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Greg:    Hello.

Jon:    Hey, Greg.  Jon Gilson.  How are ya?

Greg:    Not too bad.  Sorry I missed you the first time.

Jon:    Oh, no worries, man.  Not a big deal at all. Not a big deal.  So, Greg, I wanted to talk to you a little bit about well, everything.  You’ve got a ton of stuff going on, including your new book, a whole bunch of Oly Certs and rampant amounts of content on Catalyst Athletics.  But I thought we might start about talking how you got into Olympic weightlifting, and where, how it’s brought you to where you are today.

Greg:    Hmm, well, let’s see.  I had kind of messed around with the lifts a long time ago.  You know, I’d been in the training business since I was 18.  And had kind of gotten stuck with the typical, you know, commercial gym and being totally uninterested in being there and dealing with those kind of clients.

And then I was in Chico and kind of through a very roundabout way got hooked up with Robb Wolf, who had just started CrossFit NorCal.  And after I trained with him for a little while, he said, “Hey, you know, come join Nikki and me,” who is his now wife, you know, “and be one of our partners.”

So, kind of got back into actually training for a living again at that point.  Now after a couple of years of doing that and kind of getting reintroduced to the O-lifts and decided that CrossFit was kind of boring me and I wanted to get back into a competitive sport, you know, because I hadn’t been involved in one in a while.  That seemed to be the logical choice. So…Here I am.

Jon:    Very cool.  You’re competing – are you competing currently?  Or are you too busy with everything going on?  Are you hitting the local meets?

Greg:    Yeah, I’m doing all the meets I can.  I don’t do a whole lot of local ones but just because there aren’t a lot of local ones.  But you know, Cal State Games and Werksan Spring Fest was several months ago.  So, they’re here and there. And then Americans will be in December, I believe in Phoenix.

Jon:    Very cool, and you’re doing all of your, all of your lifting over at Mike’s Gym, is that correct?

Greg:    Yeap, yeah, I do all my training there.  I train all my clients there.  And, that’s pretty much the base of operations for Catalyst Athletics.  I decided not to open my own facility which had been my original plan when I moved down here, because you know most of my time is spent actually training myself or working on the Performance Menu and all that kind of stuff.  So, I didn’t want to pay for a facility that didn’t need to sit empty for 20 hours a day.

Jon:    Sure, and you can’t get a much better resource base than what you’re going to find there at Mike’s Gym, I’m sure.  Tell me a little bit about Coach Mike Burgener and the influence that he’s had on you as far as teaching and learning.

Greg:    Well, I mean, I’d say without a doubt, you know, had it not been for my relationship with him I would not be doing what I’m doing now.  I say that without any hint of hyperbole.  The guy’s been remarkably generous and you know he is absolutely my mentor.

He and Robb Wolf are by far the two biggest influences on me and you know, have been from the start and continue to be now.  And, you know, without my interaction with them on a very regular basis I think I’d probably be, you know, repairing bicycles and like Butthole Flap, Idaho or something.  
   
So, you know, I owe Mike Burgener a lot and I’m very appreciative to have him as both a coach and a mentor and a colleague.  You know, I love training with him.  I love training along side of him and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Jon:    Sure, and you know, I had the opportunity to take your Olympic Lifting Seminar.  How does your teaching style and your progressions feed off of Coach B’s?  And, how have you gone about developing your own style?

Greg:    Well, you know, interestingly enough, when you look at the end result of the way that he and I teach, we’re basically producing the same thing.  In other words, we subscribe to the same technical lifting style.  You know, it’s not like I’m teaching a big horizontal bang with the hips and he’s teaching a more vertical, like Russian-style pull.
   
We teach the same thing, but, the way we approach is pretty different.  And he is much more straightforward and simple, and I tend to be more like college professor who swears a lot.  And, you know, I break things down to very minute details, and you remember, I spent a bunch of time just talking about the hook grip, for example.  And because all those little details, not only do they interest me but you know they’re very important for any athlete’s success in the long term, and I basically am trying to cram in as much information as I possibly can and hope that 20 percent of it sticks.
   
So, I think what’s happened now is with those two sets of seminars, it really covers all the bases for people. I think that Coach Burgener’s seminars are probably better than mine for the beginning, the absolute novice, zero experience lifter.  He’s way more motivational than me and I’m, like I said, I’m kind of like college professor guy and yeah, I make, you know, dirty jokes every now and then.  But, I don’t have the same charisma and energy that he does.  And that’s why I write books.  You can easily mask that in the written word.

Jon:    I don’t think you did as much of a job masking it, Greg.  I think…there’s a whole lot of deep, deep detail in your book and I actually find it, being an analytical type myself, fairly impressive.  I was going through your .pdf before we spoke here today, and probably learned about five things.  I consider myself fairly competent and disciplined and you’re right, those details are important.

Greg:    Yeah, well, you know it’s those little details that are going to carry people beyond that very initial learning stage and, you know, I think Burgener and I have been talking more and more about trying to get in a more advanced Olympic Weightlifting Seminar through CrossFit and you know, maybe capping it at like 10 people, bringing them down to Mike’s Gym and have it several days long and have you know, three to four workouts a day.  And really get into the more technical details and have these guys actually training hard, you know, come in heavy Snatch session, take a rest. Heavy squat session, heavy clean and jerk session.  
   
And because there’s so much information that you cannot fit into a two-day seminar, particularly when you have 25 to 30 people who are complete novices.  And, to me, it’s like I want to cover it all.  So we need those multiple levels and I’m hoping we can get that going pretty soon.

Jon:    Sure, that sounds fantastic, and, what would you see, you know, and again, we’re just spit-balling here, what would you see being the criteria for admission to such an event?

Greg:    Well, they’d obviously have to have taken the current CrossFit Weightlifting Cert and you know, I would like to see a good year at least of actual, you know, training the lifts regularly and that means not just doing Isabelle when it comes up on the CrossFit WOD once every two years.  You know, that means doing the lifts a couple of times a week and being already reasonably proficient.  
   
Hell, if I had time and the inclination, which I admittedly don’t, I would love to like screen people by videos of their lifts.  But, you know, if we do get something like that set up we’re probably not going to get quite that jiggy with it just because it’s too much of a hassle administratively speaking.  But, you know, of course like I said, the reason we can’t do this stuff in the current seminars is because there’s too much of a stratification in abilities.  And, most of the people we get are just very much beginners and you can’t give them all those tiny details because they’re still learning how to do an Olympic squat.

Jon:    Sure.

Greg:    Or hold the bar, you know?  So, I think it’ll take some time to kind of iron out the details and make it work smoothly, but I think it’s got a lot of potential.

Jon:    Absolutely.  Absolutely.  Yeah, and I think, Greg, that it does deserve a little clarification that as a, you know – we had a few multi-year lifters in Boston and through discussions and through my own introspection definitely felt that there definitely is something in your seminar for us.  It wasn’t a situation where, “Oh, he’s teaching the newbies how to activate their shoulders again.”

Greg:    Right.

Jon:    So, you can take that away from it anyway.  I was looking through the Catalyst Athletics site and the Performance Menu, and I’m astounded at the amount of content that you develop, videos, resources that are on that site as far as how to perform exercises correctly, videos, articles, etc., etc.  What is the power of that content to you?  What does that do to help us get, to help you get Olympic lifting out there?

Greg:    Well, I mean, like you said, number one, it helps to get Olympic lifting out there, and that’s the most basic thing there is.  And, the problem with Olympic lifting and obviously CrossFit is done more to promote lifting.  Not the sport exactly, because they almost kind of have a bit of disdain for the sport it seems at times.
   
But, to get the actual movements, the snatch and the clean and jerk into, you know, common use or at least as common as it can be.  And so, I think that it’s very frustrating to see, to me, it’s very frustrating to see the popularity growing but the technical proficiency being totally stagnant.  In other words, you have more and more people coming on board to say, “Okay, I want to snatch and clean and jerk,” but they have no idea how to start, and once they do start they have no idea how to progress and they end up, you know, basically with this same very, very rudimentary skill level for years really.
   
And, you know, I would like to see some real progression and to me, that’s the most interesting part of my job, is that very technical side of things.  And, I’m not interested in being a motivator like Mike Burgener.  You know, I’ll yell at you if I need to or feel like it at the moment, but that’s not what I really enjoy.  
   
You know, I would rather and sit there and give you a 20-page list of all the shit you just did wrong, and how to correct it.

Jon:    Well, let’s go back there for a second, Greg –

Greg:    You know it doesn’t do any good to talk about it…

Jon:    Let’s look at the idea of moving too quickly through the progressions of that constant battle of form and technique and intensity.  Where do you come down?  I mean, it’s pretty obvious that technique is paramount.  Define moving too fast, you know?  Define “stagnant” for me.

Greg:    Stagnant with the O-lifts is snatching 35 or 40 kilos for two years straight, and never getting past that.  Never being able to do a actual snatch and being you know, stuck with power Snatches because you don’t have any strength, confidence or you know, positioning in the bottom.
   
It’s things like that and it’s just such a common theme in the CrossFit world and even beyond the CrossFit world with just regular strength and conditioning programs.  You know?  Like you have interestingly enough and this has been bothering me a lot lately, too.  You have individuals, who I won’t name now because I probably don’t need to, who have been criticizing CrossFit very vehemently as of late.  And one of the biggest issues they take with it is this lack of technical proficiency in the Olympic lifts.
   
And, you know, I can see where they’re coming from in one sense, and I agree you know, there needs to be a bigger push for that proficiency because not just for safety.  And quite honestly, I don’t give a shit if people hurt themselves.  It’s not my responsibility.  Not my (inaudible) and I don’t give a shit what they do with themselves.  It’s their own fault – but – and I’m also not going to make any progress in terms of physical ability if their technique is that lacking.  You know?  If they’re pulling a snatch up with their arms, what is that doing for their leg and hip extensor power?  Nothing, right?  So, it’s not so much an issue of safety, as much of effectiveness.  
   
But interestingly enough these guys who are criticizing CrossFit so much for not being technically proficient at the lifts, I’ve seen videos of their athletes performing the lifts, and they’re no better.  So, you know, it’s across the board that there is a big problem, there is big just lack of information out there on how to teach the lifts, on how to learn the lifts, and it’s this kind of underground, very obscure sport and it’s almost – I don’t know why it’s not getting out there.  People are unwilling or they just don’t know how to spread that information.  But that’s what I’m trying to do, is just get it out there.  And more importantly I just enjoy doing it.

Jon:    Sure, absolutely.  What are you seeing, Greg, as the root of this lack of technical proficiency?  Why is it lacking?

Greg:    Why is it lacking?  Because the resources aren’t there for people or they’re just being lazy and not finding them.  Prior to the Mike’s Gym website and my website, in order to how to snatch and clean and jerk, there were maybe, you know, one or two DVDs out there, neither of which I’m very impressed with, and there were a number of books, but the books, in my opinion and I know this opinion is shared by a number of other people, were not helpful at all in teaching the lifts.
   
You know, someone who said – let’s say someone comes to CrossFit, and says, “Well, I’ve never snatched or clean and jerked before.  How do I do it?”  “Well, here go buy this book and this book and this book.”  “Okay, I got those books.  I’ve read them.  I’ve memorized them,” and there’s not a single piece of information in there that has actually allowed those athletes to learn how to snatch and clean and jerk, let alone teach them to their clients.
   
It’s more just this weird, mash of like information and anecdotes that don’t, they don’t have any kind of organization or they’re either too technical without a context to use them in, or they’re so basic that they’re not useful.  And it’s like there wasn’t anything out there that really said, “Look.  Start here, go through all this, finish here. There ya go.”
   
You know what I mean?  Like a full-on instruction manual, and that’s what I tried to do with in my book and that’s what I try to do with the website, too; the DVD and all those videos we try to put up there as often as possible. Is get that information out there, very clearly, in a very well-organized manner and you know, try to make it as accessible as possible so people can actually put it to good use.

Jon:    Yep.  Yeah, and your book is extraordinarily comprehensive.  How much time and effort has this, is this a multi-year project?  You know, where have you been hiding yourself to come out with something like this?

Greg:    My office, and the gym.  That’s the only two places I ever go.  But, it’s the idea to do it probably came up about two years ago, because I was just so dissatisfied with what was out there.  And, you know, I would get questions, like, “Where do I go to learn this?”  And I didn’t have the answers.  “Well, you can buy this book but it’s not going to answer this, this, this and this.  Then you’re going to have to go this thing to figure out how to do this.”    
   
And it was just a pain in the ass.  I didn’t understand why these guys couldn’t just sit down and write a book that made sense.  So, I said, “Well, fuck it.  I’ll just do it myself.”  So, I think actual time since I started writing the book till I got it in print was about a year and a half.

Jon:    Okay.  It’s just absolutely incredible to me to be able to put something like that out, and I won’t blow too much smoke up your ass about it.  But it is a hell of an effort, you know, for us to have out here.
   
One of the things that strikes me from the book, squarely beside the head is the attention that you pay to the basic squat.  And, basically that all the technique involved in that is in the service of an upright torso.  Can you explain the role of that in Olympic lifting?

Greg:    Of the upright torso?

Jon:    Yeah.

Greg:    Or the squat in general?

Jon:    Both.

Greg:    Or both?

Jon:    Without recounting chapters, you know, one through six.

Greg:    Right, right.  Well, basically to understand and this goes either ignored or misunderstood to a surprisingly great degree, is that if you’re not able to squat well you can’t snatch and you can’t clean.  You know, these seem like a very obvious things to me but I’ve seen over and over and over again people are saying, “Okay, I want to learn to snatch.”  “Well, what does your squat look like?”  “Well, I can’t squat below parallel.  My back is rounded.  My knees are diving in.”  You know, and you just go, “Okay, well, how do you expect to learn this stuff when you haven’t even built a very basic foundation for it?”
   
So, that’s the role of the squat.  You know, it is absolutely foundational to the lifts.  And if you don’t have a well-developed squat you will not snatch well.  You will not clean well.  So, that said, the deal with the upright torso is quite simple.  If you don’t have an upright torso, you cannot snatch, and you cannot clean heavy weights.
   
And the heavy weight part is really important because I get into this argument a lot with people and they say, “Oh, well, you know, I do front squats and I do overhead squats and I never let my knees go over my toes and blah, blah, blah…” and I say, “Okay, well, how much are you overhead squatting?”  “Eighty-eight pounds.”  “Well, how much do you front squatting?”  You know, “One thirty-five.”  Well, there’s your answer.  You’re not lifting heavy enough weight for it to matter yet, you know what I mean?
   
And, so, what happens is people continue to practice in these ways that are not correct, and they eventually get to the point where they are trying to lift heavier and heavier weights, and suddenly they’re stuck.  “Okay, I’m missing every front squat I do.  I’m dropping it in front of me.  I’m missing every overhead squat I do.  I’m dropping it in front of me.  Why?”  “Well, because I told you two years ago you couldn’t overhead squat and front squat like that and you didn’t want to listen to me, and now you have no flexibility and you have no strength in those positions.”
   
And, the thing with this has been going on for a long time, you know.  Like Rippetoe and I, for example, butting heads on the low-bar back squat versus the high-bar Olympic back squat and all this funny stuff.  And, you know, as much as I love Rippetoe and you know I consider him a friend, we love to argue, because we have very strong opinions about these things and we’re very stubborn.  
   
But, the thing with strength is it’s very specific to position and movements.  And this again goes overlooked, and it’s like people have gotten this idea that strength is some kind of like magic fairy dust that gets sprinkled over you and all of sudden, if you’re strong in a low-bar back squat you’re automatically going to be strong in an upright torso, knees 6 inches ahead of the toes, you know, front squat.   And it’s just not the case.
   
If you want to be strong in those positions you have to train in those positions with heavy weights.

Jon:    Well, it strikes me, Greg, you know, the role of the musculature surrounding the hip is qualitatively different in those two positions. You know, we talk about being rear-engine drive as CrossFitters, being hamstring driven, if you will.  And my own experience with your seminar and doing a more upright version of the squat is that it’s much more quad-dominant.

Greg:    Oh, yeah.

Jon:    You know, we’re talking about different engines.  Do you think that that difference is contributing to the lack of technical proficiency we’re seeing among CrossFitters?  Or is it just simply lack of attention?  Or…?

Greg:    Yeah, I wouldn’t attribute that to – you know, with technical proficiency but it is a big part of the problem.  You know, I think it’s interesting there is this recent, just infatuation with posterior chain work like posterior chain, it’s got to be all posterior chain.  Got to work your posterior chain.
  
Well, fuck, man, you got to work your anterior chain, too. You need strong hip flexors and you need strong quads. You know? And it’s not like you can just sit there and do stiff-legged deadlifts, low-bar back squats and this high-hip deadlifts and be good to go.  Okay?  And even if you want to talk about CrossFit specifically, what about Fran?  Okay?  You can’t do a low-bar front squat in that thruster and these guys who only train in that kind of a position are getting their asses handed to them in Fran, most of the time.   Unless they’re very big and strong naturally because they can’t get into that good front squat position.  They’re wasting so much energy just fighting that bar.
   
Whereas, you know, if they spent a little time actually working on the quads and stuff they’d be fine.  And, you know, granted CrossFit has kind of taken a lean towards this more posterior chain dominant approach to things.  And that’s all well and good, I mean, I think athletes should – a generalist athlete needs to train both ways.  I’m not suggesting that CrossFitters only do only high-bar back squats and front squats.   I think they should do it all.
   
But, I am arguing that O-lifters should not be doing low-bar back squats, you know?  If they need to specialize obviously, that’s the whole point.  And you know, an O-lifter by demand of the position of the sport needs to be very quad dominant.

Jon:    They also need to be very flexible.

Greg:    Yep.

Jon:    Flexibility is a huge part in both the ankles, you know, and the hip girdle and the thoracic spine and getting in these positions.  And there’s been this classic argument of flexibility versus power generation.  Where do you come down on that?  Do you see extreme flexibility as taking away from power?

Greg:    No.  I think that’s a misunderstanding of the situation.  I don’t – flexibility itself, I don’t really see playing much of a role if any at all in strength or power.  The problem is the methods people are using to get that flexibility.  And I think there is a definite problem with excessive flexibility.  I don’t think – put it this way.  I think excessive flexibility relative to what you need for your chosen discipline is only slightly better than inadequate flexibility.
   
In other words, you know, if you’re not flexible enough to get into the position to perform the movements of your sport, you’re going to have a higher potential for injury.  But you’re also going to have a higher potential for injury if you have too much flexibility.  
   
So, if you take, you know, say, you know a gymnast and turn her into a weightlifter, a lot of these girls are so flexible that they can’t support themselves in these positions.  They can’t arrest movement well and you know, it takes them a while to try to kind of tighten back up after their gymnastics career.
  
So, I think the real issue is that stretching methods, people are still doing static stretching pre-workout and it’s just archaic.   And there’s so much information out there finally that has, in my mind, completely straightened the issue out, like “Look, don’t do it. Unless you have some severe flexibility issues like hamstring and you’ve got to like just do some gnarly stretching on it, just to get your workout in.” You know?  “You shouldn’t be doing that stuff.”
   
Some dynamic warm-up stuff and you’re good to go.  If you need static stretching in my mind should be remedial only.  You know, when you’re warm, after your workout you throw in your static stretching until you get to the level of flexibility that you need.  And then you maintain it through movement and you know, dynamic stretching.

Jon:    Sure.  And give me an underlying reason here, Greg, you know.  I could be easily take the position that you know static stretching will get me loose and dynamic stretching will get me loose.   Why the preference for dynamic over static?

Greg:    Well, all the studies that have been done regarding, you know, static stretching before training has shown that it has a potential to reduce strength, power, speed, prioproception.  So, that’s a big problem if you’re looking to improve safety and performance, and a very obvious one.  
   
So, if you want to – and the other thing, too, with that is that static stretching pre-workout means you’re obviously not as warm as you’re going to be post-workout.  And the static stretching just isn’t as effective.
   
So, even if you were not concerned about the potential disruptions to those physical traits, that static stretching has pre-workout, you would still not want to do it pre-workout because it’s not going to be effective for increasing flexibility.  
   
You know, whereas if you do it post-workout when you’re super warm you’re very loose already then everything is going to be a lot more pliable and your body is going to respond better to it.  So, just for the sake of effectiveness you wouldn’t want to do it first.  
   
And, the other thing, too, is that it’s boring as hell.  Athletes have limited time as it is and if I can get an athlete totally warm and totally prepared for a workout, you know, in three minutes, four minutes with some dynamic warm-up stuff, I’m going to do that and you know, keep them interested.  I’m going to do that over here, do your sit and reach thing now.  Okay, now do your little butterfly thing.  Okay, now I’m going to push your leg over to your head and, you know…
   
So, there’s  a host of reasons that I see for doing it that way, and the literature is out there to support it and you know, otherwise, hey, I didn’t just pull this out of my ass. I didn’t invent this stuff.  I mean, I read all the literature and the studies done by people who are a lot smarter and patient than me.

Jon:    So, it sounds like you’re coming down squarely in the realm of effectiveness.  Get as flexible as you need to get in that position and no more.  And if you can at all avoid it, don’t static stretch, especially cold.

Greg:    Yeah, I just don’t think there’s a need.  And like I said, static stretching to me should really play a role of remediation more than anything.  And I get that from people enjoy stretching.  I don’t understand it personally.

Jon:    I don’t know who those people are…

Greg:    Yeah, I mean, if I’m going to sit around on the couch and watch TV, man, I want to sit on the couch.  I don’t want to get up and do my fucking, my little Yoga routine.  I want to relax.
   
And, you know, like Yoga, shit, man, Yoga around here, that’s a bad word.  That’s the Y-word, and reason being is it’s flexibility for the sake of flexibility.   If that person is going just for stretching and yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, it can get you some strength and stuff like that.  But I say oh, come on, and I hate to be a dick about it and I know I’m  such a cynical asshole when it comes to Yoga and I piss a lot of people off saying this stuff, but, if you want to be flexible for your sport, train for flexibility for your sport.  
   
Yoga is its own little spin.  It’s its own sport.  If you go to a Yoga class, your Yoga instructor doesn’t give a fuck what you do when you walk out the door.  All they want you to do is to pigeon pose and this weird, fucking, you know elbow-handstand and this other thing over here.  And you know what?  If that’s your thing, that’s great.  I’ll support you.  I won’t go to the class with you but I’ll pat you on the back and say, “Hey, did you have a good time?” when you walk out the door.

But, if you’re one of my athletes or someone who is asking me about flexibility I’m going to tell you “No, don’t do Yoga.  If you want to fuck your knees up and not make any real progress where it counts, then yeah, by all means, go ahead.  You know, if you want to go to Bikram and be like fucking go sweat with bunch of hippies in a big Petri dish, then be my guest.”
   
But, you know, I don’t want…If I’m going to get like herpes and the HIV and stuff I’m going to do like having sex, not doing Yoga.

Jon:    Wow.  That’s awesome, Greg.  I think you’re so far off the reservation, man, we’re like shooting the cattle now.  That’s good stuff.

Greg:    But like I said though if you enjoy Yoga then by all means, go for it.

Jon:    By all means, stretch.  Please. Ladies and Gentlemen, stretch.

Greg:    Don’t invite me and don’t tell me about it.

Jon:    Absolutely.  You know, one of the keys that I’ve seen in getting that upright torso, in terms of flexibility and remedial work, isn’t where people think it is.  It’s not always that hip.  Sometimes it’s just the fact of the ankles.

Greg:    No, ankles.

Jon:    Yeah, the ankle can’t, you know, we can’t get that shinbone anywhere near the top of the foot.  Tell me about the biomechanics there.  What’s going on?

Greg:    You know, this is another like epic battle that I’ve been waging with the CrossFit community for the past few years and it’s like, I feel like freaking like Sisyphus and it’s just, it drives me nuts.  Like I don’t understand what the resistance to it is.  And I think part of the problem is that it’s this indoctrination to this idea of this posterior chain-centric squat.  And everyone wants to keep knees and hips back and they don’t ever really consider the torso position as being relevant.
   
So, it’s very, very simple.  If you want your torso upright, that means your hips have to be as close to under the shoulders as possible, right?  So picture that.  Now picture your knees behind your toes.  Where does that put your hips and shoulders?  You know, it puts your center of mass way behind your base.  You can’t just float in space there.  I mean, not on Earth at least.
   
So, in order to maintain that upright torso, that position of the hips relative to the shoulders, the knees have to go forward.  That’s the only way to do it.  You basically are sitting your ass on your heels and then bringing your shoulders up above your heels.  Okay?
   
And, in order to put your knees up forward, your ankles have to flex. You know?  They’re attached to the ground, and it’s very, very simple.  I mean, you can draw a little stick figure and cut out the lines and put like brads in them and make one of those little adjustable figures like you did in first grade –

Jon:    Nice.  They’ll be available for sale on Catalyst Athletics, yeah.

Greg:    And figure it out in two minutes.  What’s that?

Jon:    We’ll get them up in your store.

Greg:    Yeah, yeah.  Stick with the squat position model, yeah.  But, yeah, it’s like, it’s weird.  It’s like arguing religion or something, you know?  It’s like here.  Here is my diagram.  Like look at this.  Here’s my photo, here’s the physics behind it.  No, no.  He just needs more hip flexibility.  Well, what the fuck are you talking about?  That doesn’t even make sense,    like you don’t even have a basis for that statement.

Jon:    We’ve arrived at validation of what you’re talking about, Greg.  Fairly independently we would – the classic CrossFit answer is it’s your hamstring.  Your hamstrings aren’t flexible enough.

Greg:    Yeah.

Jon:    And we would stretch the piss out of people’s hamstrings, you know, until they’re eating their knee –

Greg:    Right.

Jon:    And still see that canted over amateur squat.  The second we, that it donned on marble head that ankle flexibility might be the issue and you’ll love this – I used downward dog myself, the Yoga posture to fix that.  We started getting results.  You know I have personally put 50 pounds on my overhead squat in two weeks –

Greg:    Yeah.

Jon:    Not because I got stronger but because I got that knee down in front of me, you know?

Greg:    Yep.  Well, that’s amazing what the proper position will do for you.  You know, it creates the structure that you need to support those weights.  And, you know, if you think about it, with that upright torso you have much less of a moment on the hip and more importantly on the spinal joints.  And so you don’t have that same, you know, problem with trying to stabilize the trunk.
   
You know, the trunk doesn’t want to just collapse forward as much as it does, yeah, if you’re in that ass back, knees back, chest down kind of position.  And people are always talking about, “Oh, my shoulders aren’t flexible enough for the overhead squat.”  It’s like, “Well, no, because your torso is fucking horizontal.”  Of course.  Like no one needs that much flexibility in their shoulders.  You’re asking too much.  You know, you’re putting too much of a demand on shoulder flexibility.
   
And like you mentioned, too, that thoracic spine flexibility is another big one where people tend to be a little hyper-kyphotic and very tight.  And you get them on a foam roller and that was – that was one shown to me by Kelly Starrett a couple of years ago.  I want to get that plug in for him because he’s a super PT genius.  But, you know, getting foam rolling on that upper back and I think he called it “gapping”; basically getting some movement in with those T-spine vertebrae.  
   
And, you know, once you get that opened up, well, shit, all of a sudden they can reach their arms overhead.  You know it’s not the shoulders.  It’s a lot of other things that contribute to it also.

Jon:    And that thoracic spine foam rolling, is that done perpendicular to the roller?  Is it parallel to the spine?

Greg:    Yeah.

Jon:    It’s perpendicular …?

Greg:    Yeah, so the roller is perpendicular to the spine and basically just come across the front of your chest with your arms hug yourself, and try to keep about a neutral spine and then this nice, slow roll back and forth.  Most people are going to get some nice popping and cracking the first several times they do it.  Then once you keep doing it you won’t get that response anymore, because you’ll be nice and loose already.

Jon:    Very cool.  Now, we talked a lot about flexibility and its contribution to well, essentially, what becomes power, correct?  I mean, we get you in the correct position.  We can load you more.  You can lift more.  You can develop more power which is really the name of the game.  
   
Let’s talk about nutrition and its contribution to this whole shtick.

Greg:    Pizza, bacon and sushi, pretty much.  What other question is there?

Jon:    Right, well, you know, given that the Performance Menu is out there, is something that obviously you’re putting out on a monthly basis with some Paleo-friendly slash Zone-friendly slash high fat kind of stuff.

Greg:    Yeah.

Jon:    Where do you see that contribution of Catalyst Athletes playing in both in CrossFit and weightlifting?  You know, do the big guys just kind of ignore it and all of us skinny little bastards who want our six-pack abs go “oh yeah”?

Greg:    Well, you know, I think nutrition definitely plays a huge role across the board.  But I do think how big of a role it plays varies among sports and among disciplines.  I think for CrossFitters, you’re probably going to get more noticeable results by really dialing the nutrition than a weightlifter will.  
  
In other words, you know, a weightlifter can be pretty successful like quite literally eating pizza.  As long as he’s a getting a big dose of, you know, supplemental protein and hopefully some real steak and eggs.  And as Mike Burgener would say, “Steak, eggs and raw milk.”  
   
You know, as long as they’re getting a good dose of that stuff, they can get away with quite a bit because the demands are so specific. But, you know, with the CrossFitter having that – the Zone tends to work very well for them.  It gives them what I consider a large amount of carbohydrates.  I call the Zone a “high carb diet” even though most people call it a low carb diet.  I think they’re wacky.
   
It’s a low of everything kind of diet when it comes down to it.  There’s like 3 grams of protein for a 185 pound guy.  But, so, for a weightlifter the Zone sucks.  I would never ever let a lifter use the Zone, unless they had to lose weight and even then I’d probably just have them do some Paleo kind of naturally low-carb stuff.

Jon:    Do you think it’s possible for a lifter to eat clean and still achieve in the sport?

Greg:    To eat…oh, yeah.  You know, I think that if a lifter really dials in his nutrition and goes fully Paleo I think they are going to do better than if they ate shitty.  Of course.  I think there’s not a question but I think the difference in that case is going to be smaller than it would be in say, CrossFit; if that makes sense.

Jon:    Sure, yeah.

Greg:    So, in other words, a CrossFitter who eats on beer and then switches to the Zone is going to see huge, huge, huge difference.  A weightlifter who lives on pizza and beer and protein shakes and then goes to Paleo and protein shakes isn’t going to notice as much of a difference.
   
They’ll probably feel better and I also think, too, is that whether or not your nutrition has a very direct effect on your actual performance and your training, it will almost always have a positive effect on how you feel throughout the day, how you sleep, how you think.  And that alone, you know, should be reason enough to do it and that also is going to indirectly contribute to improved performance.
  
You know?  If you’re not in a pissed off mood and fatigued all day long you’re going to, you know, look better at the gym, so…I shouldn’t say “look better”.  You know what I mean.  Train better.

Jon:    Probably both, really, if you want to get down to it.

Greg:    Look better from a technical sense and the coach’s perspective is what I meant.

Jon:    Right, not (inaudible)…

Greg:    Not like from the guy in the corner looking at the chick on the adductor machine.

Jon:    We wouldn’t do that.  That’s inappropriate.

Greg:    No, of course not.

Jon:    No.  Well, you know, on your daily WOD, Greg, there’s usually some form of conditioning.  Is that a nod to getting these CrossFitters to stick around?  Or is conditioning something essential to your sport?

Greg:    No, and in fact, if I were doing an O-lifting focused WOD I would have zero conditioning in there.  But, the reason I do it that way is because for CrossFit, there’s CrossFit.com.  For purely Olympic weightlifting there’s MikesGym.org.  And I wanted to bridge a gap because there – I was just getting flooded by emails and questions about, “Okay, well, I want to get my O-lifts better but I don’t want to stop CrossFitting and turn into a fat shit like you.  So, how do I do it?”
   
And so I said, “Okay.  Well, there’s, you know there’s obviously a gap in the market there so I might as well fill it.”  And, you know I had a pretty good CrossFit background.  I mean, I co-owned one of them, you know the fourth or fifth CrossFit that ever opened.  And, obviously had an O-lifting background, so I said, well, why not just make a hybrid?  And granted, it’s definitely much more of an emphasis on O-lifts because that’s more of my thing.  
   
But the CrossFit’s in there is like just barely enough to keep people from just being so fat that they get out of breath rolling over in bed, you know?  So, I think, you know, CrossFit was the best way to do that, and, it’s nice (inaudible) since that’s where the Workout of the Day idea even comes from.  And, kind of show my appreciation there.

Jon:    Greg, one of my first experiences or I guess my first encounter with anything you’ve done was your Performance Menu Mass Gain Program and I know that well, obviously it didn’t work for me because I didn’t try hard enough.  But you have put on significant amounts of size and I don’t think a lot of people know that.  There are videos of you floating around at a buck sixty.

Greg:    I think, no, I think I leveled out at 167.  That was my lowest since, you know, being an adult.  But yeah, I put on a shitload of weight in the last couple of years.

Jon:    And is that in service of weightlifting entirely?

Greg:    Yeah, and you know, in prior to my getting involved with CrossFit I weighed about 200, 205.  And then once I started doing the CrossFit thing I dropped way down and I was generally running between 180 and 185.  But there was a point at which I dropped way, way down and I was like, I mean I was like five toothpicks sticking out of a potato basically.

Jon:    You were on the crystal meth diet there?  Or what happened?

Greg:    Yeah…well, no.  I was on the fucking Zone.  And, I hate that damn diet.  It just drives me nuts.  But, no, you know, for CrossFit it worked out well for me, you know?  Back then I was fairly good at it and probably because we – there was only like 100 CrossFitters in the world, so I didn’t have much to compare myself to.
   
But, you know, I had some of the top times and Diane and you know, those workouts.  And, I had 60 kipping pull-ups and all this bullshit.  Burpee back flips, and blah, blah, blah.  And, you know, just a basically a bunch of parlor tricks.  They really didn’t do me any good. But, I finally – when I said, “Hey, look.  I’m bored with this stuff.  I feel like I’m just, you know, going around in circles and I’m not progressing in any one particular way.  I miss being a competitive athlete.”  
   
And, you know, I decided I’m going to be a weightlifter.  Well, shit, I’m 5’11, which in the real world isn’t very tall but in the world of weightlifting is on the taller end of things.  And, you know, at that time I was basically like 82 or 83 kilos.  And man, I was 6 inches taller than most of the 85 kilo lifters.  And that just doesn’t fly.  There’s too much of a mechanical disadvantage there.
   
And so, I slowly went up to 94 kilos and did all right then and then after Americans last year that I competed in as a 94 I said screw it and I’m gonna go to a heavyweight and you know, go up to 105 kilos so that’s where I’m at now and I’m looking about 104.  I’m right there.

Jon:    Right there in that top of the 105 kilo class and what kind of…?

Greg:    And yes, I was strictly for weightlifting to optimize my height.

Jon:    It’s not too cold out there in Chico?

Greg:    No.

Jon:    Not there for insulation.  Well, very cool, Greg.  I appreciate you taking the time.  You’ve got a busy, busy schedule coming up.  You’re going to be in Chico on the 18th and the 19th of October.  We’ve got a couple of more coming up.  A seminar in Washington in February.  Then, Kansas, of all places and then you’re headed back to the Northeast. How are the seminars going for you, man?  Are you enjoying the experience?

Greg:    Yeah, I love doing them and you know, I’m like a crotchety old bastard and I hate traveling but you know, the seminars, that’s just such a great time.  And having Aimee there with me, too, is a blast.  And, you know, she keeps me from getting too drunk on Saturday night with all you guys who are bad influences.  You know when I go to these things.  Aw, let’s go get a drink!
   
But, that’s like the funnest thing I do and I love it.  You know, I’m hoping that basically what we’re trying to do is join forces with Burgener and CrossFit.  And that is allegedly in the works, according to Glassman.  And once that happens we’ll be doing seminars exclusively under the CrossFit umbrella and doing everything, you know, Burgener method.
   
So, I’m not sure when that’s going to happen, if it’s going to happen, but that apparently is the plan, so…

Jon:    So, awesome, man.  You know I get a lot of, well, not a lot, but I’ve gotten a few emails here and there.  You know, “I want to do Olympic lifting.  Jon, is it Everett or Burgener?

Greg:    Both.

Jon:    Yeah, yeah, it’s both.  There’s some synergy there, people.  So, there ya go.  Don’t make me hit delete on your email.  Good stuff, man.  Good stuff.

Speaking of Aimee, what’s the plan there? How’s her lifting going and where are you guys headed with it?

Greg:    She’s coming back pretty well.  For those who don’t know, she, we had to pull her out of Nationals this year, like two weeks before the event because she had a stress fracture in her L-5 and some torn hip muscles.  And she had been training injured for about a year.  So, she had to take, man, almost three months off entirely.  
   
You know, she’s back training now and she is snatching 83 pretty easily.  Squats are getting stronger again.  You know, she’s rack jerking 105.  We haven’t been cleaning her a whole lot because that’s, you know, the real problem with her injury there.

Jon:    Yeah.

Greg:    But, I think we’re going to kind of get up to November and kind of decide then if we’re going to take her to Americans.  And I think she’ll be ready to go and do pretty well.  She won’t be 100 percent but she’ll be pretty damn good.  And then by Nationals next year, which is I think June in Chicago, I think she’s got a pretty good showing if we can keep her healthy and on track.

Jon:    Well, very good, man.  Definitely our best wishes for that.  So, you’ve got these seminars going, man.  You’ve got Catalyst Athletics and the Performance Menu.  You’ve got your new DVD and book out.  I hope that you get some sleep, Greg.

Greg:    Yeah.  You’re not the only one, Jon.

Jon:    Thanks, man.  I appreciate it.

Greg:    All right.  Thank you.

Jon:    All right.  We’ll talk soon.

Pictures courtesy of Greg Everett and Catalyst Athletics.