as uncomfortable. Right.

Why the fuck wouldn't you just do what you want to do also? Yeah. That's how I look at it. Yeah. I don't think there's any, like, tips or tricks. Well, I'd say also, too, for you, Andrew, just utilize the team, you know? Yeah. And you've been doing that.

Yeah. But I think you can even do it more often. Come in there, go up to Smokey, say, what should I do? Come in there, go up to Marcus, go up to me. What did we talk about earlier? First of all, about the teamwork, exactly what Mark just said. What does Marcus do on his off days? He sets himself up with all these other prehab, rehab stuff to be able to do what he wants to do.

Right. And a lot of that is, if it's anything to do with the back, it has to do with core stability and everything stability. So like Stuart McGill's stuff and some of the other stuff that Marcus does. The big three. You know, Kelly and what Jester does. And that's mandatory because you have a special need. Right. So you can't treat it like a regular lifter.

You have to pay special attention to it. Marcus gets on the ground and he like rolls the barbell on like his forearms and like on his fat legs and everything. And he just looks like a manatee. He's on his side. And I always have other people check on him. Like, can you check him? They are an endangered species.

And I shot a couple of videos doing some other stuff in here and I don't even remember what it was, but everyone was just so concerned about him. They're like, what happened to that fat guy in the background? He fell down. Yeah. Who is that?

Barbell knocked him out. He's just laying on the floor. It's a bunch of fucking haters. They're just jelly. He's, he's so thick that he's the same height when he, even when he's laying on the side. Yeah. Whether or not he walks through a door straight or sideways, it's going to bump. he's so thick that he's the same height even when he's laying on his side yeah

whether or not he walks through a door straight or sideways it's gonna bump I can't help it doesn't make any doesn't make any difference yeah

for whatever reason some guy named Marco asked Marcus when you're gonna start cutting cutting so I'm gonna be like keep it on the diet

that I'm on right now and just slowly bring myself down and then I'll cut two weeks out what's your diet'm on right now and just slowly bring myself down, and then I'll cut two weeks out. What's your diet looking like right now? Vertical diet. Nice. Yeah. Vertical diet. He's doing it. Minus the in and out stacked on top of each other.

Yeah, he was framed. He was misrepresented. You know, if he takes it and puts it in his mouth, you are not to blame. I don't know. I'm not a lawyer or anything. There was no video evidence of me eating those.

I just take some pictures of them here and there and try to send them over to Stan. And Stan gets so excited. And to Brian Shaw. Brian Shaw is somebody that gets really disgusted when people aren't just doing any and everything they can to be the best. He absolutely just doesn't understand it. That's his mindset. He'll look at you and just shake his head. He's a total disappointment.

He's like, what the? It's like, well, what did you expect? Of course you missed. So at the SD Classic, it was hilarious. He saw me eating an apple fritter, just fucking fat shamed me. That was gross. DJ Webb comes over and there was like this giant fucking donut and somebody challenged him to eat it. Right.

And then so he's talking about that. And like, Brian's like, well, did you finish? He's like, well, what do you mean? Did you finish the donut? He's like, yeah. He's like, well, good for you. And I'm like, I just got fucking fat shamed. He ate a donut that was like three times the size of what I just ate, and you're giving him props. Life ain't fair.

I saw a guy eat two of them. At the place I was at, they were called Dallas because they were the size of Texas. I saw him eat two of them. That's a lot of donut. Yeah. That'll make you. That's a lot of guy. That'll make you barf.

What's some of your favorite Power oflifting stories that you've been around? Like what are some of the funny or cool or like. Kurt Kawaski was always usually involved a lot. He was always a lot of fun. Always a lot of fun. I remember you telling a story about him going heavier than you. You remember that one? telling a story about him going heavier than you.

You remember that one? At the 91 Nationals when I told 2,400, I tried a 986 squat, which weighed out to be 991, but I missed it. And he tried 1,000 and missed it, 1,003. And after his squat, he came up to me and says, ha-ha, I missed more than you did. That's awesome. Yeah. You know, being around some of these guys that just want to be the best,

there's got to be some aggression and stuff. Have you ever seen any of these guys, like, get into it in training or in a meet or anything like that? I've seen a lot of shit talking. Yeah. But usually when people meet in person, it's all gone. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, especially online, right? Yeah, it's just so easy.

When Powerlifting Watch was a big deal, I was telling these guys who today used to go on there all the time, and I'd troll everybody. PowerliftingWatch and GoHeavy.com. Oh, yeah. That's a good one. Yeah, that one has a lot. That one still has a lot of hate flying around on there. I remember, who was the guy who did one of the first really big squats from Pennsylvania? Oh, Miller.

Yeah. Mike Miller. I remember he got on there. He must have had some bad days, and he was threatening all these people. Oh, shit. And these were like friends of mine, so I threatened him back. And then I saw him in person, he pulled up in chicago at like a bench america it was in his big truck and i'm sitting on a bench outside and he pulls up and

he just looks at me and i look at him i said what hi yeah you're like what's up nothing it's just bullshit yeah just just people people get heated and they say stupid shit i used to go on there and just uh mess with everybody anytime anybody ever did anything, I'd go under there because you didn't have to use your name or whatever on there, right? And so I'd just go on there. And anytime anybody did a lift, I'd say, you're not Ed Cohn. Every time. You're not Ed Cohn. Then people would get mad at me.

And they'll be like, why does it got to be about Ed Cohn? Can't people be happy for this guy who just set a record? And I'm like, no, he's not. And I just keep talking shit and talking shit every time. I'd put it on. So you built like the Ed Cohen hater fan club? Yeah, yeah, every time. And then people would say, this is probably like someone that Ed Cohen pays.

And it started all kinds. And I didn't even know you then. No, it started all kinds of bullshit. That's when you were smelly the smart ass. Not a lot has really changed. No. It hasn't changed that much, has it? It can't.

What's your kind of favorite thing that you ever did? Like most, thing you're most proud of? In powerlifting? Yeah. Longevity and all the friends I made. Yeah. I mean, lifting, you can get really great at lifting. Right.

That's part of a lifter's legacy, but the person and the friends you hold on to. Right. You know what? I really wasn't a dick. Just be nice to everyone and everything. I got friends everywhere in the whole world. And I go to Australia twice a year. We were just in Kuwait.

I've been to all kinds of these other places. And I get along with everyone. When I was in Australia, that's all they talked about. They were like, Ed Cohen was here. And he lifted at this place. He ate over there. They remembered everything. That's got to be a really good feeling to have friends all over the world, people that are excited to see you all over the place.

The Australians that I know are some of the nicest and ball-bustingest people I know that are an absolute riot. Oh, that's great. Yeah. Is it sometimes a little overwhelming to you? I mean, you're just a short kid who's got bad coordination, who worked hard. Yeah. You're very short. Fuck.

No, I just. Sometimes it's like, huh? I just appreciate it. That's cool. I mean, I'm just Eddie. I don't know how to be anybody else. I'm just me and that's it. Hi, how you doing?

Hi. Did you ever get sick of signing pictures? No, it would suck if I didn't. Yeah. You know, if all of a sudden had ended and everyone forgot, now you didn't do anything that at the beginning that gives you a legacy to last on. Right. Do you sometimes like it when people don't know who you are? If you're like, you know, giving somebody a tip in the gym or something?

If I walk into a local meet, I'll still pay and walk in. I don't say, oh, don't you know who I am? Right, right. No, I just support pay and walk in. I don't say, oh, don't you know where you are? Right, right. No, I just support people and just be nice. But yeah, I've had people come up to me. I was in the airport once. And the other year when I was coming back from Australia and going to Jesse's meet, stopped in LA and there was some kid who had some type of powerlifting shirt on from a college. And I sat next to him waiting for the next flight, and I started talking to him about powerlifting,

and he had no idea who I was. And I never let it on who I was. I just kept talking to him about powerlifting. It was pretty cool. He's probably so pumped to tell you about his 315 squad. Yeah, he had no idea, no idea. But, you know, you don't always have to say who you are. Oh, by the way, I'm this.

You know, who cares? What are some of the goals now from a lifting perspective? I want to lift. I want to be able to do like 500 for 15 in the squat. The other day I was going to do a whole bunch of reps at 500 and I pulled my calf. Oh, no. I was so pissed because the weight felt so good. But I just started doing low bar squat again. so I know it was probably a little more lean

and a little pressure on it. And the rest is just, you know, my shoulders haven't been the greatest for a while, but they're starting to get better by not benching. So you know what? I'll do incline stuff. I'll do a bench press machine. I start off by doing flies, by activating my pecs because my shoulders were so bad for so long that anytime I benched, my pecs wouldn't work. It just went right to the shoulders.

So my pecs shrunk. So now I start off doing fly machine or something like that first. Now it tells my body, okay, this is what's supposed to work now. And then I go on to it from there. And in a deadlift, I can always deadlift some weight. So just having fun. I want to look good and feel good. Right.

Lift a little bit of weight. I don't have to lift the moon, but maybe a little small star. Right. And for some of the people that maybe hopefully in the future will get a chance to go to a seminar that you're doing, what are some of the things that you're teaching? I know you're teaching a lot of bench squat, deadlift technique. We mainly give them a brief overview of what I'm going to do. And then I say, everyone start doing your mobility stuff because we're going to squat, bench, deadlift.

As you go through that and you watch everyone do it because you're running around, boom, boom, boom, all over the place, which is you've got to give them your money, what they're paying for. And if you don't feel guilty, then you're a dick. So as long as it takes is as long as it takes. And usually in that period of time, you're correcting people and they're either setting PRs or they're realizing what they did wrong. So you're answering a lot of the questions that are relative as you're going along. And then afterwards, it's like gather around guys. Usually by that time, everyone knows I'm just an idiot.

I'm a regular guy just like them. I just lifted more weight and this is my game. Now they're more apt to ask better questions. And then that's usually it. Now when I do them with Stan, Stan jumps in and does a lot of the nutrition stuff. And he will give them some different cues than I will give them. So we work together and keep working in and out. Like I'll watch this group. And I do this with Josh Bryant sometimes too.

I'll watch this group. He'll watch that group. I'll go over here. Then he'll watch my old group. I'll go to his old group. So we work together all the time. What's up with some of the martial arts stuff? You still doing that?

It's more counter-violence. So it's more like what's going to happen in real life. Demonstrate on Marcus. If I don't attack him, he can't use his counter-violence on me. Oh, sure he can. Then it's not counter-violence. It is. It's violence. It's violence.

I started it because it was like JKD and it morphed into this guy, Mike Van Beek, focused counter-violence stuff. And it's kind of all these martial arts mixed into one to how do I defend myself, defend, against what could possibly happen to me. I mean, we're not hanging out at a bar at 2 a.m., so we're not going to have to worry about that. Right. But you're going to have to worry about a carjacking,

something that can happen in your business, a home invasion. What are you going to do if you walk into your house and somebody is beating the crap out of your wife? Right. And he's got a buddy over there. You've got to know what to do and how to approach that to be able to take care of him and worry about the next guy. Right. Or what happens if right now I just go, boom,

how do you react to that? And what are you going to do? I'll cry. See, so, yeah. So you learn, you learn. It's not like we're going to square off. There's a power curve the attacker is always at the height of the power curve but how do you reverse that is right to make him on

the defensive then you get into the stuff but there's you know all kinds of stuff built in which is some of it is of course mma stuff But then when you get into elbows, headbutts, bites, eye jabs, when you learn how to use a weapon, and then now the power curve shifts. Right. And that's what you want to do. You want to be able to walk into your house at night. You don't want to go to Costco and all of a sudden get jumped. You don't want some guy stomping on your head. You don't want someone,

what happens if someone busts into the office or something and says, give me all your money? Right. You know, well, the first thing is to try to give me your money. Right. Just go ahead, give them out, give me your car, whatever. But a lot of times it's not going to work out that way because violence doesn't have rules. Yeah. So you get into other stuff. And I really liked like that but i wanted to be able to move

a little bit more athletically again and that actually gave me a really good start you train that way quite a bit still yeah a couple times a week something like that yeah it keeps me mentally sound yeah you know i i really love the violence in the training. But it's not like anyone that wants to go out and fight is a fucking idiot. Nobody wants to have to do that. But you like to be prepared and it keeps me fresh and a little more athletic.

Because I can actually move really, really quick if I have to, like during training and stuff. But it's just something that I... It's good to have a motivation. Yeah, I had to do it. I'm not going to go out and play basketball or run stadium stairs, but I had to do something that was really cool.

The first time I saw this guy, I was like, holy fuck, that's like watching the Bourne Identity movie. But in real life, then it's like, oh my God, that is so cool. Does he have a lot of wisdom or is he more just like training? Oh, no. He that is so cool. Does he have a lot of wisdom or is he more just like training? Oh, no. He was, he was, he's in the program. You know, he had a drug problem when he was younger. And a lot of people that are at top levels in that learned on the streets. They learned like a lot of martial arts stuff.

And then they learned on the streets how to apply that, which is a different kind of fighting. Right. Yeah. There's, there's a real tactical side to it. Sure. That's a, that's pretty cool stuff. It's never going to, what you'll never see is you'll never see like a jab.

It's always going to be someone head hunting or someone grabbing a bat or a board or jumping you, or it's not. It's never going to be rules. It's always going to be someone. Their motive is to take your money, beat you, rape your wife, kill somebody. You think a lot of things like this should be like maybe taught in school or something? Like do you think people should? No. You think this is like a skill that people should know?

I think like in a college level, it could be alternative school, especially because girls that go to college, what are they going to learn? Especially nowadays with the scumbags out there in every way, shape, and form, is what are they going to learn? They've got to be able to protect themselves and feel good about themselves. So, yeah, from a college point of view, I could see it. But I mean, you're never going to be able to get away with teaching kids something to do. You know, you have your three-year-old kid walking up and headbutting some kid.

Do you do any jujitsu? Some of the ground fighting. Yeah, some of the ground fighting is there. But then there's, you know, kicks and elbows and bites and all kinds of stuff on the bottom to change things. And bites? Oh, yeah. I'll show you later. How do you practice biting?

You kind of pretend. In the old days, they used to stick like a stake underneath someone's shirt. So if Marcus, as I can tell by his eyes, if he mounted me like he liked to. Yeah. Exactly. So like if I bucked him and grabbed him around, I pulled him in and I bite him. So you would bite a stake underneath his shirt instead.

Now, what if you're into that though? Well, then I'd lose. Yeah, he just gets an erection. Yeah. Then what do you do? Yeah. Take care of it. The fight ends.

So like if I did that, what's your first thing if I bite you? You got to get away. Yeah, too much pain. And that's the first easy way when you push away to turn a guy, headbutt him, hit him a couple times. Do whatever else you want. Yeah. And for a woman, you want her to be able to get a kick, an eye jab, an elbow, just a palm strike, just enough for her to be able to get away.

That's all. A lot of times these attackers, too, they're not looking for, they don't want to struggle. No, a lot of them aren't skilled. They want an easy target to get in and out. But they might really seriously beat the crap out of someone right to get it right especially if you don't give it up right they might be like i'm already engaged in this muscle go all the way yes that's usually shoot you or whatever usually that's what happens yeah yeah i'll leave this question up for uh anybody to answer but there's a handful of people

asking about which uh steroids have helped over the power lifting careers of everybody up on the podcast right now steroids oh my god well obviously many uh lifters use uh testosterone but um you know getting into you know what people take and everything is uh a little bit of a hairy situation and it's like uh it's pretty basic, though, too, you know? Every roid, I think, the basic of it is testosterone. Right. And it's when people start mixing and matching and making up these weird names of stuff they're taking, and that's when problems, more problems occur.

Well, it always, you always have to go back to your training you know and people that are natural hate hearing that because they're like oh they think they think there's some secret going on but steroids do help they do help you get stronger but just adding in more and more without really knowing what you're doing is is a big mistake and there's a lot of forums out there and there's a lot of books uh you can read about them further online to learn more but most of what i've seen in the history of power lifting and most of the is a big mistake. And there's a lot of forums out there and there's a lot of books. You can read about them further online to learn more. But most of what I've seen

in the history of powerlifting and most of the people I've ever communicated with, testosterone, DECA, D-ball, has always been a very standard stack for somebody to do for a powerlifting meet. From what I've heard.

Basics. Yeah. Allegedly. Mm-hmm. Yeah. That's what smoke's on. Smoke's on IGF-2. Smoking. It's something new. Yeah. Yeah. Allegedly. Yeah. That's what smoke's on. Smoke's on IGF-2. Smoking.

Is that something new? Yeah. Yeah. It's only grown body hair so far. It's grown from fecal matter. Oh. It explains his shitty personality. Poor guy doesn't have a microphone.

He just can't kill it. No, nothing smoky. Gave an opportunity. Yep. He's out of it. Out of his element. But when we go back to that, look at, see, in the old days, they used to say, well, he can only do that because he takes something. But look at the raw numbers now. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Well, raw. No, look at the raw numbers in the ipf in in like us apl right look at look at some of the monsters doing some big lifts so obviously that's not really the all-in be all right or else you wouldn't have those guys oh it's insane and that's that's what i say too is like not every guy who's getting drug tested uh could pass could pass all these tests all the time. So, like, there's got to be some of these people have to be. There's always going to be.

Yeah, there's always going to be people that are doing them, right? But my point is accept the possibility that some of the people that don't take anything are beating records that have existed from people that were taking stuff. Yeah. It's okay to admit it. That would just be your own fragile ego saying it can't happen. Nobody wants to, you know, if your record gets broken, your record gets broken.

It's nice that if it takes like 30 years to do it. Yeah. And the manner that it's done in. But to use your own ego and say there's no one that can lift more than me unless he's juiced. Right. That's just bullshit. Some, you know,

there's some guy on his farm picking up the cow and walking around with it that doesn't even know how to lift yet. Yeah. And if you think that you need to take them to do a 700 pound deadlift, you definitely, you definitely don't because there's a lot of people that are, Taylor Willem posted a video the other day, conventional deadlift 705.

He's like, I don't know, 15 or 16 at the time. You know, there's a lot of people that are picking up Woolham posted a video the other day, conventional deadlift 705. He's like, I don't know, 15 or 16 at the time. You know, there's a lot of people that are picking up big-ass weights that are either getting drug tested or that are new to the sport that, in my opinion, I don't think they touched anything. It's hard to really ever know. You don't really ever know. But, like, you look at someone like Jen Thompson.

I mean, how many times has that woman been tested? See those shoulders? Yeah, it's amazing. But she's benching over 300 pounds as a female that weighs like 120 something pounds, 130 pounds or whatever it is. I think 132 or whatever the cutoff is now they changed the weight classes. There's some remarkable weights. Kimberly Walford. Being moved around. And if you're young and you don't have much of a foundation as we talked about earlier, there's really no point in looking into it.

No, just say, wow, nice lifting. Right. That's it. Got any questions over there, Andrew? How about some poop stories? I know you just took a picture in our bathroom. I told Marcus it was almost a disaster. Disaster pants. We're talking about cramping

and I said I was dining for a contest and I was having trouble pooping I don't know so I'm sitting on the toilet trying to push every ab I had locked up horribly and they tighter and tighter so I'm I go back trying to do a backbend and right before they were about to pop loose my erectors cramp up so my oh fuck so i go down here abs cramp back up push off the sink in the uh windowsill triceps lock up and when i stand up all the way my glutes and hamstrings lock up i hit the ground like whining in pain, trying to keep the turtle from getting out of the shell back there. And my mom knocks on the door and starts coming in before I'm screaming at the same time, trying to keep it in. She'd be like, honey, what are you doing in there?

Yeah. The same thing she knocked on your door when you were 13. Yeah. Pretty much. Anything else you want to leave us with here at the end? Let's see. What did we learn today? You're a short, no longer angry little troll.

And you lost your trainer. God damn it. I win. What if I buy you dinner? That's better. There you go. No, it's just, we learned a lot of basic stuff that's not put into play. We learned the value of sticking to routine, and that's like make up a routine that it has to be doable over time.

Each week has to build upon it. If it's not where you start, it's where you finish, obviously. But you don't have to set an all-time world record. Every time you go out, you just have to build upon that. Let's say one cycle, you started your squats off at 500. The next cycle, let's say you started off at 510. Let's say the first week, you did two sets of 10. You actually did 200 more pounds total volume right then.

And then if you add in your assistance exercise and you went up on your assistance exercise. Now, so do that over 12 weeks and look at the amount of total weights you lifted over that time that you got this part of your pec, this part of your pec, this part of your shoulder, that part of your shoulder, both parts of your triceps, your biceps, your lats. Oh, I mean, touch me. Yeah. So you got all those parts strong. So in the end, look at what you built. Right. It's not like, oh, I just got my bench press up, you know, 10 pounds at the end.

No, if you built all that in the end and all those parts get stronger and bigger, what did you build? You see what I'm talking? Yeah. That's what I'm talking about. And that's one of the biggest values I think I did. And I just kept going and kept going and kept going and kept going. But at the same time, what was that movie with Jim Carrey, 23, where like when he walked

in his room and he had all those numbers all over the walls? Yeah. I would do that with routines. I had hundreds of pieces of paper. He had everything the walls. Yeah. I would do that with routines. I had hundreds of pieces of paper. He had everything all written. Yeah. You know how number, how many number two pencils I went,

what is it? Ticonderoga pencils or whatever that I went through making up my routine. It was always in pencil because I would always have to erase and go back and learn how to do it. You wrote down like notes too. Like if he did something and liked it, you wrote it down. Had to.

If something popped up in your head, like, Oh, I should try that. Yeah. Even like the way if you did something and liked it, you wrote it down. Had to. If something popped up in your head, like, oh, I should try that. Yeah. Even like the way that you did your stiff-legged dead, the way that you did your bent-over rose, like they all had like a little finishing touch on them. And it's probably just trial and error and taking notes on what felt good.

Yeah, exactly. What felt good, what felt natural. And you build and it changes the whole time. Someone like Mike T. Yeah, Mike T. Mike Tresher is actually like a genius. He really is. But he's always experiment, experiment, experiment,

because there's always going to be a way to get better. Right. And that's what we all do. It's just the little tweaks that are going to have the biggest impacts. What do you think of the new super training gym? This is your first time. Holy crap. They got a video on me.

First of all, when I walked in, it's not just like this. Oh, we're just going to do business out of a gym. It's not like that. This is like a real professional place. Now, this is like ESPN Studios, which is fucking badass. And the store is stocked in just visually stimulating to watch. Yeah. I think that was Joey that you were looking at.

Oh. It explains it. Yeah. And then the gym part is enormous. Yeah. It's a good-sized gym, isn't it? We've got a lot of good stuff. Yeah, but it's not a health club. It's a place where you want to go.

You're not going to work out here. You're going to train. Right. So every time you come in, you know you're going to have a purpose, and that's going to be, I'm going to bust my ass because I'm in the right atmosphere to do it. And because you guys work as a team and back everybody, there's never going to be a problem. And everyone's always going to fulfill and go after what they want. And I actually went in the back where you have the warehouse part, which, holy crap,

you got some products back there. And I stuck two knives out of three. Oh, there you go. Yeah, we got a few. But my ax or hatchet was fucking horrible. Yeah, we have a wall to throw some knives. Have you ever shot like a bow or anything like that before? No.

Yeah, we got all that stuff over there too. That's like impossible. I was trying it. Yeah. Marcus, you've probably done stuff like that. Yeah. He's pretty good. He's shooting rats in alleys and stuff.

He's pretty redneck, this guy. That's about it. I mean, the bottom line is, if you do everything and enjoy the process, you're always going to be successful. And success is at the end of it all. It's not always, just because you miss doesn't make it not a success. As we talked about earlier, there's always going to be reason why you miss. If you miss and make a mistake, if you learn from that right away and correct why you missed, the one or two or three reasons why you missed, that next workout, those problems don't happen, and there might be another one that crops up, but when you keep correcting, you have less things to correct. So in the long run, you're like, perfect. What's your favorite movie of all time?

Shawshank Redemption. That's a fucking good one. And you know what? I have to admit, I love really bad B-vampire movies with hot vampire chicks. Almost like a Skinny Max type deal from back in the day. Not naked vampires per se, but hot, cool vampire movies. I always liked those. That's a very weird fetish, Ed.

It's not really. Well, I don't masturbate to them. Maybe you do. Maybe later. I'm not saying. them. Maybe you do. Maybe later. I'm not saying. What are some words that you lean on, you know, in times of need? Like what's some advice that you got, a favorite quote? It could be kind of anything in that category, but what's something that has always been there for you when you needed it? Well, for the anger management part, my dad always said,

you know how some people before they react and do something, they have to count to 10. I want you to count to 20, Eddie. That's great. Yeah. And besides that, I think, I think I've just learned to relax and be nice for real. It may sound a little bit cliché-ish, but I just relax and be nice to everybody. And it made my life so much easier. Yeah, it is a lot easier when you're not always trying to jockey for position or always trying to one-up somebody. No, it's not about that. Or cut someone down. No, you're just trying to better-up somebody. No, it's not about that. Or cut someone down. No, you're just trying to better yourself.

Yeah. You're not going to really walk over people and get anywhere because that only comes back and bites you in the ass. Right. You just try to get better. This is what I want. This is what I'm going to go after. I make my plan, and now I'm going to execute it.

And just like I said, it's just being nice. Treat everyone high. How you doing? What's the problem with that? everyone. Hi, how you doing? What's the problem with that? Any more questions for Marcus? Um, no, just Andrew. Yeah, I gotcha. Um, knowing everything that you know now, what would you have told your younger self to do anything different? No, because I think the mistakes I made, I learned from. And in the long run, it made me better. Yeah, that's awesome, dude. That's all I got over here.

Is there any lifter past or current now that you would have liked to have really gone head to head with in your prime? your prime um hmm well at my prime to be able to use like some of the bars in the way and stuff now i would have loved to be in the mix with some of these guys yeah you would love to see what that looks like right 24 hour way in yeah um what was your best uh your best total 2463 is that 242 or well yeah but like 234 or something now like my raw lifts in the gym back then with before even sleeves were invented i did an 865 walk out um doubled nine and a quarter real easy with an old pair of double gold lines. Just a pair of knee wraps. Yeah, just the old two-meter ones. And then bench was a 565 pause and deadlift 900 for two.

900 for a double. In that meet where you did do the 901-pound deadlift, what was the next weight that you went for? 920, which weighed out to be like 9.24. And I got too psyched too soon and I pulled it up to my knees and I just lost it.

You think it was like just a little bit less weight that you might have been able to make it? No, I think it was after the 9.01 it was so anticlimactic

that I lost everything. What do you think of some of these mutants now? You got Kaler Wollum, like that kid, like, I don't know. It looks like he might end up deadlifting a thousand pounds at some point. If he could stay healthy and get his knees better, there's no telling what he can do. And he's a really nice guy. He might need to weigh a little bit more, you think, or not really?

If he can. It's hard. He's got a, you know, he doesn't have big hips. It's all, you know, a lot of hamstring and back. So if he can build his quads up that will take some pressure off his back and his hamstrings, he'll actually get the bar moving more at the beginning. But his lifts have come up. I mean, his bench got better.

Larry Wheels ripped up a 900-pound delivery. Holy crap. And he's jacked. Yeah. When he went to bodybuilding and then came back, he's really big now. What's that old video? Didn't he pull 675 or something for a double or something like that with Stan? And that's kind of the first time a lot of people saw him.

I think it was the seven plates. Yeah. You know, now he's pulling an extra, you know. 225 pounds. Yeah, 225 pounds. Yeah. You know, now he's pulling an extra, you know. 225 pounds. Yeah, 225 pounds. Unbelievable. And he's young. Yeah.

Whether or not he can last, that'll be the key. Right. But I know he wants to be a pro bodybuilder too. So I'm sure he wants to squat whatever, 800 in the meat, bench, 600. Yeah. And his new weight class and deadlift 900. And then he would probably. He can make a great bodybuilder.

I think he'd probably just need bigger legs. Legs and calves. Legs and calves, right? Yeah. It's a shame like Dan Green got hurt. Yeah. Because he was primed for some really good stuff as a nice comeback. Kevin Oak did a really, really nice squad of 832

buried the crap out of it, it was beautiful and there's a bunch of, I mean the heavyweights you got Andre, you got this Peter Petrov from Czech Republic who's a mutant beyond belief is he coming back again? He kind of disappeared for a while he's supposed to show up at Big Dogs

you got Sean Doyle. Nobody really knows much about him. I know. I know. Well, you know, he's got to prove it in a regular meet. Yeah. Training lists don't count. He's been laying low.

Yeah. He had hurt his pec before, and now he's coming back again. Big guys. Lightweight guys. There's some really good Australian lifters. A couple of the meets over there, well, the big dogs is for all the heavyweights. And they have a pro row over there,

which is mainly for Australian lifters, but they opened it up and they let some other lifters over. It's at the Australian Arnold. And actually, it's almost the biggest thing at the Australian Arnold, almost as big as bodybuilding. Yeah, it's really cool.

That would be, that would be something to go. That's like two weeks after our Arnold, it's there. Oh, maybe I will try to figure that out. Are you going to body power? No, I'm going to actually go to that US Open. Oh, that's, yeah, that's. That's the same weekend. San Diego.

that U.S. Open. Oh, that's, yeah, that's... Yeah, that's the same weekend. San Diego. But I told you, a bunch of my Irish and UK guys are waiting to see you there. Oh, cool. Yeah, I've been getting a lot of messages. It's actually been...

It's actually really cool to think, like, that people across the pond... It's like, why do they want to see me? Yeah, people care. Yeah. That's pretty damn cool. Yeah, but see, they'll appreciate not just what you built, but the services you give, and then your smart-ass, normal guy attitude after everything.

Right. I mean, at the end of the day, you've got to go home and be dead. Yep. Keep you humble. You've got your parents. Yep. You know, we talked about why i have to leave on sunday night yeah because of my mom well you know my mom's not really doing that good she's got a lot

of arthritis and she's in a lot of pain you said yeah battled cancer twice and has a bunch of replacements so and she's like she should be 88 in a couple months. Good God. But, yeah. And she never complained before, but now that she's complaining, even with painkillers, you know what's really bad. So she's having problems in her back, in her neck. And there's not really anything you can really do. Right. She's just a tough old lady. But if I get back, if I get back on Sunday night, fuck this hurt. On Monday morning, before I start my week, I get to go over to a house.

Oh, that's cool. And spend 15 minutes or so there. Right. Now, you know how valuable family is. Oh, absolutely's cool. And spend 15 minutes or so there. Right. Now, you know how valuable family is. Oh, absolutely, yeah. If you could spend 15 more minutes, it's huge. Yeah, 15 more minutes, especially, you know, as they're not feeling well. You know, it means a lot to you. It means a lot to them.

Yeah. But look at that. If they're not with you anymore, what you wouldn't give. Right. That's the thing. So then you don't have any regrets and you know they feel good because they just saw you. They may forget that they saw you 15 minutes after you leave. Right.

But, you know, you were there. Yeah. And that's really, really important. Yeah. My son, you know, I always tell him, I said, don't let your grandpa be a bad influence on you. Because my dad always wants to keep my, he wants to hang out with my son, you know, till 9, 9.30, 10 o'clock on a school night. And my wife's always like, where's Jake? Where's Jake?

She's like, text him or go over there and go get him. I'm like, you know what? I can't, I can't break up the party, man. It's too valuable. No, and actually I can guarantee you all the stories he's telling you, he's telling them the history, but he's also a teacher. Right. So he's teaching them way more stuff that he doesn't even know it yet.

Right. Yeah, he's teaching them all kinds of stuff. I mean, they're doing like construction stuff. They build shit. They do all kinds of different things. My son knows how to do taxes. There you go. Yeah.

My son's like, did you file your, and I'm like, what? I'm like, I don't know what's going on here. Yeah, ask your grandfather. Yeah. I'm like, I don't even know anymore. Yeah, so that part's worth it. That's what's really worth it at the end of everything. 15 minutes, that's all it is.

10-minute walks, too. Yep. Don't forget those. I actually started them. I couldn't do them this week after I pulled my calf. But I have a route where I'll do it twice in a day, which is like 18 minutes. That feels good. And just those two, all of a sudden I notice my posture.

And all of a sudden I notice the pace that I walk at is like I'm flying now. So you really notice and it clears your head and you sleep better. Try walking with Andy. You'll feel really slow. She walks really fucking fast. She's got legs like this long. Did you follow Paul Anderson when you were younger? Actually, I went to a, there was a guy, Tom Sciolo,

who, remember that product Hot Stuff? Yeah. So he owned that and he had a strength symposium. There was Dianabol in there. Supposedly. Methyl test, Dianabol, everyone heard of those. Who knows? You guys had all the good stuff.

Obviously, I didn't take enough. Just a supplement at GNC. Yeah. It was a tainted supplement. That's what made me sad. You're like, I had everything. We can't even get legit protein because of amino spiking. Oh. Yeah, it's considered.

At one time, you couldn't, in the NCAA, a strength coach couldn't give his players protein powder. It was considered anabolic. But he had a big strength symposium down there with all the power lifters and a bunch of other people and paul anderson attended so i have a picture somewhere at home with paul anderson with all of us he was in a wheelchair at the time but it was a bunch of the all the meathead power lifters and stuff in suits and ties and paul anderson he may have been like diabetic or something, right? Yeah, he had a lot of – He was a big guy. Diabetics and then your kidneys go.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. And that was on a metal set with a metal bar, not any springy type stuff. Yeah, he was built to lift. Were you strong at some of these weird lifts? Did you ever mess around with any weird stuff? I know you always had grip strength, but you never really toyed around with like... You know what?

I stayed in my lane. Yeah. Everyone at the very beginning was like, oh, you should do strongman. Like, I get hurt enough doing powerlifting. Why the hell am I going to do strongman? Plus, how am I going to load a stone? Right. Yeah.

Hey, you're too short. Exactly. Who could happen to something like Gary Taylor? Yeah. You know, the, the knees and, you know,

Mark Filippi, who was just, was under 300 pounds and was like six foot, six foot one. And he blew out his knees. Yeah. Yeah. Had a car falling.

And you know, I stood next to Brian Shaw and Thor. Are you kidding? I'm the size of one of their dumps. It's actually very true. Yeah. I just love these old school singlets and stuff that they used to wear. Paul Anderson always looked like a giant baby.

He looked like he was in a onesie. I used to have one of the old Russian ones that was made like of wool. Yeah. Remember Alexiev, the ones he had? That's one of the ones I had. Yeah, his stomach was out. Actually, at one time, I'm sure somewhere at one of the world gyms in Columbus, they still have the set that he did the first 500 pounds on, Alexiev. Yeah.

That's pretty cool. All right, guys, we're going to run on out of here. Ed's got to get a lift in. We're going to grab some dinner. Strength is never a weakness. Weakness is never a strength. Ed, where can I find you? Oklahoma, Illinois.

But my Instagram account, sorry, my Instagram account that I owe to Mark, Ed Cohen, Eddie Cohen, whatever, Ed, Eddie Cohen. Yeah, we started it here a couple years ago. Yeah, he's like, give me your damn phone. And then he set it up for me, and on Facebook too, Ed Cohen. But that's about it. I think that's really cool because kind of based off of that, obviously your lifting history speaks for itself,

but if it wasn't for social media, it's hard to still have that voice. Yeah, if I wasn't on Facebook, if you didn't put me on Instagram, none of the seminars and there's a vast hundreds of thousands of lifters that really wouldn't know about history or me. So I owe you that, motherfucker. Well, we don't owe each other anything because we're friends. That's just the way it works out. Yep.

Yep. Where can people find you, Marcus? Filipino Thunder on Instagram. Oh, yeah. We're out. Yep. Yep. Where can people find you, Marcus? Filipino Thunder on Instagram. Oh, yeah. We're out of here. Bye. See you guys. That was awesome.