“When people ask me what book to buy to get stronger or more fit I say a basic physics book because Newton’s laws of motion apply to everything… I don’t bring a person in to show me how to lift weights. I bring physics professors, mathematics professors, calculus professors, and so forth, and engineers because that’s what I think is missing in this sport.” -Louie Simmons

Well, I’ve always been into lifting weights but throughout college managed to get pretty fat and weak. I finished my bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering at 6’0″ 283lbs of booze and pizza. When Brown got home from the marines he, like everyone else, noticed I had been steadily packing on the poundage over the last year of school and took it upon himself to get me to join up at Derby City CrossFit with him. I’m glad as it has, without a doubt, added several years to my life. In my first 9 months of training CrossFit I was able to drop 80lbs and gain more lean mass than I had had since playing football in high school. I enjoyed CrossFit and owe my dedication to health, fitness and strength to it but quickly got bored “wodding” the shit out of myself every day. I liked that I was getting stronger doing CrossFit workouts alone I had established a solid strength base. At the time CrossFit had done a couple interviews about powerlifting with Dave Tate and his demeanor and attitude towards being strong had me hooked. This coupled with Ryan attending a CrossFit Powerlifting certification with Louie Simmons at West Side redirected our training from CrossFit wods to strength training.

I started reading (and still do) everything I could about getting stronger and powerlifting. Dave Tate’s website (Elitefts.com) has tons of information on the sport of strength and I have taken it upon myself to learn everything I can from guys like Dave, Louie Simmons, Jim Wendler, Matt Kroc, Mark Bell and the miracle baby Max Mormont. I try to take the information that’s out there and view it from an engineering prespective as far as the mechanical system of the human body and how the best leverages can be placed on the bar according to anthopometric measurements.

Basically we are trying to get strong as sh*t and have a good time doing it.