 Back to school, back to school to prove to dad that I'm not a fool. I got my lunch packed up, my boots tied tight. I hope I don't get in a fight. Oh, back to school, back to school, back to school. So my name is Mike Farr. Most people know me as Salom Mike. I've been powerlifting, coaching, training people and myself for, man, 10 years. My kind of journey into the weight room, into fitness started as a basketball player, played pretty competitive for about 15 years. I'm not very tall, you guys can't tell. So I did get a little bit stronger, get a little bit faster. Had to do whatever I could because I wanted to play at a high level. Being five eight is difficult, so I found the weight room. Dropped out of college, typical story. I opened my own gym, my first personal training gym in around 2010, went terrible, failed. Ended up coaching people from there, kind of in the typical commercial gym situation. That's kind of where I found powerlifting on my own, just doing research. From there, the rest of my life is on the internet. I joined Super Training Gym, which is a local facility. Powerlifting Gym used to be ran out of Midtown Strength, which is a downtown on like Third Street. And soon after I got a job, began doing some marketing, some social media, YouTube, podcasts, the rest of the world. So my background as a coach in fitness now is mostly powerlifting. I tried some weightlifting and that's where I met some of these cats. It was really bad. So not very knowledgeable in that world, but powerlifting I've done about 10 years. Worked with a lot of athletes, local athletes, rugby players, basketball players, things of that nature back in the day. And I'm excited to be here and I'd like to dig into kind of anything you guys have in mind. So fitness-wise, anything but weightlifting. I have a good grasp on, I've had a lot of years and I've had a lot of experiences through my work and my content creation, hanging out with pro strength coaches, NFL, NBA, a lot of powerlifters, a lot of weightlifters, although I didn't learn much, but very high-level weightlifters. Strong man, you kind of name it. So I have a hint of knowledge in a lot of areas. Business-wise, I worked for Super Trendy Jim in Slingshot. I don't know if you guys heard of that company. They kind of make knee sleeves, wrist wraps, things of that nature. I worked there for about five years, doing a lot of the marketing, content creation, social media marketing, things of that nature. And then to this day, I run a couple of companies of my own, sell online programming, podcasts, content of that nature. I worked with numerous companies over the year, kind of consulting and working a little bit with their marketing as well. That's, I guess it for now. I feel like I'm old, but I'm not that old. We're a lot closer in age than a lot of you think. So I know I'm not as fancy. I saw Dean and Danny in here. They got a fancy pinpoint and all these things. I got nothing, but I would love to answer, not even pinpoint, see? I dropped out of college. But I'd love to talk anything. You guys have any questions on fitness-wise, business-wise, life-wise. I'm an open book. I would love to chat. Yeah, so competing in powerlifting for a long time, tried to do at least a meter to a year for about four or five years and then travel and work kind of took over. So I haven't competed in about two years and then also tweaked my back a little bit recently. We're digging in right now into my training, pushing up the volume a little bit. So we'll see what my back can handle. And I'm looking at possibly competing in a deadlift competition or doing deadlift only at Barbara Brigade, a gym in LA is doing a competition. I think early July. So if I don't fall apart, hopefully I'll get back on the platform. It's something I don't love to do. I don't love to compete, to be honest. I like coaching. I like working with people. I like working out. I like environments. I like groups. Competing's just a little bit of a test, but I don't know why. I've never found a lot of fulfillment in it, but I do want to throw it out a little bit. Although I feel old, I'm not that old. So I got some numbers that I want to hit still. So probably July. That's the goal. What are some things you can do? Training-wise? Uh, yeah. Training-wise, probably the biggest mistake I made for years is there was good information online when I was trying to learn. And I was just chasing too many goals, I guess, if you want to break it down. I wanted to be light enough. I was really worried about a weight class. I was really worried about all these records. I hopped into super training gym where Mark Bell is the owner and he was in his prime. He was a world record squatter. He benched 800 pounds. Everybody in the gym squatting at 1,000 pounds. I'm more like your guy's his age. I was 22, 23 at the time. And so automatically I'm like, all right, well, I gotta throw it down. Like I gotta put up numbers. So I'm looking at all these record books, seeing what weight class I can maybe squeak into a top five or whatever it is. And I was just too concerned with the rest of the world and not concerned enough with my progress and doing better. So I stayed at like 195 pounds for like three years and I only like kind of got stronger. You know, I'm trying keto diets and I'm trying the lettuce and ice and diet soda diet and all these things that weren't getting me anywhere. Rather than, you know, your 20s is a great time. Obviously in a healthy range, but it's a great time to gain weight. It's a great time to gain muscle. It's a great time to focus on performance. You know, you're the only aesthetic bra here but everybody else is focused on performance. But don't be afraid to kind of break up your goals and know that it's kind of a long-term journey for all this, you know, most strength sports, weightlifting is a little bit younger, but powerlifting, even bodybuilding, things of that nature. You probably won't even peak until your mid 30s, late 30s, weightlifters, maybe late 20s. So you guys clock's ticking a little bit different, but even still you can be a really good weightlifter into your 30s. So have some patience. I know it's hard to look long-term when you're young. Like even now I can't even look long-term. I'm worried about July and I'm worried about what's next. But if you can focus on, you know, a goal for six months, then another goal for six months, you'll get somewhere a lot quicker that way. Yeah, I don't know. You know, a lot of the kind of philosophical things are life things or motivational things or things that keep me going. I learned from a high school basketball coach, which I was really, really lucky to have. And they're just about, you know, little stuff, doing little things daily to get you better, hitting your nutrition every day to make sure you're ready for your next workout, being prepared, things of that nature. I can't say there was one thing I've learned from a lifter per se. You know, there's a lot of different cues. Lifting is kind of interesting because cue is just a way for me to communicate one way with him and then one way with you, right? Different cues, same result. And so having a variety of people that I've learned from, I've gotten to see through other people's eyes or step into other people's shoes and see how maybe they would communicate with people. Patience. Patience is something that I've learned from every lifter and every coach ever. Whatever you want to hit, whatever you want to do as long as you have patience, you'll probably find a way there. And if not, you'll get really close. I know that's super cliche, but it's just, that's why lifting is also so amazing because it's just patience. It's just patience. It's just chipping away, chipping away, chipping away. And again, once you guys hit 29, 30, 31, and you've been semi-smart with your training, you've been really consistent, and you just chipped away at it, everyone in this room can be really, really strong. You know, I think, yeah, it's hard. It's hard because everyone's habits are obviously gonna be different. You can often, in powerlifting, from a limited experience in weightlifting, it's not the same. But in powerlifting, you can often get stronger than maybe structurally you're ready to handle, or technically you're ready to handle. Even still, there's a lot of guys that are top 10, top 20, top 30 in the world or the nation or a federation that lift like crap. They have terrible technique and at some point it's gonna catch up to you. There are those freaks that can get away with some weird stuff. Crazy rounded back dead lifts, squats in your knees, they're doing the stanky leg, all that. You guys don't know the stanky leg. You guys too young, too young. Google it, YouTube it. Oh, you know the stanky leg. You know the stanky leg. And that's kind of where, going back to the other conversation of doing two heaviest singles too often, you can handle, say you're physically, you can squat 500 pounds. Your legs aren't built enough. You know, your abductor, the abductor's your stability's not ready to handle that kind of thing efficiently. I did it the same. I've hold like 525 within like a year of training because I'm listening to Eminem. Screwing all these people that are talking shit to me and I'm just in the gym like, 24 hour fitness on Arden bro. I used to crush that place. Crush that place. But that's not good. And soon it caught up with me. It's caught up quick. And then I had to go and dead lift 400 pounds for six months and figure out how to flatten out my back. So, filming yourself, having teammates that maybe you train with or coaches. This guy's for hire. Just to have eyes on you, hold you accountable and kind of keep you, again, to keep you in that lane of what you're technically capable of, physically capable of. But each individual habits gonna be per person. You are a great coach, little buddy. I think the truth is being more open minded than you're willing to want to be. There's a lot of people now making content, coaching people left and right. It's a fine line of wanting to coach people and kind of getting that experience that I talked about earlier and knowing that this is a little out of my wheelhouse right now. I should probably recommend him go somewhere else. I get lots of questions on the internet about random stuff. And sometimes I just say like, don't know bro. Don't know. Or talk to, right? People are going to talk in protein synthesis and M tour pathways and look man, I read about that once but you should go talk to my friend Eric Helms. He'll know better than I do. And then go and learn about it better yourself as you go. So I think getting around a variety of people and this kind of goes, let's not get too deep, but this kind of goes for everything in our world right now. Everyone's living in this echo chamber, politically, socially, training-wise is becoming a religion. People are so, no man, I'm Bulgarian, I'm conjugate. Chill bro, chill bro, you know. Dope and dup only. You need to start to learn from a variety of people and that doesn't mean adapt everything you learn from a different coach or a different method, but that does mean learn about it, take what you can. Eventually there's going to be somewhere to apply it. I went through all these stages myself. That's the only way I knew. I had a really good strength coach up until senior high school. He ended up moving across the country and then I did some Shaco, some Russian style training and then I went to super training. I was like, man, I was an idiot. My coach was an idiot. Shaco's an idiot. Like West Side Till I Die. I went and bought in 10 shirts. I said West Side Barbell. Like these guys are dumbasses. And then I turned it back around and I'm like, oh, West Side's dumbasses. They don't know nothing about raw lifters. Shaco, Shaco, Shaco. And then I'm now realizing like, well there's something here, there's something here and there's something here. It's just about how you apply it and actually knowing a topic rather than just trying to retain a little bit. Once you really train that way, coach people that way, learn as much as you can about every style and any style you are interested in, whether it is just pure power lifting or if it's strength and conditioning or if it's physique profit, if he needs a coach, maybe he's about to post. I think it's just picking and choosing what you really want to do as a coach also helps. Can't really be an expert in broad categories. An expert means that you kind of choose a niche and get into it. And then just patience, bro. Patience. Trying to be a powerlifting coach, is that the goal? Just like strength coach, but yeah. Cool. College, high school, what? Just like normal people. So cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then some like high school. Yeah, yeah. Do you know their coach, Ben Claredad? I would go meet Ben. I've met him a lot. Yeah, I'd go pick Ben's brain, man. I did a little bit of it. Ben probably did a little bit more. He's almost purely weightlifting now, but when I met Ben, he was running just general strength and conditioning for soccer moms, high school kids, whatever it might be. Ben's a really smart dude. He's a little bit like myself where although we're not that old actually, we feel old because we've both been doing this thing for about 10 years, which I'm telling you, fitness wasn't cool 10 years ago, man. It really wasn't cool. I had a lot of people telling me to get a job, Ben. So I would talk to Ben and then get as much local experience as you can and just pick brains. We in Northern California, I don't know why, but we have an insane, insane amount of fitness and really good fitness. If you talk like Santa Cruz Bay Area all the way to here, there's a lot of smart cats running around. So, and most of them, again, like I said, they're really open to questions or really open to internships. Don't be afraid to work for free each shit for a while. I was working out of Mark's garage and 100 degree weather printing t-shirts for about two years. So just to be able to learn and interview these people down the road. Did I know that was gonna happen? I had no idea, but something will come a little bit of hard work and what do they say? What do the folks say? Elbow grease? Elbow? Elbow grease? Little elbow grease, right? That doesn't make sense, but I think that's the term. You got more? Yeah. You mean like a total taper D-load type deal? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So, you know, just blanket statement powerlifting here. We'll hit some kind of base volume phase, high pressure phase, whatever you wanna call it, four to eight weeks. We're gonna hit like a overreaching phase, whatever the heck you wanna call it, where we're punching a bunch of volume in for four to eight weeks. And then maybe another four weeks, we're gonna slowly raise that intensity, pushing ourself closer to one rep max, and we're gonna take away some of that volume, so hopefully recover and hit new one rep max, right? That's blanket. There's many ways to do it within that and whatever else. The last two, three, four weeks will all be dependent on the style of training you do before. You know, frequencies often something that stays the same throughout, but the volume and things will depend. If you're squatting five days a week, you're not gonna take a whole week off at the end. Does that make sense? Another issue will just depend on kind of experience, strength, what style of lifting, whether it may be in wraps or power lifting gear or totally raw, ladies, and then that all kind of factors into how fast you can recover or that taper may be. So typically speaking, it is a little bit individual because mental aspect plays a role in it as well. Typically speaking, a bigger guy, stronger guy, a wrapped guy, maybe an enhanced guy, which I do not recommend, kids, will need a little bit more time. So that might be five, seven, 10, maybe 14 days out for the big lifts. You know, squatting deadlift typically, bench maybe more like seven days out. A stronger, more middleweight guy might be four, seven, 10 days out for the big lifts, maybe three, five, seven days out for a bench. And then ladies typically even less. Ladies are beasts in the gym. They can handle a lot of volume. They can peak real hard. They don't need much time to taper, so it's a bomb. So that'll be probably two, three, four, five days. Again, depending on kind of the style of training you have leading up. Does that make some sense? I know that's not a great answer because it's 12 answers, but it kind of depends because there is a mental aspect too where I have lifters that I kind of want to taper away and give them five days break, but then I know on game day, they're like, I forgot how to squat. Bro, you're cool. So then we'll throw them an underhand pitch and have them squat 70% for a three by three, three days out, something like that. Choosing attempts at your first power of the two meets probably the most difficult because again, you don't know how you taper, who knows what kind of program you're running, whatever. So at a very first one, I'd probably estimate what I realistically think I could hit on that day. So say your best bench press in the gym is 120 pounds and you think you might be able to get 125, 130 at the meet, I would take that number. I'll take 90% for an opener. Another thing people talk about is something you can do for a triple, that's a good opener, which often for most people is around 90%. Again, depending on experience, age, gender, all that. 95 ish percent for a second. And then hopefully based on that, whether it's your own judgment, coach's judgment or friend's judgment, 100 to 105% of that. That makes some sense. And that's kind of what I do for a more experienced person as well. If I'm coaching them one-on-one, I'll just know from the taper, the weeks leading up. Hopefully I've known the athlete long enough that I know their bar speed and things of that nature and I'll know ballpark where we're gonna end up on our third or what he's maybe capable of if everything happens perfectly. And then I'll still kind of go 90%, 95%, 100%. 5% jumps tends to be pretty decent.