Mark Bell's Power Project - Power Project EP. 8 - Cory Gregory

Episode Date: February 16, 2018

Co-Founder of MusclePharm, Powerlifter, Cover Model, Gym Owner, and former Coal Miner Cory Gregory joins us on Mark Bell's Power Project. Cory shares his history with WestSide Barbell and encounters with Louie Simmons, all the way through his days of building MusclePharm to where he is today, co-owner of Old School Gym in Ohio, Co-Founder of Max Effort Muscle, and father. ➢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/user-921692324 ➢SHOP NOW: https://markbellslingshot.com/ FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell

So, uh, we just take people back several years now. Um, when I was trying to like be somebody in powerlifting, trying to be somebody in the fitness community, uh, no one cared, you know, and I I've, I've said that many times. I said that no one's fucking, no one cared. Uh, there was really no one by my side necessarily other than my fat friend jesse burdick jesse's always been there jesse's always been there and uh it was just hard it was hard to like it's hard to get any traction it was hard to gain any ground and i would reach out to companies i reached out to bodybuilding.com and i reached out to many other people and i just uh what i was doing at the time you know, squatting a thousand pounds and things like that. It just, it wasn't, uh, appetizing powerlifting wasn't as popular, um, as it is now. And I don't even really know how it happened. Maybe you can kind of point these people in the right direction of figuring out how some of it happened, but,

um, long story short, uh, I ended up getting in contact with yourself and muscle farm at the time. Yep. And, uh, this was like one of the first guys, one of the first companies, one of the first people that gave a shit. This was a guy that, that stepped up and said, yeah, we recognize what you're doing is valuable. And this is cool, Mark. This is cool. We want to, we'd like to figure out some sort of relationship. Maybe we'll send you some supplements or, or maybe it'll work out some other way.

So how, how did I end up on your radar and how did some of that all come to be? If you can remember. Yeah, for sure. If I try to turn back the clock, I mean, first off is I love power lifting. So that was the first way. And I think that. You're not just a fitness model. Yeah.

I'm not just a fitness model. And that's, that's like. You're too handsome. You're too handsome and way too skinny for powerlifting. Yeah, and that's kind of what Louie Simmons said too. Skinny core, you want to squat, huh? Yeah. So it's one of those things where I think the strength sports was always on my radar. And I used to talk about all the time, Mark, and say that I was a powerlifter stuck in a fitness model body. And so I always had this affection towards powerlifting because I did my first powerlifting meet when I was 17 years old. And got bit by the bug.

I had a strength coach named Coach Hoover that took us to our first bench meet. And I was like, I'm in. And literally, that was when I was 17. I'm now 39. I've competed, you know, three to five times a year probably since. And so I think that I was paying attention to all of it and saw what you were doing, saw what you were building out here, saw that kind of stuff. And I always liked your kind of the way that you did things because you said this the other day, I saw you on social media talking about you're really good at being yourself. half businessman, you know, full-time lifter on top of it. I think it was appealing to me because it had a lot of similarities to what I was doing or trying to do. Cause I was trying, I was running, you know, a pretty good company at that point, but I was also trying to

be the first person that was running a major supplement brand, but also living the life at the level that I was maybe since maybe a guy like Bill Phillips or somebody. Right. And so that's what I was trying to do. So I was absolutely paying attention to what everybody was doing because I'm, I'm a student in the game and I just, just had props for what you were doing, man. What was, uh, at that time, why was it important to you, uh, to kind of lead by example? Like, because most people, a lot of people that own supplement companies, especially the bigger brands, they're kind of sometimes disassociated with what's going on in fitness a little bit. And a lot of times some of the ads and stuff would even use photos of yourself where you're shredded. You know, you're jacked and shredded.

And then on top of that, you were also pursuing powerlifting at the same time. Yeah. My whole plan was if I could grace multiple covers and have, have an elite total in the ballpark of the, those years that I thought that that would be very different than anybody else. And as you know, it's so saturated right now and it has been for a long time. So it's like, how can you stick out and be different? And I'm not a gifted athlete. I wasn't recruited to play sports and anything like, uh, you know, graduate high school, like 160 pounds with no abs. I mean, so it's not like I was like a promising, you know, stud. And so I've put a lot of work in

and had a lot of, um, vision to what I thought the Corey Gregory, um, I guess, fitness personality or executive or both what that would look like. And when I had that opportunity, you know, I'd have friends that would say like, dude, you're killing it. Like, just why are you eating tuna for four meals? Like, and I'm like, no, this is the time to step on the gas. And I, and I, and I like, you're already lean. Yeah, exactly. So it was, but, but it was just mutual respect, Mark. I think that, you know, I can't believe it's taken me this long to be here.

So I'll apologize for that, to be honest with you, but it's still got to get out to see your place. Yeah, exactly. So we'll get you with the 4am crewers but i think that mutual respect and i i couldn't tell you how proud i am walking and thank you man that means a lot it's this place is awesome um seeing the brand where it's went to it's it's fun uh made me feel good when you came through the doors and i just you couldn't you you couldn't hold it back you know you were fucking sick you're super pumped you're like i need to get my camera out. This is pretty cool. No,

it's just all love, bro. What's the deal with this 4am crew? What the fuck's going on? I see you post on social media the hashtag and stuff. Yeah, it's only 1am your time.

Yeah, it's pretty damn early. You know, what's crazy is that out of necessity for all the things we just talked about, trying to be an athlete

at the same time as an executive and the most important is being a dad, right? Right. So I just noticed that past 7 a.m. Eastern, my phone is, it starts to ring and it doesn't quit ringing until I shut it off. And so I couldn't just dial in.

A lot of inbound dick pics from me. Whoa. I know. Podcasts take a turn for the worse quickly. And there it went down the tubes. But it's one of those things where I couldn't concentrate on all the stuff I had going on. And if I wanted to balance those three major things, everything just started getting earlier and earlier. So I started training at five, which means I was out by 630 or seven.

And that was right at when things started happening. Kids are going to school, phone starts ringing. And then there's a really good training partner of mine named Corey Carpenter that was working in the health and fitness field, but in medical. And now he's transitioned into training. And he had to come earlier at four because he couldn't come at five because he couldn't get all of it in. He forced everybody to wake up super early. He basically forced. And it's one of those things I started telling the story a little bit more because i remember thinking this dude's a really good training partner and you

know what fuck it i'll just start getting up earlier because to me what's an extra hour at this point we're already crazy yeah and it went from like five to seven people consistent some guys driving up to 45 minutes to an hour to be there to be around it too at 4 a.m 4 a.m so that means they're getting up at like two you guys give each other shit for being late or is it a little lax a little lax though you know we're by the time we get done warming up it might be like 4 20 guys will be guys and they'll you know they're going to give each other shit no matter what right so at this point the 4 a.m crew the infamous 4 a.m crew which is kind of what we've tagged it is now about between 20 and 30 deep on a regular basis five days a week guys from all walks of life and all ages. That's what I love. It's from kids are in high school all the way till we had a guy that's, um, 50 years old. He's a

baseball coach locally that just squatted five 30 bench three 70 and pulled five 25 at, um, a one 98. You know what I mean? Raw. So it's like, what I love about even just what I love about this story is just that it's still about those numbers. You know, it's still about those numbers. Absolutely. You know, it's still about those numbers. Like, and I, and I love that. And I love that, uh, you know, people, people can't let go of that. And it's important that that's always there because, you know, I always say strength is never a weakness. It's always important to be strong and it doesn't have to be that you're

stronger than the next guy necessarily. That's cool. If you can, you know, you get a couple of victories and you can beat somebody else, but it's being stronger for yourself and being stronger. Like as you get older, maybe your goal is just to hang on to three 15 or hang on to four, whatever that number is. Maybe when you're, you're like, okay, when I'm 60, I'd love to still be able to squat over three plates. Absolutely. It's, it's about longevity. And the thing for me is I never had this kind of intensity for this long a period

of time. I'd have a good training partner here and there, but dude, I got seven guys at 181 that are all right. And that are checking me. You know what I mean? I'm not the strong, I mean, I'm, I'm getting third in my own meats for my own crew. And you know, that's, they don't care what, what I founded or what I did. And I don't care either. Cause that's not about that. And I think that's what I loved about what Louie always did yeah he separated the business and the training completely different and i've tried to do that in my own way obviously living in columbus too and having a lot of west side kind of influence it's like when i walk in there it does none of that shit matters and and i'm in there trying to beat that dude i don't care how old he is what he's done before

but once we put that chalkboard on the wall, it changed everything. Yeah. Your car, your car, your watch, your income. It's like you could lay all that. Riding don't matter, dude. Yeah. Lay all that in front of the monolift, right? It's not going to do anything. It's not going to help. And so we've been able to create that because everybody loses it when they leave high school. Think about it. You're in your high school weight room, right? It's a camaraderie forms usually terrible at that point, but everybody's rooting you on after high school. If you don't play on a college sports and even those weight rooms aren't usually as intense, it's gone. Yeah, that's true. Well, we're returning.

That's what I think I love the most when people walk in and go, man, this feels like my high school gym. And I'm like, yeah, and that dude's going to kick your ass, and that dude's going to kick your ass if you don't pull that through bands right now. And then they're going to talk shit. And it's still in a good way, but it's fun, man. I enjoy it. Where does the drive come from? Where does the determination come from to you know day in and day out like it's one thing

to talk about oh yeah we're gonna train at 4 a.m but it's another thing like to do it do it consistently you know i think it's um we talked about this briefly before we got on the air it's like i start my day uncomfortable every day so a lot of people there is times i jump out of bed and i'm like boom boom, let's go. Like I'm going to kill the day. But that's not, that's not, that's not the high percentage of them. It's like, fuck, I was up to 11 and my kids had four sports yesterday. Like I'm tired, but I know there's 25 guys that are relying on me being there.

And I know that if I can get through, you know, that, that being uncomfortable first off that the rest of the day is just set up for success. And I believe sticking to that's been everything for me. How do you manage the stress? Cause like that could be a big thing. Like if you're not sleeping, um, you know, something I try to share with people often is, um, I do wake up early, but I share the other side of that message. And I say, I'm getting my ass to bed as early as I can handle, you know? So how do you manage some of this? Yeah. I'm in bed at 10. Right. If I, excuse me, if I push it to 11, too many days, then my training slacks from it because you know, five, six, I mean, six is awesome for me. Right. I've, uh, I've done it for so long, you know, just to be in that ballpark of

starting by five ish, um, that it's became very routine. But a lot of people ask me like, what, how the hell do you do that? And it's really just like anything else. I ratcheted it down. I used to train at seven, then I trained at six, five, four nights. So it didn't just go from, I trained at eight o'clock and now I train at four. You know what I mean? But what I realized is that I'm walking out of the gym and it's still dark out. I've already on the way to the gym, listening to the audio book. I've trained for an hour and a half you know and got after it i'm listening i live a half hour 40 minutes from the gym just like all the other guys listen to more audio material there then i usually would hit the track and lunge 400 meters listen to more so i've already like studied to make myself sharper mentally for

like an hour and some change right i've already trained for an hour and a half and it's like seven and i'm thinking to me i think to myself I have to do that to beat the other guys that are more gifted than me. And if they want to put, just like we talked about with Brady, like I feel like I'm putting that time in just to fend off, to keep my spot and to grow my stuff. And at the end of the day, if you want it, you're going to have to come get it in that manner because I'm not changing. Right.

You know, so that's in the consistency is everything. Well, you know, people of my whole life has always told me you know it's not that easy not that easy smell like not that easy mark you know people have always said that and i've actually found that it's kind of bullshit it is that easy it is that simple it's not necessarily easy it's like the wrong way but simple is the correct is the correct word when it comes to drive determination and waking up at 4 a.m. It's not like you necessarily want to torture yourself, but it's as simple as you really like doing it. I love what I do. And I can't wait to go there and beat one of these guys and talk shit to them.

But I think they get tripped out about it. Multiple guys have said it is that it's that important to me at this point in my career. But it really is because they set the tone. That group that I have there is so special to me because I want them to be successful, not just in the gym, but outside the gym. And a lot of these guys are like in their early 20s. They're starting businesses.

They're doing stuff. And so a lot of times we're at the gym competing, but half the time we're not even talking about lifting weights. But I see the success that's happening outside the gym, which means that focus is spilling over, which is what we talked about. And so that's, that's, what's so special about old school gym in general. You know, my partner, Dustin Myers, like I said, he's the strength coach at Ohio state wrestling is one of the top programs in the country.

Kyle Snyder's the Olympic gold medalist that is around the program. I mean, there's, there's some amazing, like high level, just stuff going on around our gym. And it's, it's special, man. From a mental standpoint, I want to be like in a movie, like you one day, like about it. We're working on another one right now. Yeah. Working on a nutrition movie. So things are going really, really well with that. How do you get yourself to this point? Um, I think, I think sometimes, I mean, sometimes people are just kind of born with this. Sometimes people are just born with like an urge. I know at a very young age, you came flying out of the gate and had your own gym at 20 years old and things of that nature. But are you able to build on this

stuff? Are you, is somebody able to build willpower? Cause I think some people that listen to this show, some people I'm friends with, they'll just kind of scratch their head and be like, I don't understand, man. You don't eat any carbs. I don't understand, man. You wake up at four. Like they think we're robots, but can somebody build into this? Yeah, I think so. I think it's like, whether it's business or fitness or whatever, I think there's those moments that like trigger something for most people that can take things to this level, your level, my level, everybody, you know, it's like, and for me,

it was very simply that I was tired of watching my parents struggle, check the check straight up. Like we lived in a trailer, it costs a hundred, a hundred dollars a month rent. And I just at 15 years old, I saw my mom's W2 and I wrote a book called the mindset manual that I give away on my website. And it's like, give away on my website and it's like it talks about these things and it's like i just made like this and i didn't know how it was going to happen mark that's what was interesting i just knew that shit was going to change yeah and then i was willing when i found what i was passionate about which i knew was fitness but where i'm from no one makes money lifting weights even the guy that owned the gym he had another job

so i mean i'm from rural ohio fourth generation coal miner like everybody i know does coal mining and they lift weights and they're like they're still toes after work and they're all strong guys but no one did it for a job you know what i mean so it's like so i just i just made a pact with myself i'm like i'm gonna roll the fucking dice big once and i'm gonna go for it i'm gonna move where i need to move i'm gonna go do what i and i worked underground six months saved 20 grand with every day i'm shoveling coal i'm on my knees that the roof is as high as this table and i'm just thinking i'm gonna get my ass out of here and i and i'm gonna do it as big as possible for my genetics for my time and the miners used to say oh so you want to be like richard simmons you want to be a personal trainer i mean they didn't know i was

just i was just envisioning too like you you telling the other guys this, you know? Oh, yeah. And this is a real like macho thing. So anything you want to do, like to get any fame or to be, I'm going to be on a cover of Fitness Magazine. They're probably like, what? Yeah. They thought it was crazy.

Yeah. What you talking about? But the love that they've shown once it happened was unbelievable. Like I said, coal miners everywhere always always because i'm always repping miners because i understand like i knew in that period of time which i only did for six months that i would get that that work ethic from four generations of family i could understand what it meant and then i then it really was part of my narrative like i'm going to get it i want to understand it but now i'm going to change it in a major way and teach that next generation of gregory's um a whole different way to operate and understand like my kids, as your kids do, they see what I do every day.

They know I love it. So whatever they love, they probably think, well, I should give that a try. Right. And that, that really, you know, my parents didn't know that. And so no fault to them. It just, it just is what it is. So I was just really focused on whatever it took that I was going to do it. And yeah, whenever I, you know, had got my money and moved to Columbus, I was like, well, I want to try to get into personal training. I thought that was my main entry point. And that's kind of where it all kind of started. Do you think a coal mining is something that, uh, you know, gave you some of the discipline that you have still today? Yeah. Cause you had to be there at five in the morning. You know,

I, I mentored a lot of the young guys that are guys did you work with your dad uh my stepdad um so yeah my stepdad uh so i would work like with the belt crew so if i can paint a picture for you real quick it's like actually the belt line from the coal mine is actually my floor at my gym now which is kind of cool because it's like old good year tires and so basically they would run tons of this coal and these belt lines that are so loud you can't even hear yourself think and you'd be shoveling in you know know, 40 inches, the ceilings like 40 inches tall. And if it would spill. Some of it help you get strong, you think?

For sure. My forearms and my grip, like I never lose a deadlift from grip. I never have. And I think it's all because of shoveling 15 hours of coal for like literally an entire summer. And so I think that the discipline of, here's what I always say. When you work with men, when you're a boy,

it changes shit. Because I was so young and then I had to grow up like, they don't give a, like you can't be late. They don't want to hear that whiny shit. And I saw some really tough dudes. Yeah, you're like, I hurt my thumb.

You're like, they're like, fuck off. What? Yeah. Doesn't matter if you hurt your thumb. We got a certain amount of coal to move today. Right?

Yeah. So it's just, I think that that was the biggest step for me is I worked at a sawmill and then I worked at a coal mine and those are both really hardcore blue collar jobs where those guys didn't really give two fucks. Yeah. You know, so that,

I think that woke me up a lot. And then when I, I went, it went, the first person gave me $20 for personal training. I was like, Oh, let's go.

Yeah. You're like, wait a a second i used to shovel coal for this now i get this yeah it was a game changer covered in black soot all day it was cool um how have your parents kind of played into a lot of this um you know the drive to to train every day the drive to to keep pushing the drive to keep doing everything you mentioned your parents didn't make a lot of money but it wasn't for lack of desire it wasn't for work ethic yeah they were working their asses off correct yeah i think that they and my my dad my dad who passed away about 10 years ago in a car wreck he tried multiple um uh different like ventures and they just never worked and and my mom tried a few

things so he had some entrepreneurial he tried yeah he tried i remember he tried like an interior cleaning bit like a car cleaning business he used to like train uh because the minds were always off again on again on strike and all kinds of stuff so he would have times where he might be able to work six or seven months and he'd start something up just to kind of get by so there was a lot of that going on so they both kind of tried and never could get anything to pop what i do got to say is that they were always super supportive so i never had people that were pulling on me in a bad way everybody from where i'm from always gave me mad love always was like supporting me and like rooting me on so like i didn't have a family member that was a hater or that i never had any of that so i was blessed there and because i moved away from where i grew

up i didn't really know anybody so it's like when i started fresh it was like they would come up and help me they couldn't help me financially, but if I needed to paint the gym or clean stuff or do whatever, my mom's always been there. I mean, you know, Corey G fitness.com is on my, uh,

my online business is real successful for programming. My mom's my customer service. Oh, that's cool. And she's, and she can work at work at the house. My grandparents are both 90 years old. My grandfather's the one that taught me how to lift weights.

So she can go and take them to their, I didn't know that. Yeah. So she can go and take them to their doctor. No way. I didn't know that. Yeah. So she can go and take them to their doctor's appointments and do all that thing. And she can work on the computer. I've taught her how she needs to do everything. That business is done. I mean, we have members in over a hundred countries.

And so she runs all that stuff for me. So that's her highest paying job she's ever had, which is awesome. Your grandfather worked out. Does he, is he still around? Yeah. He's not. Yeah. He'll be 91 this year.

Does he still try to train? He does. He's got a, he he's got literally he's got a dumbbell that sits by his recliner so my grandfather he's uh that's awesome he's 6 1 2 45 still and he um he's the one so his the way the family tree goes his dad um came from england and was and was showing him how to lift weights when he's like nine years old his dad is back when no one cared about lift weights. And they had like the lead shot, like Eugene, Eugene Sandow, the big balls. And so I was telling Mark, we were walking down the street that that is my chalkboard, the old school gym. I have part of his, his original barbell set at the gym and that's the chalkboard. And so his, his dad, uh, Joseph died in a coal mine explosion in 1936, him and his aunt and his brother. So my grandfather who's 91 now was the man of the house

at nine years old. And he started his, you know, working. And I mean, he's talking about shooting squirrels so they can eat. I mean, it's like, and then he signed up at 17 to go to world war two, like he didn't get drafted. He signed up early. And so he came back from the war and started construction and did coal mining and he always lifted weights. And so he was the one when I was 12 that said, and my biological dad

lifted weights too, but he said, I want you to start lifting weights. I think it'll make you more confident. I think it'll help you get stronger in sports. And he goes, and the girls really like it too.

And I was like, sign me up. But the best thing, Mark, was he was able to see it all. what's the best thing mark was he was able to see it all he's seen it all he's seen me at 12 years old in the basement and he's seen me introducing him to arnold schwarzenegger at my booth at the arnold yeah he's been he's seen it all he's seen the amount of um you know change i've been able to create in the family and it's like for him to like grasp it when he walked into the arnold when we were at our height at the mp days he was just like, he's blown away.

He's on the internet, so you don't know. He's 90. It's pretty cool. That is really cool. He's come to multiple powerlifting meets. My squad is 700 in a suit at 198. Louie Simmons side-spot me. Papa walked in right before it was time for me to go.

I was like, dude, if I choke this squat with my grandfather in the crowd and Louie Simmons call him the side, I got problems. So it's pretty cool. Did your biological dad, did he get to see some of your success? He did. So he got to see the personal training part of it. He didn't really see any of the supplement part. So I always think I have like two lives. Basically I have the pre supplement guy, which was just training local business. And then since I started being in the supplements, which is international business. So he saw that part. I was just starting to talk about the next part. And so, but he also, I remember like my, my mom used to do Jane Fonda records when I was a little kid.

Like, I mean, literally record player. She used to use a rolling pin to do the ab wheel. Oh, that's great. My dad, I remember he's like a small Italian guy, bench like three and a quarter away, like 160 in the basement with cement. See, there we go back to those numbers. I love it.

That's it. Well, so that's, what's funny about me. That's how you're judged. Dude. And that's the thing that I still like every guy that's in my crew, I know what they did on their last. I don't know if you're like that too, but I've heard Louis numbers for years and it's like, I can, I know what they did in this meet and that, and they're always tripped out by that. But it's so important to me that, yeah, they just, they, they run off the top. Yeah. Um, what's, uh, something that you learned from your dad that you still carry with you today?

I would say from, from my father, he, he probably made me want to go even more and go after it because I think he felt, he never really verbalized this cause he didn't talk a lot, but I think he felt kind of stuck. It's interesting how dads are like that sometimes. Yeah. My dad was kind of a loner. So I see that in parts of me from time to time. And so he was like really to himself kind of guy. So I think that he tried those little businesses and they never worked. And he always ended up, you know, he was a coal miner for 16 years.

He was a truck driver for 15 years. I think that it made me say, I saw him, but I don't know if he really went, like if he really knew what it took. And so I always said, like, I wanted to take everything one step further. It went much further than that. I could have never predicted that. Right. I think that that was the thing is that I learned that I saw him attempt it, but it needed, it needed more heat.

Right. So, so there's a lot of manual labor in your history. Sure. And you've loved lifting weights from a young age. Grandpa taught you how to lift and you, you never looked back from that point on. Uh, you get deep into lifting and you, and you start to, uh, fall in love with the Westside barbell method and all these cool things start to form as, as business is growing, as a lot of other things are going.

Uh, but you had the opportunity to learn a lot from Louie Simmons of Westside barbell. What has some of that experience been like so my first i think you'll enjoy the story because i've only told it like one other time i go to my second powerlifting meet ever and i'm probably like 18 years old and it's a push-pull meet and it's it's in this no shit mark it's in the middle of a trailer park i swear to you and so yeah it's 19 i want to say 98 making you feel at home dude i'm telling you so i go in there and there's literally this gym in the middle of this trailer park and all of a sudden you know you remember the internet's not really happening yet all these huge ass

motherfuckers roll in and and louis simmons comes in it's his it's when he benches 600 on his 50th birthday i'm there so i'm i'm at he used to call it the trailer park nationals is what he told me later when i told him i was like louis i was call it the trailer park nationals is what he told me later when I told him, I was like, Louie, I was like, I don't know. I said, I said, I don't know if you know, but I said, I was there when you benched 600 on your 50th birthday. I was like a kid. I'm from that town. I remember seeing the video of it and he jumped up. Yeah, he jumped in the other guy's arms in like the third row. And Louie's kind of short, like jumped into somebody else's arms. He's got a denim shirt on. It denim shirt on it looks hilarious so so so that was my first experience with west side barbell far before i ever moved to columbus i witnessed that and i was like what the fuck is this and

then i couldn't find it powerlifting usa i could read a little bit so i was yeah i started being intrigued from that day on and then once i moved to to Columbus, I was here for a few years doing personal training and mostly in the bodybuilding scene. Then when I started, like I used to do some powerlifting meets on my off season of bodybuilding, but I wasn't, I was like not really doing powerlifting until I, I met Tim Harold. That's what changed everything. So big Tim Harold, Tim's from like the same area or something. His, his dad lived right behind my gym. So Tim Harold, who, if you guys don't't know he's a super heavyweight of west side six foot six like 410 he walks in my gym and i go big big boy oh he's huge you know deadlifter yeah he pulled 800 raw conventional just a freak look like a dude

the first time he walked in my gym i said i just come off a photo shoot i'm waiting like a buck 75 i said tim i want to learn west side he goes you want to learn west side he goes okay good mornings we'll, good mornings. We'll do good mornings today. This motherfucker good morning 700 pounds. Oh, my God. The monolith was jacked to 21. I mean, there's no way I could have spotted if I tried, Mark.

But I witnessed that, and I was like, I want to get strong in this way. And so I was just like, I was just all in, man. Give me a suit. Let me learn. Let me do it. And then over time, Tim got to where he's like, okay, you won't make me look like a loser. I'll take you on Fridays.

So Friday night, I would go with Tim up the West Side. It's a big deal getting invited to West Side Barber. Yeah, I don't know if I would call it invited, but they took me along. That's why I always like to say I'm a West Side fan, and they let me go there sometimes. Ramos was one of their best 181s i'm really good friends with him george always helped so a lot of the members have helped me over time but i was never a full go so i would i don't know that i could go all into that level that was part of the problem but i enjoyed what i learned and you know i remember one of the first times i was there this guy named gritter was there

and if you remember it was one of louis buddies from back in the day. And so I'm squatting at Westside and I'm excited. I get there and I didn't have a band set up at my gym. So I get up under the bar. I had a setup, but I had set up wrong. The blues, they were, they were choked the right way. And it was like a hundred pounds more than mine. So I unracked the bar and I got a single ply suit on and it's heavy as shit. And I sit on the box and get up and Gritter's like shaking his head and it's plate plate plate and he's yelling that's the worst fucking squat who the fuck brought you where the what the fuck i mean just in my grill dude just like and then i'm in high on rack four plates plus blues this is way more than i've ever had on my back before and he's yelling hold hold in my fucking lower back i'm just trying to break

mark it's like just fucking throbbing right so i box squatted for one on maybe like a 14 inch box and i get up and rack it he's like that fucking was terrible start over and they deload i'm like i mean they're fucking breaking right and he's all and finally like i work back up the three plates i i choke for the next time i'm like dude what the is your problem? Like I finally couldn't handle it no more. And he just blah, blah, blah. Louie's on the other side. He's not saying anything. Next week I come back in.

Gritter says, oh, I thought I scared you away. Like it was literally just seeing if I would, I was at that point, I'd read about it for so long. I was so excited to be there that I was willing to just break in half. I said, fuck it, let's go. I think my squad in a suit was like 600 at the time, maybe. Maybe.

So it was fun. I remember Gritter was in there one time, and there was a kid, you know, a lot of times at Westside, like high school kids would come in. Sometimes younger kids, you know, wanting to get stronger for football or whatever it might be. This kid's in there. He's probably like 14, and he's wearing a Michigan shirt. Don't do that in ohio oh my god yeah

in columbus ohio you know so gritter is like you got it and he just starts swearing at this kid yeah the kid's 14 i'm seeing it go on i'm like oh my god it's getting a little weird yeah but gritter he doesn't he doesn't have a filter you know he's like what the fuck is this michigan bullshit and he goes to like take a swipe at shirt. I think he was kind of kidding around. Yeah. The kid already had a little hole in the shirt and he ripped the shirt right off the kid. Yes. And then Louie felt so bad.

Louie's like, you know, yelled at Gritter and stuff. He's like, can't be doing this shit in my gym. And he ended up giving the kid a Westside barbell shirt. But that place, uh, the environment in there is hard to really describe. And you remember the monolift is in the back of the gym. And you remember when people would first come in, you really knew who was determined to figure out how to work out, who was determined on how to incorporate themselves and integrate themselves into the group because it would be rare for somebody to make it all the way to the back where the monolith was a lot of times people would hang out in that front area they might

kick around the dumbbells a little bit and they might be like peace it um i'll tell you what even to this day like we did a deal with tommy and where we got you know west side old school gym equipment we have our own belt squat so it's all going to go live and it's like just i feel privileged to walk in there still this day it doesn't matter like you I've trained there multiple times, and those guys are across the board. They've all been helpful to me, but it's like I realize because I love this sport so much. That's what a lot of people don't realize about me is that powerlifting is probably like I've done bodybuilding and the covers and stuff, but powerlifting is probably my main love. And so anything I can do to progress the sport is huge. That's why we hold multiple meets at our gym every year. That's why I do programming.

That's kind of a cross between bodybuilding and powerlifting because I think it's important to push yourself like that. Because here's the deal. I could be in probably 20 bodybuilding shows, but no one wants to do it with you because it's so hard. Powerlifting, there's 30 motherfuckers that want to go. So it's like I realize that there's more camaraderie in that sport. More people can get together and do it.

And I have this huge online community that's rallied around it. I mean, I had an online powerlifting meet. I'd never even seen that happen before. I created one for my people on my website. Bodybuilding might almost be antisocial a little bit. Powerlifting might be more social, right? It definitely is. I mean, I had 335 people compete in this online meet.

No way. And there were some rough lists because a lot of times it was brand new lifters that would never do a meet, but they could do it at their own gym. I gave them all the ways they had to shoot the videos and submit them. And it created a bunch of new people that now I think will go out and do it. So I'm really trying to progress the sport. A lot of people, you know, there's a lot of haters out there, especially in powerlifting. It seems like it's terrible. You're trying to break down some of those barriers eventually, right? there's there's a lot of people that can could enjoy the sport that

might not go elite right but they need to have their own goals to challenge them dude it's everything that going against yourself this the meet i squatted 700 i got third in my own gym right no one knows that though until i just think about uh going about against yourself think about sometimes in a community they'll have like a like like a charity, like run, you know, like a, Hey, we're going to like in Davis where I'm, where I live, they have a turkey truck, you know, and every year that people, people just sign up for it. They don't even care how far it is. They're not even looking at any of that because it's not about like the difficulty, but then with a powerlifting meet, no one wants to like, just sign up for a powerlifting meet. Cause they're like, Oh man, I might get hurt or might do this or that. But people can look at a powerlifting meet in that way. And it's like,

just go get the experience from it and just go learn, go, uh, just go see what you're made of for the day. Like if you're already training and you're already into it, why not give it a damn shot? And you're going to meet some really cool people and you're going to learn a lot.

You'll learn so much about yourself. I think it's the date on the calendar. It creates urgency in your training because you know, we do this for our life learn so much about yourself. Here's what I think. It's the date on the calendar. It creates urgency in your training because you know, we do this for our life, right? So it's a little different skewed where the guy that's a lawyer, but also does powerlifting. He don't have a date on the calendar. So if he misses a workout, it's not such a big deal. Once that date circled, you don't miss those workouts, right? It changes everything. So I think creating urgency in the community, giving them a date, uh, I noticed a huge, a huge like transition. And I think creating urgency in the community, giving them a date, I noticed a huge transition.

I think that people were just more serious. I'm pushing for people to take it more serious, and that's the way you do it. You have to put yourself on blast. I think there's a challenge of stepping up when it means. In business, in sports, whatever it is, the guys that are good in game time and get good at game time, it doesn't happen by accident like it's over time you get better at the spotlight whatever that may be and i think there's something to be said for that it could be trained my brother came up here and uh competed in the super training classic and he benched like 235 and in a sling shot yeah and

then he deadlifted i think 405 but it's not about you know it's not a he obviously he deadlifted, I think, 405. But it's not about, you know, it's not, obviously he's benched more in his life. He's benched close to 500 pounds and stuff like that raw. But it's not about those things. What it's about is making yourself accountable. It's about putting your ass on the line. And I was so proud of him and the crowd was into it. People were super excited. It looked awesome.

I saw Jen competed too. Yeah. It was just, you know, it's just get some of those points, you know, officially on the scoreboard as i always like to say kelly pulled 562 i think yeah yeah he did well i know he had his uh he had his uh heart set on trying a 600 pound pull but he had to be close it gives it uh gives him another opportunity to give it hell next time he goes out there right cool now i think those kind of things mark are huge think, uh, I saw that you do that.

And the next time I'm going to try to get a sideway in bike. Cause I think that would be, that would be, that would be, that would be a lot of fun. Now, something that people don't may, may not realize is even though you just mentioned that you did some bodybuilding and some powerlifting back and forth, um, on top of that, you've been on the cover of a lot of magazines. And so you're in fitness, you've done some bodybuilding that, you've been on the cover of a lot of magazines and so you're in fitness. You've done some bodybuilding shows and you've done powerlifting meets as well. You squatted over 700 pounds. I think you've pulled about 600 pounds.

Yeah. So I've done my best, uh, meets I've squatted 700, two different times. Once in a, in a multi-fly once at 208, once at 198, um, my best, uh, raw squats, five 40 at one 81. And that's everybody's thinking, what does he do wrong? Yeah. Yeah. So I'm telling you, that was a long time ago. Um, but I did a five 40 squad at one 81 and a five 50 squad at one 98 raw. And, um, I got hurt on a 600 pound deadlift at in one 81 class.

I opened at five 40, 600 was my second. So I've, I've, I've pulled 600 in the gym, but I've, I've been, I've never pulled in a meet. It's got me a couple of times. It's all, it's on my radar. What is it about that, uh, environment at Westside barbell that, that makes you so obsessed? You know, what, what ha what happens to somebody when they step inside that environment where you just, you can no longer stop thinking about it. I mean, you probably still to this day are thinking about your training and it's probably some it's spawned off of some of the stuff you learned. It is. And I think it's, I think it's that unsaid that you have to bring

your best foot forward. No, every time you walk in there and what I'm trying to create, Mark, is that in our own way with the 4am crew. And I've seen it happen. I've got guys, I drove from Alabama. I slept in the parking lot. Like, dude, they'll, they'll, they'll snap me. Like, can you knock on my window? I've been since 1 a.m and they're coming there to pr and they know because i've got most of my guys are between 181 and 198 you know we're pulling through band tension conventional the other day and that's like 220 pounds of band tension 15 guys pull these 405 i mean that's pretty fucking legit yeah so i mean and if you don't train like that that's just going to bend you over real quick yeah and so like when guys are coming into my gym is how i used to feel when i would go there

and it's like that's what i want i want people walking in i don't have to tell them that it's intense or they better get fucking ready yeah they know and so that's what i learned the most of in you want to be a little scared absolutely i want a edge to it and i think that that's starting to happen where we are open to the public, but the morning crew operates like a club. Now, if you're at the balls to come walk in and go get it, dude, open arms, like dap you up, let's go jump in, jump in the group. But it's like, I can tell guys are nervous and they should be because they know they got to bring it that day. And I don't, I don't mind that actually. I want that. should be because they know they got to bring it that day and i and i don't i don't mind that actually i want that you know at west side you know the the intensity we talked about it and

what comes to mind it's like a meat every time it is no it is it's still easy when you go through that it gets to be uh man it gets to be wild because yeah like you're trying to stick to a plan or whatever and goes out the fucking window real quick bro at that point it's just like you start getting violent and start trying just to break shit and lift as heavy as possible but it reminds me of the scene and uh i believe it's rocky three when uh sly he loses a little bit of his luster he loses a little bit of his intensity yeah and apollo takes him into that old dirty gym and those guys have that look the eye of the tiger and that's exactly the same thing that you see at west side barbell and that and that's that's what i'm trying to teach my guys is that we get through it there then we go to the meats it's gravy because our intensity daily is that

good and and i'm already seeing like i mean we have um i have a he does it 220 or 242 a six you know six and a half pound squatter you know mid four bencher like the other thing is i like to stress too is my entire crew's drug free lifetime so i've got 30 these guys are all these numbers yeah so it's like it's part of what the trend i've said in my gym how i want it and so all those numbers are on that board of all done without drugs which is important to me so it's like i'm seeing 165 or you know squat 500 pounds pull mid 500 i mean even ramos tony ramos one of my favorite guys from west side you know 2060 total at 181 ripping off numbers thought you'd like yeah and just a boss right train with chuck and all those guys in the heyday he came in he's helped us he's like look

there wasn't a lot of little guys at west side you guys raw are very similar numbers to what we were doing in our heyday and that right there, I let these guys know, we're on it, guys. If we can push it to where it's not just we have 10 5.5 pound deadlifters, now we need 6. I'm trying to push everything up, all the GPP, all the stuff up so we can be an elite group of drug-free guys. That's my main push, but I'm telling you, it's all based from what I felt the first time I walked in Westside Barbell. Back to what you said in the beginning about it being all over after high school is an interesting thing because-

Everybody can identify with that. Everybody can. And I think a lot of people played basketball or soccer or football or whatever it is that they did. And then they don't really have anything else. Powerlifting gives everybody an opportunity to be an athlete the rest of your life. How long can you powerlift for? My mom cheers for me just like she did when I played high school sports. It's no different. That's what I'm saying. My grandpa walked in the chair for me just like she did when i played high school sports it's no different like that's what i'm saying my grandpa walked in the

chair for me just like he did when i played basketball in high school it's no different and so for my kids you know yelling for me when they're coming to watch your dad compete in bodybuilding or whatever it's like i think that that's lost after after high school sports because there's what's the percentage of people play high school sports high percentage right and the percentage that you're still competing till they're 40 years old is yeah like next to none the thing about you know when's the last time someone cheered for you for something dude i bet there's a bazillion people listening right now that hasn't happened since they were kids and dude it's it's cool to hear my mom still say go cory before maybe and maybe they never had period like maybe they haven't

had the opportunity to get involved in sports. Like if you're in, if you're in band or you're in something else, like you're not going to really, uh, you might say, Hey, you did a great job with that painting, but it's still not the same thing, right?

It's not, it's not somebody, uh, popping out of their seat, fired up for you. And, and, uh,

right. Mark, as you got here, it's like, it's a like-minded group of people ready to sweat, bleed and do whatever it takes together to get better. And there's something to be said for that. People want to be part of something.

How good does it feel when you go to do a squat and one, two, three, four, seven, eight people get around you? Yeah. It's unbelievable. Cause you know, you can hang it on the line cause they're there to catch you if you fall. Yeah. And you weren't even thinking about taking it that far for the day. No. But they are now, now they're behind you and now you if you fall. Yeah. And you weren't even thinking about taking it that far for the day. No.

But they are. Now they're behind you and now you're stuck. Yeah, you're on the spot. You have to get it done. And that's what I love about it. And you're their leader. Absolutely. So I got to step up.

You can't be a chump. No. And that's the funny thing is like, I've been often on hurt here and there. So it's like when the days are rolling, you know, because you're always battling. You've been in it as long as we have been. And it's like when it's rolling and I can talk some shit, they love it, you know? Cause they, they know what's funny about me. And I've always

been this way. I'm not a guy that's really probably going to beat you a whole bunch in the gym workouts, but I show up on game day when I have probably no, maybe no business taking certain weights. I fucking step up and usually make them. So I'm a much better meat lifter because I realized that I'm ready to hang my spine out to dry that day. That's just how my mentality is. And so I think that I've shown those guys that, yeah, they might beat me here or there, but they know they better fucking bring it whenever it's time to go to the platform. You know, one thing I want to talk about was what I called you a few years ago when I did that muscle trifecta was a great example of that. I said, can I do an Olympic lifting meet on Friday, a bodybuilding show on Saturday, and a powerlifting meet on Sunday. And so I went to three different events.

And by the time I got the Olympic lifting meet, I had never landed a snatch in front of a crowd before. So I only snatched 185 not in kilos and pounds i tried 200 so my olympic lift lifts were not that great but i had never landed them in front of a crowd of people and i was afraid i was gonna choke the snatch like not land it right and then the whole weekend would have been screwed right so anyway so i i end up just snatching 185 cleaning jerking like 250 nothing crazy but i get up the next day and i get second overall in the bodybuilding show so i i mean i looked much better than i thought when i woke up on sunday for the power to me i crazy, but I get up the next day and I get second overall in the bodybuilding show. So I, I mean, I looked much better than I thought when I woke up on Sunday for the power to me, I was a fucking

train wreck. I mean, in the warmup room, two 25 felt heavy. So, you know, I make four Oh five is my opening squad. I weighed 178 pounds. So I weighed in for the bodybuilding show, but also was out 24 hour weigh in for the power. So I weighed them for both at the same time. So I make the four Oh five. And then I call for four 40 for a second. Cause I, it, it felt rough. I make four 24 hour weigh in for the power so i weighed them for both at the same time so i make the 405 and then i call for 440 for a second because i it it felt rough i make 440 and i go it's a little better my nervous system kind of woke up i was like all right uh 480 i'm sitting there and i'm like yeah fuck this i want 500 i want the narrative when i am on the power cast that i squatted 500 pounds at 178 on the third day of competition so i tell my dudes

wrap my knees three meter wraps i said wrap these motherfuckers my patella's about blow off i'm either going to the hospital or i'm going to squat 500 pounds and and dude when i walked up to there i knew there was no other way and it was i was seeing stars and everything and i it was a total grinder and i ended up squatting 500 benching 315 and pulling 500 you know on that day 181 raw so i was pretty proud of that but that that was probably one of the things that got me out of the bed the most in the last couple years because i knew once again it's so saturated no one had done that that i've been aware of to do olympic lifting bodybuilding and powerlifting on the same weekend it was cool right and it's and it's just muscle trifecta and it just a, and it's just a goal that you set for yourself.

You know, it's like something you fucking made up. I made it up. Literally. My friend was running a bodybuilding show locally and I can control the powerlifting me. Cause I was like, I'll just put it on Sunday. Cause we hosted our gym and there's a local CrossFit box that had a really nice platform. And I was like, Hey, you guys want to put on an Olympic lifting meet?

And they're like, yeah. Do you want to do one? I'm like, actually, yeah, I want to do it. Uh, can we do like a Friday night throwdown? They're like, fucking let's go. And so I literally set it up about a month out. I started telling everybody about it and put the pressure on myself. And yeah, I mean, I was really happy with the results. It was fun. So you ended up with some, uh, great mentors, you know, running into, you know, the likes of Louie Simmons. And then from a diet perspective, he's not on the map for everybody, which I don't know why, but it should be. You've rubbed elbows for many, many years with Dr. Eric Serrano, who's out in Ohio,

right? Yeah. Serrano also lives behind my gym, like about a mile, luckily. So Dr. Eric Serrano, it's kind of a funny story. When I started, I had a drug-free bodybuilding organization in my, in, in Ohio for about seven years. I ran two shows a year. So I was promoting shows too. And I brought Eric in to help me with drug testing to keep the drugs out. And so I just started going to his office. I read about him online and we

didn't know each other. So I just literally kept going to his office every day till he would basically talk to me. And finally he was like, what hell do you want i was like dude i think we should be friends and he was like he's a goofball so he's like huh and so what happened out of that being relentless he helped me with that and then i started to become his like test subject so for amino loading for all these like weird he knows shit that he was talking about 20 years ago that people are still, you know. The reason why I have, I think, an elevated diet kind of like background is because I was his test subject. Yeah. So, and he knew I was so disciplined on my diet that he could get real data for me.

And so, he would literally say, all right, Corey, I want to do this and then fat load and do that. I mean, I remember. You're like, what? I was there. So, I did a fat loading protocol where instead of carb loading like most most people do, he's like, how much do you think you can eat? How much fat do you think you need one day? I want to see if it almost turns you anabolic. I was like, all right, let's go. So I got up in the, I was eating low carbs for like eight days. And then the fat load was on the ninth. I did a dozen of eggs with cheese on it for breakfast.

My snack was a whole canister of cashews with non-salt i ate steak for lunch ate another thing of cashews in the afternoon and i ate 12 more eggs for dinner i weighed about 175 400 grams of fat or something oh fucking i don't know yeah a bazillion it was like 10 like 8 000 calories right so i go to the gym that night and i was training at this old world gym at this time and it had a bunch of really good bodybuilders and no lie i was i looked so nasty mark i was lean i was probably like 170 at the time i was veiny and fucking like onion skin like and dudes were coming up asking what cycles i was i mean i looked like a fucking freak and i got up the next day and i was lighter i was like how the fuck did i eat and i literally felt like if i even know what it felt like but i

felt like something else was going i think it was elevated calories all the fat so maybe make your body freak out a little bit and try to burn up some of those calories totally freak out so i was doing things like that way before people in who doc serrano learned from was mario di pasquale right who wrote the anabolic he's still alive he is he's about 70 also so so i then became friends with mario di pasquale so doc that's who doc and polkwin learned a lot from yeah and so now mario he lives in canada i would start emailing him he knows a crazy amount of information no he's unbelievable do you i mean i don't even know like the science of any of this but maybe maybe you do uh i can't aren't triglycerides, they can be

like in your muscles or something to that effect. Is that something that he was striving for? I could be speaking wrong. I don't always know. I can't speak on that. I'm not sure what I learned from these guys was this. So Deepak Squally's basis of his diet, it was always high carbs about when he, you know, in the sixties, seventies, when he was kind of popular, he wrote the book called the anabolic diet, which is for free online. You can find it pretty much anywhere. But he said, can I change the way that guys that don't take drugs to get an insulin drug response by from carb loading? And so his thing was you did a 12 day, pretty much 30 grams or under, very Atkins-ish. And then on the 13th day, it was everything in sight. And you could go from 12 hours to 48,

depending on your metabolism. And then after that, it was a five and two, five low carb and then two. And I followed that for a really long time and had great results. And then I, over time, started to have my own kind of tweaks and things by working with Eric Serrano and Pasquale.

But I was able to email him and he was so smart. He would talk on the cellular level. I would have to look up stuff to just answer his emails. because i'm like dude i went to school one year yeah i'm like what the fuck are you talking about like so between all these guys that are around their 70 years old between dr mario pasquale louis and then arnold i mean i think i'm the only person i'll say it that's learned from louis simmons and arnold schwarzenegger directly i don't think there's another person in the fitness industry that can say that right so that's pretty unique yeah very very much so um yeah i remember serrano was talking about um like omega-3 fatty

acids and he was talking about branch chain and he was talking he's a branch chain maniac he was literally probably one of the most forward-thinking people in branch chains he had me doing like ungodly amounts of branching amino acids you know uh from time to time and i i realized this started to rely more on branchings than i ever did on protein i mean i still take protein to this day but i take way more branchings than probably most when you did the fat loading were you even trying to consume a lot of protein or was it just a kind of a side yeah there was so much fat so much protein that came with the fat that day. And then I was taking like 40 grams of branch chains on top of it.

I mean, it was like definitely an anabolic environment, uh, you know, naturally and the things that he would have me do. And then, you know, or I would go to him getting ready for a photo shoot and I would be maybe,

um, like I was getting softer cause I, I'm always a person that probably does probably more than they need to. Cause I'm always like one more session. You know how it goes. And he was like, here's what I need you to do. I need you to go eat a steak, four sweet potatoes, do legs and rest for two days and you'll look better. And like, I mean, it was like this guy would just look at me.

I even at the point up to a few years ago, I couldn't figure something out. I literally take a picture, send it to him, tell him what I'm eating, flip it right back. I mean, just like a mad scientist. I wonder how he knew how to do some of that because being a doctor is one thing and knowing the X's and O's and stuff is one thing. But then knowing bodybuilding and knowing the body like that is a real talent. It's a different talent. It is a different talent.

And living in Columbus, I didn't realize how blessed I was to have all these people around me. So some of that's luck. Some of it's that I was persistent to learn from them because I don't have a traditional education. So I'm starting my personal training studio at 19, 20 years old with a one-year thing. And a coal mining background. And a coal mining background with a guy that read a bunch of Arnold encyclopedia, you know. So being able to learn from these people, I think, has set me apart from everyone else.

How did the Arnold Schwarzenegger thing happen? So Arnold obviously is everybody's idol, right? And I mean, of course. And so it first happened by going to the Arnold. So it's kind of a funny story. Like the Arnold's having its 30th year. I've been there for 20. Wow. And so my, my girl, my girlfriend, which is now my wife, she worked at this bookstore on campus at Ohio state and her friends she worked with said, Hey, I'm friends with the people that run the Arnold. Do you think your boyfriend would want to sell programs and then he'd get a vip pass so i was like you know at 20 years old i'm like sign me up so here i am selling programs at the

arnold and it comes with the vip pass which is a picture with arnold too so i you know arnold's taking pictures with a million people he's not not really talking to anybody. It's like such a kind of bang, bang type thing. But I get my picture with the man, the goat, right? So I'm like, oh shit, it's on. Like I got this close. How do I, how do I, you know, eventually scale up to where I can learn and do all these things. Going to something like the Arnold at that age is a huge deal. It's like overwhelming, really opens your eyes and you're like, fuck, I want to figure out how to be part of some of this. And that's why I said, how do I get up in this whole thing, right? Yeah. And so, you know, it didn't happen for a long time.

I just kind of pursued the modeling thing, did some fitness magazines and stuff. And then once I started getting into supplements, I started getting some traction as a businessman. And here's what changed it. I wrote an article called Golden Era Intensity Cause I studied the, that's how I learned. I have, even when I met Franco Colombo, I have, uh, Franco Colombo's pamphlet series from the set 1977. That's, you know, it would have been like their eBooks at the day. Right. Um, that I learned from in the, in the encyclopedia and pumping iron. And so whenever I was, um, I wrote about the golden era cause I felt like I lived then to be honest with you, I've studied it so much. Well, I was banging on

Daniel Ketchell to, to look at this article cause I thought Arnold would really dig it. So here, here I am writing a one page article that I think Arnold Schwarzenegger is going to like. Now, what's the, what's the, uh, you know, possibility that really happening? Well, probably not great. I send it to him and that i was you know at muscle form at the time that year arnold did read that article and he put it as a front page of his website arnold swartz or schwarzenegger.com right golden air intensity by cory gregory i never met him before but i didn't realize he reads every article that's his website so he understands if he read that he understands that i get it so then um that's on thursday before the arnold

well all of a sudden somebody shows up to the booth on friday with a bodyguard it looks like a boy bander guy and i have no clue who it is and so they're like hey is cory here i'm like yeah here what's up i'm like what do you need it's it's patrick it's arnold's son but i never met him before and this is years ago and so he's like hey my dad read he goes my dad read the article it's on the website he's like it's awesome he told me to come meet you and i go who's your i go who's your dad he goes arnold i was like oh shit like i was totally yeah taken off you're like arnold yeah and he's like he goes well he'll i would know him from yeah exactly he goes well he'll be over on saturday to talk real quick when he stops by the booth. So that's really how it started is me flexing training.

Cause that's the thing about Arnold. When I see him, he never asked about business first. He always asked about training. It's all, it was always so important to him just like it is to us. And so a lot of people don't understand that about him. Dude, when I, when I was at his house and I met Betty Weider for the first time, this is how he introduced me to Betty Weider. He said, this is Corey Gregory. He's been on a bunch of, we've done business, done a bunch of magazine stuff. He squats every day and he's got awesome apps. Like that's Betty Weider.

That's Arnold introduced. I was like, dude, like, are you kidding me? Like it couldn't get any better than that. That's his profile. Yeah. I was like, boom, I made it. Right. So, but anyway, I think Arnold had respect from that first.

And then he was, so I met him very briefly then. And then he had a I made it. Right. So, but anyway, I think Arnold had respect from that first. And then, um, he was, so I met him very briefly then. And then he had a book signing it at Easton or the total recall book. Now, dude, I had waited in line like everybody else. He was late. It was three hours. And I got a chance to get in front of him again for two seconds. And I said, Arnold, I don't know if you remember me. I'll be back to Arnold this year.

My business is doing this, blah, blah, blah. And he looked up from signing the book and he, you know, kind of nodded and whatever. And so at that point I had like two, two kind of touches, you know, and then we got a chance, um, Tom Arnold, the actor, um, knew one of our investors and basically kind of connected the meeting and said, Hey, Arnold sees what you guys are doing and you got a chance to pitch him if you want to do business with him. Cool. And so I got the chance with the governor walking in. That's sick.

He said, you know, it was intimidating, but I got to tell you, I was so ready for that moment that I couldn't fucking wait to get in there. Yeah. And I was like, if this dude, when he drops it, I'm ready to tell him like, I want to dig in the pumping iron stuff.

I want to remarket it on Bodybuilding. I had all these ideas. And he just sat down and said, why should I do it with you guys? He goes, it ain't for the money. And he just shut up. And everybody just started looking around. And I was like, and I just started riffing on like, you know, I know what the reason, yeah. What's I said, I think the kids in this age group need re-exposed to what, how great your stuff was. Let me, let's remark the, the, the pumping pumping iron stuff let's rewrite the programming let's let's give it to a man let's let's show them what it's about the i'm tired of watching kids on their cell phone they need they need the supersets back they

need the intensity they need golden golden era at that time you get swole program was one of the most popular programs on bodybuilding.com so i had already been doing it right i said i showed them the the trailer for it i said dude we can do this with your stuff and I know how to do it. And then the business stuff all kind of happened. And that, that really wasn't my, my forte. I was on like, what do I do with Arnold Schwarzenegger? And I knew exactly what to do with him. And he, he knew that about me. And so he gave me a mutual respect and literally we've been friends since that day because he knew that I understood what that was about and I had a love for it. Yeah.

I saw a picture of you and Stallone and Arnold all together smoking a stogie. Yeah. So I was, uh, I was at, or I go to Arnold's Christmas party every year, which is awesome. And I had, uh, it was me, Joe Maginello. I was Jack up his last name. And, um, the guy from, um, um uh what's the famous movie my magic mike and all this cool dude and then i got to see stallone too and uh dolph lundrum was there it's like that's probably one of the things you know mike ryan mike ryan's a trainer down yeah i saw

him there yeah yeah i saw mike's a longtime friend of mine i need to i never met him but i didn't walk by you guys get along i was like yeah i know that dude from instagram but it was like one of those things where every year i go there and i sit on the back porch, like everybody else, I'm smoking cigars and I'm thinking, holy shit, like this actually happened. And so that is probably one of the things that me and my wife, we get excited to go to every year and it resets like, boom, this happened now, you know, and I almost kind of like gauge it by the Arnold every year, what my business is doing and how thankful I am. And when I go there in December, because I still can't believe it is true. That's fucking awesome. And you had a chance to interview Arnold. I saw the YouTube video of

it and we'll connect the link to this video when this appears. But, uh, I thought that interview was great and I thought you nailed it. And I what i liked about it was uh you were asking questions that i think he's probably not used to sure um and a lot of it was more training based and i think there's something really special and it sounds like sounds so meathead it sounds so meatheadish but you can't ever let go of those lifts you can't ever let go of those numbers you can't let go of the otherwise the consistency is going to fall off. Have you had times in your life where your lifting hasn't been sharp? Oh yeah. A bunch of times.

And, and I'm in the worst mood. It makes everything else start to fall apart, right? It does. My wife will tell you, and even John, when we talk to John, he'll tell you the same thing. He can tell when our conference call, we have a conference call at nine or 10 every morning. He can tell if I had a bad lifting day. It's, and I think that's what a lot of people maybe don't know about me is that is everything to me.

It dominates my thoughts. I've done really good in business, but I think about lifting first. I just do because it's how I got here. And it's not because I'm a world record holder, but I've got the best, every ounce of what I can get out of me. And so it's like those lifts that I've made

that are like barely elite totals, raw, was everything i had like everything so there's no there's no like end there's no there's there's no end to it and you can always add weight and stuff but when you go into like a meeting there's it's not black and white that way like someone's not gonna be like come on gory like screaming for you like in a meeting like that would be i mean that'd be great but yeah but it doesn't work that way, but it would be awkward. Right. And there's no like final set or final rep, or there's no like, uh, there's no physical fatigue.

There's not, there sometimes can be mental fatigue, but it's just so different. It doesn't move the needle like that. It doesn't get you excited that way. Back to even Arnold. I think why I jived with him so well is because he understands the discipline that it takes. He had a mutual respect for here. Here's one of the biggest parts of that meeting, Mark, that I kind of forgot is, you know, I was on the cover of FitnessRx that month with my kids, which had never been done before that I'm aware of. And one of the investors bought it at the airport and

brought it to the meeting. I didn't even, I should have fucking thought about it. I didn't even bring it. And so I'm sitting there and we're talking and all of a sudden the guy throws it at Arnold. And so I'm thinking, and I'm sitting on the couch and, and he goes, he looks over, he's like, this is pretty cool. And I'm like, well, yeah, when you say that, it's fucking awesome. You know? And he goes through and the first thing he does, he opens up to this, it was like a 10 page spread at old school.

Where's this gym at? I was like, well, that's my gym in Columbus, Ohio. I built after the golden era. I was like, it's, you know, one of the top, I think hardcore gyms in the country. He's looking through it and he was like, this place is cool. And he just like, and then there's like, literally this is where it freaked me out. There's a pullout poster, like an ad poster. And he's like, your apps kind of remind me of like Frank Zane's a little bit. And I'm like, at this point I'm like, I'm like, wait a second, what what's happening and so it was like one of the most surreal moments but i i felt like i was supposed to be there i felt like all the hours all the

stuff i had put in that it was all kind of coming to like this crescendo where i was just going to knock this thing out of the park and it like i just remember that diet phase being so hard for some reason i don't know if it's because i was busy and the family, whatever it was, but I remember it felt like one of the bigger sacrifices in that period of time. And I always say, when you can work through some adversity, there's usually a huge blessing on the other side. And in that moment, it was worth every fucking can of tuna and every cardio set, you know, cause I didn't, at that time I got in good shape. I didn't have a doubt in like I do now. And so it was a little bit harder on me then. So it was all worth it, man. It's cool.

What's your diet like nowadays? So now I follow- I know you like recently gained a little bit of weight to be a little bigger for a little while. I have a version of Mario DiPasquale's diet with a lot of my own tweaks and then like an intermittent fasting kind of mixed together.

That's actually probably, honestly, when I left MP and started my online business, that's been my biggest like, um, sales tool because I figured it out to where, you know, I mixed those two worlds and there's some really good cheat stuff with beer and stuff on the weekends. And that's been like my, my main driver, my entire website. What is it about low carb, a low carb lifestyle that really clicks, that really works so well. Like I, I try to explain to people, it's hard to really put into words, but, uh, you know, being on the other side and not eating carbohydrates, just abstaining from them, uh, seems to set you on a path that allows you to create, uh, behavioral changes and allows you to

get away from all these things that are addicting. I think that the sugar and the carbs, you know, the bad, the bad stuff, it puts you in a cloud. I think that, and even my plan. Just for the record, we're not saying that they're bad necessarily, but we're talking about people shoveling down pizza and ice cream and shit like that. Yeah. You're going to be, your insulin is going to be a train wreck, which makes you feel like a cloudy mess.

The way that I've created is that even when we're on like diet phase, getting ready for some, it's still over a hundred grams. It's just the way that I've put it together. Um, and the way that we spike before we go to bed, it creates some like stuff going on. So it's, it's really like at this point, like here's the difference from photo shoot, the photo shoot between when I squatted every day, which was obviously always controversial, but it was a con. Once again, I mixed the conjugate method and John Brose's squat every day that he brought from the Bulgarians kind of mix that together from doing that and doing this new diet approach. I was 14 pounds heavier from shoot to shoot and doing lunges is my cardio.

And I was able to, I mean, at the not just regular lunges. Yeah. Walking lunges, 400 meters, 800 meters, you know, straight through. Crazy bastard. It's tough. You should try it, Mark. I think you'd like it. And it's like one of those things where my body had changed so much and I was squatting

like 400 plus at the photo shoot. Like, dude, I used to be like walking in these photo shoots like I was going to die. And I was like, you know what? I'm missing something. And once I started doing, once again, just my own research and trial and error, and I started figuring out these things, I was able to start teaching it. And the results we've had worldwide has been crazy. That's fantastic. And you're going to LA tomorrow to train with Michael Trent. I mean, Michael Hearn. I'm going to work with Michael Hearn tomorrow. And actually I'm really excited about meeting Robbie Robinson. I've never met him and he's been training there.

So I already text Mike like, Hey, is Robbie there too in the morning? Because he's on my list of guys I've never met. I've met most of the Golden Era guys, but Robbie's one of my favorites. And then from there, I'm going to be on Drama's podcast, which will be kind of cool, John and I. So I'm excited about that.

Yeah, that's really cool. Yeah, Mike is somebody who's been bringing it for the last, I don't even know, 30 years or something. 50? I don't even know. Yeah, I mean, I think he's mid to late 40s. I mean, I feel like he was on TV when I was a little kid. I think so. I think so.

I mean, Stan Efferding is like 52 or 53. What a boss. And yeah, I think O'Hearn's getting close to 50 years old. He's a savage. That's one of those things like being at Gold's. I'm not there very often, a couple times a year and being at Venice. I remember I was there doing something and Lou Ferrigno was there and i had met lou from a bunch of the arnold's and things and i was there lifting and i was like you know talking to mike and like lou

walks in and like noticed me and comes over says hello and i'm thinking dude this is like you know it just kind of happened through all the years of being at all the events just like if you but but still these guys are guys that i mean when i was a little kid i looked at a hulk man exactly right and so i feel i honestly mark i feel super blessed that it's that it's happened this way and that just like yourself the impact that it's created on the community that has followed and done some of my stuff and it's dude i get up i'm i'm pumped i mean it just it just feels like a dream sometimes if there's any sort of secret or anything uh or a little cheat code in the last year or two that you learned that's been really effective for you or the people that you

work with, uh, what, what has it been? I would say the biggest thing from a diet standpoint that I found is I tell all my guys and all the people that are with me on the site is don't just drink beer on Tuesday for no reason. Don't just eat like a fuckhead for no, like have a, like do it for a reason. Meaning like if you have an event on Saturday, you know that you're going to be at your family. They're going to have barbecue.

Save it for that. Like just be like a little bit more strategically smart. Like I love Guinness. Care about yourself. Care about yourself. And just because most people are like on Tuesday, I'm just going to get pizza because I'm lazy. No,

like be a little bit more prepared. I'm not saying you got to carry nine Tupperwares around with you, but there's a strategy to life that can just make this stuff easier. We could celebrate every day. We could have an excuse every day. And that's what a lot of people do. And they feel like shit because of that. So like, dude, I love Guinness. I've got Guinness and Sam Adams on tap at my house at the pool. I love to drink beer and smoke cigars. Like that's like my vices, right? But I just wait till all there's a group of guys over the house, the, the smoking cigar or have a, or have a beer or on Fridays, my wife drinks Guinness too, which is pretty

epic. Most chicks don't drink Guinness. So it's always funny. I go to the bar and like, if I'm not drinking for some reason and she orders one and the bartender comes throwing down, yes, they come to bring it to her. And then, um, or to me and I'm like, they're like, they give me the nod. Like, yeah, that's cool. Like, but it's like one of those things where I just, I think i had a better strategy so i can keep this up long term because i used to have you know i weighed 240 at

one point i've weighed 165 at one point i look like an anatomy book and then i had a cellulite on my abs like i've done it all pretty much and so i can identify with both but i was like how can i do this as a true lifestyle and that's kind of what I've dialed in the last few years, I think. Yeah. It's like, why not try to string together six days, eight days, 20 days. Just don't do it for no reason. Right. And it's also,

um, it doesn't have, you know, like you were mentioning, you followed a thing where, uh, you were on like a keto style diet for five days at a time and you get a little break on the weekend.

That's fine. It can look like that, but it can also look like just go as long as you can oh so-and-so's birthday is coming up you want to celebrate that yes then you're realizing already that it's like 17 days away yeah why not die for 17 days it might it might be great for you use events that are true events in your life to like rest just don't make them for no reason and the thing is once you actually get to that point and once you go through that cycle over and over again, you'll care less and less and less.

As you get there, you're like, eh, fuck it, I'm already doing so good, I might as well just stay on my plan. And that's what happens. And so I think it's a time for that. That's what blows people's minds because they're like, I would never do that, man. But they do.

Yeah, they do. Well, the big thing is, when you can get them on something, here's what I've noticed. Start to feel good. With the normal public that doesn't do this for their life, on anabolic fasting, which is what I call my thing that I moved together with between the anabolic diet, intermittent fasting is like they know they can drink beer on Saturday. That changes everything.

Yeah. They know. And my I'm epic for tacos on Friday and drink beer Saturday. Not just one beer. I want five beers on five beers. And it's like most guys can be like, fuck, I can do that. You know what I mean? And they just they're good through the week. And we got, I'll have five beers. And it's like, most guys can be like, fuck, I can do with that. You know what I mean? And they just, they're good through the week. And

we got, you know, the training. So like my thing that I've really made kind of my revenue on besides supplements is programming. That's, that's what I've been known for. People need help. They need information. Absolutely. And, and when you tell somebody, uh, okay, I'm going to take these foods away that you love. You can't, you can't have these anymore. And you have to do a lot of stuff that you don't want to do that hurts that's uncomfortable it's very uncomfortable and then you and i are scratching our head and we're like i don't understand why you don't want to do this stuff yeah yeah this is the fucking best this is the way to do it i can't sit on the toilet but it doesn't have to be that way no you go in get some exercise done exercising is always going to

help um but when it comes to the diet and the nutrition, things don't need to necessarily always be yanked out from underneath. You can keep them in your diet. Moderation is a good thing, Mark. For myself, you know, coming from 300 pounds down to where I'm at now, about 245 or so, I would say scale of one to 10, my diet through the holidays was probably like a six.

Yeah. Wasn't great, but I gained like three pounds. So it wasn't like, yeah. And I wasn't, you know, I wasn't like on a tear to like eat bad. Um, the worst thing I ate was, uh, some like protein bars, but I don't normally eat protein bars, but that's more of a lifestyle thing. That's what I was doing a little bit more of convenience and stuff like that at that time but um from 300 down to the weight i'm at now i would say if i had to give myself a grade it's probably like a seven so to ask people to have 70 of their diet intact i don't think it's that hard especially like if you're coming from even if you're coming from just having a really horrible diet where nearly every meal is bad which is a lot of people, yeah, which a lot of people, what if we just switched to, okay, now you're at least having one or two healthy meals every day. Now maybe you're

incorporating some intermittent fasting. Now maybe you're incorporating some walking. Now maybe you're drinking more water. Stuff can change. Now maybe you're sleeping more. These are all like add-ons. They're not, it's not like taking everything away from you. Well, I think people look at it the wrong way. They think, oh, I'm going to be so deprived. And you're sleeping more. These are all like add-ons. It's not like taking everything away from you. Well, I think people look at it the wrong way. They think, oh, I'm going to be so deprived. And you're right. It doesn't have to be that way. And we're the extreme version, right?

So when you're hearing us talk, it's like, well, this is what we do. So I try to tell the guys at the gym all the time, like, dude, you're so ripped. I'm like, this is my job. You're going to leave here and then do what your job is. I can't do that as good. I can't keep myself this way. I'm the leader. I got a fucking problem,

you know? So I try to like set the tone. I have friends that are lawyers and all these things that are like, like, dude, I just wish I could keep this 20 pounds off. I'm like, what if you can keep 10 of it off?

Like hold yourself to maybe a different standard than mine. I want you to push for that, but that's not reality for everybody. This is what I do all day. Right. And so that's, I try to like kind of let that, you know, let them know that a little bit. It makes, makes a big difference. Tell me about your, your competing, your kind of towards the end. I know

you said maybe even that last thing you did might've been it. Are you, are you ready to hang it up all the way? Cause I don't, are we ever? Oh, no, I mean, I'm done just competing and getting on a platform. That's all. And I just wanted to be able to kind of sign off my own way because the last time I competed, I tried a 600 pound bench and i tore my pec and i was like that's not the greatest way to go out but at the same time when i you know kind of revisit revisited uh coming back again i tore my pec again and i was like you know what this is going to be a vicious cycle 600 kind of your 600 was it was something i wanted to do for a long time, but I was just getting greedy. You know, when I got deep into powerlifting, as I started to really push the

envelope, I wanted to squat over a thousand pounds. I accomplished that. I wanted to bench press over 700 pounds. I ended up hitting 854. I was going to say, I knew the number 854. And, and raw, like it was my goal to do over a 500 pound bench and i and i did and as i said i kind of just got greedy i was like i kept wanting more and more and more and i was like you know what this doesn't make any sense um a lot of athletes uh overstay they over you know they overstay their welcome and i was like i don't really want to do that i got blood work done i actually got blood uh blood work sent out to eric serrano and he was like he's like your blood is really bad he's like i'm very concerned he's like this is not he's like this is not good and i was like all right well i definitely need to make some changes that was

actually kind of a while ago and then i you know i i got i lost some weight and went back and forth but anyway long story short is i was like you know i't want to, I don't want at the sacrifice of my, uh, I don't want to sacrifice my health for my strength. It doesn't make any sense. A lot of people do that. Yeah. It doesn't make any sense. And I, and I've done that before. Yeah. So I was like, you know what, let's be done at the highest level, Mark. It just depends on like when, like you said, when's enough, enough. It's, it's almost one of those things like kind of what Louie finally at, I think what, 63, he had his last meet and he still did like 805, you know, 500, 675 or something. But I almost feel like that is kind of my path that I don't know because of the group, because of what I, it's, yeah, I like cannot leave it alone. Right, right.

I just, I don't know. It's a, but knock on wood, I've never had anything like that. Right. So that, if I had an injury to that, I'll also, I'll also, uh, you know, continue to push it in the gym and continue to get, uh, many of the same things that you get from stepping on a platform. So, um, and then also, you know, for me, I take a lot of pride in, in making my guys better and trying to make my guys, uh, lift more, lift more than me.

I've always taken a lot of pride in the fact that, uh, my bench, my squat, my deadlift are not the biggest in the gym. You know, even with some of those numbers being pretty good, we had a guy squat 1160. We had a guy bench 900. We've had a guy, you know, several guys deadlift over 800 pounds. So, uh, it feels good. You know, like you're lifting better. deadlift over 800 pounds so uh it feels good you know like you're lifting better um in a way i mean i like uh i kind of came up in that era yeah i like it i like the intensity of it yeah and i

like the excitement of it um i guess i would probably like raw lifting more if i was good at it but i'm not like great at it i honestly think i was i'm a better gear lifter too that's why i asked yeah i mean it's hard to describe to people but i love the feeling of doing squats in in but I'm not like great at it. I honestly think I was, I'm a better gear lifter too. That's why I asked. Yeah. I mean, it's hard to describe to people, but I love the feeling of doing squats in, in a pair of powerlifting briefs. Load them up, man.

Dynamic effort squat. I mean, it just always felt good. So those are still things that I'm going to do. Um, I still love squatting and briefs and I still love box squats. And like, I almost brought my briefs actually.

That's funny because i still want to do in uh probably an 18 do one geared me that's like on my plan because right before i got injured when i was at my strongest um uh raw i was planning on doing a geared me because i i've went like almost elite like three times in gear i've just missed it in the last one uh it was in ohio lou was there i squatted seven and then i benched like i don't know like 430 something i had to pull 600 and my raw my raw um deadlift wasn't as strong as it is now then and he was like so you're gonna pull six and get it would have been 1735 i think at 198 i was like fucking a i opened at five and jumped straight to six and choked it twice

yeah and dude i had it at my knees and i'm hanging everything. Louie's in the front row. I told him I was going to do it. I fucking choked it twice. Fist. Well, now you have to do it. I have to do it. So it's on my list probably soon to start working in gear a little bit again. But here's what's interesting is the people that follow what I do, they don't even really understand that.

So it's really a personal thing. It's not going to get me more followers if I squat 700 again. It doesn't really mean anything to anybody no because raw is so much more popular but to me coming up uh seeing all that stuff it was a personal goal for me to say that i went elite in power figure too yeah burdick and i just talked recently about you know the old wpo days and well they're bringing it back i heard that so i mean dave hoff and those guys are doing a wpo event at the arnold again which is about to be epic i think is it going to be actually at the arnold, which is about to be epic, I think. Is it going to be actually at the Arnold or is it going to be

like offsite or something? I think it's at the Arnold. Oh, that'll be cool. That would be sick, right? Because those were when Chuck was doing 11 something. I mean, Travis Mash, all those guys.

It was cool. Oh, it was intense as hell. All right, guys. Strength is never weakness. Weakness is never strength. This is Corey Gregory. Where can people find you, buddy? At Corey G Fitness

all over the place and check out at Max Effort Muscles, the new supplement brand. Appreciate you, Mark. Later.