Episode 157 - Matt Wenning: The Mechanics of Strength and Power

In Episode 157, we are fortunate to get some time speaking with Matt Wenning. Although Matt has tremendous experience in the sport of powerlifting and the physical preparation of athletes, he also has extensive experience in the restoration, repair and engineering of motor vehicles. We talk about his current automotive projects, as well as how he translates those skills and concepts to strength training. The details of Matt’s education and career development are inspiring, as well as his focus and discipline around becoming a better athlete and coach.

Matt Wenning is a three-time world champion powerlifter. He holds a Master’s Degree in Biomechanics and a Bachelor of Science in Exercise Science from Ball State University. Matt grew up in Indiana, raised by a hard-working, middle class family. When he was six years old, Matt was hit by a car going 50 mph, which took a toll on his physical development. After undergoing 12 months of full leg casts and 12 months in a boot, his legs were underdeveloped. Four years later, Matt discovered lifting. It allowed him to see he was capable of anything, despite what he had gone through during recovery from his injuries. In the beginning, lifting was just a stepping stone to the goal of football. But it became a much larger pathway in his life. Lifting inspired Matt to attain higher education and become a strength coach. He excelled with a 3.9 GPA.

Matt has been an adviser for the NFL, an international speaker for the NSCA, as well as a contractor for border patrol, airborne divisions, and the pentagon. He has directed over 6000 troops in strength, conditioning, and wellness for the U.S. Army including Infantry and Ranger Divisions.

You can find out more information on Matt Wenning below:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wenningstrong/

Website: https://wenningstrength.com/

The D&D Fitness Radio podcast is available at the following locations for downloadable audio, including:

iTunes – https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/d-d-fitness-radio-podcast/id1331724217

iHeart Radio – https://www.iheart.com/podcast/dd-fitness-radio-28797988/

Spreaker.com – https://www.spreaker.com/show/d-and-d-fitness-radios-show

Spotify – https://open.spotify.com/show/5Py2SSPA4mntNwYRm0Opri

You can reach both Don and Derek at the following locations:

Don Saladino: http://www.DonSaladino.com
Twitter and Instagram - @DonSaladino
YouTube - http://www.youtube.com/donsaladino

Derek M. Hansen: http://www.SprintCoach.com
Twitter and Instagram - @DerekMHansen
YouTube - http://youtube.com/derekmhansen

Episode Transcript

(00:14):
Welcome to the D and D FitnessRadio podcast, brought to you by your
hosts Don Saladino from New York Cityand Derek Hanson from Vancouver, Canada.
Awesome, So you guys got aminute to catch up? I apologize,
Yeah, yeah, yeah, No, it's cool hearing about his his mechanical

(00:36):
stuff. Yeah. Well, that'sfun. That's kind That's what I want
to do today, Matt. So, Derek, Matt and I become good
buddies over the last few months throughGunnar Peterson. Matt's a Westside barbelle guy.
He's got a good online business going. Matt. Kind of what we
do here is we make this moreabout just a fun conversation and then from
I feel like we never pushed product. We never really died in and sound

(01:00):
hard salesy. We just like towe'd like to interview really cool people and
the next thing you know, they'reinterested and they like go to your site
and I'm like, I always sawsell the stuff, and I feel like
that always at a longer way,Matt, Derek has turned into one of
my closest buddies. Ironically, helives in Vancouver and I never I only
see him a couple of times ayear, but we've been running. We're
probably one hundred and fifty episodes onthis podcast, and to be honest with

(01:23):
you, it's really raw. It'sjust Derek having a conversation. Derek came
into New York City years ago whenI had my club and Derek trained under
Charlie Francis, who you know,Charlie Well trained Ben Johnson and yeah and
all this shit. So Derek's inmy eyes, one of the most well
known and one of the smartest runningmechanics coaches on the planet. So like

(01:47):
anytime I have people interested in runningmechanics, I flowed him to Derek.
We do a lot of collaboration together. And that's what we've really found is
we have like our unofficial family ofpeople like you realize my power left guy
right, like, and it's justit's nice to have because then someone really
wants to dive into things. Butlike, oh no, you need to
talk to Matt winning twenty hundred plustotal with gear on and you know,

(02:10):
twenty four hundred without And this guyis what I love about Matt is he's
not as linear with his training asmost West Side guys. I feel like
they are and he's doing lateral sledgedrags and you know, sprinter step ups
and all these things that we promotea lot of. But now Matt's putting
his flare on training check him out, and we suddenly have created this really
humble, nice group of coaches thatjust all want to see each other win.

(02:34):
And that's why you get here.Yeah, it's it's solid, So
let's just dive into it. So, first thing, like Derek and I
always laugh, like there's never anyfancy intros, never any bullshit. I
mean, the first thing, I'mreally interested in this before maybe Matt winning
like one of the strongest human beingsever lived, but like I'm more interested
in, like as interested as Iam in that. Your obsession with cars

(02:57):
is pretty freaking cool. Yeah,where did this come from? So my
dad was a diesel mechanic and sohe was always tinkering on cars and semis
and so even I remember at fouryears old my dad put me in a
welding outfit and a helmet and havingme welding equipment. When I was like
four years old, I'd have noidea what the hell I was doing,

(03:17):
and I actually did pretty well atit, and he's like, well,
some of the bits you do prettywell with that. So I started when
he was home on the weekends,I would go with him to the U
to the garage that he would keephis semis because we had lifts and every
kind of you know, pneumatical toolyou could imagine, and we would just
we would just work on stuff.And I remember working on semis before working

(03:40):
on cars, and so I alwaysloved the smell of diesel, and I
always loved the simplicity of diesel enginesas far as you know, they fire
on compression, not on utilization ofspark blooks, so they run on just
compressing the gas and air. Soit's very interesting on how they worked because

(04:00):
I was always enumerated by those engineswhen I was a kid, and the
sound of that da da da dada da. You know, it just
had a completely different sound than agasoline motor. And then as you grow
up, you know, defoil wentfast when I was a kid, so
at least it wasn't popular to havefast evils, So you know, I
dove into having a Grand National.I remember the Grand National. I remember

(04:23):
the Grand Nationals. Yeah, thosewere all like the super tinker cars.
That the first ones you could actuallytune. And so I had an eighty
seven T Type which was a silverGrand National and got it to run like
twelve seconds with like fifteen hundred dollars, And that was kind of the start.
And then I went into a littlebit of a little rider phase because
that was kind of the culture atthe time. And I had a seventy

(04:45):
nine Cadillac on hydraulics and then gotrid of that and got a eighty seven
Suburban and did the lifted full wheeldrive thing, and I got to cut
you off. My first vehicle wasa ninety I think it was a ninety
two suburban. Obviously it was used. I got my first maybe in ninety
one, I can't remember. Iput a three in suspension lift on it,

(05:08):
and after put thirty three by twelvefives BFG mud terrains on it.
I even remember my outlaw rims andI just remember, you know what I'm
talking about. I mean, therewas just you were Yeah, I mean,
it's just there was something so muchfun about You could park a Ferrari
my driveway and I'd be less interested. Like my dream car would be to
rebuild like an International Scout. Yeah, like that, you know, just

(05:29):
old. Yeah. So I waskind of in that middle because you know,
growing up as a kid, likethe Lamborghini Tutash was the ultimate car
front remember the cannonball runs and allthat stuff. But you know, I
grew up in a small count Indianand nobody had that shit. So it
was all four wheel drives and GrandNationals and shit like that. So the
first car I really dug into hardis that that suburban. I put a

(05:51):
three D three stroker motor in it. We did, you know, thirty
five six inch lift when I didlike double double shocks on it, fearing
stabilizers and uh, you know,it do one hundred and twenty five miles
an hour. And it was abig four or suburban and we would just
go out and bud the shit outof that thing. And so I ended

(06:12):
up getting the shit out of itin the tree. And that's when I
started to learned how to do bodywork. And that's actually what I'm doing today
on my ninety two Dodge. Somy comments twelve thousand I'm building has one
thousand and sixty horse power and almosttwo thousand foot pounds of tor on forties.
So god, yeah, I've beenbuilding it for six years. We
just got the frame powder coated.I'll send you some pictures later. Oh

(06:35):
you got to send out, Derek. Are you are you any are you
much of a gearhead being in Vancouveror are you just what you're saying to
Matt that we have. My fatherhas his original sixty five Mustang he bought,
you know, in sixty five,and he's restored it a couple of
times, and we do it.We did a final one and just had
some disc brakes add it. Sowe're just trying to get that up to

(06:58):
speed. So basically my son candrive it right. So it's a nice
project to have. The heirlooms aresuper cool because the truck that I have
is somewhat of an heirloom. So, long story short, the ninety two
comes twelve out that I'm working on. My dad wanted so bad. He
calls my mom at the dealership.I mean, he's signing the papers.

(07:20):
My Mom's like, look, wejust had another kid. We can't afford
this truck, you know, blahblah blah. So we ends up walking
out and not getting it, superpissed off, and four months later he
finds out he's terminal with cancer andnever gets the truck. So I spent
probably about six years in twenty twelvelooking for one. I found one in
Utah that had no rust on it, and I brought it back to Ohio

(07:43):
stuffed at my garage and just keptsaving my spare change until I could just
take it completely, apartment build itthe way I wanted it, you know,
and I got. So this istwenty twelve, so this and you
and you started working on this,and are you almost complete? Yeah,
it's closed so once now I'm workingon the cab right now and saying,
then everything down and smoothing the firewall, so all of the old air conditioning

(08:05):
pieces and everything that used to gointo the firewell we completely smoothed out because
we're doing new technology like air conditioningand all that stuff. So you want
to make it look like it camethat way. So we cut the entire
firewell out, welded it all backin, and then put only the inserts
and excerpt of stuff that needs tobe in it now, so when you
open the hood, you'll look inand it look like it was built that

(08:26):
way. Awesome, So like thisis so, I mean, this has
always been like a deep passion ofyours. I mean, you've obviously had
two, right, I mean powerlifting. I mean, I don't want to
say even though it was kind oflike a job, that was also a
passion, right, So I mean, do you feel like that one was
an escape from the other. Doyou felt like you because a lot of
times I feel like people that aregreat at things need to have that one

(08:50):
little escape, and was that itwas it like, all right, well
my job and my grid is aboutpowerlifting and doing those totals, but yeah,
my vehicles was away from you orloxa little bit. I think the
initial part of it was what drewme to power of thing was it was
me against the weights when I wasa kid, and probably mostly because of
my dad passing away, I didn'thave very good social skills, probably because

(09:11):
I was dealing with that at thetime. So what drove me into power
la thing and working on cars wasthat it was a singular process and I
didn't have to have good social skillsto do that. And then once I
decided I wanted to be as tradecoach, I knew that that had to
change. So that's when I wentto Ball State and started working with athletes

(09:33):
and fine tuning and owning my coachingcapacity because at that time I was already
mentioned at eighteen years old, Icould do two twenty five for forty five
reps, no big deal. Andthat got me on the news at the
local Indianapolis station and the head trainedcoach, John Torrey from the Colts saw
that and offered me a job shadowand he sits me down the first day

(09:56):
and he's like, well, whatdo you want to do with this?
I said, well, I wantyour job and he laughed, you know,
and he's like, well, it'sgoing to take a lot more than
just being a big, strong guyto take my job. And I'm like,
what was it going to take?And long story short, he starts
talking to me about having to goto school and getting the masters, and
at first I got the you know, the wind out of my sales because
I'm like, I'm not a schoolguy. I didn't do well in high

(10:20):
school due to my dad, andI started to turn it back around my
senior and junior year, but itjust wasn't enough to bring my GPA up
to be college material. And sohe's like, well, the school that
is your local school, which wasball State University was the top school in
the country for extra science at thetime, so the dints were perfect.

(10:41):
And long story short, I goto acquite a school and I get rejected
due to my high school grades,and just so happened, the administrative director
worked out at the YMCA where Itrained. I didn't even know him,
and he goes through, that bigstrong kid. It's over at the why
aren't you And I'm like yeah.He goes starts to asking me about createam
mono hydrate because this is ninety eight. It was a new supplement and I

(11:01):
was like, well, you know, it goes into the cell and it
brings more water with the cell andwith that brings ADP. I started talking
to him about I've been reading thisstuff and he's like, you're really into
this. I'm like, well,yeah, that's kind of what I want
to do for my profession. Andjust so happened, he speaks me in
under the radar on probation and myfirst SeMet I get like a three point
nine GPA and that was when thecareer path started. But you know,

(11:28):
I was told in the high schoolI wasn't polished material, you know,
all those different things, and thenended up not being true, graduating with
a three point eighty five en biomechanicsunder doctor Kwan, which actually invented motion
analysis. So there were a lotof different properties that just the cards felt

(11:48):
at the right time, at theright place for me. I mean,
that's amazing. It was your Imean, you said you wanted to get
that guy's job, But was therethis deep drive to be like a strength
and conditioning coach for a pro teamor where there's some other things that interest
you as well. At first,you know, you're so tunnel visioned because

(12:11):
you're from a small town. AllI saw was ending up with culture Indiana
Pacers or Chicago Bears, you know, so I didn't realize that the scope
of things was so much broader.I didn't realize you could be a strength
coach in other places. I mean, we didn't even have a strained coach.
At our high school. We hadmore state championships than any I believe,

(12:33):
any high school in the country.Muncey Central Bearcats. That was the
movie that Oosiers was based on.And long story short, you know,
in the nineties, trains conditioning atthe high school level was still kind of
in its infancy and even in theearly nineties, there still weren't Every college
didn't have a high I didn't havea trained coach yet. So it wasn't

(12:56):
until the kind of the invention ofthe Internet that I I started to realize
that there were way more job opportunitiesthan just being a pro But I looked
at it this way. If Ican shoot to be a pro strength coach,
well, shit, I can fallanywhere. So if my idea is
to get a master's degree, andmy idea is to be as strong as
I could be, you know,the strongest guy in the world, why

(13:18):
wouldn't those two things to match upto being a pro strength coach in my
mind? So for me, itwas trying to shoot to the stars and
then land where you land. Ithink that's where people screw up as they
see maybe two or three steps theymight be able to accomplish, And I
was always looking at fifteen twenty stepsahead with a smart program and an idea
how to get there, you know, And that led me into multiple areas.

(13:41):
I mean, I don't know ofanybody that in the mid two thousands
was doing tactical strength conditioning at thelevel that I was doing it at,
and it just so happened to fallin my hands, being in the right
place, in the right time,with the right degrees and the right experience.
So again, I think, youknow, trying to be the highest
level strength coach can lead you anywhere. If your goal is to be a

(14:03):
high school strength coach, it doesn'talways necessarily mean you'll make it pro.
But if your goal is a prostrength coach, you might be at the
biggest high school in the country.So for me, it was always about
setting goals that were for most peopleunattainable. I was willing to move anywhere
to do it. I was willingto step out of my comfort zone and
go to college, which I wastold my whole life I wasn't good enough

(14:24):
for. So uh yeah, Imean that's just kind of how it all
started and evolved. So, now, did you go get your master's degree
before you went to the West Side. No. So in ninety nine I
go to the Ronold Classic and GeorgeHalbert had just hit a seven hundred and
sixty six bench press at two fortytwo bodyweight. This is an equipment,

(14:48):
but still I watched George do asix twenty five bench at two thirty bodyweight
raw. So this guy was justa freak and I saw him hit this
number. And I've been reading Louis'sarticles and he's talking about eating faster to
get stronger, and he's using bandsand change, well not bands yet,
chains and things of that nature.And I'm like, man, this guy's
way ahead of what I know.I need to get ahold of this dude.

(15:09):
So just so happened. I'm walkinginto the Arnold Classic, I'm watching
the bench press contests. I goback out into the I don't know what
you call it, like the areawhere it's not the Expo, and Louie's
walking out with Dave Kate and KittyPatterson and all these heavy hitters, Rob
Flusner and all these guys that wereWest Side legends, and I was too

(15:31):
nervous to go up and talk tohim. My buddy just cracked me right
in the ribs and his elbow.He's like, get your fucking ass over
there and talk to this guy.You're benching five hundred pounds as a teenager.
You know you need to know whathe knows. And so I get
the guts and go up and talkto him. And you got to remember,
I'm not just talking to Louis,I'm surrounded by the old time legends.
Yeah, I mean when you're surroundedby the entourage of dudes that were

(15:54):
not only insanely strong, most ofthem at that time were, you know,
immense drug dealers, hardcore to thebone type, original West Side Columbus
hard asses that you know, gotinto power Latin from fighting and from just
impressing Louis, from just being abadass on the streets. And so it's

(16:15):
kind of like walking into a Hell'sAngels bar and trying to prove yourself at
eighteen years old, you'd better bea tough dude. Well, what did
you say, were you re?Just like, hey, Louis, I'm
eighteen and I bene five hundred poundsbecause I heard that's almost good enough.
Like Louis was, he wanted totrain world champion, So if he saw
you were eighteen putting up that typeof weight, he's gonna be curious.

(16:36):
Well, so at first he didn'tbelieve me, and then he went and
looked me up. And I didn'tknow this until a couple about a month
later, because I had to getthe balls to go over there and train.
So I go, hey, myname is Matt winning. I just
won the World championships as a teenager, just benched five hundred, squatted like
a little under like six eighty five, and he's like, yeah, you're
pretty strong, wants you to comeby the gym sometime. So I ended
up reaching out to him about threemonths later. He actually had looked me

(16:59):
up to see if I was bullshitting, and I was a big kid.
I graduated high school at two fiftyand so he looked me up and he
saw that I actually had one.So when he invited me over to the
gym, he put me with theI wouldn't say the strongest crew of guys
in the bench brethers, but theguys that were all well over five hundred,
and I ended up beating like threeout of the five guys. And
a couple of accessory exercises, onebeing a on the four tricep extension.

(17:26):
We're using ninety pounds dumbbells paused onthe floor for tritep extensions and everybody else
gets like ten or eleven and Iget sixteen. And when I did that,
Louis looked at the weakest guy inthe group and kicked him out of
the gym permanently. He goes,you just let a teenager come in here
and kick your fucking aster, notwestside material, get out of the gym,

(17:47):
and I had to take his place. And that's what I realized.
I was in a completely different scenario. This was not a gym, This
was one ball to the wall,hardcore, and so that that really woke
my attention, even though I wasvery driven in waste at the time,
to realizing that I was in anarea that would be snapped apart from you

(18:08):
in a heartbeat if you weren't willingto bring one hundred percent. So that's
what my first inclination was of goinginto the next level of power thing,
which was going into collegiate collegiate levelranks. And at that time, within
one year of being the collegiate ranks, I had every American record and was
ranked in the pro level as acollege student, you know, and getting

(18:33):
strade A's. So Louis really latchedon to me at the time because he
not only knew that I was physicallycapable and mentally tough enough to withstand that
type of coaching, but I wasalso insanely smart and well read, so
he knew I was a huge advantageto his program because stuff that he might
have trouble reading or writing, Icould come in and help because of the

(18:56):
schooling that I had. Plus itgave him more credibility with the academic community
because now as I graduate, heas a person lifting there with a master's
degree in biomechanics from the top professorsin the world. So for him it
was it was a you know,multiple birds with one stone type ideal.

(19:19):
I mean, that's very interesting.Yeah, Like, just just before I
forget, I remember al Vermeil sayinghow he was brought up. His father
was a mechanic and race cars too, So there's there's definitely some compatibilities here
with the two professions. Yeah,yeah, that's that's amazing. And and

(19:41):
at some point are you like,okay, I'm going to continued competing or
was it easy enough to do bothcompete but also develop yourself professionally as an
educator and an influencer. And thatwas the toughest part with all of it,
because as an introvert, also pulledout of that from being a decent
coach. You know, I feellike I had some of the hardest things

(20:07):
in my in my corner to workwith trying to be a world champion in
parlating when I really was a littletall, like you know, like Don
Saladino will tell you, being sixfoot one is not ideal for being a
world champion parla firm. So alot of the guys I would be at
the World Championships and guys were fiveto nine, five ten, three oh

(20:29):
five. I'm six foot one,three oh five, three oh seven,
and I'm beating these guys in squatand bench because my technical efficiency is so
good and I'm willing to take thelong road to get better. So I
found that, yes, balancing beinga world class competitor and also building a
massive business was very difficult, tothe point that in my mid late thirties

(20:55):
I had to choose and win thebusiness route. Is because my body was
still holding together. I don't haveany injuries, but I knew. You
know, when you're sleeping thirteen hoursa day, you're taking minimal work in
order to recover from your training,and you do that for fifteen years straight
in your twenties and thirties, you'reat max. I mean, I would
train my ass off for an entireyear for my bench to go from six

(21:18):
oh six to six fifteen, andthat's when you know the big games are
gone and you're fighting for pounds orounces, and you know at that particular
time you can only run your carat two hundred and fifty miles an hour
before it blows up. And soI opted at thirty seven to say the
competitive nature of power. The thingwas done for me and I had learned

(21:41):
what hell it was going to bring. And that's what I felt was a
very limiting factor for a lot ofcoaches, and I felt wasn't a limiting
factor in the Soviet Union. Soif you read a lot of Burkas Chancey,
and you read a lot of Mevdevand you read a lot of Vorbief,
those guys were all medalists in theOlympics and then became coaches and then

(22:02):
got their PhDs. And that's whatI wanted to be because what I felt
like in America is we have allof these experts that have never really put
their own ass on the line,and then they only know what they read,
which still doesn't mean that they Imean, I'm sure al Vamil was
not a thousand pounds squad, andI'm okay with that, and I'm not
saying that he's in some way probablynot better than me. But my point

(22:25):
being is this always gives you anadvantage to know what the athlete is going
through, and if you've done somethingat the most intensive and highest peak level,
you just have a different ideal ofnot only what an athlete is capable
of, but also coaching cues andmental processes of thought to be able to
get an athlete to go above andbeyond what they think is capable because you've

(22:48):
broken all of your mental and physicalbarriers, all right, So this becomes
more and more interesting. I mean, I thought I knew a lot about
you here, but like I thinkit's wild how you know you go in
obviously master's degree west Side, whichmost people listening to this, I don't
think you're really going to understand whatthis place was really about. I mean,

(23:11):
this was this was when when yousay dungeon, when you say hellhole.
I'm not saying that that as aI'm not saying that as an insult
or Louis. I actually went tosee Louis Simmons speak at a high school.
I drove to Philadelphia, I wantto say, probably back in two
thousand and six, two thousand andseven to listen to him talk. I
did. I was gonna car threehours to sit in some cafeteria and listen

(23:34):
to him speak for three hours,because I even recognized then that there was
I mean, there was a lotof brilliance to things that he spoke about.
But in a way, I've runthe conjugate method years ago, and
I've run your program a little bitmore recently, and I'm having a great
time with it. I'm really enjoying. My body feels great. There were

(23:56):
things though, that you tweaked abit differently, right, like this was
not You can not turn around andsay I am taking Louis program and I'm
just putting it under my sleeve andI'm running it with it. I liked
the variability. I actually like howyou waive the volume almost pretty much every
week, who every so week,every few weeks. I'm noticing what you're

(24:17):
doing with deloading the spine on certainweeks, how you might be someone from
there's there's a lot of there's thisfork in the road between me and Louis,
and my system is devoted and developedmore Soviet, and Louis system has
developed a little bit more Bulgarian,and the Bulgarian system was that we're going
to find the best athlete and we'regoing to give them the most cutthroat program.

(24:41):
And I'm not saying that Louis didn'ttrain smart, don't get me wrong.
But what I'm saying is that Louishad no problem injuring you to figure
out what your limits were, wherethe Soviets realized that injury and damaging hundreds
of people to find only one ortwo was not conducive for statistical data was
also not conducing for creating a worldGlove of team, because they wanted to

(25:04):
be able to study hundreds of Masterof athletes to be able to understand how
training actually worked, whereas the Bulgariansystem works, but it works for the
bo Jacksons. And so Louis wasvery heaving set on trying to make sure
that he could try to find thebo Jackson as a system, Whereas the
Russians wanted more people versus you know, more research versus more understanding of the

(25:30):
human body and how it actually evolves. So the Soviet and Bulgarian system were
very similar until about nineteen seventy three, and then they split apart, and
what you found was Louis would usecompetition in the gym and he was start
getting away from percentages and recovery topush the mindset of westside barbell. Whereas

(25:52):
I started looking at the Soviets trainingso much smarter three nineteen seventy three,
seventy six and plus, especially includingthe Eastern Germans, that my system started
to develop more on recovery. Soas I started reading more and more books
that either Louis didn't see or justdidn't dig through enough, you start realizing
that at the elite level, recoverybecomes the most important tool, not the

(26:15):
training, whereas in the beginning inintermediate stages, training is the most important
tool, and then you just runthat into the ground tone injury or old
age or you know, burnout occurs. The Soviets were able to withstand athletes
in much longer quadrenials or Olympic cycles, so you know, a Russian team

(26:36):
member would get up to an Olympiccycle level of training and they would hold
that for anywhere from two to threeOlympics, versus the Bulgarians would get a
guy in the Olympics and then hewas trashed. So economic wise, the
Soviets program was much more fought outand much more individualized, whereas the West

(26:57):
Side system is kind of cut throat. You know, you fit the system,
whereas the Russians make the system fitthe athlete. So I started reading
a lot more on Bonder, Chuckand Mevdev. It started seeing these three
and four week ways with d loadsautomatically built in. And this is where
Louis and I would have huge argumentson how much downtime an athlete would need

(27:21):
in the month in order to absorbthe training. So the problem is it's
kind of like eating food. Youcan eat all the calories you want,
but it's not what you eat,it's what you absorb, and it's what
you you know advantageously use. Youknow, you can have five hundred grams
of protein in your body, butif your body can only utilize one hundred
and sixty five, it doesn't matter. And so that's when you start realizing

(27:45):
that there's just so much more.I started with my higher level understanding of
training. I started understanding that therewas so much more involved in just the
gym, recovery, nutrition, youknow, even meditation in some ways,
flexibility and mobility. You never sawguys trenching at West Type barball. You
never saw winning warm ups at Westernbarbill. We would warm up with the

(28:06):
plastic limit, smash it to pieces, and then do three to four accentory
exercise and that boards I started realizingthat Medde with the Dynamo Club was utilizing
a fifteen minute warm up that wasdedicated towards weak link parameters. And then
I started realizing through it some otherRussian pecks that the minimal amount of percentages

(28:29):
or RPE that you need to getbetter was four. So I started plugging
all these different pieces together and startrealizing that they're telling me to do winning
warm ups in these different manuals ifI'm just warm enough to plug it all
together. So actually, you know, not to cut you off, but
the winning warm up for me,for most people who don't really understand,
and I'm going to give you anexample. An upper body day, you

(28:49):
know, he might be focusing onareas like triceps, he might be focusing
on the postior chain like say,you know, a lot pull down,
and you know, you might evenbe focusing on some form of like you
know, an unstable press or oror loading the the press. Maybe a
little bit differently, like a reversegrip bench press or doing something a little

(29:11):
bit out of you know, someone'scomfort zone. It's not traditional, but
the repetition is very high. Mattentypically likes to program it around twenty to
twenty five reps. He'll fluctuate anywherefrom three to four rounds. I hope
I'm being a good salesperson for youright now, but you know, three
to four rounds and what I actuallyit contradicts a bit of what a lot

(29:32):
of us are taught when we're evengetting into powerless being like, oh no,
like you're going to eat into yourYou're gonna eat into your energy and
you're not going to be able tohit a max effort lift. And Derek
not to jump. But this iswhy I want to connect these two.
Derek taught me this with a lotof my lower body training. He was
getting me into tempo runs and hewas having me doing things that were short,
quick, brisk, not one hundredpercent max, maybe getting in seventy

(29:56):
percent where I'm getting my feet.It's just to be very bringing off the
belt, fifteen second turnovers, fortyfive second walks. The next you know,
four minutes you're done and what Iwas finding was nine out of ten
times I was maybe closer to tenout of ten times I was going down
on to my lift and I waseither hitting a pr or I was just
feeling more fresh and better. Sowhen you were introducing that to me,

(30:18):
I was like, Oh, thismakes sense, and then I did it,
and then I felt like, holyshit, you start reading a bunch
of shit on post activation potentiation.It makes all the sense in the world.
You have to prime the essential nervoussystem to function the different tissues,
especially in multi joint movements in aorchestrated fashion. So if I have a

(30:38):
quadru step to hamstring and balance andI do one hundred hamstring pearls before I
squat, my hamstrings are going tobe more potentiated into that compound movement to
activate, therefore getting more chance tonot only have better technique and more safety,
but also higher numbers. And that'swhere people just don't realize and what
it really comes down to, andthe reason most coaches or used to frown

(31:03):
away from that type of shit wasthe fact that their GPP or conditioning wasn't
high enough. If you're in goodshape, what does ur RP to enforce
that the twenty five on three exerciseyou have any bearing on maxing. It
doesn't it feels good. If itactually feels good, you're going to lift
and you feel like, to behonest with you feel like your joints feel
better, you feel like your tensand ligaments get a bit stronger. You're

(31:26):
actually getting from a from a highpurchase standpoint, like you will see an
improvement. And if your goal isto get a little bit leaner, like
this isn't gonna work against you.Like they're really I don't see the downside
of it. But again, peopleget their ass in the year about science
and they want to make these argumentsand I'm like, I don't know.

(31:47):
You know, yeah, the big, the big hyperchaphy thing that most people
need to be worried about in allreality is ligament tenon and soft tissue hyperchaphy
and an adaptation and training because ifyou hurt a joint, you can't train
them or how strong your muscles are. So if you get your ligamint,
tendons and soft tissue adapted to highvolume training, they can withstand all kinds

(32:08):
of maxes because they have the volumecapacity. And that's for people don't really
realize. They think muscle strength,but there's all these different key components in
between that that allow that to happenfor a long enough period of time that
you can actually see high levels ofbiprochrophe or high levels of strength, or
high levels of fat loss. Becauseif those key connectile tissues cannot hold on

(32:34):
or sustain the workouts that you're providing, none of it matters. Okay,
I'm curious, Matt, what informationdid you pull from Bodnerchuck. I was
up, I was teaching some coursesin kam Loops last weekend, and I
know they had a twenty one yearold who just won the World Championships in
the hammer throw and they all,you know, Bodnerchuck is kind of the

(32:57):
source there. He's moved there likefifteen twenty years ago. Yeah, they've
just had success. So I'm curiouswhat have you pulled from him? Well,
with having the books right in frontof me to go yeah here,
here, here, this reference,I can tell you exactly one thing that
I can remember right off the topof my head. Bonderchuck with throwers had
one hundred strength exercises that he wouldrotate so he didn't specify the strength in

(33:21):
one particular range. She made theathletes strong and all angles and all muscle
groups. So he was kind ofthe branch, kind of divided or the
preacher to bring conjugate to throwing inthe Soviet system. And with that being
said, he was the one thatorchestrated so many more exercises involved so that

(33:43):
the body would not succumb to thelaw of accommodation. So what happens is
that people find and you know,Donal'll tell you the same thing, and
if you work with runners and tellyou the same thing, they get to
let's let's just use this as anexample. They get to a two hundred
pound bench, present everything that they'vedone to get to two undred pounds press,
they think they have to need toincrease that in order to go to

(34:05):
three hundred. But in reality,they're different ponds that require different capacities,
that also require different individual needs.So if you have a broad library of
training, you can divide and utilizethe training in order for the athlete to
get the adaptations possible for them tosucceed by utilizing a vast array of movements,

(34:27):
which also doesn't limit their growth andreduces their mileage. So where do
you so, where do you feellike your I mean understanding the polg Aeran
approach and the Soviet approach in anutshell because a lot of people aren't going
to understand what that is. Wheredo you feel like your training has different
besides the wedding warm up? Whatdo you feel like it's the most noticeable

(34:52):
between you and the traditional conjugate method. Well, a lot of it's just
the individual process, you know,understanding when you need dload, you know,
taking resting heart rates. They weredoing that too, a lot of
the stuff. It's funny because Ifound that my training, even though I
didn't copycat a lot of the Sovietstuff, I reinforced it by reading the

(35:15):
Soviet books. So when I dovein the last two years to write my
book for Human Cinetics that will beout hopefully next year, it just reinforced
everything I already knew with references frombooks that were from the fifties all the
way up until the nineties. Andwhat I started to realize was that everybody's
training journey is going to be alittle different, and how they respond to

(35:36):
different loading is going to be different, and a lot of times coaches only
understand their way. They don't understandhow the adaptation changes, and that I
think was one of Louis's biggest faultswas the fact that he felt that the
gym was so superior and for powerof the thing it really was. I
mean, if you go back andlook at how power fers were training for
Louis Simmons, other than Fred Hatfield, you're going to start to see that,

(36:00):
you know, individuality really wasn't wasn'tthere. So it's one of those
things that I think understanding your individualweaknesses, knowing anterior to posterterior imbalances,
those are things that Louis I thinkhad a limiting knowledge on how to fix.
He might be able to say,well, you know, you're not
keeping your chest up on the slotor you're not pushing out on that,

(36:21):
But to go to the actual musclegroups that need to be more dialed in
might might have been a limiting factorand an advantage to me because of my
biomechanics background. You see that ina lot of sports, though, like
you'll see that in college football whereyou have the program that just has all
the talent and they beat the hellout of them and they still get results,

(36:42):
and then you'll see maybe a smallerprogram who does what you do,
they individualize more, or the athletethat doesn't succeed in this environment but they
go to another team. Right,So that's exactly what you're doing. Well.
I think what you need to keepin mind with those statistics, and
you're absolutely right, is look athow many of football players in the NFL

(37:04):
are from small schools versus large schools. I want to believe it's sixty percent
of the NFL is comprised of notAlabama, not Ohio State, not Georgia.
Because by the time they get tothe pros, their fried, they're
injured, they're beat up, they'reovertrained. And the ones that come from
the small schools had more individual mindsetsin their programming and didn't attain the mileage

(37:29):
in the playing and that's why they'resucceeding in their true prime, which is
in their pro years. That's true. There was a number like U twenty
five thirty percent DIV two players inthe NFL, Right, So, yeah,
you're right. So that's kind ofthat kind of sticks our point to
the t. Derek, So,I didn't know if you saw the O

(37:52):
there. Matt Arnold was getting interviewed. Oh god, it was on it
was on social media. I'm drawinga blank right now. But he was
getting interviewed about agent. He's gettinginterviewed about, you know, where his
physique was going. And I gottabe honest, it was a bit depressing
to hear him speak that way.I mean, here's you know, here's
a guy that had some sort ofan influence. You got to admit it

(38:13):
on all of us, Matt,Like, whether you're a power lift or
a bodybuilder, Arnold somehow influenced everysingle one of us. Yeah, And
I think my whole thing was isthat he was saying, you know,
when I was in my thirties,you know, I never thought about being
older. And now I look atmyself in the mirror, and I don't
necessarily, you know, do Ilike what I see? Do I look

(38:35):
better than most people? Sure?But like I'm not part of me understand
obviously, part of all of usunderstand that age is going to be a
factor. It always is, right, we have to do things differently,
and we have to adapt and adjust. But I also believe that as we
get older, a lot of timespeople lose that motivation, like this Arnold
is hungry now as he was whenhe was thirty to maintain his physique or

(39:00):
this is no offense to Arnold.Is he, you know, living his
life differently. Training is still ahuge part of it. But is he
prioritizing things differently? And I knowthe nutrition better than anyone when it comes
to a set of change, andit's like, okay, is he weighing
his food? Maybe like he usedto or maybe he never did. Obviously
I know if he wasn't a bigfood well still there's in my opinion,

(39:22):
do you really believe he's taking thingsas seriously as he was when he was
thirty? And because people that arein their seventies and eighties and they're motivated
and they look pretty damn good,and you know what, you could feel
pretty damn good, but you needto adjust your training and you need to
I think a lot of people.I mean, I'll put myself in that
same boat. I'm in that transitionalperiod as you well know. And it's

(39:45):
one of those things that you cannothold on. If you have pushed your
limits in your genetic proudness at yourpeak age, it's very it's nearly impossible
to look like Arnold could not looklike he looked at twenty eight years old
now, No, right exactly,And I agree with that your frame of
reference has to change. But whatI think the most important factor to all

(40:08):
of it, and as you knowwell know, don is the problem with
aging is that you have to dothings smarter. And most people that energenetically
gifted didn't do as smart in thefirst place, so they don't keep learning
as they keep getting better. Imean, you've been helping me with my
diet and my blood work, andI have to keep getting smarter and smarter
and smarter to sustain what I hadeven six years ago. And so most

(40:31):
people, because it becomes so muchwork and so much diligence, they just
give up because it came so easyto him. So sometimes when you're in
your prime, when you're like anArnold, and I'm not saying his games
came easy, but I'll bet youthey came easier than the average person.
And I will guarantee you that becausethey came easy, the work ethic is

(40:52):
just so much different now because hecan't go in and do biceps once a
week and they just go right.It looks like because the age factor but
that's my But that's exactly what youwere alluding to. My point here,
it's like, do is Arnold gonnabe able to look at the three of
us right now and say, no, I'm doing everything in my power to
optimize where I need to be.I know the answers now there's there's there's

(41:14):
no way to say that's that's butthat's okay, right, like Derek,
that's okay. Like I'm not saying, yeah, there's an example, like
somebody came to me and said,hey, you should go and run Master's
track and run one hundred meters becauseyou're you know, and I'm like,
listen, I did that since Iwas like ten years old, Like I
ran track for you know, thirtyyears or whatever, and I'm done,

(41:36):
Like I'm tapped out. So I'msure there's a lot of cases four hundred
What was your fastest four hundred ever? Oh I don't know, like forty
nine seconds or something like that.But but but but yeah, like I
I just don't have that desire totrain like that or you know, so
I think it, well, Ithink you're meriting that because like what I'm
telling you, like you know,is when you give everything you have like

(41:58):
people have to me. Now,Matt, do you feel like you want
to squat twelve hundred aginner? Doyou want to mention? I don't.
I don't. Even thinking about thosenumbers gives me such an anxiety because I
couldn't be honest with you right now. I don't know how I had the
balls to even do that. Imean, I'm a different person now,
and what you start realizing is thatI did everything smart. I didn't gain

(42:19):
a lot of mileage on anything likethat. But it's one of those things
when you lay everything you have onthe table at something you have nothing left
to prove. But here's the problem. Most people, even in their prime,
never gave it their all, sonow they have all this this animosity
built up that what if I cando with this now or this or that.
I mean, I still love workingout and staying in shape. I

(42:39):
still love squatting heavy from time totime, but to do world class shit,
if you're if you've been one ofthe best in the world, it's
one of those things where it's you'vebeen there, done that, and you
want to see other people achieve theirgoals and push their limits so that they
can be happy when it's just notattainable anymore. You know, I think
having almost thought process of having himlook like he looked in nineteen seventy six

(43:01):
is stupid. But he can lookbetter than everyone else his age if he's
willing to put the time, energyand the smarts to it. So right,
I just you know, I'm alittle stubborn. I mean, I'm
forty six now, and I'm justwhat I loved about this industry is I
really felt like most of the time, not always what you put into it

(43:21):
is what you're going to get outof it. Like if you if you
educate yourself more on training and youunderstand the importance of rest and nutrition and
digestion and sleep, like good thingsare going to start happening. I'm not
saying you're gonna be Matt winning inthe power and power lifting, and I'm
sure as hell not saying you're gonnabe on all Sportsnegger on the Olympia stage
in nineteen seventy five right when hewas in app South Africa. But I'm
saying that you could do some prettygreat things, and you can put yourself

(43:44):
in a direction to be successful inlife. I'm not saying the sport.
I'm saying that you're in shaping orhealthy. This is a big driving force,
in my opinion, to people beingable to walk around with their chest
up and lead by example for theirchildren and leave example in the workplace.
It's like being healthy and it's goingto I think that a more times than

(44:07):
note leads you to a successful,happier life. Yeah, I mean everything
that, everything that is that isquality in life requires resistance, whether it's
mental or physical. And that's theproblem is most people shay away from resistance.
They don't they don't want it.Because most of the time most people
that push resistance, especially in ourfield, people that only talk about intensity,

(44:30):
they probably don't know what they thinkthey know. And so that's where
I have a very hard time ofpeople telling me, you know, hey,
you need to max out all thetime, you need to give it
one hundred percent. No, youdon't. The Russians never went over ninety
percent in the gym until it wastime to compete. And that's the problem
is you don't have to be atthat level and compete. You don't have
to push one hundred percent to getgains out of anything. You just need

(44:52):
to be consistent and consistency will alwaystrump intensity. I'll take a guy that
will work out three quarters it's hardhe camp for ten years straight versus the
dude that will work out for twoyears as hard as he can and now
he's all banged done. But Derek, you know what the problem is if
you think about is we start relatingsuccess to a level of intensity. And
I've been victim to it. Iremember, you know, having to lay

(45:14):
at steel gym, and I'm nota big guy like Matt, but like
I once squatted three fifteen for thirtythat was a lot of reps for me,
and I had almost had a brainaneurysm. I had to lay down
for two hours before they had itreeling out. And looking back on it
now, I'm very happy I didthose things because it showed me a level
of matt Nos intensity and getting underthe bar it's fucking real, Like it's

(45:35):
a real thing. When that's gettinginto the bar. Tweve hundred pounds.
No one myself, you can't evenimagine what that must be like, the
amount of compression on the spine andhow strong, the ungodly level of strength
that you have to have. ButI also do understand that people will relate
intensity with Ronnie Cauldon Wall. Heneeds to Grady suddenly be a competitor.
Ever, and well, wait asecond, how do we know what he

(45:58):
would have done if he took mea little bit more of a scientific approach,
and maybe if he had a teamstanding over him saying nope, let's
deload here. I think not cutyeah, not to cut you off.
But I think in that generation,the one the guy who won was Jay
Cutler because look how good the shapehe's in now, and he has no
health issues that I know of.He gets around if he still wants to

(46:20):
trade hard, he can so lookingat Jane Trane, look at how Jane
trade, Look at how Jay trainedsmart, change smart, and he wasn't.
You never saw Jay going you know, you never saw Jay getting under
the weight that Ronnie got under.He was strong, but you never saw
him put himself into a situation whereyou were like, like you watched ron
train and people would be like likeit was like you were used to it.

(46:43):
Because that I think that it waspowerlifting delete powerlifting level crazy shit and
bodybuilding that nobody had never seen,you know. And I think the problem
is that what we need to dois hold people on higher pedestals that achieved
the goals that they want to achieve, but they don't pay for the mileage.
That to me is the winners becauseall of this in the reality we

(47:05):
can step all back and we dothis for health. Now. We want
to get people healthy and strong.But for most people, they treat this
as a secondary hobby. So howdo you get people better at everything without
creating the mileage? You got todo a smart so true day, it's
very tough. It's very tough now, especially in the social media age,
where people want to see crazy shit, right, So they're not going to

(47:29):
watch somebody who's like, has abalanced program and accumulates volume at different grades
of intensity. They want to seethe guy doing the crazy stuff. So
it's you know, it'll be interestingto see where things. I think that'll
backfire. I think it'll backfire eventuallybecause you can only get crazier and crazier
and crazier until it's just retarded.Yeah, I mean, we're talking about
it, but we're talking about itnow, which I think is the first

(47:50):
step. Matt not to interrupt,but we are talking about it that where
in the past it was such ashock factor. People are just ownloading stuff
on social media. It's the while, and all the people who have put
all this time their education is pissedoff at this guy because he never stepped
put on the floor, but heknows how to market where they all need
a little bit of what each otherdo to, you know, and everyone's
going to be more successful. Butnow it's being spoken about more and I

(48:15):
think I'm bad. I agree withyou. Yeah, I think we took
a twenty year step back. I'mdon You've been in the field quite a
little bit longer than me, ButI think that we were ahead scientifically on
training smarter in ninety nine to twothousand and three, and I think we
took a big step backwards in thelast twenty years, not in everything,
but in most things. And Ithink now we're starting to see that transition

(48:37):
again. But it's one of thosethings where it's sad to see because if
the average person wants to be greatat something, they're going to have to
do as smart because they don't havethe genetics. And I felt like I
was one of those guys. Imean, yeah, I was a world
class lifter as a teenager, butI started lifting at eleven years old.

(48:58):
So by the time I the WorldChampionships at nineteen, I hadn't missed probably
more than a week of working outfor eight years before I got to where
I was a world class, whichwould fall along the same lines in a
track like if you were a trappedto its right, if you had a
guy for eight years and did everythinghe said and had a little bit of
genetics, he's going to be prettygood in eight years. So I try

(49:19):
to tell people, like, Iknow people default that ten year, ten
thousand hour rule, but I trulybelieve it's very it's very real, especially
if you want to be good andnot get hurt from being good. You
know, that ten year rule keepsyou kind of grounded, smart and making
good decisions that you don't do anythingtoo fast or you know, to too

(49:42):
crazy too quickly. Yeah, there'ssomething to be said for being patient and
meticulous, right, you know that'swe have to reinfuse that with the education
at absolutely So Matt, listen,Matt, we're in an hour already.
I came to believe it. Ifeel like, I mean, Matt's funny.
Matt and I started talking a lotbefore the Gunner Peterson event in Nashville

(50:04):
and we've become good friends and I'mhopefully going to get them out here in
a month or so. Matt.It's also really impressive, and I want
to close out on this. Yourbusiness is going in a great direction.
You've really mainstreaming a lot of yourknowledge and you're taking a lot of that
powerlifting niche, but you're combining itwith movement. You're combining with smarter training.
You're combining with a smarter approach.And that's why I love what you're
doing. If people want to hearmore about your programs, social media handles,

(50:28):
website, tell them where they canfind you. I know you've been
very generous with your time and answeringsome dms here and there for people who
are reaching out to you. Let'syeah, So if you go to Winning
Strength dot com, that's where you'llfind the website. If you go on
to the Winning Strength YouTube channel,we have I think five hundred videos now,
then you can sift through and learna ton from all of how to

(50:50):
set up bands, some of thestuff I say on recovery, some of
the things I say about avoiding interviewdrinks and stuff with that nature and supplementation
and where you probably should should gofor for supplementation just because you know,
it's a wild West in the Americanin the American facilities as far as GNC
and Vitamin Shop that none of that'sFDA regulated, So we cover a lot

(51:15):
of that. And then also Ihave a Patreon channel where I take DMS
and help people answer their questions,look at their programs, do assessments of
that nature. We do online coachingon the website. We have like one
hundred and one hundred plus online clients, and everybody that's on the online coaching

(51:35):
app have a master's degree and atleast twenty five years experience in the field.
So one of the guys that's aheads trained coach for one of the
top universities in the country, whichI don't want to stay out loud because
they probably get him in trouble.And then the other one played for the
Dolphins in the Begeles that has masterCSDC when the CSTS was brand new,
so he's been around the early eighties, kind of like a Gunner Peterson.

(51:58):
So those are the kind of guyswe have on online coaching, which in
might opinion, if you want customizedstuff. A second to none. So
those are the types of things thatwe do. And we also have training
which is very affordable if you don'thave enough time and you need more detailed
information on how to do the exercises. The training a road gap. You
can click on it and there's avideo next to every exercise to make sure

(52:20):
that you're doing it correctly, andit calculates volume, intensities and everything.
And Instagram handle winning Strong. Sothat did change running Strong, right cool?
So I know Matt, Derek,Matt's gonna hopefully, Matt, we're
saying, and we hope by thenew year, we're gonna be able to
be out here for a few days. We're gonna do what I want to
do is we're gonna do a littleshoot with Muscle and Fitness. We're gonna

(52:43):
we're gonna go live. We're gonnado some video content on Matt's World.
We're gonna do some video content onmy World. We're gonna have Rob Cotton
edit it. We'll probably go tothe grocery short store and kind of have
some conversations with food, throw theway to vest On walk, have Rob
film. We're just gonna get acouple of days where him and I do
orcab a little bit and then havesome fun to just get some fun training
in and get some good food andjust kick back a little bit. So

(53:04):
hopefully I'm ready. Derek, You'realways welcome to coming. I know y'all
am gonna see you. Actually,Derek's gonna be in town November. You're
staying with me. What night isthat? It's like eighteen nineteenth weekend.
I mean, we've gotta you know, maybe Matt's around. We can figure
it out. But the more Iremember remembers wide open. We're gonna shooting
pictures for the book early November,like the third, and then I'm my

(53:25):
old November is open, all right, We're gonna figure it out. You
and I will talk, Derek,