July 23, 2025 • 42 mins
The former International Powerlifting Federation affiliate representing the United States, the USAPL, took to instagram recently to criticize the integrity of its drug testing program through WADA. The post using quotes from Olympic athletes casting doubt on some actions made by the testing agency. This is significant because a disagreement over the frequency of testing through WADA caused the USAPL to lose its affiliation with the international federation (it wanted to test more frequently, among other issues).
Bottom line, what would make the “juice” with the squeeze (and the risk) anyway?
The USAPL post: https://www.instagram.com/p/DMF-6zRsq3x/?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==
You can find Josh on Instagram @amazingjrab https://www.instagram.com/amazingjrab/. Shoot him a follow.
Join our Discord for free at goodcompanydiscord.com!
Check out our gym (Third Street Barbell) at ThirdStreetBarbell.com https://www.thirdstreetbarbell.com/!
Check out our podcast website: 50percentfacts.com https://www.50percentfacts.com/
50% Facts is a Spreaker Prime podcast on OCN – the Obscure Celebrity Network.
Hosted by Mike Farr (@silentmikke) https://www.instagram.com/silentmikke/ and Jim McDonald (@thejimmcd). https://www.instagram.com/thejimmcd/
Produced by Jim McDonald Production assistance by Sam McDonald and Sebastian Brambila. Theme by Aaron Moore. Show art by Joseph Manzo (@jmanzo523)
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/50-facts-with-silent-mike-jim-mcd--5538735/support.
Bottom line, what would make the “juice” with the squeeze (and the risk) anyway?
The USAPL post: https://www.instagram.com/p/DMF-6zRsq3x/?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==
You can find Josh on Instagram @amazingjrab https://www.instagram.com/amazingjrab/. Shoot him a follow.
Join our Discord for free at goodcompanydiscord.com!
Check out our gym (Third Street Barbell) at ThirdStreetBarbell.com https://www.thirdstreetbarbell.com/!
Check out our podcast website: 50percentfacts.com https://www.50percentfacts.com/
50% Facts is a Spreaker Prime podcast on OCN – the Obscure Celebrity Network.
Hosted by Mike Farr (@silentmikke) https://www.instagram.com/silentmikke/ and Jim McDonald (@thejimmcd). https://www.instagram.com/thejimmcd/
Produced by Jim McDonald Production assistance by Sam McDonald and Sebastian Brambila. Theme by Aaron Moore. Show art by Joseph Manzo (@jmanzo523)
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/50-facts-with-silent-mike-jim-mcd--5538735/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
And we're in. Hey, welcome everyone. I've asked Josh to
come back in today in part because I'm going on
vacation and I need to rack ups some some runway
on the on the podcast, and in part because I
(00:29):
really want to talk to him again, and a couple
of topics to to throw out here in the process.
Did you like get yourself right there on the shin.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
I got myself on the shin deadlifting in here.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
We're way off, Mike, I'm way off, Mike.
Speaker 4 (00:42):
Let me see what I want to pull it up? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Is is that better? Can you hear me a little better? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (00:52):
I can hear that. I I don't want the world
to miss out on your voice.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Thank you. I appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Yeah, You've got to like that distinctive bass voice that
just Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
I'm usually yelling when I'm here because I can't hear
over the over the music, the music, So my voice
kind of takes a different tone. And so when I
finally get in an arena where I can talk without
having to yell, people are like, your voice is really deep,
Like yeah, when I don't have to yell, it is
this is.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
How I talk? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Excellent. Yeah, So I was a little bit blown away
yesterday scrolling through Instagram looking at the posting by the U.
S a PL, which you know, people should know that
a few years ago they were disaffiliated from the IP
(01:43):
from the International Organization for Powerlifting Competition due to arguments
over testing frequency and and it's in you with it's
not what you think it's it's not that they wanted
to test less than required, is that they wanted to
(02:03):
test more than required. And their post and it's a
pinned post, so you know they mean it.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
Uh, it's it's the.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Title is true to the mission when legends lose faith?
In lose faith colon the Crisis at Water. I think
that there are like actually two implied colons in that title.
But anyway, there are several quotes from Michael Phelps, US
(02:42):
swimmer like the most decorated swimmer of all time, at
least American. And the question is is water protecting clean
sport or protecting corruption? When the greatest Olympian of all
time calls out water, we should And it is clear
to me that any attempts to reform at WATA have
(03:04):
fallen short. There are deeply rooted, systemic problems that prove
detrimental to the integrity of international sports. It doesn't trust
the antidoping system, why should we? And goes on from there,
Alison Schmidt, Katie Ldecki, Michael Phelps again, Alison Schmidt again,
(03:27):
basically all just saying that as Olympic athletes, they don't
they and I think all, I don't know that any
of them are still competing, but looking back that WADA
is just not a reliable organization for antidoping and that's
its sole mission. So so what do we do from there?
(03:49):
And what's supposed to happen. What I had not realized
was that in January, and we're talking about before the
administration change. In January, the US withheld its commitment to
WATA to the tune of like three point six million
dollars over these issues, and some of them have to
(04:09):
do with Chinese swimmers. They're tested positive but were reinstated
a number of different issues like that where the standard
wasn't held. And sometime back Mike and I watched I
don't know if you've ever watched it, but there's a
documentary called Icarus about the Russian doping scandal, and it's
(04:35):
it was intensely eye opening, but you're supposed to believe
that because they were caught, that that sort of thing
isn't going on anymore, but it probably is based on this,
and then there are things that are just being.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
Looked over.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
So as a us APL lifter, yourself, a drug tested
Federation lifter, and someone who is not, you know, in
their twenties, well, what is your thought about about doping period,
about people trying to get away with it, about what
(05:18):
that does to competition as a competitor yourself.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
I mean, when it comes to doping and people trying
to get away with it, I really disagree with trying
to get away with it by getting around the doping
standards or by using any substances that you know don't
show up in tests. I kind of think that that's
an unfair advantage to people who have maybe a restricter
or doping standards or testing standards. And as I understand it,
(05:46):
the usapl's beef with the IPF is that the USAPL
has higher standards than WATA does for IPF, and if
competition is going to be universal across the board, then
it's going to have to here to the strictest standards.
So I think USAPL is kind of justified in their opinion.
I do believe that we shouldn't be reinstating people underneath
(06:10):
a certain timeframe if they have been caught doping. There
is an advantage to doping for a period of time
and then giving it up. Your body doesn't completely lose
all the advantages that you get from doping for a
brief period of time.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
It just kind of adjusts to it.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
You might lose a considerable amount of strength if you're
able to use peds and then you stop using peds.
But if you do use certain peptides that are they're
coming out with now you have better recovery times. There's
so many things that you hear of as somebody who's
getting really ingratiated into this sport that you could use
to increase your recovery, increase your muscle growth, increase all
(06:48):
these things, and they're all banned by the USADA and
the USAPL and I think other countries should be held
to that standard. I think being banned from the sport
for a period of time should be an extended period
of time. It should be like the Olympics, where you're
banned for an entire four years from international competition. So
(07:08):
I don't really know. I don't really know what the
resolution here is between the USAPL, the IPF, WADA, and USADA.
Do they adhere to the stricter standards and certain athletes
from certain countries have an advantage or do they you know,
loosen their standards just to kind of fall in line.
But where does that put the spirit of true competition
(07:29):
if we have tested federations where nobody's supposed to have
an advantage, it's just the sheer human magnitude of their
ability to lift or perform athletically with no significant advantage
across the board. Or do we just give up and
say we're never going to catch these people who use
(07:49):
these you know, tailored medications or tailored performance enhancing drugs
and that's just part of the game.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Yeah, when basically that part of Icarus was that these
drugs were just signed to to avoid detection, and then
they were able to develop tests that actually did catch them,
and then they were able to go back and look
at the B samples, the ones that are the untested
B samples from previous competition, and in this was a
(08:18):
Chris is not about powerlifting, period, It's just about Olympic sports.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
And WATA.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
But I mean, obviously everybody's trying to take advantage in
some way or another, and some Olympic sports there is
an there's an upside, there's a real upside to being
a gold medalist or a medalist period, but not huge.
I mean, it just doesn't make you a top NFL athlete.
(08:50):
It doesn't make you a top NBA athlete. It doesn't
make you a top MLB athlete in terms of like
salary or endorsements or any of those other things. All
it does is like is give you a win or
give you a PR or whatever. And it doesn't seem
(09:10):
like there's enough incentive, right.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
It doesn't seem like there's enough incentive. And with a
lot of these designer drugs and designer pds, what are
the side effects?
Speaker 3 (09:22):
We don't know. They're long term.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
There aren't long term studies, There aren't long term usages
of some of these newer things like peptides. You know,
there's a lot of transparency now in the body building world,
which I like, there's a lot of guys coming out
Ronnie Coleman, you know, Jay Cutler, They're coming out and
talking about the pds that they used and what they used,
and they're talking about all the side effects from them,
(09:45):
and they're talking about, you know, certain ones cause heart enlargement,
certain ones cause rapid growth of cells, which if you
have any cancer history like myself, yes you want to avoid.
And they're talking about all those risks, and they said
they took those risks, but now some of them have
for really poor health. Some of them have low kidney functions.
We're hearing about Ronnie Coleman being in the hospital again
(10:05):
with a blood infection. He's you know, struggling with something
like that. So I think it's that's that's the risk
versus reward. Do you want to become a champion or
an elite level athlete in your sport? Do you want
to use these substances that they have no idea what
the side effects will be from usage. It doesn't even
take heavy usage. It could be minor usage just to
win a gold medal or just to win you know,
(10:27):
a local, regional or state powerlifting competition.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Right, yeah, I yeah, that's one of those things I
don't entirely understand, especially in the too go to the
extent to cheat in a tested federation. I don't understand
the motivation I don't understand why there could possibly be enough,
especially if you know that you cheat it, like you know,
(10:53):
I mean, I'm I don't care what people do, but
I just don't see that it's worth it for for
that like MLB tests for for performance enhancing drugs now
during due to the steroid scandals of the the early
two thousands and and I mean it was that was
(11:16):
very overblown, but you know, it was one of those things.
But they so they did, they do tests, they do suspend,
they do you know, outright banded people from the from
from the game, and I feel supposed to test, but
I don't really know what they do. And I mean,
looking at the people involved, I don't have any sense
(11:37):
that that they're going to pass a drugs doping screen,
you know, I just don't. I don't sense that at all.
And I'm not one hundred percent sure what the advantage
in the NBA would be.
Speaker 4 (11:51):
Probably recovery, yeah, probably recovery from any you're playing. I mean,
I think a decent amount of games and you're just
running back and forth, back and forth for what like
an hour and a half an hour?
Speaker 1 (12:03):
Yeah, yeah, and and explosively yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Yeah, And that's a lot of strain on a lot
of tendons and ligaments and that in that sport to
with the jumping and the running and and uh, I
think the contact a little bit of contact. I think
the advantage is in the recovery. And you know, there
are substances like human growth hormone that will help with cartilage,
ligament and tendon, you know, stability and repair. You don't
(12:30):
necessarily have to use it just to get as huge
as some of these bodybuilders.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
Who compete in the open.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Yeah, you can use it just to make sure that
your body doesn't fall apart during an eighty two game season.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
I mean, I think even with all of that energy expenditure,
like being being overweight Luca is uh is a detriment,
right yeah, and so like whatever is necessary to get
to get lean. Like I don't know, I don't I
don't think that they would ban, especially off season use
(13:02):
of something like a GLP one agonist, like you know,
I don't know for for an overweight athlete.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Yeah, but I think with the GLP ones there's no
true athletic advantage.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
It's not anabolic, it's a secondary advantage because you're you're
lighter and so you're your your cardio is going.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
To be better.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Yeah, but there's no anabolic there's no anabolic aspect to it.
Like you could abuse insulin, which is very dangerous and
I don't recommend anybody does, but some bodybuilders have admitted
to using insulin for to be more anabolic. Now, the
risk of that is you don't compensate with enough you know,
food to get your blood sugar back up, and you've
(13:45):
used too much insulin, and having very low insulin is
life threateningly dangerous.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
Immediately life threateningly dangerous. High insulin.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
High blood sugar is not immediately life threateningly dangerous unless
you ignore it for a certain period of time. Then
you go into things like keto acidosis. But severe hypoglycemia
with blood sugar below fifty means your cells are completely
disassociating and starting to fall apart and your body just
doesn't function anything.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
Yeah, and you die.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
You die, yes, very rapidly.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
So for the bodybuilders who abused insulin for its anabolic effects,
that's a very big risk. But I don't feel like
the GLP ones, which are I don't know their exact
mechanism of action, but I do know that there's some
sort of blood sugar regulation in there to help people
lose weight. It shuts off food noise for them. There's
no athletic advantage that it could give them other than
(14:39):
in the off season when they don't need to hold
on to weight as more importantly to drive energy in
their body than to just lean up in the off
season in a way that it doesn't take a whole
lot of I'm not going to say it doesn't take
a whole lot of effort, but it shuts off the
food noise enough for them to lean up a little easier.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Well, and you think about it too. There level of
activity drops but significantly. Yeah, but does there But does
their calorie and take drop Probably not, And that I
mean that is why you part of the reason why
you have training camps and.
Speaker 4 (15:12):
Yeah, so that's probably why they train. It's really hard
in the summer is to get.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
And now that has changed a lot because it used
to be that everybody came into whatever kind of camp
fat and then they would they would have, you know,
six weeks or so to pull off that extra weight.
I think that there has been I mean, part of
the reason why we see better performances in all sports
(15:37):
is because of year round training for athletes.
Speaker 4 (15:40):
But I also feel like that's why they get more injured.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
I think you're correct, Yeah, that totally makes sense. Yeah,
and it increases the the importance of trainers and physical
therapists and and nutrition people and all that stuff if
they if they're going to keep going, yeah, you know,
essentially year round.
Speaker 4 (16:01):
Yeah, trainers and all that. Well, the knowledge that the
trainers need is a lot more.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Yeah, No, yeah, for sure, it's it's it's it's definitely
more complicated. What what's your reaction to to the doping things?
To beast you you competed before, you're not currently in
competitive mode, But.
Speaker 4 (16:19):
Yeah, it just kind of I think the whole thing
is just if you use like drugs in a non
drug sport. I think it's just the ego. I think
your ego is just talking to you. It just wants
you to like, hey, I need to be number one,
I want to be the best. Yeah, so let me
just try to get away with using like a substance
to be better. It's even like the sleeves. People are like, oh,
(16:41):
these sleeves are going to add on X amount of
weight to my squat, fuck it, instead of working like harder.
Let me use these sleeves to cop out to get
get a couple more pounds on my squad.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
And I would say that's that's kind of an economic
difference because like the defensive sleeves or I mean the
thicks are expensive. Yeah, and so just having the having
the means to to that's the level playing field doesn't
exist because of the economic disparities and not because of
of the not because the availability of equipment or whatever.
(17:18):
Whereas like for doping, I mean not it's it's theoretically
available to everyone, but isn't really, especially if you're trying
to avoid detection.
Speaker 4 (17:26):
Yeah, that one's a bit more expensive.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Yeah, that that's that's definitely more more expensive. And and
again another economic divide.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
I just I don't know.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
I have a difficult time explaining to myself why people
want to get more from working less like like that.
There's the feeling of accomplishment is just different. It feels
tainted to me.
Speaker 4 (17:57):
Actually, Jerry and I were just talking about this where
he was talking he was chopping it up with somebody
that he works with at in Shape, and he had
asked him about like mentoring but kind of like not
in the like bring you along type of mentoring more
like the class like all right, here's this class or
(18:19):
come to my come to my hot come to this
hotel lobby, and it's gonna be like one hundred of
you guys, and I'm gonna teach you guys how to
like how I got what I got? Uh. And Jerry's like, well,
how is that really gonna help you? He's gonna tell
you step by step what to do. He's like, but
(18:39):
sometimes you you need to like fail to succeed. Yeah,
those failures are what teaches you how to succeed in
this where this guy's like oh, He's like what, but
what if you can just skip all those failures that
that guy failed at and now I can just succeed.
And Jerry's like, well, that's the whole process.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
You have to fail. Yeah, you have to have your
own failures.
Speaker 4 (19:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Like, I don't think there's any road to to immediate
success that doesn't involve a hell of a lot of luck.
Speaker 4 (19:13):
Yeah, and luck.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
And you can't time luck. And people say, oh, you
make your own luck. It's like, I don't know if
that's really true.
Speaker 4 (19:20):
I mean you make it in the sense of like
you put yourself in these positions, like you put yourself life.
For example, me, when I first started coming here at
Third Street, I was like I instantly literally from the
first day that I came, like first day passed, I
was like, it'd be cool to work here. Yeah, So
what did I do? I showed up every single day.
(19:41):
I would bug Mike. I'm like, oh, like, what do
you think of this though? What do you think of
my training? Or how can I improve? Or Hey, if
you guys need anybody, I'm here. I'm here most of
the time. Oh you guys need someone to clean something,
I'll be down to be like an intern. I don't mind.
So I think that that's where like the luck comes from. Yeah,
is you put yourself into those positions.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Which I think that as just being like the logical
the logical choice, you know, the the you know, the
logical suspect.
Speaker 4 (20:11):
Some people don't think like that, you.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Know, some people don't think like that, And that's yeah,
that's I mean, you might feel lucky, but you got
there because of.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
Your work.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
Consistency and just showing up and doing the same thing.
I'll say that that uh, that's that that kind of
the peds and trying to get away with it. On
the under it robs you of those experiences. And that's
my opinion on the peds. If you're really trying to
achieve something great, it's fine to use the PEDS if
(20:46):
you're in an untested federation because you're competing against other
people who are on a variety of things, you know.
But if you're going into an untested federation, it should
just literally be And it's unfortunate that it's not your
own word that you are holding yourself to this standard
of being on you know, without any PD in your system.
(21:08):
I don't care if they talk about the peptides technically
not being a PED.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
They are.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
At the end of the day, why would you use
unless they gave you an advantage. So if you really
want the spirit of competition and that sense of accomplishment
that hey, I earned this, you have to go against
people who are in the top of what you do,
who have done so in a clean fashion, and who
have held themselves to the standard that you hold yourself to.
(21:34):
And so that's the whole thing about this journey. It's
it's been a lot of consistency for me. It's been
a lot of just showing up even when I don't
feel like it. It's been failures. It's been competing in
my first competition and being the first onto the stage
the whole time and finishing dead last in my competition.
But I understand that that's what's going to happen to
(21:54):
achieve what I wanted to.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Yeah, everybody to start somewhere, you have to.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Start from the bottom. You have to fail a couple
of times. You have to stumble and get back up.
And I think Jerry just posted something really good on
Instagram about peaks and valleys, and I agree with that.
I don't think that's just related to a powerlifting journey.
I think that's just life in general. You're going to
have peaks, You're going to have valleys, you know. And
I think any competitor who really has it in them,
(22:20):
who wants to be at the top of their game
in a tested sport, would want to go into every
competition and every opportunity to compete knowing that everybody's abilities
were universal across the board.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Yeah, and I'm I mean, I don't want to sound
particularly moralistic. People can do whatever they want to do.
It's just I don't I don't understand the motivation if
if you're trying to compete tested, I competed untested. I'm
in bicker struggle faster. I don't care if people do
(22:55):
stois really, but it's the issue of of what you
what's the what's the end goal? What do you get
out of it? Is if you if you know that
you circumvented rules to to win. And I'm I'm I
sometimes wish I was more of a win at all
costs kind of person, you know. I mean, I think
that would have some advantages in particularly in our world today,
(23:20):
But I'm not that guy, and and so it so
it confuses me and you you just touched on it earlier,
that that that performance enhancing dructure just not really on
the table for you as a cancer survivor. It's like,
why would the risk would just be the risk reward
radio ratio would be would be disadvantageous, as they would say.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
Yes, I I specifically have to avoid anything that produces
human growth hormone, and any overdrive of human growth hormone
could drive recurrence of my non HODGKINSLM foma. So I
do avoid anything like that. And then when it comes
to anything testosterone related, it's similar that that drives growth,
(24:06):
and cancer is an overactive growth of cells that aren't
supposed to be growing. So I have to be extremely
vigilant on anything that I look at our take. So
what I end up taking is just your typical supplements, fish.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
Oil, vitamins, creatine.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
I take a post workout from transparent labs, and just
magnesium to help me sleep. And that's like the majority
of what I can take safely just to make sure
that I maintain this journey where I want it to be,
to get to where I want to be. And I
think that the other people who ignore the risk factors,
(24:41):
like there's some heart enlargement from testosterone supplements, So anything
that drives testosterone can make your heart too large, and
that's not a really fun way to end up in
your life in your fifties and sixties, because I can
tell you left ventricular hypertrophy is lead one of the
direct causes of just of heart failure, which can be
(25:02):
a very miserable existence for a very long time.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Heart gets sluggish, you don't you know, it doesn't pull
off all the extra water in your system.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
And you get shorter, breath easy, retain fluid easy. You
have to be on diuretics and even adhering to all
the health advice and what we advise people who have
heart failure or extreme you know, heart enlargement, you still
end up in the hospital, in and out of the
hospital very frequently. So risking that just to have an
(25:34):
advantage in a sport where you're not going to make
hundreds of millions of dollars get endorsements is to me,
is not a risk to reward ratio that's worth it.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
The top, the top professional athletes who have longevity in
their career essentially create generational wealth if it's managed well. Yes,
there's anything about power lifting that's going to create generational
wealth through anybody.
Speaker 4 (26:02):
So are but no, no, no, And unless you're pioneer,
unless you're unless you're pioneer, I mean you might be able.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
There are a lot of influencers out there now on
Instagram and variety of social media platforms who powerlifting is
their one hundred percent full time job. Whereas you come
from an era where that didn't exist. Everybody had a
full time job outside of powerlifting. You were not well
known at all. If you were untested or tested in
(26:29):
a powerlifting federation, you were only known by other powerlifters
and maybe some other strength athletes. A lot of the
men's fitness covers were you know, the bodybuilders we all know.
To this day, there was no powerlifting you know, athletes
out there in the public eye. So today that might
be some of the advantage that you could make powerlifting
(26:49):
your one hundred percent full time job. You can get
some endorsements from a variety of uh, you know, supplement companies.
You can get endorsements from some you know, like power
lifting gear companies, but it's not going to create generational wealth.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
No, And people who are making money are doing it
by selling things, yes, I mean not just not just
being ambassadors for.
Speaker 4 (27:11):
Some you like, physically own something.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Yeah yeah, yeah, and that and that game gets harder
throughout the years every.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
Day pretty much.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Yeah, apparel is difficult.
Speaker 4 (27:25):
The new companies pop up with the newest fitness influencer
quoting it and.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
Its supplements are hard. I mean, the margins are great,
but it actually developing a client base is difficult. Coaching
seems to be easier, but that's definitely a flavor.
Speaker 4 (27:46):
Of the week kind of situation comes and goes. Yeah,
same thing, peaks and valleys. Sometimes you'll have twenty clients.
Other times you'll have two.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, And it's sort of what what have
you done lately? Is the things either yourself or or
someone that you coached or managed or whatever, And that's
kind of the kind of the first question is like
who do you who did you coach?
Speaker 3 (28:10):
You know what?
Speaker 1 (28:12):
What have they done?
Speaker 3 (28:13):
What?
Speaker 1 (28:13):
And and and when? When did they do it?
Speaker 3 (28:17):
And when?
Speaker 1 (28:17):
Where do they where were they when they started with you?
It is another really good question in the in the
coaching world, it's like what you know, I've I've been
talking to a couple of you know, coaches lately and
I but but people who were not training, people who
are trying to be powerlifting athletes or any other kind
of athlete necessarily just people are trying to be in
better shape, and they're the measurement is did they did
(28:39):
they get into better shape? Did they lose weight or
did they gain weight if they intended to? Or you know,
how do they present what's there with their aesthetics like
now relative to what they wanted whatever. That's how you
measure that. But in the powerlifting world, it's it's what
have you or your or or your clients done lately?
And still there's only so much money there too, I think.
(29:03):
I mean it just like I don't know that anybody,
I mean, who's getting rich doing it. They're managing to
avoid having real jobs, some of them, but nobody's I
don't think anybody's really getting rich.
Speaker 4 (29:15):
Yeah, I don't know about rich. Maybe, like it's the
same thing, like you have your top one percent, no
not even one top point one, you know, like a
Joey flex or something like that. Yeah, that's probably who
gets rich off of.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Yeah, and I and I don't, like, I don't know
what his bank statement looks like.
Speaker 4 (29:36):
It could could be false.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Yeah, I mean I I only very peripherally have interacted
with him, so I don't know. But and you know,
the coaching groups that we that we know and people there,
but I know they work pretty hard. The ones that
are that are actually good and dedicated, they actually work
pretty hard on on keeping up with their their clients.
Speaker 4 (29:59):
That phone has to be open literally twenty four to seven.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
Yeah, and it ends up becoming you know, like I said,
in the powerlifting world, before we started having influencers, they
had full time jobs outside of powerlifting, right, But now
this coaching and the social media presence they have has
become their full time job, right with you know, overtime,
because you have to make content, you have to edit
your content, you have to post your content. Then you
(30:24):
have to be in touch with all of your athletes
by coaching. Then you have to make their programs. Then
you have to talk to them. So now you're working
more likely sixty hour to eighty hour weeks instead of
you know, working at nine to five and going to
a powerlifting competition on the weekend. Like it probably happened
in the early eighties and nineties when the sport was
reaching its highest level of popularity without the Internet.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
And yeah, and people yet being coached by someone was
being coached by someone that was outside of your like
locally physically located team. It was a very uncommon yeah
back then, in part because it just wasn't easy.
Speaker 4 (31:06):
Yeah, you know, the communication.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Yeah, it just wasn't easy the minutes. Yeah, And so
you had a whole world where where, you know, one
group of people are trying to figure out how to
have best to implement some kind of progressive overload system
for themselves, and another group of people who are trying
to figure out how to implement a Westside template, which
was not as prescriptive as they thought it was going
to be for themselves, and there was you know, very
(31:34):
very few people to to tell you how to do
those things, especially on a workout by workout basis.
Speaker 4 (31:44):
You have to look for a gym like this.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
You have to look for a gym like a Third
Street or.
Speaker 4 (31:48):
I guess like a bar Brigade.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
Right.
Speaker 4 (31:49):
I don't know if they really had coaching like that.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
I think that as far as I know, they still
maybe only had one coach. I don't know, I could
be wrong. I think Stanley was coach coaching there. I'm
not sure what the but.
Speaker 4 (32:01):
Yeah, it'd have to be something that's not a commercial gym.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
Yeah, because you're not going to find coaches in a
commercial gym like you're going to make and they're going
to discourage it to a commercial gym. They because they
have their personal trainers.
Speaker 3 (32:12):
That work for them.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
They do anything that are allowed to train there. You're
taking money out of their pocket.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
Yeah, if you are.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
If you're anybody who you know, you see them and
you're like, hey, are you a coach? But at a
gym like this, there's multiple coaches. There are multiple people
here who you know are coaches outside of their nine
to five or whatever they do on a regular basis.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
I am. I was on vacation last week and I
had to go to a commercial gym for the first
time in years for whatever reason other than I don't
know what what the reason would be, other than the
fact that it's that it's cheap. Like I've been paying
twenty bucks a month for twenty four hour fitness since
(32:54):
the late nineties, so they have made their money off me,
and I had not stepped into one in since pre pandemic.
And I have to tell you it's not the greatest experience.
I understand why people can be fine with it, part
of because it's cheap and part because it's kind of okay, right,
(33:16):
I mean, and if you go to the same one
or the same few, you know what they have in
terms of machines, in terms of free weights or whatever.
But I don't know how anyone has a serious powerlifting
career in a commercial gym because it's just not conducive
to it. And I don't mean like you have to,
(33:39):
Like we have kilo sets, we have all that stuff.
We have combo racks, we have basically competition equipment for
people to use. I don't think that's necessary. But always
benching off a non adjustable bench on a slick ass bar,
it doesn't really do anything for you. Or trying to
deadlift in a place where you against slick ass bars
(34:01):
bench bars, I don't, you know. I mean, the machine
stuff is nice, but it's but it's often not it's
often broken or it's old. I don't understand. But still
they're crowded too, I mean, that's that's the other downside
is that they're crowded, so you have to kind of wait.
If you're in, if you're if you're working with programming
(34:25):
from someone and there's a certain sequence that you're theoretically
supposed to follow, you may be waiting around a long
time to get on a particular machine or stuff is
just not the Like the Pulley ratios are different than
what you're used to, so you can't use the weights
that you anticipate.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
Yeah, yeah, And I think that's just the The crux
of trying to get into a sport with any sort
of seriousness or any sort of training with any sort
of seriousness is you do have to go to the
right environment.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
You do have to.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Have the tools that you need available to you to
do what you're trying to do, so to bring us
back to the original point of the testing and and
so there's.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
Not a lot of time. There's not a lot.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Of money in being at the top of your game
in the USPA, the USAPL, winning IPF Worlds. Myself, I'm
new to this for about two years and I wasn't
even aware of this USAPL post. So, but I will
watch nationals and I will watch IPF you know Worlds
and things like that. It's a very niche strength sport.
(35:29):
There there's not a lot of optics out there. If
you are into powerlifting, you most likely follow a couple
people like I follow SSJ Bob or LS McLain because
he's currently the champion and masters in my weight class,
and that's who I'm trying to like reach, right, But
I don't follow a ton of other you know, champions
(35:51):
or people who have won nationals. And I know there's
a lot of other people out there who do, but
it's usually people who are into powerlifting. It's not just
your average kid who goes to a commercial gym and
is looking to look like a guy like Seabum, right,
he's going to follow the Bradley Martins, he's going to
follow Seabum, he's going to follow a lot of these
other guys. So to use peds. To use peds to
(36:16):
circumvent the rules surrounding the untested federations while you're competing
in a tested federation. The benefit is just really not there.
Are you going to get more people to coach? If
you get more people to coach, you have more work,
you know, So now you have to film your content
like I said, and then coach all these people. And
that money isn't creating so much wealth for you that
(36:37):
you are able to retire at the age of forty.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
It's paying your bills.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
You know. And if you average it out over the
time that you have to work and not make much
of anything at all with the you know whatever, you know,
your boom time is, you know, you're it sort of
evens out to you know, probably less than minimum wage
over time.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
Over time, Yeah, it probably does, to be honest, with
all the work that you're putting in. Yeah, And while
it's a steady income at times, there could be times
that clients decide they don't want to work with you
anymore for whatever reason, there could be times that your
views go down. So whatever benefit you're getting from a
couple one hundred thousand views to maybe a million views
or so on Instagram starts to decline. You know, it's
(37:23):
a very very labile or up and down business when
it comes to social media and a social media presence
and influencing.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
And there's just a recency bias.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
Yeah, there's a recency bias. There's all a lot of
different factors that bring the income in. So getting to
the top of your game in that by using something
that circumvents the USADA rules or the USAPL rules, what
really are you getting out of it?
Speaker 1 (37:48):
At the end, I'm just going to put a button
on this and say that I think that the real
perform enhancement is environment. Yes, training, environment, I agree, and
to a certain extent, like the environment that you experience
(38:09):
when you're when you're in an inside a competition. Yes,
how the competition is run, and and the kind of
support that you get that you bring with you, that
the crowd gives you, that that competitors give you. That's
that's the real performance enhancement to my mind. A little
(38:30):
bit Pollyanna, a little bit of soapbox.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
But but I will say we already have performance enhancement
in all realms of all sports now because we do
have the ability to look at longitudinal studies and see
what works. There's guys out there, I mean he did
use peds, but doctor Mike, there's Jeff nipperd and they
all talk about the science behind lifting. And while there's
(38:54):
you know, this big argument of like science based versus
you know, old school lifters, we have that science.
Speaker 4 (38:59):
Now.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
We have studies that show if you eat this way,
if you sleep this way, if you train this way,
you can have a bigger advantage than training you know
how we used to train, or the old school training,
And to me, that's performance enhancement too, because we have
access to that. We have access to This is the
nutrition that you're supposed to be on. This is how
much sleep that you're supposed to get. These are the
(39:20):
training methods that you're supposed to use. Whereas back in
the day, I mean in the early nineties, you could
open up a magazine with Ronnie Coleman on the cover
and it would tell you these things, but you had
to go to the store and purposely look for that magazine.
Speaker 1 (39:33):
And it may or not have been Ronnie who put
that together.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
Yea, And it may not have been Ronnie who put
that together. And you may be getting bad advice, and
you might and the magazine might just be trying to
sell you a supplement that doesn't actually work.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
At the end of the day, Well, magazines are just
created to sell you things. That's I mean, that's the content.
The information is the lure, but the actual pitch.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
But all the information that we have that tells us
how to get to where we want to go, that
is that I will get on my soapbox and says
that is the true performance enhancing Now because now your
average person can do things like use a macro calculator online.
They can easily access, you know, a food scale that
will tell them how much food they're consuming and what
(40:17):
to consume. And they can even get apps that will
give them like a good breakdown of what they should
eat meal by meal, calorie by calorie, macro by macro.
Back in the day, we had to like look all
this stuff up at the library, then write it down
and bring it home, you know, so there was no
access to this stuff. Now it's in your hand in
a six by five. You know, little slab of glass
(40:39):
and metal, and that is the true performance enhancing. So
why would you need something on top of that? If
your recovery is good, if your nutrition is good, if
your training is good. That I don't really understand.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
Yeah, that's not not when the juice is not is
worth the squeeze, as they say, yeah, really juice literally squeeze.
Speaker 3 (41:00):
Think.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
Well, to wrap this one up right here, I have
something else that I want to talk to Josh about.
But I just had an idea while we were talking
about a way to do that differently than I had
had been anticipating. So we will get to that. Okay, Josh,
can people find you?
Speaker 2 (41:16):
They can find me at Amazing Jay rab on Instagram
or Josh jar on Facebook.
Speaker 4 (41:21):
Sebas I am Sebastian Underscore brand, Bilo on ig I.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
Am at the Jim mcdion all the social media. This
show is fifty percent facts. Four percent is a word,
fifty is just numbers. Fifty percent facts is a spreaker
pining podcast and associate one of that ourt media on
the Obscure Celebrity Network and we'll talk to you next time.
Speaker 4 (41:40):
Oh, thank you,
And we're in. Hey, welcome everyone. I've asked Josh to
come back in today in part because I'm going on
vacation and I need to rack ups some some runway
on the on the podcast, and in part because I
(00:29):
really want to talk to him again, and a couple
of topics to to throw out here in the process.
Did you like get yourself right there on the shin.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
I got myself on the shin deadlifting in here.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
We're way off, Mike, I'm way off, Mike.
Speaker 4 (00:42):
Let me see what I want to pull it up? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Is is that better? Can you hear me a little better? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (00:52):
I can hear that. I I don't want the world
to miss out on your voice.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Thank you. I appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Yeah, You've got to like that distinctive bass voice that
just Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
I'm usually yelling when I'm here because I can't hear
over the over the music, the music, So my voice
kind of takes a different tone. And so when I
finally get in an arena where I can talk without
having to yell, people are like, your voice is really deep,
Like yeah, when I don't have to yell, it is
this is.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
How I talk? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Excellent. Yeah, So I was a little bit blown away
yesterday scrolling through Instagram looking at the posting by the U.
S a PL, which you know, people should know that
a few years ago they were disaffiliated from the IP
(01:43):
from the International Organization for Powerlifting Competition due to arguments
over testing frequency and and it's in you with it's
not what you think it's it's not that they wanted
to test less than required, is that they wanted to
(02:03):
test more than required. And their post and it's a
pinned post, so you know they mean it.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
Uh, it's it's the.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Title is true to the mission when legends lose faith?
In lose faith colon the Crisis at Water. I think
that there are like actually two implied colons in that title.
But anyway, there are several quotes from Michael Phelps, US
(02:42):
swimmer like the most decorated swimmer of all time, at
least American. And the question is is water protecting clean
sport or protecting corruption? When the greatest Olympian of all
time calls out water, we should And it is clear
to me that any attempts to reform at WATA have
(03:04):
fallen short. There are deeply rooted, systemic problems that prove
detrimental to the integrity of international sports. It doesn't trust
the antidoping system, why should we? And goes on from there,
Alison Schmidt, Katie Ldecki, Michael Phelps again, Alison Schmidt again,
(03:27):
basically all just saying that as Olympic athletes, they don't
they and I think all, I don't know that any
of them are still competing, but looking back that WADA
is just not a reliable organization for antidoping and that's
its sole mission. So so what do we do from there?
(03:49):
And what's supposed to happen. What I had not realized
was that in January, and we're talking about before the
administration change. In January, the US withheld its commitment to
WATA to the tune of like three point six million
dollars over these issues, and some of them have to
(04:09):
do with Chinese swimmers. They're tested positive but were reinstated
a number of different issues like that where the standard
wasn't held. And sometime back Mike and I watched I
don't know if you've ever watched it, but there's a
documentary called Icarus about the Russian doping scandal, and it's
(04:35):
it was intensely eye opening, but you're supposed to believe
that because they were caught, that that sort of thing
isn't going on anymore, but it probably is based on this,
and then there are things that are just being.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
Looked over.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
So as a us APL lifter, yourself, a drug tested
Federation lifter, and someone who is not, you know, in
their twenties, well, what is your thought about about doping period,
about people trying to get away with it, about what
(05:18):
that does to competition as a competitor yourself.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
I mean, when it comes to doping and people trying
to get away with it, I really disagree with trying
to get away with it by getting around the doping
standards or by using any substances that you know don't
show up in tests. I kind of think that that's
an unfair advantage to people who have maybe a restricter
or doping standards or testing standards. And as I understand it,
(05:46):
the usapl's beef with the IPF is that the USAPL
has higher standards than WATA does for IPF, and if
competition is going to be universal across the board, then
it's going to have to here to the strictest standards.
So I think USAPL is kind of justified in their opinion.
I do believe that we shouldn't be reinstating people underneath
(06:10):
a certain timeframe if they have been caught doping. There
is an advantage to doping for a period of time
and then giving it up. Your body doesn't completely lose
all the advantages that you get from doping for a
brief period of time.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
It just kind of adjusts to it.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
You might lose a considerable amount of strength if you're
able to use peds and then you stop using peds.
But if you do use certain peptides that are they're
coming out with now you have better recovery times. There's
so many things that you hear of as somebody who's
getting really ingratiated into this sport that you could use
to increase your recovery, increase your muscle growth, increase all
(06:48):
these things, and they're all banned by the USADA and
the USAPL and I think other countries should be held
to that standard. I think being banned from the sport
for a period of time should be an extended period
of time. It should be like the Olympics, where you're
banned for an entire four years from international competition. So
(07:08):
I don't really know. I don't really know what the
resolution here is between the USAPL, the IPF, WADA, and USADA.
Do they adhere to the stricter standards and certain athletes
from certain countries have an advantage or do they you know,
loosen their standards just to kind of fall in line.
But where does that put the spirit of true competition
(07:29):
if we have tested federations where nobody's supposed to have
an advantage, it's just the sheer human magnitude of their
ability to lift or perform athletically with no significant advantage
across the board. Or do we just give up and
say we're never going to catch these people who use
(07:49):
these you know, tailored medications or tailored performance enhancing drugs
and that's just part of the game.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Yeah, when basically that part of Icarus was that these
drugs were just signed to to avoid detection, and then
they were able to develop tests that actually did catch them,
and then they were able to go back and look
at the B samples, the ones that are the untested
B samples from previous competition, and in this was a
(08:18):
Chris is not about powerlifting, period, It's just about Olympic sports.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
And WATA.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
But I mean, obviously everybody's trying to take advantage in
some way or another, and some Olympic sports there is
an there's an upside, there's a real upside to being
a gold medalist or a medalist period, but not huge.
I mean, it just doesn't make you a top NFL athlete.
(08:50):
It doesn't make you a top NBA athlete. It doesn't
make you a top MLB athlete in terms of like
salary or endorsements or any of those other things. All
it does is like is give you a win or
give you a PR or whatever. And it doesn't seem
(09:10):
like there's enough incentive, right.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
It doesn't seem like there's enough incentive. And with a
lot of these designer drugs and designer pds, what are
the side effects?
Speaker 3 (09:22):
We don't know. They're long term.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
There aren't long term studies, There aren't long term usages
of some of these newer things like peptides. You know,
there's a lot of transparency now in the body building world,
which I like, there's a lot of guys coming out
Ronnie Coleman, you know, Jay Cutler, They're coming out and
talking about the pds that they used and what they used,
and they're talking about all the side effects from them,
(09:45):
and they're talking about, you know, certain ones cause heart enlargement,
certain ones cause rapid growth of cells, which if you
have any cancer history like myself, yes you want to avoid.
And they're talking about all those risks, and they said
they took those risks, but now some of them have
for really poor health. Some of them have low kidney functions.
We're hearing about Ronnie Coleman being in the hospital again
(10:05):
with a blood infection. He's you know, struggling with something
like that. So I think it's that's that's the risk
versus reward. Do you want to become a champion or
an elite level athlete in your sport? Do you want
to use these substances that they have no idea what
the side effects will be from usage. It doesn't even
take heavy usage. It could be minor usage just to
win a gold medal or just to win you know,
(10:27):
a local, regional or state powerlifting competition.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Right, yeah, I yeah, that's one of those things I
don't entirely understand, especially in the too go to the
extent to cheat in a tested federation. I don't understand
the motivation I don't understand why there could possibly be enough,
especially if you know that you cheat it, like you know,
(10:53):
I mean, I'm I don't care what people do, but
I just don't see that it's worth it for for
that like MLB tests for for performance enhancing drugs now
during due to the steroid scandals of the the early
two thousands and and I mean it was that was
(11:16):
very overblown, but you know, it was one of those things.
But they so they did, they do tests, they do suspend,
they do you know, outright banded people from the from
from the game, and I feel supposed to test, but
I don't really know what they do. And I mean,
looking at the people involved, I don't have any sense
(11:37):
that that they're going to pass a drugs doping screen,
you know, I just don't. I don't sense that at all.
And I'm not one hundred percent sure what the advantage
in the NBA would be.
Speaker 4 (11:51):
Probably recovery, yeah, probably recovery from any you're playing. I mean,
I think a decent amount of games and you're just
running back and forth, back and forth for what like
an hour and a half an hour?
Speaker 1 (12:03):
Yeah, yeah, and and explosively yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Yeah, And that's a lot of strain on a lot
of tendons and ligaments and that in that sport to
with the jumping and the running and and uh, I
think the contact a little bit of contact. I think
the advantage is in the recovery. And you know, there
are substances like human growth hormone that will help with cartilage,
ligament and tendon, you know, stability and repair. You don't
(12:30):
necessarily have to use it just to get as huge
as some of these bodybuilders.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
Who compete in the open.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Yeah, you can use it just to make sure that
your body doesn't fall apart during an eighty two game season.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
I mean, I think even with all of that energy expenditure,
like being being overweight Luca is uh is a detriment,
right yeah, and so like whatever is necessary to get
to get lean. Like I don't know, I don't I
don't think that they would ban, especially off season use
(13:02):
of something like a GLP one agonist, like you know,
I don't know for for an overweight athlete.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Yeah, but I think with the GLP ones there's no
true athletic advantage.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
It's not anabolic, it's a secondary advantage because you're you're
lighter and so you're your your cardio is going.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
To be better.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Yeah, but there's no anabolic there's no anabolic aspect to it.
Like you could abuse insulin, which is very dangerous and
I don't recommend anybody does, but some bodybuilders have admitted
to using insulin for to be more anabolic. Now, the
risk of that is you don't compensate with enough you know,
food to get your blood sugar back up, and you've
(13:45):
used too much insulin, and having very low insulin is
life threateningly dangerous.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
Immediately life threateningly dangerous. High insulin.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
High blood sugar is not immediately life threateningly dangerous unless
you ignore it for a certain period of time. Then
you go into things like keto acidosis. But severe hypoglycemia
with blood sugar below fifty means your cells are completely
disassociating and starting to fall apart and your body just
doesn't function anything.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
Yeah, and you die.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
You die, yes, very rapidly.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
So for the bodybuilders who abused insulin for its anabolic effects,
that's a very big risk. But I don't feel like
the GLP ones, which are I don't know their exact
mechanism of action, but I do know that there's some
sort of blood sugar regulation in there to help people
lose weight. It shuts off food noise for them. There's
no athletic advantage that it could give them other than
(14:39):
in the off season when they don't need to hold
on to weight as more importantly to drive energy in
their body than to just lean up in the off
season in a way that it doesn't take a whole
lot of I'm not going to say it doesn't take
a whole lot of effort, but it shuts off the
food noise enough for them to lean up a little easier.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Well, and you think about it too. There level of
activity drops but significantly. Yeah, but does there But does
their calorie and take drop Probably not, And that I
mean that is why you part of the reason why
you have training camps and.
Speaker 4 (15:12):
Yeah, so that's probably why they train. It's really hard
in the summer is to get.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
And now that has changed a lot because it used
to be that everybody came into whatever kind of camp
fat and then they would they would have, you know,
six weeks or so to pull off that extra weight.
I think that there has been I mean, part of
the reason why we see better performances in all sports
(15:37):
is because of year round training for athletes.
Speaker 4 (15:40):
But I also feel like that's why they get more injured.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
I think you're correct, Yeah, that totally makes sense. Yeah,
and it increases the the importance of trainers and physical
therapists and and nutrition people and all that stuff if
they if they're going to keep going, yeah, you know,
essentially year round.
Speaker 4 (16:01):
Yeah, trainers and all that. Well, the knowledge that the
trainers need is a lot more.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Yeah, No, yeah, for sure, it's it's it's it's definitely
more complicated. What what's your reaction to to the doping things?
To beast you you competed before, you're not currently in
competitive mode, But.
Speaker 4 (16:19):
Yeah, it just kind of I think the whole thing
is just if you use like drugs in a non
drug sport. I think it's just the ego. I think
your ego is just talking to you. It just wants
you to like, hey, I need to be number one,
I want to be the best. Yeah, so let me
just try to get away with using like a substance
to be better. It's even like the sleeves. People are like, oh,
(16:41):
these sleeves are going to add on X amount of
weight to my squat, fuck it, instead of working like harder.
Let me use these sleeves to cop out to get
get a couple more pounds on my squad.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
And I would say that's that's kind of an economic
difference because like the defensive sleeves or I mean the
thicks are expensive. Yeah, and so just having the having
the means to to that's the level playing field doesn't
exist because of the economic disparities and not because of
of the not because the availability of equipment or whatever.
(17:18):
Whereas like for doping, I mean not it's it's theoretically
available to everyone, but isn't really, especially if you're trying
to avoid detection.
Speaker 4 (17:26):
Yeah, that one's a bit more expensive.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Yeah, that that's that's definitely more more expensive. And and
again another economic divide.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
I just I don't know.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
I have a difficult time explaining to myself why people
want to get more from working less like like that.
There's the feeling of accomplishment is just different. It feels
tainted to me.
Speaker 4 (17:57):
Actually, Jerry and I were just talking about this where
he was talking he was chopping it up with somebody
that he works with at in Shape, and he had
asked him about like mentoring but kind of like not
in the like bring you along type of mentoring more
like the class like all right, here's this class or
(18:19):
come to my come to my hot come to this
hotel lobby, and it's gonna be like one hundred of
you guys, and I'm gonna teach you guys how to
like how I got what I got? Uh. And Jerry's like, well,
how is that really gonna help you? He's gonna tell
you step by step what to do. He's like, but
(18:39):
sometimes you you need to like fail to succeed. Yeah,
those failures are what teaches you how to succeed in
this where this guy's like oh, He's like what, but
what if you can just skip all those failures that
that guy failed at and now I can just succeed.
And Jerry's like, well, that's the whole process.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
You have to fail. Yeah, you have to have your
own failures.
Speaker 4 (19:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Like, I don't think there's any road to to immediate
success that doesn't involve a hell of a lot of luck.
Speaker 4 (19:13):
Yeah, and luck.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
And you can't time luck. And people say, oh, you
make your own luck. It's like, I don't know if
that's really true.
Speaker 4 (19:20):
I mean you make it in the sense of like
you put yourself in these positions, like you put yourself life.
For example, me, when I first started coming here at
Third Street, I was like I instantly literally from the
first day that I came, like first day passed, I
was like, it'd be cool to work here. Yeah, So
what did I do? I showed up every single day.
(19:41):
I would bug Mike. I'm like, oh, like, what do
you think of this though? What do you think of
my training? Or how can I improve? Or Hey, if
you guys need anybody, I'm here. I'm here most of
the time. Oh you guys need someone to clean something,
I'll be down to be like an intern. I don't mind.
So I think that that's where like the luck comes from. Yeah,
is you put yourself into those positions.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Which I think that as just being like the logical
the logical choice, you know, the the you know, the
logical suspect.
Speaker 4 (20:11):
Some people don't think like that, you.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Know, some people don't think like that, And that's yeah,
that's I mean, you might feel lucky, but you got
there because of.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
Your work.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
Consistency and just showing up and doing the same thing.
I'll say that that uh, that's that that kind of
the peds and trying to get away with it. On
the under it robs you of those experiences. And that's
my opinion on the peds. If you're really trying to
achieve something great, it's fine to use the PEDS if
(20:46):
you're in an untested federation because you're competing against other
people who are on a variety of things, you know.
But if you're going into an untested federation, it should
just literally be And it's unfortunate that it's not your
own word that you are holding yourself to this standard
of being on you know, without any PD in your system.
(21:08):
I don't care if they talk about the peptides technically
not being a PED.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
They are.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
At the end of the day, why would you use
unless they gave you an advantage. So if you really
want the spirit of competition and that sense of accomplishment
that hey, I earned this, you have to go against
people who are in the top of what you do,
who have done so in a clean fashion, and who
have held themselves to the standard that you hold yourself to.
(21:34):
And so that's the whole thing about this journey. It's
it's been a lot of consistency for me. It's been
a lot of just showing up even when I don't
feel like it. It's been failures. It's been competing in
my first competition and being the first onto the stage
the whole time and finishing dead last in my competition.
But I understand that that's what's going to happen to
(21:54):
achieve what I wanted to.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Yeah, everybody to start somewhere, you have to.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Start from the bottom. You have to fail a couple
of times. You have to stumble and get back up.
And I think Jerry just posted something really good on
Instagram about peaks and valleys, and I agree with that.
I don't think that's just related to a powerlifting journey.
I think that's just life in general. You're going to
have peaks, You're going to have valleys, you know. And
I think any competitor who really has it in them,
(22:20):
who wants to be at the top of their game
in a tested sport, would want to go into every
competition and every opportunity to compete knowing that everybody's abilities
were universal across the board.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Yeah, and I'm I mean, I don't want to sound
particularly moralistic. People can do whatever they want to do.
It's just I don't I don't understand the motivation if
if you're trying to compete tested, I competed untested. I'm
in bicker struggle faster. I don't care if people do
(22:55):
stois really, but it's the issue of of what you
what's the what's the end goal? What do you get
out of it? Is if you if you know that
you circumvented rules to to win. And I'm I'm I
sometimes wish I was more of a win at all
costs kind of person, you know. I mean, I think
that would have some advantages in particularly in our world today,
(23:20):
But I'm not that guy, and and so it so
it confuses me and you you just touched on it earlier,
that that that performance enhancing dructure just not really on
the table for you as a cancer survivor. It's like,
why would the risk would just be the risk reward
radio ratio would be would be disadvantageous, as they would say.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
Yes, I I specifically have to avoid anything that produces
human growth hormone, and any overdrive of human growth hormone
could drive recurrence of my non HODGKINSLM foma. So I
do avoid anything like that. And then when it comes
to anything testosterone related, it's similar that that drives growth,
(24:06):
and cancer is an overactive growth of cells that aren't
supposed to be growing. So I have to be extremely
vigilant on anything that I look at our take. So
what I end up taking is just your typical supplements, fish.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
Oil, vitamins, creatine.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
I take a post workout from transparent labs, and just
magnesium to help me sleep. And that's like the majority
of what I can take safely just to make sure
that I maintain this journey where I want it to be,
to get to where I want to be. And I
think that the other people who ignore the risk factors,
(24:41):
like there's some heart enlargement from testosterone supplements, So anything
that drives testosterone can make your heart too large, and
that's not a really fun way to end up in
your life in your fifties and sixties, because I can
tell you left ventricular hypertrophy is lead one of the
direct causes of just of heart failure, which can be
(25:02):
a very miserable existence for a very long time.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Heart gets sluggish, you don't you know, it doesn't pull
off all the extra water in your system.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
And you get shorter, breath easy, retain fluid easy. You
have to be on diuretics and even adhering to all
the health advice and what we advise people who have
heart failure or extreme you know, heart enlargement, you still
end up in the hospital, in and out of the
hospital very frequently. So risking that just to have an
(25:34):
advantage in a sport where you're not going to make
hundreds of millions of dollars get endorsements is to me,
is not a risk to reward ratio that's worth it.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
The top, the top professional athletes who have longevity in
their career essentially create generational wealth if it's managed well. Yes,
there's anything about power lifting that's going to create generational
wealth through anybody.
Speaker 4 (26:02):
So are but no, no, no, And unless you're pioneer,
unless you're unless you're pioneer, I mean you might be able.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
There are a lot of influencers out there now on
Instagram and variety of social media platforms who powerlifting is
their one hundred percent full time job. Whereas you come
from an era where that didn't exist. Everybody had a
full time job outside of powerlifting. You were not well
known at all. If you were untested or tested in
(26:29):
a powerlifting federation, you were only known by other powerlifters
and maybe some other strength athletes. A lot of the
men's fitness covers were you know, the bodybuilders we all know.
To this day, there was no powerlifting you know, athletes
out there in the public eye. So today that might
be some of the advantage that you could make powerlifting
(26:49):
your one hundred percent full time job. You can get
some endorsements from a variety of uh, you know, supplement companies.
You can get endorsements from some you know, like power
lifting gear companies, but it's not going to create generational wealth.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
No, And people who are making money are doing it
by selling things, yes, I mean not just not just
being ambassadors for.
Speaker 4 (27:11):
Some you like, physically own something.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Yeah yeah, yeah, and that and that game gets harder
throughout the years every.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
Day pretty much.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Yeah, apparel is difficult.
Speaker 4 (27:25):
The new companies pop up with the newest fitness influencer
quoting it and.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
Its supplements are hard. I mean, the margins are great,
but it actually developing a client base is difficult. Coaching
seems to be easier, but that's definitely a flavor.
Speaker 4 (27:46):
Of the week kind of situation comes and goes. Yeah,
same thing, peaks and valleys. Sometimes you'll have twenty clients.
Other times you'll have two.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, And it's sort of what what have
you done lately? Is the things either yourself or or
someone that you coached or managed or whatever, And that's
kind of the kind of the first question is like
who do you who did you coach?
Speaker 3 (28:10):
You know what?
Speaker 1 (28:12):
What have they done?
Speaker 3 (28:13):
What?
Speaker 1 (28:13):
And and and when? When did they do it?
Speaker 3 (28:17):
And when?
Speaker 1 (28:17):
Where do they where were they when they started with you?
It is another really good question in the in the
coaching world, it's like what you know, I've I've been
talking to a couple of you know, coaches lately and
I but but people who were not training, people who
are trying to be powerlifting athletes or any other kind
of athlete necessarily just people are trying to be in
better shape, and they're the measurement is did they did
(28:39):
they get into better shape? Did they lose weight or
did they gain weight if they intended to? Or you know,
how do they present what's there with their aesthetics like
now relative to what they wanted whatever. That's how you
measure that. But in the powerlifting world, it's it's what
have you or your or or your clients done lately?
And still there's only so much money there too, I think.
(29:03):
I mean it just like I don't know that anybody,
I mean, who's getting rich doing it. They're managing to
avoid having real jobs, some of them, but nobody's I
don't think anybody's really getting rich.
Speaker 4 (29:15):
Yeah, I don't know about rich. Maybe, like it's the
same thing, like you have your top one percent, no
not even one top point one, you know, like a
Joey flex or something like that. Yeah, that's probably who
gets rich off of.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Yeah, and I and I don't, like, I don't know
what his bank statement looks like.
Speaker 4 (29:36):
It could could be false.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Yeah, I mean I I only very peripherally have interacted
with him, so I don't know. But and you know,
the coaching groups that we that we know and people there,
but I know they work pretty hard. The ones that
are that are actually good and dedicated, they actually work
pretty hard on on keeping up with their their clients.
Speaker 4 (29:59):
That phone has to be open literally twenty four to seven.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
Yeah, and it ends up becoming you know, like I said,
in the powerlifting world, before we started having influencers, they
had full time jobs outside of powerlifting, right, But now
this coaching and the social media presence they have has
become their full time job, right with you know, overtime,
because you have to make content, you have to edit
your content, you have to post your content. Then you
(30:24):
have to be in touch with all of your athletes
by coaching. Then you have to make their programs. Then
you have to talk to them. So now you're working
more likely sixty hour to eighty hour weeks instead of
you know, working at nine to five and going to
a powerlifting competition on the weekend. Like it probably happened
in the early eighties and nineties when the sport was
reaching its highest level of popularity without the Internet.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
And yeah, and people yet being coached by someone was
being coached by someone that was outside of your like
locally physically located team. It was a very uncommon yeah
back then, in part because it just wasn't easy.
Speaker 4 (31:06):
Yeah, you know, the communication.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Yeah, it just wasn't easy the minutes. Yeah, And so
you had a whole world where where, you know, one
group of people are trying to figure out how to
have best to implement some kind of progressive overload system
for themselves, and another group of people who are trying
to figure out how to implement a Westside template, which
was not as prescriptive as they thought it was going
to be for themselves, and there was you know, very
(31:34):
very few people to to tell you how to do
those things, especially on a workout by workout basis.
Speaker 4 (31:44):
You have to look for a gym like this.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
You have to look for a gym like a Third
Street or.
Speaker 4 (31:48):
I guess like a bar Brigade.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
Right.
Speaker 4 (31:49):
I don't know if they really had coaching like that.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
I think that as far as I know, they still
maybe only had one coach. I don't know, I could
be wrong. I think Stanley was coach coaching there. I'm
not sure what the but.
Speaker 4 (32:01):
Yeah, it'd have to be something that's not a commercial gym.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
Yeah, because you're not going to find coaches in a
commercial gym like you're going to make and they're going
to discourage it to a commercial gym. They because they
have their personal trainers.
Speaker 3 (32:12):
That work for them.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
They do anything that are allowed to train there. You're
taking money out of their pocket.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
Yeah, if you are.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
If you're anybody who you know, you see them and
you're like, hey, are you a coach? But at a
gym like this, there's multiple coaches. There are multiple people
here who you know are coaches outside of their nine
to five or whatever they do on a regular basis.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
I am. I was on vacation last week and I
had to go to a commercial gym for the first
time in years for whatever reason other than I don't
know what what the reason would be, other than the
fact that it's that it's cheap. Like I've been paying
twenty bucks a month for twenty four hour fitness since
(32:54):
the late nineties, so they have made their money off me,
and I had not stepped into one in since pre pandemic.
And I have to tell you it's not the greatest experience.
I understand why people can be fine with it, part
of because it's cheap and part because it's kind of okay, right,
(33:16):
I mean, and if you go to the same one
or the same few, you know what they have in
terms of machines, in terms of free weights or whatever.
But I don't know how anyone has a serious powerlifting
career in a commercial gym because it's just not conducive
to it. And I don't mean like you have to,
(33:39):
Like we have kilo sets, we have all that stuff.
We have combo racks, we have basically competition equipment for
people to use. I don't think that's necessary. But always
benching off a non adjustable bench on a slick ass bar,
it doesn't really do anything for you. Or trying to
deadlift in a place where you against slick ass bars
(34:01):
bench bars, I don't, you know. I mean, the machine
stuff is nice, but it's but it's often not it's
often broken or it's old. I don't understand. But still
they're crowded too, I mean, that's that's the other downside
is that they're crowded, so you have to kind of wait.
If you're in, if you're if you're working with programming
(34:25):
from someone and there's a certain sequence that you're theoretically
supposed to follow, you may be waiting around a long
time to get on a particular machine or stuff is
just not the Like the Pulley ratios are different than
what you're used to, so you can't use the weights
that you anticipate.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
Yeah, yeah, And I think that's just the The crux
of trying to get into a sport with any sort
of seriousness or any sort of training with any sort
of seriousness is you do have to go to the
right environment.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
You do have to.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Have the tools that you need available to you to
do what you're trying to do, so to bring us
back to the original point of the testing and and
so there's.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
Not a lot of time. There's not a lot.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Of money in being at the top of your game
in the USPA, the USAPL, winning IPF Worlds. Myself, I'm
new to this for about two years and I wasn't
even aware of this USAPL post. So, but I will
watch nationals and I will watch IPF you know Worlds
and things like that. It's a very niche strength sport.
(35:29):
There there's not a lot of optics out there. If
you are into powerlifting, you most likely follow a couple
people like I follow SSJ Bob or LS McLain because
he's currently the champion and masters in my weight class,
and that's who I'm trying to like reach, right, But
I don't follow a ton of other you know, champions
(35:51):
or people who have won nationals. And I know there's
a lot of other people out there who do, but
it's usually people who are into powerlifting. It's not just
your average kid who goes to a commercial gym and
is looking to look like a guy like Seabum, right,
he's going to follow the Bradley Martins, he's going to
follow Seabum, he's going to follow a lot of these
other guys. So to use peds. To use peds to
(36:16):
circumvent the rules surrounding the untested federations while you're competing
in a tested federation. The benefit is just really not there.
Are you going to get more people to coach? If
you get more people to coach, you have more work,
you know, So now you have to film your content
like I said, and then coach all these people. And
that money isn't creating so much wealth for you that
(36:37):
you are able to retire at the age of forty.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
It's paying your bills.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
You know. And if you average it out over the
time that you have to work and not make much
of anything at all with the you know whatever, you know,
your boom time is, you know, you're it sort of
evens out to you know, probably less than minimum wage
over time.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
Over time, Yeah, it probably does, to be honest, with
all the work that you're putting in. Yeah, And while
it's a steady income at times, there could be times
that clients decide they don't want to work with you
anymore for whatever reason, there could be times that your
views go down. So whatever benefit you're getting from a
couple one hundred thousand views to maybe a million views
or so on Instagram starts to decline. You know, it's
(37:23):
a very very labile or up and down business when
it comes to social media and a social media presence
and influencing.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
And there's just a recency bias.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
Yeah, there's a recency bias. There's all a lot of
different factors that bring the income in. So getting to
the top of your game in that by using something
that circumvents the USADA rules or the USAPL rules, what
really are you getting out of it?
Speaker 1 (37:48):
At the end, I'm just going to put a button
on this and say that I think that the real
perform enhancement is environment. Yes, training, environment, I agree, and
to a certain extent, like the environment that you experience
(38:09):
when you're when you're in an inside a competition. Yes,
how the competition is run, and and the kind of
support that you get that you bring with you, that
the crowd gives you, that that competitors give you. That's
that's the real performance enhancement to my mind. A little
(38:30):
bit Pollyanna, a little bit of soapbox.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
But but I will say we already have performance enhancement
in all realms of all sports now because we do
have the ability to look at longitudinal studies and see
what works. There's guys out there, I mean he did
use peds, but doctor Mike, there's Jeff nipperd and they
all talk about the science behind lifting. And while there's
(38:54):
you know, this big argument of like science based versus
you know, old school lifters, we have that science.
Speaker 4 (38:59):
Now.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
We have studies that show if you eat this way,
if you sleep this way, if you train this way,
you can have a bigger advantage than training you know
how we used to train, or the old school training,
And to me, that's performance enhancement too, because we have
access to that. We have access to This is the
nutrition that you're supposed to be on. This is how
much sleep that you're supposed to get. These are the
(39:20):
training methods that you're supposed to use. Whereas back in
the day, I mean in the early nineties, you could
open up a magazine with Ronnie Coleman on the cover
and it would tell you these things, but you had
to go to the store and purposely look for that magazine.
Speaker 1 (39:33):
And it may or not have been Ronnie who put
that together.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
Yea, And it may not have been Ronnie who put
that together. And you may be getting bad advice, and
you might and the magazine might just be trying to
sell you a supplement that doesn't actually work.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
At the end of the day, Well, magazines are just
created to sell you things. That's I mean, that's the content.
The information is the lure, but the actual pitch.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
But all the information that we have that tells us
how to get to where we want to go, that
is that I will get on my soapbox and says
that is the true performance enhancing Now because now your
average person can do things like use a macro calculator online.
They can easily access, you know, a food scale that
will tell them how much food they're consuming and what
(40:17):
to consume. And they can even get apps that will
give them like a good breakdown of what they should
eat meal by meal, calorie by calorie, macro by macro.
Back in the day, we had to like look all
this stuff up at the library, then write it down
and bring it home, you know, so there was no
access to this stuff. Now it's in your hand in
a six by five. You know, little slab of glass
(40:39):
and metal, and that is the true performance enhancing. So
why would you need something on top of that? If
your recovery is good, if your nutrition is good, if
your training is good. That I don't really understand.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
Yeah, that's not not when the juice is not is
worth the squeeze, as they say, yeah, really juice literally squeeze.
Speaker 3 (41:00):
Think.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
Well, to wrap this one up right here, I have
something else that I want to talk to Josh about.
But I just had an idea while we were talking
about a way to do that differently than I had
had been anticipating. So we will get to that. Okay, Josh,
can people find you?
Speaker 2 (41:16):
They can find me at Amazing Jay rab on Instagram
or Josh jar on Facebook.
Speaker 4 (41:21):
Sebas I am Sebastian Underscore brand, Bilo on ig I.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
Am at the Jim mcdion all the social media. This
show is fifty percent facts. Four percent is a word,
fifty is just numbers. Fifty percent facts is a spreaker
pining podcast and associate one of that ourt media on
the Obscure Celebrity Network and we'll talk to you next time.
Speaker 4 (41:40):
Oh, thank you,
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