Tribute to Brad Soper

rawdon before we get to luke lehman very very tragic news absolutely a close colleague of ours brad soper has died and i don't know it was a real shock when it came through but absolutely then if it wasn't bad enough that someone like soaps that young would would die in pretty freakish and tragic circumstances the spilling of that across mainstream media and social media has certainly been equally tragic Yeah and I think that's really a tough pill to swallow for everyone that knew Brad and you know the media is reporting it as some sort of house invasion gone wrong and you know the house invader sort of got what he deserved type thing And that was what the people that knew nothing of him were sort of writing on his social media wall on Instagram and Facebook, I think. And that, for a lot of us that know Brad, was really, really tough to sort of see. and quite a few got on social media and reached out and said, you know, this is just ridiculous. You don't know the guy and it's completely out of character. And, you know, I guess we'll find out in time, hopefully, what actually happened. But, yeah, absolutely tragic that he lost his life. And really young, I didn't know, I think early 30s, early mid-30s Soaps was. And from the outside looking in, it looks like, you know, that it was some sort of mental illness or issues going on and that's the tragedy of it all. It sounds like it was just almost like a breakdown for him and it ended up with him losing his life, which is absolutely horrific. Clearly he wasn't in his right mind. We've spoken about genetics in terms of sports performance and all kinds of stuff in this program, but there is genetic predispositions to mental illness and I know Brad had sort of battled with a few of these issues in the past and then a confluence of circumstances in life have led him to a point where he clearly was not in his right mind and he found himself in a very unfortunate, vulnerable circumstances and the worst thing that could have happened happened. And I think, I mean, social media is just such a bizarre thing. It has this strange, almost infantilizing effect on grown adults where they start behaving like children in a playground slinging mud. And they would never, never say the things they put online in context of being in front of another human being. No, they wouldn't. They wouldn't. And the thing is, back in the day, there was just no outlet for this. But social media makes it so easy for people to pass judgment and write comments. And it's somehow empowering when they do it. it's it's an acceptable you know it's it's absolutely crazy but uh but what we want to do today is um is actually you know reminisce on some of the amazing things that that we do remember with brad and we had the and and you know i would 100 say much like others you know the poliquin uh you know broderick the handsome ones of the world brad is up there as well to have heavily influenced what i've done over the years and yes you know for me what i take most away from brad and anyone that knows Brad, has there anyone that's seen Brad train? Like Andy Bell sort of comes, I would put him in a similar but different, Andy's more like from a bodybuilding perspective, but I've never seen anyone apply themselves so, engross themselves so deeply into a session and see the look in his eyes when he's finished that set. And for me, I often struggle to get in the head space to train and do all that sort of stuff. And I'd often use Brad as a vehicle to motivate me somewhat, being obviously quite a bit older than him, but I'd be sort of inspired, if you will, by Brad's tenacity and this manic sort of intensity that he would bring to his training sessions. And I mean, every training session was like that. And he was so passionate about strength and conditioning. And I know he's mentored by Woodsky, Derek Woodsky, obviously an amazing strength, arguably one of the best in the world. but he lived and breathed strength and conditioning and really went off he really found his passion and direction in the PT world and I think that evolved like obviously he did have those was driven in that regard for strength and performance but under the clean health with the rest of us he managed to hone that craft and I think he really found his direction and then evolved in that and really established himself I think as a legitimately credible strength and conditioning coach and was getting amazing results with a lot of athletes that he came into touch with and mentored a ton. I've seen so many people come out and say, yeah, Brad was doing this with me, doing that with me. So he was almost at the pinnacle of his... The peak of his powers. The peak of his powers, yeah. And to see him lose all that, like you said, just an unfortunate chain of events, It's just tragic, man. You mentioned Andy Bell, and he's probably, people I've seen in the flesh, Andy Bell probably can tolerate volume better than anyone I've seen. Brad Soper had work capacity that I had never seen in the flesh. His ability to lift incredibly heavy loads over and over again in the context of a strongman challenge was just freakish His work capacity was unbelievable Yeah and you made good times back at the And I actually had the pleasure of working with him at the performance center there for a duration after I left the CHPC. But you recall just being with soaps on the floor. And he was always there first thing in the morning with Greg. And he certainly did the hard yards. And, you know, it was great to work alongside him because he did lift me up when I was on the floor. Yeah. Doing what I did with my clientele. Yeah. I used to, I'd love being on the floor with Brad. Much like yourself, Rodan, it would be, I would use, like, say I had a client and we were doing, you know, their first phase of relative strength training or something. I could always say, hey, Soaps, I'm just sort of, you know, working with such and such. We're developing the nervous system. You know, what are your thoughts on that? And he would chuck in and he'd come out with this great new perspective. and I thought it would add great value to my product that I could pull in people like myself or Brad to enhance the experience of my clients. And soaps was always so much fun. You'd always have fun with Brad. You could tell from his rugby league background that he would be great to be on your team. Yeah, he'd have your back. There was that period where he was actually the PT manager at Clean Health. Yeah, at the end there, definitely. And the staff meetings. Oh, my God. He gave these speeches like it was a halftime rev up for a grand final footy match or something like that. I think they were like sort of fist pumps in their hair. Fist pumps in his hair. And just like F-bombs left, right and center. But that was Brad. Like zero. That was Brad. There was one in particular that made me laugh for days afterwards. There was an issue with not the coaches packing away their stuff, but clients of coaches leaving stuff out. And Brad was there and he was saying, you've got to get your clients to put your shit away. and if you see someone else's client leaving their shit out, tell them to put the shit away. I mean, how would they like it if we were staying at your client's house and we went into the kitchen and pulled out all their pots and pans and they just left their shit out? Yeah, I think I remember that one as well. Hilarious. It was, because I would sort of say to, now soaps, this is your response, as club manager, I say your responsibility, you've got to get the team to put their stuff away. I'm not going to deal with it. So then he took the reins and addressed the guys and, you know, but it was so much, like you said, a half time, I could just imagine in the locker rooms and pacing back and forth. Yeah, man, it's an absolute pleasure to have him touch my life the way he has. It'll be a loss not having him around and not get to see what amazing things he has done, but go on to bigger and greater things in the industry. It's quite sad. On a personal note, I'd like to just send best wishes to Paul Stevenson from Physique Wise. he was you know Paul's a good friend and colleague and client of yours and mine Rawdon and I know he'd been working and mentored with Brad very closely they'd done some seminars together I know they had plans for this year I'm sure Paulie's taking it pretty hard so best wishes to you Paulie and for all the other guys in the same way Dan O'Neill as well and I know they were very close so yeah it's a sad and tragic time Luke Lehman from Muscle Nerds