Ed Coan - The Secret to Powerlifting - Make it Fun - Dr. Ken Kinakin Podcast
This is gonna be too much fun, you know what it's always fun. Yeah, it's just you gotta have fun You know And that's and that's what you're not gonna do it and be any good or do it for a long period of time If it's not fun Yeah, you can't, you can't sustain it, you know, and just everything is so serious and weird and no, I mean, one time you, you said something to me in Chicago when we're eating at a steak place, Gibson's, and you had gone to a class in Chicago, which is a testament to you that you still love to go out and learn, and it had to do with the brain and how every single thing that happens starts in the brain.
Yeah. Yeah. And I think about that all the time and I use it all the time. Because if it's not fun, if there's not some type of, you know, pleasure center to get signaled where our bodies won't do it, our brain won't secrete and [00:01:00] excrete and, and make body parts work with heavy weights or high reps or high endurance or whatever, it'll shut off and won't let you do that.
I know, I know. And that's the important part.
I talked to Scott Stevenson yesterday and I said, you know what, training is like dancing. You know, so many people want to get to the, you know, to the competition and they miss the journey of getting there. It's kind of like dancing. You know what the purpose isn't to get to the end of the dance.
The most important part is to enjoy the dance, you know, and that's one thing that you've always talked about.
Can we talk about, you know, some of your fitness or not even fitness, your powerlifting, and you know, aspects and what were some of the memories that you've had your greatest memories within powerlifting in the gym and actually in competition.
The competition was fun because I got to meet people and have fun with all competitors from all over the world in my own country. Also, I enjoyed [00:02:00] being in the gym the most because we all get, we all go to the gym because we want to be bigger and stronger, look better, or. However, it is. And it becomes our, our biggest mental outlet that we all have.
So my, my most enjoyment is in the gym with my guys training and laughing and busting balls and just having a good time, lifting the most weights we could do. It was, it was just the best time of my life. I still enjoy it. Yeah. You know, and, and did you use the competition as something to train for? And, or was it a test in order to see how strong you had gotten?
It was a, it was an end goal as far as showing what I could do for myself. Cause I never really gave a crap about what anyone else thought. I did this for me. And I mean, of course you have people along the way that help you, your training partners, you [00:03:00] know, your wife, girlfriend, your parents, your other family, you know, you really do it for you.
It's, it's not like anyone can say, I'm going to spot you and lift the weight up for you. It doesn't, it doesn't work that way. But I enjoyed training in the gym so much that I probably could have peaked a little bit better for contests, but I just enjoyed the training part in the gym so much. So at a meet, whenever I went to a meet, it was.
I'm going to have a lot of fun. There's no bigger pressure than I, that anyone can put on me that I put on my pride on myself already. I have my first attempt in, if that goes well, I know where to go. If that goes well, I know where to go. If it doesn't go well, I know where to not go and where to go also.
So it was just like, you know. I'm going to do the best I can on the day in the gym. Everything was set pre numbered. I knew what I had to do and I was going to get it. The gym, the meat was different because you [00:04:00] don't have all your guys around. You're in a different place. You have different bars and weights.
You're on a time schedule. You have equipment checked. You have all these other things going on that are not in your control.
Now, would you also find that the competition was fun for you?
I loved it. I mean, it's what, it's what I did. I mean, I enjoyed training more, but at a competition, when I hit my first attempt, I knew I won.
Oh, wow. So then it's like, then it's like, okay, Eddie, what do you got in you today? Right. Then it was fun. The first attempt is never any fun because you're worried as about everything that's going to happen wrong. You're, you're, you're more apprehensive. I, I've said it before that, you know, Apprehensing, being apprehensive will save your life, but fear will kill you.
Ah, that's a t shirt apprehensive. You may take something a little slower or not as aggressive, but if you're scared, it's going to take you out of [00:05:00] it, out of your groove. It's going to make you do it way, way different. And that's when bad shit happens. So, so, so how do you, how do you choose the first attempt?
Cause I've just seen so many people bomb and once you bomb, like, I mean, it could be a bad day. Would you alter your first attempt based on how you feel in the warmup or would you have it in your mind as far as, yeah, I'm going to be able to hit this. I, I, I already knew no matter what, I based it all in my training.
And my training was based where I'm not gonna max out in training. I'm not gonna leave everything in the gym. I'm not gonna be burnt out by the time I got to the meet, whether it's, you know, my CNS or just, you know, complete mental breakdown. So I know that I'm gonna under train almost in the gym, and I'm gonna go there fresh.
Now my mind is fresh. What happens when your mind's fresh? Right? Everything good right now? You, so like in, in my last training cycle, if I went up to like. 980 for a double. I knew that I could open up at [00:06:00] 929 30. Okay. Which, you know, for most people is, you know, 4, 7, 17 and a half kilos, or 4 22 and a half.
And I knew that that was gonna be easy as hell. It's just how easy, how did it feel? How did the walkout feel? How did the setup feel? How did everything feel? And then I know where to go and it's usually gonna be a pretty big jump. So what would your second attempt be then? Anywhere from 980 or you know, you know, four 40.
Two to four 55 kilos. So nine 80 to a thousand. And then the third would be something that you would based on whatever that felt like. Okay. What am I good for, for the day? The problem people have when they miss openers is they set their expectations so high and they don't base it off of how they felt in training.
Right? Like I can't open up [00:07:00] at nine 80 and then jump to barely over a thousand. Because that's way too heavy on an opener as far as percentage is concerned, but you can open up at 500 if your max is 550. Right, right. So, so yeah, it's always a percentage.
And, and so you would, so you would finish the squat and then you'd go into the bench, getting a little bit more tired.
Um, uh, when you go into deadlift, how would that feel?
Not bad at all, because it's called being in shape.
I was just in shape. And, and you also didn't miss reps in training either. Did you? No, no, not, not unless I like did a little tweak on like a calf muscle or something that then I knew that everything was okay and I could continue at what I did. If there, if there was, I made my training cycles long enough where I could have, uh, what [00:08:00] the cool kids call a deload week.
And we'll send, I 50 every time I say that, I think. Exactly. So. You know, it was enough weeks where I could have lighter weeks in there just in case or if I was feeling a little bit overtrained.
Okay. And how much time would you take off? I've heard different stories as far as the amount of your last heavy workout to the competition.
That would be seven to 10 days to 14th in the squat.
My last heavy, my last heavy one in the squat was about, uh,
12 days out. Wow. But I'd have a, I'd have a squat day, uh, at the beginning of the week of the meet at usually somewhere around 550 pounds for a couple triples. And the, and the bench. My last heavy one was, uh. 10 days out with the same thing of the week. Meet week. My last deadlift heavy workout would be, uh, almost two and a half weeks out.
Seriously. It took so [00:09:00] much more. So you would literally almost take 20, 21 days off. Yeah. From the, from the last heavy, uh, deadlift sometimes, you know, you can have a light one in there or something to keep your groove or stay tight. You can't train heavy, the deadlift because there's no, you know, rebound.
There's no eccentric portion. It, uh, it tends to peak a lot faster and sooner than a squat would.
Oh, wow. That's brilliant. So my deadlift cycles were always a little bit shorter. And you know, I never even thought of that, that there is no eccentric on the deadlift. No, it's just bam. Yeah. And that's really hard on your body.
So that's harder on the nervous system than doing, uh, eccentric and concentric. Yeah. Where's your, where's your, uh, your own natural, your own natural spring. You don't get it. Right? Yeah. You don't get a bounce, no plyometric, no reflex, [00:10:00] no nothing. Nope.
Wow. You know what? After all these years, I've been competing 40 years.
And you're even thought of that. There is none. That's sometimes shit just pops in my head. That's a t shirt.
It's legit too. Now, what are the common mistakes that you see? Say, uh, a regional lifter, not, not at a national level, but a regional lifter mate, are they training too often? I'm seeing a real trend of, uh, people squatting and dead lifting.
Yeah, two, three, four times a week. If, if the, uh, the intensity is fairly low, then you can do that.
Cause it's just like a, uh, Uh, active recovery. Okay. So you could, you could actually practice technique, a little bit of speed, but as long as the weights aren't too high and the intensity isn't too high, what you put into it, you, you'll recover no problem. So it's [00:11:00] a lot of that isn't, isn't bad. It's, it's only if you go too heavy too often and, and, and a heavy can be.
You know, a max rep or heavy could be a set of 10 that you bust your buns on and you don't have any more or any anywhere in between. So if, if that, you know, your, your RPE is way too high, you can't do that a bunch of times in a week. It won't work. You'll burn out, you'll get hurt. You'll have overuse injuries.
What I, what I used to do is I used to put in heavy compound assistance work and do it almost just like I was getting ready for. a close grip contest or an end kind contest or a shoulder press contest or a stiff leg deadlift contest or a bent row contest. So I put it in there to get volume without getting an overuse injury and breaking me down, but making other parts of my strong, my body, as I usually say, like a suit of armor, wherever you hit, there's a big chunk of strong.
Wow. That's [00:12:00] brilliant. That's great. So you'd have fun creating other competitions for yourself in the gym. Yeah, there was a, there was a strong man named Brian Schoonfeld that used to lift with us. Uh, great guy, the hardest worker I ever saw in my life. And he was like, you know, 350 pounds. Sometimes he used to hold the log press record with Sadrunas the same way, just press no jerk, like into the upper four hundreds.
And we used to have bent over row contests. We'd have a training cycle of, you know, I could beat him in the squat and deadlift and we would have bent over row contests because we could come closer than that. So it would be like. Taking the same weight and this who could do the most at the end for a double And that you know what that makes it fun again exactly You know, you got exactly if it's fun, it lasts a long long time Yeah, and it makes it enjoyable to go back in and and you know You have the camaraderie and you can build it up, you know on different aspects It's not just the [00:13:00] squat but you know, you can have that I know kaz did that a lot too.
He was always Oh, Bill is extremely competitive with every single person on the planet, even if it was a 10 year old girl, that's true. No. So, so with, with the volume, so your, your week, uh, as far as what I've seen in the seminars, your, your periodization would be about 10 weeks, correct? Anywhere from 10 to 14 from, from like, uh, from nationals to worlds, it would be, I didn't have as much time.
So it would be shorter. And then after nationals, I could get two to three training cycles in with like no equipment. I changed my squad around to make it a high bar closed stance, which worked my weakness is better. Um, I changed my deadlift around and do like a deficit stiff leg deadlift with no belt pausing on the ground for, for nine or 10 weeks doing that.
And I, I had enough time to do a bunch of training cycles where I could actually really get strong [00:14:00] to where I wanted to not just try to peak for a meet. Right. So you, you'd intentionally try and develop it within the gym. And so that you could build it up so that when you did go to the meet, you were ready, but not burnt out.
If I knew these, if I knew whatever exercises were stronger, I knew for a hundred percent fact. That my list would be better by the end of the training cycle. Now, what techniques or strategies did you use as far as, uh, for injuries, tweaks in the shoulder, low back knees, you know, I know that you've had, I had a chiropractor that I could go to that was less than five minutes away.
That luckily I got free service from. and named Dr. James Stockson. Oh yeah, James. Yeah. He would, I could go to him like four or five times a week. And I had a guy named Boris, uh, a big heavy Ukrainian guy who was my masseuse, who learned a lot of stuff off just [00:15:00] working on my body. And I would go to him once or twice a week, at least two.
So even if I didn't feel anything, I always did that as preventative medicine, which people forget. You know what? I think they really do, especially when you get into the heavier loads. You know, if you're squatting seven, eight, 900, 1000 pounds, that's completely different now, would you change your, cause I've seen it with, you know, uh, Brian Carroll and Ken with them and a number of people that I know as far as lifting the heavier weights and the heavier they went, they tried to always keep trying to lift heavy without building in the restoration time, would you, the stronger that you became as far as when you're squatting five, six, seven, What did your program change when you started squatting eight, 900, a thousand pounds?
No, because I continued doing all the same assistance work. So I was in shape to be able to handle it. The rest of my body was in shape. What, what we just talked about, what I did all these other exercises in the off season and some of them [00:16:00] during season is my whole body was then strong. So it's not like, When I went heavier in the squats, it affected my lower back more or it affected my upper back more or, you know, uh, deadlifts, uh, affected my hips or hamstrings more because I always did all those other exercises to a high degree.
And kept them in there. So I was just a bigger, stronger version of my lighter self that would you still squat, you know, bench and deadlift during the accessory, or would you add that in later? No, I would still do it, but I would do a different form of it. So my whole off season wasn't a regular power squat.
It was a high bar, close dance squat. Oh, really? You would change it up? Yeah. Yeah. Cause that was my weakness. I didn't like front squats. They didn't, I couldn't use enough weight to transfer over, but I could do a high bar closed stance, more Olympic lifting squat and my bench. I do it my feet up in the air or on the bench.
My, my [00:17:00] deadlift, I would switch to nothing but stiff legs for at least nine weeks. With no belt off a deficit, pause them all on the ground. And so you would go to conventional, even though you went, uh, in competition, you'd be sumo. Yeah, I w I would do a, uh, first I would do a cycle of stiff legs and then I would do a cycle of conventional.
And then I had enough time to get ready for sumo sumo. I only needed six sumo workouts to get ready for a contest. Now I've heard that it can be a mistake to continually do sumo. In training, just as it's so hard on the adductors and you can get some real adductor strain. I made my adductors really strong.
I could sit up against the wall in like a Lotus position and my chiropractor would stand on my legs and I would just go up and down until I hit the floor and just play with them. And he was 200 pounds. I would just play with them there like that. Holy smoke.
Now, how would you, Fred Hatfield used to tell me you should only be As flexible as the [00:18:00] sport that you're in that, you know, what you need to be, he goes too much or too less is what's going to kill you.
Now, would you basically say that within powerlifting, you need to be a little tighter, a little bit more stable as opposed to flexible?
In certain spots, I think your, your, your hamstrings have to be a little looser. That definitely your, your, uh, your calves, your triceps, your upper lats. Um, usually if you do your upper lats, your shoulders are taken care of.
And usually the shoulder, when you're inflexible and you're in your shoulders, it's usually really, really tight pecs because your upper lats and you haven't developed any back deltoids whatsoever, that whole upper back reason. So it tends to get pulled forward way too much. Right, right. And so with, within the actual training, would you do some flexibility work also, as far as any stretch?
Yeah. Light, light. Just before I lifted, With, with a little bit of exercise, like I'd warm up with some light leg [00:19:00] presses and then do hamstrings and adductor stretch and maybe a hip flexor. And then later on at night as I'm sitting, watching TV while there's a bunch of minutes in between a commercial, I could do one stretch.
Okay. So you'd continually always try and keep that mobility? Yeah, usually like for the legs, usually it was a either a, a hamstring or an adductor stretch. 'cause I found that if my adductors are healthy. It affected my hips, then my lower back and so on. So just that, you know, that one thing would have a domino effect on everything else.
And how would you basically stretch out the pecs? Was there a specific stretch that you'd use for that? Just to make sure mostly wall stretches. Wall stretches. And would you do any stretches? Yeah. A door, a door jam. Would you do anything for the squats as far as stretch? Uh, flexibility, quad stretch, just as long as I, as long as I stretch my hamstrings, adductors, and, uh, sometimes my hip flexors, it was no problem.
And so for the, uh, adductors, you would do the lotus as far as, uh, both feet together and just press down. Yeah. And [00:20:00] you found that the most effective or, or I would do it the opposite way and put 'em against the floor and lean forward. Oh, okay. Okay. Cause then you got a little gravity helping you pull them down.
Your own body weight. And what about hamstrings? What would you use for that straight leg? Fuck yeah. Just a barely bent leg. And that's even if I could touch my, touch my feet with my long ass arms. You want to hear, you know, uh, uh, Australian strength coach, Sebastian Oreb actually had a comment that I really liked that I use that I steal from him all the time, but I give him credit and that was, if you can actually do.
An exercise in perfect form, full range of motion. That is a form of therapy already. Yes. Yeah, I agree. And I never thought of it that way, but you know, credit to him. Well, I think the important part is that you have to warm up the motion of the exercise. A lot of times we're going after the muscle, but a lot of times you need to actually go after the [00:21:00] motion, uh, that you're going to be doing.
And we don't warm that up a lot of times. So that's the motion takes care of the muscle. Yes. Yes. But I mean with a lightweight, so a lot of people just start slapping on weight too quick, you know, without necessarily wonder why their form sucks. Yeah. You know, starting to have you, or even just warming up with the, now, would you ever just warm up with the bar?
Say you're squatting. Only to get under it for my shoulders. That's about it. But other than that, it was, when I was strong, it would be, uh, one red on there, three reds, so it'd be like, you know, 75 kilos, then it would be one 75 kilos, then it would be two 50, then it would be two 95, then it would be something like three 40.
And then so on. So, you know, when I was, when I was healthy and my technique was good, [00:22:00] when my technique was good, meant my body was really healthy and I'm already good to go. Wow. Now, one of your early mentors was Ernie France, was it not? Um, not really a mentor as far as, lifting as much as I used to go there on Saturdays with him and a guy named Bill Sino and Dennis Reed and Sam Mangiolardi.
These were all like world record holders and champions. And I was this young little kid and I used to go there and just do my deadlift workout. And, uh, I did my normal deadlift workout when they were all like doing all three in the same day, like all the old school guys. But I would get, I would, I would sit back in the corner and just watch them.
So I would get there early and watch them watch what was good and what was bad about it. And then every, every, the only way I learned how to train was watching and by feel if it felt good. It was good. [00:23:00] Do people not understand that or accept that as much as far as the feel aspect? The groove? No, especially now because they watch too much, too much social media and they try to be like somebody else instead of finding their spot and saying, this is what feels good.
This is what feels normal for me. You know, normal is different. You know, I was, I've told this before is I was in a, uh, uh, chiropractor, nephropath, Dr. Bo Hightower's office and, uh, Albuquerque, New Mexico. He's the doctor for Jackson wink for all the fighters and stuff. The best fighters in the world, some of them.
And. I looked in a magazine, I saw a, a picture of like four, four to six MRIs of hips, and I noticed that everything was different in each hip, just slightly. And I was like, well, Just if you and I were the exact same height, same exact same build, we still might have [00:24:00] a different squat bench and deadlift stance because how we are on the inside, just that tiny little bit of an angle of a hip can mean a wider stance, a flat shoe, a weightlifting shoe, a closer stance, a high bar, a low bar, a close bench, a wider bench, an arch, a flat back, deadlift, sumo, you know, how you point your toes, all this, all that.
And it all only depended on this much of what? On in the inside. So when I watch someone lift, I go, how does it look? I can usually tell how it looks for them. And I can tell how it feels for them too. And most of the time it's like one little change that has a domino effect. Like instead of trying to pick up your upper chest, pick up your sternum.
It locks your shoulders, black back, locks your upper back, but it also locks your lower lats, which picking your chest up doesn't do, doesn't do it at all. I mean, just try it right now. Pick it, just your upper chest up now, pick up your sternum. Oh, okay. Yeah. [00:25:00] See how that is. Yeah. It locks it in. So, and a lot of trainers now that you would see online would say, Oh, we have to do these three activation exercises and these other two things are weak that we have to work on this.
Instead of just usually it's from a positional standpoint that you have a breakdown, not a weakness in strength. Wow. That's a huge distinction. Look, look, look at a runner. Yeah. Look what happened to someone, especially a sprinter. If they take, they know exactly how many strides it's going to take them to get X amount of nine point whatever on their, on their a hundred meter dash.
If one of their strides is this much longer and their body isn't used to it. Pop goes a hamstring. It's that little. Yeah. Wow. Their body and mind are trained for it. Which is neurological. Yeah. Now I've had [00:26:00] you at Swiss a number of times and out of everyone that, you know, I've had there, you have the best eye to actually analyze what's going on and and how, how it should be.
How can someone develop that type of training eye, that proper coaching eye? As you look at someone, you go, okay, this and this and this, you need to modify this. What, how could you coach someone in order to have a better eye? Watch a video of them when they do something really, really good. Then watch them in person and watch them do something really, really bad.
And then you'll say, then you'll watch both, look at both again and compare and think in your mind at what point either their sternum dropped a big, huge problem that people have is they relax their abs on when they get down to the low point of the squat. That's when they all of a sudden [00:27:00] go down, they hit and they go like this.
That's usually cause their core breaks. They don't keep it tight enough. Everyone's thinking of keeping their back tight and their legs tight and pushing hard, but they forget to keep their abs tight. Okay. It's extremely common. Now, would you tell them to push the gut against the belt? Is that what you mean?
I don't, I don't like that because it creates, it would be like a fat guy walking, you get a sway back and all that weight is then on your lower back. I would say just as you know, Duffin and I went over it when the first time I went there before I even started Kabuki is just lift your sternum up. It's squeeze everything tight.
Normally your, your abs act at your belt anyways. So when you put a belt on pretty snug or tight, they're going to push against it anyways, cause that's what they do. But you don't want to consciously push them out into it because you're losing your tightness of your abs then. Right, right. I know that's a key.
When I used to do bent over [00:28:00] rows or a lot of my deadlift stuff in the off season, I didn't wear a belt and on my bent over rows I wouldn't touch the ground and the reason I did that because my, my abs, my whole core, which is real core, which is all connected to your back had to stay locked and work together.
So my back and my abs would work together. Well, do they do that in the squat? Do they do that in the deadlift? Right. They even do that in the bench. If you, if you lift your sternum up tight enough, even Stuart McGill says you still have to brace your abs. Right, right. So they all work together in sync. And if you don't get that, you will have a breakdown.
Now, is that one of the reasons why, when someone is deadlifting, when they start out, they kick their ass out before they actually start to pull instead of having that flat back, like they go into a round back. Yeah. Well, a lot of times they do that because they're, they, they don't have a strong enough structure and, and their whole, uh, mid upper back region.
To hold it [00:29:00] tight, to hold that tight or, or their, their abs are weak or what's, what happens sometimes it's just a bad position at the start. They'll try to sit too low and pull, or they're still start. They'll try to start too high and pull. Here's the, here's the thing.
Almost every single time a lifter misses a lift it's because what he did at the very beginning at the start, whether it's a walkout on the squat or whether it's when he's on the way down or when he's just setting the bar up or when he's setting up on the bench or setting up in the deadlift, it's usually cause he did something wrong.
If you're in the proper position to lift a weight, your body will do it. So everything is based on the setup and that's why you teach people on how to wiggle into their actual deadlift. Yeah. They're getting tighter and tighter and tighter, especially in the deadlift. So because we don't have that eccentric part in it is we got to [00:30:00] create that tension that we would normally get from the eccentric part.
So we have to create that more from the bottom. Now, uh, one of the things that, uh, you showed at Swiss was in the bench press, as far as building it up and then having the gut and you, you wrap me on the stomach the one time that, you know, you can actually hear. That is how you got to sound. It's got to sound like a right water watermelon, which your belly was perfect for.
I'm sorry,
but but when you're setting up, could you walk through the proper set up for the bench? Yeah. So, okay. You lie down, put your hands on the bar, start wiggling your feet to the outside and then slowly backing in. As you do that, you're pushing against the ground and creating tension on your legs and on your butt.
When you do that, you push against the bar the other way, not, not, not to go backwards, but to go [00:31:00] towards your butt and you start picking up your sternum. And as you pick up, you wiggle like you're putting your, your scapula in your back pockets. You're wiggling in and getting tighter and tighter and tighter till structurally You're fucking hot as a rock, right?
Right? Then there's no breakdown then when you push off your chest You push off and it goes like this, not like this. And that's who those elbows flare out. That means you lost your arch or you lost the tightness in your back, which should not happen.
And how would you set up for the deadlift?
Well, I know it's documented.
As you say, I wiggle in. So I would, I would walk, I walk up, I set my feet where I want them. And then I do more of a, uh, a straight up and down squat to grab the bar. When I grabbed the bar, I bend over a little bit. I wiggle in tighter and closer to the bar, as close as I can get my hips to the bar as I'm taking the slack out.
So I have extreme tension on the bar, pulling [00:32:00] myself in. My whole body's getting tight. And as my legs get tight, when I pick my sternum up, then my lats lock in and I'm ready. Okay, now I'm what I'm seeing is there's a lot of lifters in the deadlift. They take the extreme width. You basically were closer as far as to be able to get down.
And, you know, I talked to Dr. Megan Brighton Jones yesterday. And she was saying that a lot of times the lifters, they take too much, um, width and the, and the weights going down versus, you know, she's gave, you know, the example of you where you were more straight up and down your shins. I did a combination of, uh, sumo conventional, but I got legs like the Oompa Loompa.
So I can't really go wide. You could tell if someone goes too wide is if their knees start to buckle in. Okay. So that's a good, then what happens is they're so then it [00:33:00] becomes more like a stiff leg sumo because they can't use their hips and their adductors. The adductors on the sumo are the most important.
If they fire, you will not bent over. Okay. And if someone takes too close of a sumo, you could tell because they bend over more and they just do a sumo conventional. It's a little too far bent over. Okay. I got it moving with my legs and then my back and hips took over. But that's also your biomechanically set up for the squat and deadlift.
You that's just, it was, it was, it was my comfort spot. Okay. Okay. I didn't look at anyone to find my spot. Okay. I just found my spot because it felt right. So, so you just kept working until you found exactly what you needed. Yeah, it felt right. So I made that position that I felt my body, my mind and body accepted it.
So I just made it strong reps and reps and reps and reps. Did you do anything specific for your grip, especially in the [00:34:00] deadlift? Yeah, I used to, uh, even though I had like these giant mitts, I, I used to do this, uh, one arm standing sideways, barbell holds, um, on a, on an old, I make sure it was an old bar with no knurling in the middle and my, uh, my training partner would help me up with it.
And then he would just once in a while, tap it. If it was getting way too off balance. And I got up to four 65 pounds for 30 seconds on one hand. You held four 65 with one hand. Yeah. Standing, standing sideways here. Here's the cool thing. Stuart McGill, when I first met him and we did a seminar together, he met standing up, efforting to myself at a place called, uh, beats personal training in Cincinnati.
And when I shook his hand, he held onto my hand. A little bit too long. So I looked at him and pointed. I said, what are you doing right now? Cause I could tell, you know, he's a scientist. Well, [00:35:00] the, the studies show that, you know, your grip from your thumb to your pinky, if that has a lot of, if that's fairly even in the pinky is not that weak, it shows a sign of good health.
So I passed this test, but what I used to do with that bar hold is I'm lightweight, my training partner used to tip it one way, so it put all the weight. in these two fingers. So I got these two fingers exceptionally strong. Oh, so that's the other ones are already strong. So you wouldn't do any wrist rolls or anything like that.
I used to do some heavy when I was younger. I used to do some heavy, uh, regular, uh, foreign curls in reverse. I mean, foreign curls. I used to go off to like 250 for sets of 15. So that was pretty crazy. And you know what? I, I, I never put a limit on myself cause I didn't care what other people did. I didn't pay attention.
Right. I only [00:36:00] cared about me getting better and getting stronger. I wanted to be big and strong and you know, all over. Oh my gosh, that is so awesome. I love all these little tips. Yeah, that's the biggest thing. Now in powerlifting, we have to make weight classes. What was your strategy in order to make weight?
Uh, if I got too lean, then it became too dangerous to go too heavy. And, uh, and I just went up a weight class and lucky in powerlifting. We got, there's always another weight class, so I didn't have to worry, but yeah, when I got too, too lean and it became a little bit dangerous to handle a heavy weight or it couldn't make the progress I wanted, I went up in weight.
Okay, but say you're going to try and make a weight class, you're 10 pounds over, would you just do the calorie restriction or would you do something?
Yeah, they, we didn't have water loading or anything like that in that day. It was almost like a little bit of starvation. Like it was almost like a wrestler and just [00:37:00] getting on the scale here and there with, with a steak in your hand or some fruit in your hand and judging your weight and how am I going to make weight?
So I never, the heaviest I had to drop was at 181 where I had to drop a little over 20 pounds, but I was already so lean. So like a day and a half later, even though I weighed in at. Uh, 180 1 a day and a half later, I was already like 2 0 2 . So yeah, that's a lot, a lot. That was a lower back pump. . Now, what would you, uh, u utilize as far as during the competition for food?
How would you keep your energy up? What did, what were strategies? Just low glycemic something, some type of protein bar, some type of, little bit of a drink. Nothing, nothing big. You know what? When I'd have just a little bit of breakfast, but I wasn't really good at eating in the morning of a meat because of nerves, [00:38:00] I was just in fricking shape and I wanted it really bad and there was nothing going to stand in my way.
I already put it in the work. I'm ready. That's that actually, actually that is the truth, isn't it? Is that put in the work, get ready and just keep, you know what you want it hit, hit the numbers that you want. Yeah. My, my, I'm in shape. My body's in shape. My mind's in shape because I reinforced positive mental attitude by not missing a rep and hitting everything I was supposed to in training and not being hurt.
So once that is done. Your mind says you're good to go. Your body says, okay.
So how do you set up your program?
So you don't miss reps? Cause a lot of people, you know, they, are they just overenthusiastic and figure that they're basically, they're basically on a false number to start. They're overshooting from the very start.
So usually what happens is with me, I start at the back end and go and go down. And then if I have to, I [00:39:00] write it back over. So I would start at the 12th week. And then I would back it down to the first week. What did I do last contest? What do I think I'm capable of without a doubt? And then every set, every rep is figured out with every weight on every single exercise.
All the way down. Wow. And, and would you, how much, how much say you squatted, uh, 9. 50 in a competition and say six months later, you're going to hit another competition. How much of a jump would you expect? Would it be? I usually knew I would be good for 20 or, or slightly more pounds. Okay. So it would be realistic, especially at that level.
A hundred, a hundred percent realistic, the end number. Cause if the end number isn't realistic, every number that you have. Set up for the whole training cycle is going to screw you up. So here's what happens when you overshoot that just by a little bit, even you hit your first week, [00:40:00] second week, third week, fourth week, fifth week, it gets really hard by the seventh to eighth week.
You make some mistakes. You either get a little pull, you become less enthusiastic, which has to do with your mind, or you start missing reps. They blame the routine. Right? What was the fault? Was it? Who created your fault because you overshot but as I've said before is I wanted to be in it for a long time and if you make if you're able to do four training cycles a year, really good ones and make a tiny little bit of progress in almost every single big compound exercise.
Where are you at the end of just five years? What kind of body do you have all over? Right now, that body can handle way more punishment because we punish our bodies, right? [00:41:00] And it can handle it for a longer period of time. Now, if you keep laying down a new base every time, and those numbers get greater, your top end gets better.
Your longevity gets better. You don't have a problem with it. So are people just impatient as far as they're, they just want everything so fast. Yeah. They watch too much social media now and they say, I want this and I want that. It has to be a realistic goal or else it'll never, ever, ever come true. And, and also realize that you're going to do it over time.
You know, you're going to build it up and you stay healthy then I think. Yeah. If you truly love what you do in the gym, in your job, whatever, and you want to do it for a long time. Do it right. Take the time to treat yourself right to be able to do it. What did I say? Rome wasn't built in a day. Look at the tortoise and the hare, all those different, you know, sayings.
They all mean something because it's [00:42:00] true. It is, especially in powerlifting and especially if you want to stay in it for a long time. Cause you know, I'm just treating so many people that they go too hard, too heavy, too fast, and then they start cranking everything possible. And then, you know, they, they don't understand that.
You know what? Just back off. They have this weird number that, you know, I'm supposed to deadlift 700 by the, you know, the end of the month. And I'm like, you're not going to make it. Yeah, it's not going to happen. So what, what happens in the routine is what they usually change is by week three or four, they're everything's moving faster, hitting their reps.
That's popping. They're feeling big. They're feeling healthy. They look great at the mirror. And then by that week, four or five, Oh, I'm going to go up a little bit more than the program says, because this. Last week was so easy. Well, that little jump changes every single week after that. And it changes the outcome [00:43:00] of what you normally would.
If you want to squat 500, you're not going to hit 500. You're going to be burnt out. So 500 doesn't even come. I think that's one of the biggest mistakes is that I feel really strong. So I'll just crank it. Yeah, take your time. You know, I've spotted people in the gym where I've asked them, well, uh, how many are you going to get?
How many are you going for? What's, what's your routine call for six to eight? I'm like six to eight. No, that's not, that's not, no, it's, it's six or eight. What does the routine go? Six to eight. So if you feel good, you're going to do eight. You're going to bust your buns on a hundred percent intensity set, which sometimes is worse than taking a single because reps destroy your central nervous system even more.
So where are you going to go? I think it was, uh, you know, Mark Bell told me his wife always, after someone says something, she says, and then what, where are you going to go? Right, right. Yeah, you got it. [00:44:00] You got to develop it, you know, and that's the whole thing stay with the program And I think that's the biggest advice that you know When we did the powerlifting panel you talked about your routine and Jim Wendler Leaned over he says and you didn't miss any reps in training I think that's the biggest piece that people, they don't know what they're going to do in the training and also they, they're going to randomly, whatever plate is closest to them, they're going to throw on the bar.
Okay. How do you develop the positive mental attitude? All these studies show this and this and this and this and this. Well, you know what? You could set up and have the right shoes, the right knee sleeves, the right wrist wraps, the right equipment to train on. But if you screw up your training a little bit, you're done.
How do you recover from that? You got to reassess right away and say, where did I go wrong? What's wrong with my training? And you can salvage Almost all of it right away. [00:45:00] So would you back off? Would you change the program based on possibility of missing? Because I mean, you know, you could end up with a cold.
I wouldn't because I didn't have to, but I would recommend is okay. How much time do you have left to get to where you want to be or until the contest or whatever? If you have extra time, we could break you back down a little bit and build you back up. If you just set your numbers wrong, that's what we could do.
If you're over trained. It's a little bit slightly different. You need to back off a little bit for a couple of weeks before you come back up. But your end goal has to change because usually it's caused from an end goal. Or like I said, a training routine that says, Oh, I'm going to do six to eight reps.
No, that's not scientific at all. Training is scientific. It's not let's, you know, balls to the wall at all times. And I'll be strong because I did this in a gym. No, you have to peak properly for a contest. Gym lists don't count. That's true. Only on social media. [00:46:00] Now, would you use any, uh, different type of supplements, whether it be vitamin C, vitamin B, or anything else?
Anything else? It was mostly vitamin D3 in the day and some type of protein supplement because I never had a big appetite, nor do I now. I could get away with eating almost anything I want. I just made sure that I got enough protein. Okay. You know, I kept my mind happy, you know, steak and protein powder.
It doesn't get any better at that. Yeah. It was, you know, based on, you know, how's my body weight? How do I feel? You know, I, I, I didn't always have to use the scale. I have a mirror in the house. I'm pretty honest with myself. I know how I feel in the gym. There you go. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's so important to, to basically know what you are good at in the sense of the foods and all that, and some, some of the supplements.
They can be helpful, but some are, uh, they make some interesting claims. So yeah, back in the day it was, you know, Oh, [00:47:00] die bankers. I'd all this, all that. There were like the new supplement of the month pushed, pushed by the supplement companies. I know. I remember Fred Hatfield came out with a, That black tar from the bottom of that Russian lake.
No movie. It was from the Nile or something like that, but he got it from the Russian supposedly. Yeah. It was something like movie. Yeah, that was, that was fun. That was fun because well, well, the, uh, the kicker was that like, uh, It was, uh, it has anabolic properties. Damn a steak has more anabolic properties than anything else.
I know, or, or what a lot of people that used to, uh, back in the days, all the, uh, Roy dealers used to say, Oh, it works on a cellular level. So does a glass of water. Yo, everyone tries to build it up and make it sound different than it really, yo, what it really was to try to make you buy shit, whether it's [00:48:00] legal or illegal, it was all the same bullcrap.
Ed, I just want to thank you for spending time with us. You know what? Oh, any time what you've done with the Swiss symposium is amazing for not like just Canada than us, but the whole world watches your stuff and attends. So when we get back together, we're going to do one of these live on stage, just you and me.
And that'll be the presentation. And we're going to have people learn, but we're going to have them die and laughing at the same time. If you can learn and die laughing, you'll never forget what you learned. That's true. I'd love it. Okay. That'll be once, once everything opens up, the board is opened up.
We'll set it all up. We'll have some fun with it. Yes, we will. All right, my friend. Thank you so, so much. And remember you are such a good guy and I do love you. And I'm glad you're my friend. So take care of yourself. I love you too. My friend, you're, you're such an inspiration to everyone in the world. And I really appreciate those words.
Those kind words. It's just, it's, it's [00:49:00] easier to be nice. Yeah, it really is be nice. Have fun. Well, that, that kind of makes me Canadian. If I'm too nice, right? Hey, there you go. Okay. Take care of my friend. See you buddy. Ciao. I had a little pleasure. Always mine.
