Grab your pre workout and turn up that volume.
It is time for a new episode of The Power Lifters Den with your
host Cam Smith. Hello everybody, welcome back to
another episode of The Power Lifters Den.
I'm your host Cam Smith and today I wanted to bring on
someone I met down at the perfect storm down in Daytona
Beach. Danny, why don't you introduce
yourself? My name is Daniel Tanjaro.
I've been powerlifting for roughly 24 years.
Located down in Holly Hills to be specific, which is new
Daytona at Perfect Storm Gym. Yeah.
So I was taking a little bit of a look at your open powerlifting
before this and you said you've been competing for 24 years.
I've been alive for 24 years. So you definitely have your
experience in the game and looking at all these meets and
stuff. I think one of my first
questions for you is kind of, I guess over the years, what's
been able to let you compete at this high level for so long?
Definitely delving into the bio mechanics side of things, but I
didn't really get into that until around 2015 or so.
And even that first few years it was just trying to apply things,
experimenting and finding out what works and what doesn't.
But the 1st 15 years, I was very adamant about having as good a
technique as I could, even though looking back, not
everything was perfect. But I was still like super
strict about how I did things. And that definitely helped laid
a good base and somewhat kept my ego in check.
But I started training when I was 14, so, you know, I was a
teenager, yeah. What was your first meet
multiply? My first powerlifting meet
technically was a push pull. I didn't roll.
I was still a junior in high school, but I competed in high
school. We had we're all bench press,
clean and dirt. I didn't get into multiply until
after I was done with my weightlifting season and that
was like later in 2005. Yeah.
And I know down in Florida, that's kind of like how a lot of
high schoolers get into it because there was a kid on my
football team in college who was from Florida and he was like a
state champion for like the the bench and clean and jerk and
thing. So it's kind of interesting to
see people kind of transitioning that into like full
powerlifting, whether they decide to go the powerlifting
route or the weightlifting route.
Yeah, I feel like it. It laid a really good base for
me. And I was super torn, like after
I graduated because I love powerlifting and I just happened
to have a few friends that were power lifters already, and they
just kind of coerced me into, you know, taking the dark route.
Yeah. So I, I know you competed at the
the meet a few was almost a month ago now.
Maybe tell us about a little bit about going into that prep and
kind of preparing for a meet like that.
Oh. Man, this one was particularly
rough. I was super excited.
Like Tommy. Tommy and Gary always put on a
good meet, but this year in particular was fucking static.
I mean, you saw the line up and the kind of numbers the majority
of the guys are throwing around. So even though my training was
very lacklustre, I was dealing with a few different injuries
and stuff like that. There's no way I was going to
back out of that if I could still compete just because I
fucking love competing and especially getting, you know, to
do it head to head with guys that are right there on your
tail. It just like that's to me,
that's what sports about. So I was super excited about it,
even though I knew I was going to take a hit on a few of my
lifts, dealing with some shoulder stuff that's been long
term. And then I just reaggravated my
knee that was previously injured in January and I haven't been
able to get it straightened out since.
So it's just doing a lot of dancing around the flames and
trying not to fall into the fire.
Yeah. And I, I know this meat was, it
was very, very hot in that meat. So especially if someone is like
a multiplier and all that gear and stuff, maybe what are some
of the things that kind of got you through the day itself?
Luck, I mean, you know, I tried to hydrate.
Thankfully we got you know, the liquid ugly or I'm sorry, the
element packs. I had like three of those
throughout the day and then I have like 1/2 gallon of water
jug that I'll throw some salt in and a few other things like some
creatine and I'll use that water.
Like if I need to mix a pre workout or whatever.
Everything I drink that day contains some form of
electrolytes because otherwise, you know, I would have just been
worse off. I won't say I wasn't fried by
deadlifts because I definitely was.
There was just no escaping the heat on that particular day.
And I know over the years you've competed obviously at other high
level meets and stuff like such as the WPO and stuff.
What was the first time you competed at the WPO?
20 So I was supposed to go to 2018 and that's when I blew my
knee out. So that was that was fucking
heartbreaking. I can't remember.
I want to say it was 2020. I was at 2018 and like I I was
just spectating and helping out in the back and stuff like that.
I'm sorry, I can't remember if it was 19 or 20, but it was one
of those next years, yeah. Well, and obviously like
Multiplies community is kind of unmatched in terms of the
camaraderie and things like that.
So kind of going to these big level meets like the WPO, how's
the experience compared to like a local meet?
I mean, for me, it's probably a lot different than someone who
was going there for the first time and doesn't, you know, have
the experience in the sport. I've been doing this since I was
14, so I know most of these people on a relatively personal
level. So every time I go to a meet,
it's almost like a family gathering.
You know, it's, it's a good time, It's catching up with
people, it's bonding, you know, sharing our passion for the
sport. And there's always some family
members who just can't fucking stand.
And just remind everybody maybe with some of your best lifts are
and I guess each division, whether it's single ply,
multiply, raw. So currently my best total multi
was just under 26. I think it was like 2596.
The open powerlifting single play total I think they have is
still a bit skewed. It shouldn't be like the 2350
something one of the lists. I think the deadlift in
particular that got put in was inaccurate, so that one should
be closer to just under 2300. And then for raw two years ago,
I finally cracked the 2000 LB raw mark.
So that was one of my bucket list goals.
But the the ultimate goal is still to multiply total that I'm
trying to work on, so I try not to get too distracted with the
other disciplines. Yeah.
And I guess from a guy who's mainly multiply, at what point
did you kind of know you were ready to go into a raw meet and
hit that two Ki? Had been chasing it several
years back before I blew the knee out and honestly I I had
the strength to do it and I just had a bad meet where I lost
balance on the squad and I knew that was going to cost me my
total. So I used to time it out to
where I would do a raw meet early in the year, a multiply
meet midway through, and then usually single ply would be like
Olympia that I went to for I went four years in a row.
So I had to wait like an entire year to get back to my raw
training cycle. And unfortunately, when I was
prepping for my multiply meet in July of 2018, that's when I got
injured. I was also scheduled for a
strongman show like two weeks after that.
Bad planning on my part, but it helps keep me distracted
whenever I can't powerlift the way that I want to.
But I just knew, you know, I had, even though it wasn't top
priority for that role total, it was something that if I don't
get to do, I'm going to be very upset.
So I figured I would take a swing at it and I did hybrid.
I can't remember when that was, but it was when COVID was big
because I had COVID going into the meet like 12 days out.
I got hit with it and thankfully I recovered enough to be able to
complete the meet, but I felt a little bit short of my 2000.
So then I think it was the next year is when I did the vice
barbell vice meet and that's when I told 2000.
Awesome. So, yeah, I think that that's
obviously like one of the those those totals that every raw guy
hopes ahead eventually and. I mean, it's not, it's not what
it once was, but it was. So that was the number that I
had set in my head so. Yeah.
And so you mentioned before that you're kind of the the key to
longevity for you is really focusing on the bio mechanics.
I know you do coaching too. So I guess maybe discuss about
how you kind of implement your knowledge of bio mechanics into
your coaching? Like gets pretty in depth and
tricky, but to oversimplify it, we take a look at the body.
You have certain ranges of motion that should be, you know,
adequate just to survive as a human.
Now, what we do in powerlifting doesn't require nearly that, you
know, level of range of motion. However, if I know that I can
maintain those ranges of motion, I'm pretty safeguarded against
most injuries. Not everything because shit
happens, but I know if I'm severely limited in any one of
those ranges of motion, whether it's a shoulder, a hip, you
know, even the knee and elbow, you know, rotate a bit, Little
things like that, if you don't keep up on them year after year
after year, what we just chalk up to it's part of the sport or,
you know, general wear and tear, which is fucking bullshit.
That'll eat away at the joints. So I don't let any little thing
like that really go. We can't control everything and
I won't harp on it, you know, obsessively, but we're always
going to be working to improve whatever ranges of motion we're
lacking the most in because absolutely guaranteed that's
where you're going to fucking get hurt.
Yeah, and I I think for for some people too is, I mean, I know
personally from experience with dealing with like very small
injuries and stuff that when you go to a physical therapy, they
just kind of overdo bullshit and like it's not something that's
like catered towards athletes. So I guess maybe what are some
of the resources or if someone's looking to get that like
actually high level like recovery that they need, like
what some of the things that they can do?
So if you have like a true injury, I still have faith in
physical therapy. However, my experience after
injury with physical therapy was not good at all.
Honestly I feel like they made it worse.
But if you can seek out a cash based physical therapist.
You're always going to be better off because the way that they do
things and they actually follow up on continuing education is
much more effective. Even if it costs you more
upfront, it's going to be so much better and cheaper in the
long run than if you go to one of these Cracker Jack, you know,
geriatric mills because they're not like you're saying they're
not dealing with athletes. They're just trying to make sure
you can, you can function enough that it looks like they know
what they're doing right. And unfortunately they don't.
So a big part of what I do is rehab and prehab for athletes.
Like I have other coaches, athletes sometimes come to me
specifically for that. And I'm I'm totally cool with
that and you know, their coaches as long as their coaches are.
But either seeking out someone like like what I do or an actual
physical therapist, like I said, it's most likely going to be
cash based and there's, I mean, there's thousands of them
online. So it is tough to sift through
who knows what the fuck they're talking about and who's full of
shit. But I would just say like, if
you know someone who's gone through a catastrophic injury
and they worked with a physical therapist and they really felt
like it made a difference. Word of mouth, honestly.
Yeah, I mean, I don't know how many times I've walked into a
physical therapy office and all they have is fucking therabands
and 5 LB dumbbells. And I'm like, this is I'm not
going to get because I had to go back there for a shoulder
injury. And they're having me doing some
exercises. And I was like, hey, do you have
any heavier dumbbells? Because like, this side
literally just don't feel anything.
They're like, sorry now. So I'm like, how do you expect
me to get better if I can't progress on an exercise where
I'm starting at the heaviest dumbbell you have?
Yeah. So something I kind of wanted to
talk about, too, was obviously you hopped back into a raw meet
to hit that 2000 total. And I know some people in the
multiply world like to kind of occasionally jump back into it.
And someone like me who's just getting into gear that has plans
to go kind of back and forth, maybe what is it?
How big of a difference is it kind of going back into that
raw? Depends on the person.
So not to be the old guy, but back in my day, all of our
multiply crowd basically scoffed at anyone that wanted to lift
raw or bounce back and forth like what it like what I did.
But if you train accordingly for it throughout the year, it's not
too bad. And that's how I've always
trained. I've never wanted to give up my
raw base, even when I was solely multiply because at 1st, from
2005 probably until I'm sure we could look it up.
Raw Unity three was my first raw meat, full raw meat as a
powerlifter. So I had probably eight years,
give or take, before I jumped into a raw meet after my high
school, you know, adventures. So I always kept up with my raw
lifts even though I wasn't doing them bio mechanically well at
the time because I basically lifted the same way I do and
multiply raw. And I think at raw Unity, eight
was one of the last straws where I tweaked the shit out of my
knee and I was standing ultra wide.
I hit my sudden 49 at like 2:20 and you can just see the left
knee like quivering real hard, my knee wrapper shaking and it
was all downhill after that. So I realized that I had to
change my mechanics because my body wasn't going to hold up for
that nowadays. Like I still keep a decent
amount of role training and even if I'm training for an
equipment, so it's not hard for me to bounce back and forth.
Like I don't, I don't know if you saw me in the warm up room,
but the way that I warm up role very close dance, low bar, and
then as soon as I throw the briefs on, it's back to white
stands, high bar. Yeah.
And thankfully my bench is like I don't change my grip or
anything. I have long arms, right
shoulder. So I've never really had much to
change there other than the bar path.
And then deadlift is pretty much the same.
Yeah. And for me, I'm like a very
narrow stance and low bar squatter too.
And so going now into the gear, trying to get used to that super
wide and stands in that high bar is definitely been one of the
biggest challenges for me. And same with you.
My, my bench grip is the same. I, I mean, I go like middle
finger on the ring and then I go Max legal for the shirt.
And like I've had the most success in the shirt so far.
So it's kind of kind of interesting to see that when you
emulate it in different like raw versus gear, you get kind of
more out of it. So what do you have next to
soar? Like what's kind of the the next
meet for you? When are you hopping into your
next prep? I was really wanting to do the
F8 bench Invitational next month and I just I don't think I'm
going to be able to swing it. The left shoulder got really
flared up after our meet and I've taken 2 heavy bench
sessions since then and neither one has worked out very well.
So I I just recently got someone local to do like deep tissue
work and stuff like that because I can't work on myself the way
that I work on other people. And it is getting better, but
it's not getting better fast enough for me to be ready at a
month, you know? That's the mute with the, it's a
single ply multiply Poly, right? And that's Sandy, Yeah.
Yeah, single, multi and then unlimited.
And that's part of the reason why I was so excited about doing
it, because I've never been to a meet like that.
And it just seems really cool because I know a lot of the guys
that are great in band shirts aren't great in Polly and vice
versa. And I feel like I'm relatively
well-rounded, but I don't have very much experience in band
shirts. I've used like the slingshots on
Weirdo Makers and stuff like that.
But I'm the least experienced in the OR the band shirts.
Yeah, I think of me like, that's pretty cool.
It's kind of interesting. And like there's a the strategy
aspect to it. And I think I think Mark's
competing in right. Yeah.
So he's someone who's like pretty good in all three.
So he definitely has a different approach as someone.
And then I can't think of his name right now, but he's like
Sir Bench a lot or whatever. What's his name?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so just like seeing these
massive ventures, trying to juggle the all three and try to
have a good strategy going into. It's pretty cool.
That's my favorite part about it is you do have to have good
strategy because if you, you know, it's not like a normal
meet where you get 3 attempts and as long as you get one, that
lift goes toward your total. If you miss any one of your two
attempts in the three categories, it's going to cost
you quite a bit. So you don't have to go balls
out. You know, if you went like 90%
and then 95% in each of those 3 categories, you would probably
line up really well against some of these guys that are going to
be missing touches or just getting burned out by the end.
By the time you get to unlimited benching, you know, you're
already 4 reps into heavy benches.
Yeah. So.
I'm excited to see how it goes. Yeah.
And kind of while we're on the topic, obviously the the band
shirts somewhat relatively new in the sport and it's kind of
have some pretty polarizing opinions.
So maybe talk about a little bit about your thoughts on the
introduction to it to the sport. Oh, man, you know, it wouldn't
be right of me to speak out against it wholeheartedly
because it was the same thing when I was starting in the sport
and Multiply was relatively new. And then you had, you know, the
Goggins and the cones and stuff like that.
And it was like not it was not apples to apples, right?
And the same thing applies here. But the problem is a lot of
these guys either like to gloat like they're the best ventures
in the world and they've only been doing this for one or two
years. And it's like, well,
motherfucker, anyone can throw on a band shirt.
It's it's dummy proof. You know, as long as you can
roll bench, you can bench on a band shirt.
Learning to handle those heavy weights and not panic under
pressure and stuff like that is obviously you got to train for
that. But it's not like learning a
bench shirt, just black and white, you know, I don't think
anyone can argue that. I don't think it makes it less
impressive. It's just easier.
So. That's kind of where I stand on,
you know, I'm not, I'm not totally against it, but I do
not, I don't respect it as much because it's easier to attain.
Yeah, for sure. And I mean, obviously now that
I'm trying to like learn the the Poly shirt, like it's getting a
little difficult and I've been kind of keeping it loose because
I'm not ready to like crank the collar yet and handle those
heavy weights. But I threw on a band shirt once
just like having fun and like threw 500 lbs, which is well at
the times like almost 200 lbs with my Mac.
So it's definitely a lot easier to touch and like the bar path.
Like I guess the the bubble that you guys talk about is
definitely a much bigger area to touch on that shirt.
It doesn't restrict you unless you have one of the Super tight
heavy duty ones that are, you know, multiple, multiple plies.
It doesn't restrict you at all in the same way.
It's still a lot of fucking pressure and it's still hard to
do heavy weights. But I mean, there's nothing like
being handcuffed in a multiplied shirt.
Yeah, you know where? You're just helpless down there.
Yeah. And you use the the overkill
gear, right? Yeah.
So I do know that that shirt has a little bit more, I guess
variability, not variability, but it's a little bit different
than like an STP or something where the way you like cuff the
collars, a little bit different stuff.
So kind of what's been some of the shirts that you've used over
the years and like what makes this shirt better?
Are you referring to the Gray one that I'm in right now?
So far of the shirts I've gotten from Rudy, honestly this
probably is my favorite. If you asked me before I had
gotten my Gray shirt, the maroon material was probably the most
comparable to this and that was my favorite.
That was the first one I hit 8800 and and then I outgrew it
unfortunately. But this one is much more
forgiving than like the previous red line or the black line
shirts. It's still difficult.
It it will hit a hard block and you'll you'll not go anywhere.
But if you can learn to make it work, it's definitely less rough
on the joints. And that's what's important for
longevity because my, my biggest bench is still done in the red
line, but there's no way I'd be able to train in that year round
and for years to come because it was just too fucking rough.
I've been in damn near every shirt you can imagine.
I started in the the worst of the worst, like the Inzer heavy
duty blast shirt. You know, I was a poor college
kid so I paid like 45 bucks for this shirt and it would make
much myself to bleed. And I benched like 5 extra
kilograms. Definitely not worth it.
And I could go on a whole rant about the whole marketing
scheme. You know what's good for
beginner lifters? What's good for intermediate and
advanced? Fuck, I'm just going to throw
this out there. I think it's fucking bullshit.
These companies are trying to say like, oh, this gear is, you
know, great for beginner lifters when it's the most
uncomfortable, you get the least out of it and it's just, it's
fucking miserable. Like, if there's nothing good
about it and if that's how you're going to introduce
someone to the sport, the likelihood of them staying isn't
very high. You know, thankfully I was
retarded enough. I just, I just kept going and I
kept pushing and I had a really good group, you know, of guys
that I was training with. So I figured it out over time
through them. But you know, you can't listen
to the manufacturers. They're full of shit.
I know. I mean, I've heard and I have
the SDP and I've heard that that's one of the easier shirts
to learn. So I guess one of my questions
would be, what kind of makes a shirt difficult to you?
The stretch of the material and the fit, those are the two most
important things. And I, you can ask me and my
clients about this because I harp on it a lot.
A shirt doesn't make a lifter, right?
It has to fit you well and it has to match your strength and
experience level. As long as those two things are
on point, any shirts, a good shirt within reason, right?
Maybe like, you know, STP katanas, single fly, I don't
like their multi. And then obviously overkill.
I'm a little biased because I I hit my best benches in the
overkill shirts and I just really like them.
They're more comfortable. They don't cut and dig in the
way some of the other shirts do. But the biggest outlier about
the overkills is the durability. You won't blow that shirt out.
The shirt will outlive you. You will outlive everyone else.
They don't, they don't die. My experience with the SDPS, if
you get one that fits really well, they're miserable to break
in. They're good for like 2 cycles
and then it looks like a little kid wearing dad's shirt.
You know, they're just stretched out so much.
Yeah, and it's it's funny that you're saying that Cortana, the
single versus the multiply kids, Rupo has both of them and he
uses the single ply like the low cut and he has the the multiply
1. And he said it's like an
absolute fucking nightmare to try to touch on that thing.
It's it's honestly not worth it. And most people think like, oh,
I just need to get stronger and I just need more weight.
It is literally just not a good fucking shirt.
It is not material that should be two layers thick.
Yeah, you know, you got guys like Cole who's yeah, he's just
a fucking freak. But to be benching over 1000 and
single ply Greg Powell, you know, very very high adventure
at 22242 at fucking 50 something years old.
Like those are good shirts as long as you know how to use them
well. The problem is everyone just
falls into this trap like more is better, thicker is better.
And then they get this four ply evil twin or Cortana or those
stupid fucking boss shirts that they make.
Literally no one can use them. No one.
Yeah, it's like, it's like the the classic fucking just we need
more weight to touch and then then they get stapled.
Yeah, or you break your arm and then.
Yeah, and so for the, I guess we'll talk about the squat suit
too, while we're kind of talking about your gear, you use the
canvas, right? Yeah, that's the same one I got
originally in like 2014. So.
I fucking love that suit. Yeah.
And so on. I, I'm, I haven't got into the
suit yet, but I'm going to be using an LUP just because it's,
I guess more user friendly and it has the more adjustability
and stuff. And I know the canvas is kind of
something that needs to be more custom fit.
And do you think the the canvas itself is something harder to
learn or is it just something that's harder just because
they're more tight fit usually? My experience canvas wasn't
hard. It is harder in general compared
to Poly because there's less flex in the material, but
assuming you know how to squat well and you're very good at
holding your position, it's not any harder to use.
I felt more natural squatting than a canvas way way back when
I was with Titan. I pushed and pushed and I like
asked questions frequently if they were ever going to make a
canvas suit and unfortunately they just weren't open to it.
But the first couple of times I got into a training partners, I
think he had a Jenny's canvas. It just naturally felt good and
I was coming out of like a metal ace at that point.
And I'd like the ace. It worked well, but I like the
fact that the canvas didn't have to fit me as tight to still get
good, you know, support and carry over.
Yeah, so the you mentioned the metal.
So I'm currently using metal jacks for my briefs.
Actually, Rodney Woodward actually reached out to me and
said he he sent me a pair luckily because then that's
another thing that we can talk about too, is how just how nice
and awesome the multiply community is.
Just for someone to reach out to me and do that was awesome
because I haven't even been in a multiply meet yet.
So it's always exciting to have that kind of community.
But something about, I know a lot of people were actually huge
fans of like the Metal Gear and that it's you kind of still seem
around here and there. Do you think if metal didn't
have like the situation that it did, you still think it would be
one of the the Top Gear manufacturers?
Probably not, they got a little weird with the designs.
I'm not sure around what year but little back story.
My first suit that I ever bought multiply was the metal ace and
that suit was fantastic. It didn't have the length of the
legs that they started making like in the last 10 years or 15
years. So I had a little shorter leg,
but the material had seems strategically placed in a way
that even though it was Poly material, it did still lock very
well on the leg and the hips. So I, I love that suit.
I squatted and deadlifted in it for as long as I possibly could
and then I outgrew it. As far as the bench shirts go,
they really left a lot on the table with the the shirts.
I did really well in the metal Pro, in the metal Viking, and I
know only a few others that did. And then I know a large majority
of people didn't do very well in those shirts.
And then everything after that they came out with the ace and
the Jack and the poker and all that dumb shit.
Those were fucking garbage. It was like a flak jacket may
have stopped a bullet, but it wouldn't help you bench a lot.
The guys that did well in those shirts were just fucking strong.
That just kind of reminded me. I, I remember when I when I was
down at the meet, you're kind of talking to John about the, the
length of the, the briefs and the suit and stuff for single
ply versus multiply kind of how that in single ply you kind of
want it to be a little bit long on legs.
You want to maybe tell us about kind of the reasoning behind
that and kind of how you figured that out?
Honestly, that part I figured out through Rudy and Overkill
when I got picked up in 2014. I was previously with Titan so I
was used to wearing all my single place centurions for
Olympia and stuff like that. And man, they cut into your
adductors and just like the real soft sensitive bits up there
around the groin. I was like this fucking sucks,
but you know, this is the the best of the best.
Well, once I got picked up with Rudy and I wanted to do Olympia
that, you know, next year, he got me my single pie squat and
dentist suit. And discernibly there wasn't a
lot of difference. There was a few seams maybe that
were a little different, but very similar cut the thickness
of the material, the roughness of it was similar.
Not quite as rough as the Super Centurion, but very comparable.
The main difference? The leg length was like an inch
and a half longer on my squat suit and that equated literally
to like on a good day, close to 75 lbs better of a squat in that
suit than my Super Centurion. Yeah.
Is that just something? The mechanism there is the
bottom of the leg is what locks right onto your quad as you're
coming down into descent. As you spread the legs, that
crotch panel is really what gets stretched, assuming you stay
upright. If you lean forward, there's a
little stretch of the glute panel, but I don't think you
should be leaning forward in gear.
So basically that lock kicks in faster to stretch the crotch
panel the longer the leg is. Yeah, and it's it's funny too
that you're saying how like they just the single pie can just dig
into some crazy places. Because one of the things that
when John was going through prep, the biggest thing was
saying just how much it fucking hurts compared to like multiply
in that it it hurts more and you get less support.
So I don't get why the fuck people do single fly.
Well, that's the cool thing too. I mean, the same thing could,
you know, if you're talking about raw lifters looking at
multiply, like, oh, that's harder to do, it's very
uncomfortable. You look like you're going to
die. Why do you do that?
It's just about what you're willing to put up with and you
know what you get out of it. I rose to the top super fast in
single ply and that was kind of the appeal at the time because I
was still climbing multi, but there wasn't a lot of guys that
were a lot stronger than me single ply.
So I was like, fuck it, I'm going to make this run and I
want to be the best. And for the most part, you know,
I don't know if they keep single ply all time world records or
whatever, but in that time that I was running single ply
regularly, Olympia, I was undefeated.
So it was a good time. Yeah, and I know obviously like
a big thing and the like social media specifically, it's kind of
like the the raw guys hating on the multiply.
And to me, I think the biggest thing that the reason that they
diss it and saying it's just cheating and stuff is ignorance.
But I wanted to kind of hear about maybe some of your
experiences with that and kind of what are some of the things
that you could say to tell people that it's actually way
more difficult? So we have an IPF guy, USAPO guy
in our gym. I was just having this
conversation with him earlier because apparently they have
some drama and politics going on always.
I don't know because I'm I'm not super affiliated with anyone
that competes there. They're just different sports,
man. Like it doesn't make any sense.
Let's say I'm a sprinter. Doesn't make any sense for me to
be upset about that guy that covers the same distance much
faster than me on a bike or on ice skates.
You know, I don't understand the hatred between the different
classes, but it is like you're saying.
I do feel like it's a bit of ignorance because they don't
understand how difficult it is and they don't understand the
difference. But how could they, right?
Because I've never been in it. It's not something that's super
easy to describe. I don't think one is any better
than the other. One is harder than the other
without question. So it's, you know, the the
age-old rebuttal is, well, throw on a shirt or throw on a pair of
briefs and see for yourself. See how easy it is.
You know, everyone thinks like, oh, I squat 6 or 700.
I'll be able to squat 1000 in a suit.
And we all know that never pans out.
Yeah, not that fast anyway. And, and obviously like a lot of
people like person to person, they get way different amounts
out of the gear. Like some people only get a
couple 100, some people literally get like 5 or 600.
Like it's it's so variable and it's comes down to that skill
component for sure. A big part of that.
So the the contrast there in the list was much bigger like when I
started because like I said, none of the geared guys were
very big into raw lifting. So I saw guys and I trained with
guys that would only bench 315 and they would throw one at
Karen's double denim and bench seven O 5.
Does that mean they were weak raw?
Not necessarily. They just didn't put in the time
to have any real conditioning raw.
All we did was warm up raw and then train on the gear.
There was no raw training. So like when I got into that
first raw meet, it didn't take me very long to take my squat
from like 6:50 to 7:50. It was like 2 training cycles.
Did I get 100 LB stronger? No, but I was able to display
£100 more because I was training role at that time.
So it's just, you know, you look at a guy that's like, oh he only
squats 400 in his warmups and they look kind of tough for him
and then he squats 900 in the suit.
That doesn't mean he's weak role, he just doesn't put the
time and effort there, you know, into training it.
Someone who goes back into like, say you go into a raw meet after
a multiply meet, obviously you're used to handling much
heavier loads with on squad bench and deadlift.
Kind of what's that adjustment like for like the first few
weeks when you're like you go to pick something and then you get
to the hole and like, holy shit, it's, it's actually way harder
now. I mean, what the way that I
typically trained and my coach, I like I said, I like to keep
the raw base up so that we don't have that shock factor.
But yeah, if you didn't ever challenge yourself with raw
lifts, it would be pretty sketchy, particularly at the
bottom, because that's where you're the most vulnerable and
that's where the gear helps us out the most and the leverages
are the most different because we got different stance and grip
width and stuff like that. So me in particular, normally
after me, I would take some downtime, train hypertrophy,
indoor conditioning, try and shed some weight and get healthy
for a little while. And that's all raw stuff.
So I get like a very gentle, you know, send off of the the
multiply meat into solely during raw stuff.
And then I'll start picking up some intensity and volume and
whatnot as I go along. But if you do it smoothly like
that, it doesn't feel terrible. If you just tried to jump into a
raw prep, it's going to be a rough one.
Yeah. And so you said you like to keep
that raw work in when you're training in the gear kind of
maybe how, how do you incorporate that raw training
into like whether it's an offseason or a prep?
Typically if I'm offseason I do enjoy hypertrophy training.
I have no interest in bodybuilding whatsoever, but I
also like to look like a not fat piece of shit.
So you know, I'll keep in a decent amount of volume on like
squats and deads and then bench stuff reasonably well, but
that's not super great for hypertrophy so that may go
toward more toward accessory stuff.
Shit, I'm sorry I just lost my train of thought.
What's the question? Just about how you're
incorporating the the raw training into like a gear
lifters programming or you're programming itself all.
Right. Yeah, so a big component at this
point in my career, I don't do speed work.
I don't. I don't want to say I don't like
it. I just don't like it for most
lifters because of how people have bastardized it.
The whole set is not supposed to be done as fast as possible.
It's concentric, fast eccentric, maybe tempo, maybe normal speed,
but not fast eccentric. You know, it doesn't make any
sense to rag doll your body around and then expect it to be
explosive. You look at any explosive
athlete, long jumper, high jumper, sprinter, they're not
doing super janky shit right before they need to explode,
right? You're not putting your joints
into like compromise unstable positions to be explosive.
So why would you do that with a barbell?
Yeah. So at this point, I like the
rapper foot method a lot better than the dynamic effort method.
I will still utilize it, but I just treat it more as like
techniques solidifying and work capacity and stuff like that as
opposed to just being as fast as I possibly can.
Yeah. And for for someone like me who
is like a narrow stance, low bar squatter, say like I have a top
single and briefs or the full suit or whatever and my
secondary is like a raw squad. Is that something that you want
that person to kind of emulate that that wider stance or kind
of go back to their competition raw stance?
I'm always going to aim for the most optimal biomechanical
positions. Very, very few, like 1% of
people are great out wide stand efforting.
Fucking freak. I don't know how it squats like
that. Jordan Wong, insane hips, you
know, and it really does come down to hip structure.
But otherwise like even though I made it work for a very long
time, standing ultra wide roll does not fucking good.
So no, I wouldn't have you trying to emulate that because
it's not. You're not recruiting the same
musculature without that external stimulus of the gear to
fight against. Think about the Super easy
examples. Think about deadlift when you
have to fight to get down to the bar and then maintain that
tension. Get your core tension and drive
up at the same time. That doesn't feel anything like
bending over and picking up a deadlift for raw.
So there's just a lot of external factors that go into
equipped lifting that don't apply to your role set up or how
you execute the lift. So it wouldn't make sense for me
to think that even though my feet are the same in this raw
lift, that that movement is going to directly give me carry
over to the complex. Yeah.
And for for me, I was a conventional polar before and
now that I'm in the breeze and stuff, I'm obviously training
sumo. And it's actually been going
surprisingly well. I kind of wish I switched to
sumo like four years ago. But I guess I know a lot of
people whether it's like, for example, like Kayla Woolum, like
he was a sumo polar in competition, but it's a lot of
his training was conventional. So what are some of the things
or what is your opinion on kind of being able to switch up
between conventional and sumo? I'm a big fan of being
proficient in both stances and I will have almost all my lifters
trained both stances at some point throughout the year as
long as it's not detrimental to some, you know, imbalance or
whatever they have going on. I like when I first started
following programs and stuff like that.
I came across one of Ed Cohn's old programs in like a
Powerlifting USA and it was super basic, very linear.
You had one work set sumo, you had one work set deficit
conventional. I was like, well, this fucking
guy pulls £900. He probably knows what he's
talking about. And I had a lot of success
running that program over and over, time after time, as long
as I didn't let my ego get in the way.
And base your percent off the number that you want instead of
what you're capable of. Yeah.
So I'm like, if you're having a bad day and your knees are
killing you, you can still pull conventional.
If you're having a bad back day, you can still pull sumo from
most people. So I like to keep something in
there as a, as a Plan B that's still salvage today, rather than
just saying fuck this, getting pissed off and going home, you
know? Yeah.
And I guess while we're on the topic of deadlifts, I know a
larger problem in the multiply community is kind of it's
there's a grip issue in the the like dropping of deadlifts
mostly from like hand inflammation and benching and
stuff. Have you ever had any troubles
with that? I mean, I definitely have some
of the fattest hands, the the meat around the thumb in
particular is very swollen all the time on me.
So whether or not that's affected my deadlift, it
certainly doesn't help. And I have noticed quite a bit
of swelling after benching in meats and stuff like that when
we're already swollen anyways from the weight cut and then
bloating back up and everything. But I don't feel like it's
directly sabotage any of my actual deadlifts out of me.
But it does make it a little harder for sure because you get
a lot of saturation in the lower legs and the hands after a full
squat or heavy bench workout. Yeah.
And I guess maybe what are some of the things that someone can
get do to try to mitigate that and kind of not have that be
like their main issue going into a deadlift?
I mean, I know a lot of guys after benches will be icing
their hands. You know, we all bring our
cooler with the food and stuff and you'll just see like five or
six guys lined up with hands on the ice and stuff like that.
I've never really done that with any efficacy, but honestly it's
just I guess getting stronger, making sure you can hold on to
whatever it is you're trying to pull.
Unfortunately, there's no great secrets around that one.
However, I will say typically by the end of the day when I'm
dehydrated and I'm sweating a lot, that does help kind of
deflate the the bloating you have going on.
Yeah. And I guess kind of before we
wrap things up here, as someone who's getting new and to
multiply, maybe what are some of the things that whether it's
coaching points you use or just some of the things you've
learned for someone new learning the gear?
Without telling you to take several courses and get a
fucking degree, learn the basics of bio mechanics because that
will never treat you badly. What we do in the gear is very
abnormal for normal movement patterns and if you can
differentiate what is natural and what isn't and then do your
best to merge the two in the gear, you're going to optimize
it because the gear is there to help supplement your strength.
If you're solely relying on the gear to move weight and move in
and out of positions that you can't really control raw, you're
going to be left unstable and high likelihood for injury
there. So you know these guys, and I
used to be the same way. When I deadlifted, my feet were
out to the plates. When I benched, I would hyper
tuck elbows in by the ribs because I was using that super
tight fucking denim shirt. And then the squat stance, you
know, feet out to the mono legs because the range of motion was
short. And I can be super explosive and
pretend I'm truck V, but over time that shit breaks you down
really fast. And all the guys that squat
really wide to now fucked up hips and it cost them their
deadlift. All the guys that have super
tight shirts and externally rotate the shit out of their
shoulders, they don't last very long.
Everyone from my area that was in denims, there's, there's
almost none of us left. So I don't think that's
coincidence. The closer you can stay to
assuming you're optimized raw, the closer you can stay to your
raw groove and still force the gear to stretch you're most out
of it that way. And you're going to minimize how
fucked up you're getting using it because there's nothing good
about the way that we use the gear.
Even though people say like, oh, it helps protects my joints and
stuff like that. And yeah, like if I put it on my
hip will stop hurting, but when I take it off my hip still
hurts, right. So it didn't fix anything.
The the shit is still there. So just learning a little bit
about bio mechanics and then not training like an asshole.
When I trained at my first handful of gyms, it was just, it
was a very similar, like Westside Barbell Mart.
I said it was just the wild, Wild West.
It was Who can survive the longest?
You know, we'd just go on our rotations until there's only one
man standing. And while that was super fun and
we got strong, we also got really fucked up doing that.
So eventually I had to learn there's got to be some strategy
and not overstepping bounds, especially as I got older into
my 30s. I'm a lot more mild than I was,
you know, at 20. So I think we can kind of wrap
things up here. I'll ask you my final question.
If you could give a new powerlifter or someone going
into their first meet a word of advice, what would that be?
Going into your first meet is honestly just about surviving
and having a good time because honestly, the biggest thing that
you can take away from this sport, like you touched on
earlier, is the camaraderie and just the positive result.
That isn't a number, right? Of course, hitting PRS is
awesome and we all want the records and, you know, getting
the gratification of, you know, whatever state record when I was
a teen was awesome, you know, and I I love that stuff.
But the stuff that you're going to carry on for the rest of your
career and the rest of your life is the bonds that you build and
experiences, you know, that you form.
You know, I've been to other countries several times.
I met people and I have friends all around the world and I have
clients all around the world simply because I kept an open
mind. I wasn't in my own little
bubble, you know, all these guys that throw their headphones in
and they only live in their own little bubble.
Like you're missing out on so much in this sport that you, you
know, you should be benefiting from.
So just really making it a part of your community and your
brotherhood I think is the most important aspect.
And just have fun with it, you know?
Yeah, awesome. I think that's definitely one of
the best things about powerlifting is a community and
kind of meeting new friends. So I want to thank you again for
taking the time to come on. It was my pleasure.
Thanks for having me, Matt.