Transition to Weightlifting and Bodybuilding

And now you're down the lifting train. Yeah. Which is out of everything I've done is the most frustrating, hardest one. I would say bodybuild, bodybuilding is the easiest fucking one out of all of them. If somebody says bodybuilding is hard. I don't know. The only hard part is starving yourself. Yeah. I think that is the hard part for sure. Yeah. That's the only hard part. And people tell me, oh, bulking is hard. No, it's not. It's fucking easy to overeat. It's so easy. Stop trying to overeat on potatoes and rice. Powerlifting was hard, but in a different way. Powerlifting was scary hard. When you're walking out 300 something kilos and then, oh fuck, one wrong set. But weightlifting is fucking terrifyingly hard because you're just violently ripping a bar from the floor overhead and if you fuck up you there's no wiggle room to fuck up you can save a shitty squat kind of but you can't save a shitty snatch i think i've seen some videos of no i think i've seen some videos of zach like walking around the gym trying to rescue a snatch definitely yeah like once you once it's in your hands above your head you can kind of walk backwards or forward depending on how much space you have, but if you proper cock it up, it's either coming back on top of you or you're just launching yourself in the other direction. Yeah, I don't see many Olympians walking around the platform with it, so I don't think that's the way it's meant to be. Riddle me this as well. How many bad weightlifters, how many half-decent weightlifters do you see? None. They're either fucking awful or they're fantastic. You don't see an intermediate weightlifter. They don't exist. So where do you guys fit in that category? Awful. I'm still awful. Yeah. at least you're honest about it yeah that's right you get there like getting good at weightlifting takes a long long fucking time especially when you start later yeah and probably the background in powerlifting although it would help from a pure strength perspective probably doesn't help from a like other perspectives like other other qualities it helps from a base strength level yeah but it doesn't help from a technique level because you're squatting a little bit different you know Yeah, that's what I mean. Like you've probably learned different patterns and you probably fall back into them. When I started doing more of the American style, which is deadlift to your chin and just pray that you can get under the bar. That's what we did, right? And like jumping and stomping your feet. Yeah, that was the couple of times I did it when I was younger just for fun. That was the most fun part about it. Just trying to make as much noise. Like bam! I don't know why you feel like you have to do it you feel like a badass when you hear your shoes go crack you're like yeah and then you go I've only got 100 kilos in the bar that's not a whole lot yeah I think I was doing cleans right back at the start of my I would have been 20, 19 maybe I remember just I don't even know why I was jumping I don't even know why I was getting so high well there's no point I think I was yeah and then just I remember just making as much noise as I could We learned from American high school football coaches on rusted asshole bars that weren't designed for this. So I got to a point where I could power clean 150, 160, but I couldn't get under it. So I could full clean like 100, but I could power clean 160, which is not supposed to happen. But that was just kind of like trying to deadlift the bar to my chin and then racking it. Would you compete now or are you just doing it as a hobby sort of training direction? That's a very good question. And I have a very good answer. I would do it at like club stuff, but because I have taken performance enhancing drugs in the past, I wouldn't feel good about getting, you know, even in a, a tested meet, even though I could pass, I still feel like I have an advantage from years of powerlifting and doing is there novice comps and things like that? The way that powerlifting has a lot of novice meets. That's, I don't know, to be honest. Like sometimes Like there a gym down in Melbourne the gym called Control Chaos but they run like unsanctioned meats so there not only novice comps but there non comps yeah that that what yeah that what a novice is get brandon into it tell him he's tell his gym to start hosting some novice comps and then we'll fly luke down awful lifters maybe like welcome maybe two more years we compete you compete the win right i don't i wouldn't i would never compete in something i I didn't expect at least place. Yeah, but Mickey, don't forget as well, in powerlifting, you can change your openers. But in weightlifting, once you put in the attempts you're starting with, you can't change them. Like, you can't go down. Right. So you, like, lock yourself in. And if you're having a bad day, you're cocked. Sounds like a very complicated sport. It's like the rise of the bar. Not really. I don't think so. Well, it's very technical. It takes you two years just to get on the platform. It's very technical. Yeah, but the sport itself, I mean, it's like powerlifting but two lifts. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. But it's just the timeline to get into that. I don't know if I'd have the patience for that. Well, that's why they all start when they're fucking 10 or less. Or they steal them from their village. I say, from a timeline perspective, you could become a decent powerlifter far before you could become even an average weightlifter. Yeah. Yeah. Because it is much more technical. Because Zach started going down the dunk route as well. Is that a skill that you were trying to help carry over into your Are they lifting Zach? No, I just thought it'd be fucking sick. Are we talking about dunking donuts or dunking like basketballs? That's funny. Cause that's kind of part of why I wanted to do weightlifting too. I've always been able to get like the palm touching, but I've never been able to fully dunk. And then I realized that it would help. We just figured it out. We just figured out all weightlifters true motivation. Just want to dunk. But then you realize like doing trap bar jumps are probably a faster route to it, but it's not as fun as doing snatches and cleans. Have you ever dunked a ball before? I've dunked a little ball, but not an actual basketball. Okay. Well, it's a race for you guys. Dunking, I guess. Fuck weightlifting, we're dunking. Are you still actually dunking, Zach? I mean, after I blew out the ankle. It's coming back. I can like land again, which is nice. Okay. I challenged him to a sprint off a couple of weeks ago. So we can fuck the ankle harder. Yeah, we'll fuck the ankle up and delay the dunking. I like it. Yeah, I like it. Just like you said earlier, control chaos. Yeah.