Meanwhile in Russia …
Dmitry Klokov sat down for his own “On Par” interview with Alexander Zakharov. Thank him for doing this interview and subscribe to his channel for more weightlifting videos.
If you (like me at first) thought that after the many interviews Dmitry gave in the recent past, there wasn’t anything new we could learn about him, then you were wrong.
Thanks again to Sergiy Turchyn for translating. More “On Par” Interviews by Dmitry Klokov here.
Update: Beginning of Part 3 added below.
Part 1
At first, Klokov talked about his business. He is going to produce pretty much everything for weightlifting and crossfit: bars, t-shirts, straps, shoes, etc. He also said that he has a very big project in mind but it is too early to hear about it.
He said how many weightlifters don’t know the price of themselves and agree to be underpaid in sponsorship contracts etc. For example, he mentioned that Apti was offered $1000 for a seminar and was very happy. Klokov replied that Apti should have raised it to $3000-$5000.
As for his training, he is always ready to lift 195+220. Why he doesn’t need the Olympic gold:
- He earns like 10 times more than he used to as a weightlifter.
- All of his current business connections may fail if he disappears for 1.5 years in training camps.
- He likes to lift and he does it every day. He doesn’t have to push himself to the limits to train for fun.
But he also mentioned April as the date for the final decision. Because going for the Olympics may be reasonable if all his sponsors agree on it and support him. In this case he will lift in Russian Cup and qualify for the national team.
He was saying bad things about sports authorities. They told him that he can compete in nationals and qualify for worlds/Olympics. He knows that this has never worked ever and there are many more shady things. But he is ready to stand against because he has reputation and fame, so they will have to listen to him.
He mentioned how after London they said a lot of horrible and false things about him to the higher authorities, so that they hate him now.
Overall, he just sounds like a businessman who knows his price.
He still cares about quality though. In a discussion about barbells he said that companies like Eleiko don’t need to prove anything because they already have reputation. But new companies often have cheaper price and better quality to get their place in the market.
In the same manner, everything he does now he is trying to do in the best way possible. He mentioned how his seminars were planned to last 6.5 hours but actually lasted 10-12 because he wanted each client to be satisfied.
Part 2
About Sharing Contact Info
I share all my contact information including the phone number and email. People from another countries message me every day, but Russians don’t. Some wonder why I share all this info. I do because I am an open person.
There are numerous invites to commercial competitions coming to the Russian Weightlifting Federation. Many of them have no drug testing. Russians could just go, lift, and get like $5000. Unfortunately, such invitations often don’t reach athletes because of one person who handles the paperwork. That’s why athletes should give out their contact information.
Because of being open, I get many offers. Every single big company related to weightlifting has made some kind of offer to me. I was an athlete for so many years and nobody wrote to me. Now, when I sort of finished my career, they write me every day.
About the Seminars
We were sitting and drinking beer. All of the national team. Vasya Polovnikov says: “Dima, I was in America and they all want you to come. You, Akkaev, Apti and Ilyin. Will you go there?”. “Sure.” We said that as a joke, but in a few days they wrote to me from Italy and invited for a seminar. I agreed, so before the USA trip I already had some experience. Then our American friends planned the whole trip and we did it. After it I was working alone, without Vasiliy.
– Why without him?
It is business. We didn’t really earn a lot in the US. There were 5 of us. We got the same money I get alone, but had to share it. It’s just more effective to do it alone. It’s not like I let him down. We are just working separately. If, say, Apti wants to do a seminar, he can go ahead and do it. If they need help with contacts, I will help them. I have connections with the whole world.
I travelled across 26 countries in 8 months. I am so tired of sleeping in airports like a bum. Flights are often delayed. Right now it took me 36 hours to get here from Brazil. It was supposed to take 23 hours. Where did I sleep? Airports.
It is very hard. Yes, it is a lot of money. Really a lot. But it is hard. Sometimes there is no time to take a shower. There is no time to eat or sleep. I slept 4 hours a day. I came home after a seminar and took care of other business, such as my online training with 8 guys. Just this takes me about 2 hours a day. There is a lot of work.
Nobody of the current athletes could do the same I am doing. Vasya Polovnikov can do it. Oxana Slivenko can also handle that. I just know how hard they work.
I can’t really tell how long I will be doing seminars. It is a business and each business has an expiration date. One day it will transform into a different thing that we are preparing right now.
About the Olympics, Once More
You mentioned your plans for the Olympics. What if you get injured like the media told before London? What if you don’t show good enough results? Can you lose the interest of all the sponsors?
That can happen. This is why the question about the Olympics is so hard. My team and I have to consider every possibility to make the final decision.
About Travelling and Language
Why do I want to travel around the whole world? Sometimes I travel to countries that pay less if I have never been there. When you travel to a new country, people will talk to you, share the pictures in the social networks. You get more popular. That increases my price. Sponsors pay me more.
Why am I starting to talk in English? Because 90% of my viewers are not Russian. I don’t have subtitles because my videos are like a reality show. If I post a video, it was filmed either today or yesterday. There is just no time to make subtitles.
I have people who could do that.
Many athletes create their own websites. Do you plan to do it?
Why? I think social networks are enough. Want video? Go on Youtube. Want photos? Go on Instagram, VK, etc. Want to write to me? Use the same websites.
About his Company
I want to work hard
People want me to do a seminar in Russia. Well, take care of it. Nobody wants to. I don’t have time. My wife is also busy [In the part 1 he mentioned that the core of his Winner company is his dad and wife]. I don’t want to recruit random people. I want to work with those I can trust. Guys from the national team all want to be directors and I don’t need a director.
I offered Dima Lapikov to be a part of my company. He doesn’t want it. Others are the same. Vasya Polovnikov wanted to sell supplements. I told him: “Here is an office, here is a warehouse. Go ahead and use it.” He didn’t want to.
Akkaev once told me that he likes me for always doing what I tell I will do. It’s pointless to sit and talk about millions. You need to get up and work your ass off for it. That’s why so many people want to be directors and authorities: you just sit there with paperwork, do nothing and get paid. Nobody wants to create anything. All athletes want to win something and then do nothing. I am not like that. I want to work hard.
About Crossfit Haters in Russia
I don’t differentiate between weightlifting and Crossfit. All those haters do. Powerlifting and bodybuilding used to be like that – a foreign sport in Russia. How did they start? Everybody denied them. A while ago you could get in prison for owning a bodybuilding gym… Now they are popular. Crossfit is following the exact same path.
It is a new foreign sport. Some people think that we should not develop it and develop our own weightlifting sport. Crossfit will become popular. You can’t hide from it. Why hate it if Crossfit can really help weightlifting? Look at America and Australia. There are much more weightlifters now thanks to Crossfit. The same will happen in Russia. Why do you hate it? Are you idiots?
About Crossfit Coaches in the USA
You know, there are many things I don’t like in Crossfit. I talk about them. The more popular you are, the more people listen to you. For example, these Level 1 seminars that make you a coach in 2 days. 2 days!!! In just 2 days you learn gymnastics, rowing, weightlifting, and everything else.
I attended one of such courses. The instructor knew me, so I could see the shame in his eyes when he was talking about weightlifting. He knew that it was their problem. According to Igor Zaripov, the same can be said about gymnastics. Crossfit is not a sport. It is business. Well, it is sport for athletes, but it is business for businessmen.
There are many injuries in Crossfit. They don’t have a gym culture. They throw plates everywhere. Look at our weightlifting gym and their Crossfit gym.
How can American coaches teach others if they know nothing themselves? They don’t have weightlifting in America. And they come to Russia to teach us weightlifting on Crossfit certifications!
About Gyms
There are only a few of weightlifting gyms in America. But really Crossfit and weightlifting gyms are the same thing. That is why I am trying to promote Crossfit. In Moscow there are 7-8 weightlifting gyms and 7-8 Crossfit gyms. However, Crossfit gyms have Eleiko equipment, new bars, platforms… And you can do the same exercises in there.
Berestov was saying that he couldn’t get the government fund weightlifting equipment for children … This is Russia, forget about it! Nobody will give anything to you for free.
It is business. Open your own gym; call it Crossfit if you need to. But this will be a place where one can Snatch, Clean and Jerk. And this person must pay for the gym. You must pay for weightlifting too, or you will have this old equipment that will cause more injuries! The authorities will not give money to maintain the gym.
You can go another way and attract sponsors. In America each gym has sponsors who pay the most money to maintain the gym: supplement, clothing, equipment companies that have their products in the gym. Just do the same! Stop dreaming about new weightlifting gyms being opened.
About Making Money as a Weightlifter
The problem is that everyone tries to market weightlifting as a sport. This is not right. You should promote each athlete individually. Just like I am doing right now.
Young guys don’t want to be weightlifters
You love weightlifting, but the general public does not know how it is different from powerlifting and bodybuilding. The general public will not like weightlifting, but they can like a person who is a weightlifter.
Young guys don’t want to be weightlifters. They want to be like Klokov, like Apti … People wanted to watch Rigert and Alexeev. They did not come for weightlifting, they came for Rigert and Alexeev. In light weight classes there was much smaller audience.
Suppose you are a company that sells supplements. You come to Chingiz Mogushkov and offer to be his sponsor. Where will he show your products? Nowhere. But if he is active in social networks and TV, then there are ways to market the product. You will pay him more or less depending on how popular he is in social networks.
Who is doing all of this? Nobody. When I come and tell them, they start but then slowly stop.
Just like this program “On Par”. I created it and someone can just copy me, or improve and make it better and get better audience. There are many issues here. You could film it in different locations, add videos about athletes, their photos, put in more video editing. I know how to make it perfect; I just don’t have time because I am doing it myself.
I am doing it myself because I don’t like to rely on others. I have nobody to blame for my problems. That’s why I don’t have a coach. This way if I screw up I can only blame myself. I don’t trust other people.
About his Future Plans
Next year I will organize a competition in weightlifting and Crossfit. Well, not really weightlifting. It will be a mix of all iron sports and will let all kinds of athletes compete among themselves. I have an idea, you will see it next year. I will start working on this when my equipment arrives.
About the Interview
Many will say that I am an egoistic moron. I already know what they will write in comments. However, I don’t care. We will see in 2-3 years. I will be laughing at people who hate Crossfit now. Because in 3 years my goal is to make Crossfit popular in Russia. And it will make weightlifting more popular. You can go into any Crossfit gym and do your Snatches, Cleans, and Jerks. Nobody would let you do them in a commercial gym. Stop hating.
Part 3
First 20 minutes from commenter “wat”. (Come on guys, chose normal names please.)
Why do you put crossfit hashtag in everything you post?
First, because the term crossfit is googled so much more than term weightlifting. Second, many crossfit athletes understand they have no technique. Many crossfit coaches understand they have no technique. They watch pro weightlifters to pick it up! They understand crossfit is a cult and they know it does not provide relevant weightlifting knowledge.
You seem to curse a lot lately.
You can hear me cursing only if I do something serious! Complexes I post are VERY hard, and I cannot cut it out, and I cannot really control what I say. After the 140kg Barbell Frog Jumps I could not sit for two weeks. I could not even Squat with 140 kg!
Why did you open your channel?
Last july I understood I should treat myself as a show business person. I brought myself to sponsors. You need to do that, or nobody will ever know you exist. Our first Polovnikov-Ilyin-Klokov Videos were written before we shot them. The jokes we told were scripted beforehand tried to make them as entertaining as we could.
You moved from weightlifting videos to crossfit videos. Aren’t you afraid of losing the weightlifting audience? I personally stopped watching them cause I knew there will be more crossfit stuff.
There are more crossfit viewers than weightlifting viewers. I don’t really care. Obviously some weightlifters can lose interest. But there is time for everything. We are making a e-book about how to train, how to eat etc. It will be in English. I can give a lot of information, but I won’t give it for free. I can make a free seminar, but guess what, I don’t want to spend my weekends on free seminars, and people don’t come to seminars on weekdays.
I thought I was going to speak with a sportsman, but now I realize I am speaking with a businessman, a commersant.
Yes. 100% sure. My ego tells me “go back to the weightlifting, go back, take a title”. But I am very spontaneous and I follow what I decide. If I announce: “I’m going to be the best, I’m going to beat Akkaev and Ilyin, I gotta do my best to fulfill that. I am a man my word. But that is not good for me. So I’m going think ten times before I decide in April.
Right now I don’t want. I try to suppress the desire to compete. I am a 32 years old.
If I knew I got to be first, goddamn, if I knew I’m going to be SECOND, I would easily go. It is just too much work, too much competition, too many people don’t want me to go.
The rest is really boring, they mostly chat about nothing. Notable moments:
The video where I lifted girls on the beach actually became somewhat viral in Mexico and USA. Several TV channels asked my permission to publish it (not only in the context weightlifting: “how to pick up girls on the beach” etc).
“On par” is a “rip off” from a popular russian business TV show (‘business secrets’). I like business from childhood – I collected empty bottles when I was a kid and recorded music tapes for my friends for money.
What do you do to be able to sit so low in the squat position?
Nothing, I could do that from the beginning. Judo made me very flexible. I happened to touch the ground with my ass during the snatch.
He admires bodybuilders and says real pro bodybuilders know how to gain muscle/remove fat at least as good as weightlifters. Still he notes that “A lot of bodybuilding tips are simply nonsense.”
More Dmitry Klokov Interviews:
so lets hope his sponsors will kick his ass to go to rio. would be exciting to see iljin vs klokov (vs aramnau vs dolega vs torokhtiy?).
I also would love to see him lift again, but I could also understand if he decides otherwise. I mean he has a family and his priorities are probably more towards securing their financial future. Despite of that one has to be realistic about his chances to win since he is not the youngest anymore. Again I hope that his lifts are strong enough to make him go to Rio, but I am not counting on it.
On a side note: I am curious to see what he will be doing about weightlifting as a sport to promote it better. I could imagine he learned a lot from Crossfit and they do know a bit more about presentation then the IWF.
I watched the russian nationals and that was quite boring. They didn’t even show replays of the lifts and played the same damn song over and over again in between lifts. I don’t know how but I am sure one can improve competitions to make it more spectator-friendly without taking away from the athletes. I mean the competition is already constructed to a climax in contrast to other athletic disciplines such as shot put. Maybe one can underline the drama better or at least introduce the lifters better so that the viewer can connect with them.
Big thanks to Sergiy! Your work is much appreciated.
Russian is my native language, but usually it’s much more convenient to read summary than to watch the whole thing.
Thanks again
He really seems to have his head screwed on in regards to business. It seems as if he has brought the same work ethic he had when training to his business. You only have to look at his youtube and twitter to see the amount of seminars he has done in the last 8-10 months. It’s insane. What’s even more amazing is that the quality of the seminars and the information seems spot on. You would imagine they might get a tad monotonous after all this time and the quality might drop but I haven’t heard a bad word said about them by anyone. He genuinely seems to care that everyone gets the same high quality material and delivery.
Addition to part 2:
I find his approach of promoting specific athletes rather than weightlifting in general very interesting. Looking at many prominent examples this seems to be a promising one. More promising probably than trying to make everyone a weightlifting fan. Even in Germany’s most important daily news show (Tagesschau) Steiner was a topic when he lifted in London in 2012 and had the accident in the snatch.
The route through athletes may also make weightlifting more lucrative and thus more competitive with other sports. I think this is especially important in western countries.
What do others here think? Should certain lifters be bigger than the sport itself? Or is that actually already a reality not just in weightlifting but in many other smaller sports?
I personally agree with what Klokov does.
I am a weightlifting fan. I love the sport. I will love it with Klokov being the face of it and I will love it if it remains unpopular. His actions do not influence me.
However, I want other people know what weightlifting is. I didn’t know what a snatch, clean and jerk are until 19 years old. I think this is wrong. That’s where people like Dmitry would help. They will be on TV and kids will want to be like them. Just like Schwarzenegger made bodybuilding popular. A lot of people wanted to be badass like him and started strength training.
Overall, I agree with what Dmitry does. I think more lifters should promote themselves rather than coming out once a year for Worlds/Olympics.
“I’m always ready to lift 195+220”. Blablabla. Klokov is living in the past. He didn’t do jack in 2012 and last time he competed he was beaten to third place with a 401 total. It’s pure arrogance to think he can beat Polovnikov, Bedzhanyan, Sheyko, Naniev, Demanov, Sabanchiev (who all work their arse off) just easy peasy while on his jetsetting lifestyle.
I can totally understand him being tired of professional lifting, the grueling training and low pay. Be a businessman and good luck. But please don’t pretend you’re still the best. Prove it or go on with your life.
Also, I can imagine the RFWF being a problematic bureaucracy full of hotheads. But how can he possibly blame them for talking dirty after the London debacle?
He recently posted an easy 190 kg snatch, no reason not to believe he can do 195. And 220 is a rather weak CJ.
195+220 is 15-20 kgs below the best in 105kg class today
well its not weak if he’s hitting it under jetlag
So you think 195 + 220 is “the best”?
Also, please point out the exact place where he said he could beat all of the lifters you listed.
He claims he can do 195 – which is 5kg off the WR – at 105 on a platform “always”. Today, next week, whenever. Not with six months of training, planned peaking or whatever. That’s how I read it. He talks like all of this is a foregone conclusion. Russian cup, camps, Olympics.
Running with 195+220 NOW, while doing seminars is completely different than claiming this number after X months of Olympics preparation.
No, he said he’s ready to hit 195+220. YOU said “at 105 on a platform ‘always'” etc. etc.
Dmitry said that he can hit 195+220 right here right now. And he is at 105 now because of Crossfit.
If Dmitry makes a decision in April, he will have a few months to train and at nationals he can do more than 195+220.
As for others, he told that he wasn’t afraid of them because hitting 195+230 would be around the first place total and he can do that. Klokov mentioned that Naniev and other new guys lift huge weights in training, but don’t do it in competition yet.
He didn’t talk bad about other guys, he is just confident that he can get into the national team which is probably true.
At last, Dmitry doesn’t have to be the first at nationals to get into the team. He just needs to show that he is in shape.
Have you followed his channel? By quickly looking through the latest video titles, you could see that he snatched 186 kg in Chile 3 weeks ago (during the training session and it did not look like he just barely got it up) and 190 kg last winter. It surely seems that in a competition, 195 kg is doable.
I leave his CJ videos for you as an exercise.
cool guy…he’s a good ambassador for the sport. Looks like an athlete, very likeable, and knowledgeable.
Klokov doent want go to Olympics because he know that he cant won against Ilyin and get gold, silver is not motivating enough for him. And i dont like his tone when he speaks about Bedzhanian, said that his 185+241 is nothing. Thats is too arrogant
Wow, you guys are only talking about whether he is going to lift in Rio or not, and what his chances are. There are much, much more interesting things to talk about here that have a much bigger impact on the future of the sport.
And what are those? Will they have the same “impact” as the Akkaev “revolution” a year ago?
Klokov says that Crossfit is not a sport but a business and that it suffers for it (correct) and then at the same time he wants to steer WL into a Crossfit/Bodybuilding-like business direction so lifters like him (i.e. the stars) can earn some serious income. Sweet. I’m not even speaking Russian yet I’m properly hearing a lot of “Schwarzenegger” in the second video.
It’s clear that Klokov has dollar signs in his eyes post-2012 and I wish him good luck with lightening the purses of starry eyed white collar fans. But does anybody seriously think he would give a rat’s arse about Crossfit if it had the monetary backing/pool of indeed weightlifting (or rugby, table tennis, etc.)?
How does opening Crossfit gyms help WL in Russia? So a bunch of thirty year olds can drop their power snatches without getting yelled at? Do you think these places ($$$) are accessible to the average Russian? Why doesn’t he work with kids? Or train youth/juniors like Berestov? Or open a small site/gym like Rigert where local teens can go? Or become an official within the RFWF for a few years like his father? He could attempt plenty of this in the US as well.
Crossfit is a commercialized pastime for (upper) middle class people. If you want to promote and popularize WL you should model it on basics learned from e.g. football, and not look towards something which allure/cloud resembles golf.
As a fan of the sport of weightlifting I hope he fails in his quest of turning it into the [Star of the Day] Show exclusively. I don’t want it to become a farce like bodybuilding or half of powerlifting.
WL was more than Alexeyev/Rigert in the seventies and it’s more than Klokov/Aukhadov/Lu now.
PS.: If he really pays someone $3000 to post stuff to social media, something every teenage girl can do, then he’s clearly not a savvy businessman. 😀
You hit a similar point as I did. However, your point of view is much more negative.
Popular interest in sport is always connected to personalities even more so in smaller sports
such as weightlifting. Very successful athletes can ignite a fire in young kids to follow their path.
A good example might be the numerous strong female russian tennis players. They were in part motivated by A. Kournikova even despite her lack of success in tennis itself.
People also watch the sport to watch this or that person. I don’t think this is a bad thing. It helps to expose people to the sport and probably even develop a passion for it.
I am also not a Crossfit fan per se, but it is hard to argue that the amount of lifters in the US has
not grown due to Crossfit. Sure most of these athletes might be too old to become an olympic champion, but now more and more people know the lifts and give the passion to their kids. Also the american open had more participients than ever before. So even when you dislike certain things about Crossfit it has exposed more people to weightlifting than anything else.
And the problems of bodybuilding and powerlifting are not comparable to weightlifting as the latter is an objective athletic event without the aid of supportive gear and the split up in numerous federations.
Klokov registered his company in 2006. He had dollar signs way before 2012. There is a reason beyond showing off why he posted videos before 2012. Well, I don’t see a problem here. Do you think weightlifters should be poor and not care about money? I personally think that weightlifting should be more business like, so that it will be more popular.
How does Crossfit help weightlifting? More people know what snatch, clean and jerk are. More people are comfortable lifting weights. There are much more weightlifters in the USA now thanks to Crossfit. It is popular internationally, so people will come to Crossfit gyms in Russia. Later they will bring their kids. That’s how it works.
Will people be able to afford Crossfit? Places can be more accessible if the owners decide so since Crossfit gyms cost less than commercial gyms. Prices will be set so that the gym will make profit, so some people will definitely come.
Why doesn’t he work with kids/youth/juniors? He will earn less money this way. This will not make the sport more popular. Why should he do that?
Why doesn’t he open a gym? He wants to create something new rather than copy what others do.
Why doesn’t he want to work in RFWF? Because he does not like this kind of work. He doesn’t like people who work there. His dad did a lot of good things and was fired for nothing. And again, Dmitry wants to create something new and RFWF will not give him money.
As a fan of the sport of weightlifting, I hope he succeeds in his quest, so that it will be as popular as bodybuilding. WL does have more athletes than Klokov/Aukhadov/Lu, but most people don’t even know them. Dmitry doesn’t do all of it for weightlifting fans, he is doing it for people who are not. Fans will remain fans regardless.
This guy who gets $3000 probably has other responsibilities too.
Well said, Sergiy!
I don’t think Schwarzenegger is a good comparison here, he was by far the biggest thing to ever happen to bodybuilding. I doubt Klokov carries that kind of clout.
I’m not really worried about athletes, fairly successful ones, having the chance to make some money off (upper) middle class people at the tail end of their career or after it (as is likely the case with Klokov). Why would this be a problem? Since there is not that much money in weightlifting, it might actually encourage people to take it up at an early age. I do appreciate the idea people should only take up a sport because they fall in love with it, but let’s be realistic. In most countries there’s only a few sports that matter — and that’s because of money — and everything else is more or less marginalized.
Would Klokov care about crossfit if it wasn’t for money? I doubt it, too. But that’s not really my concern. I got into weightlifting at an adult age largely due to being inspired by watching Klokov’s videos. I’m not wealth, I didn’t join a crossfit gym. I had been doing powerlifting style workouts as a hobby and way to keep at least somewhat in shape, and I noticed an add for a local adult weightlifting club on the wall of my local municipal gym. I joined, for next to no money, and fell in love with the sport. I’ll never be a serious competitor, maybe at some point I’ll join a local open or something. But I doubt the club would have even been founded (it’s very new) if not for the amount of crossfitters that are interested in learning proper technique. They consitute over half of the trainees there.
So why does he not work with kids? That’s definitely an important part, and I greatly respect people who do that. But I don’t think that’s how you build a following for a sport or get money into it. Like any big sport, people are fans of teams or individuals, not just a sport. That’s how adults start hobbies, that’s how they get their kids into them, etc. And that’s what kids aspire to be when they grow up. Furthermore, I think weightlifting has a lot more to offer than just competition and pro athletes. I think it’s a good form of exercise, by itself or in addition to other stuff (you know, the basic idea behind crossfit, if it wasn’t so overrun by incompetent people trying to make a quick buck with no consideration for the future of any sport or the health of people who like a tough workout).
I don’t know how savvy a businessman Klokov is, and like anybody, he’s occasionally full of shit, but I don’t think that takes away from his modest, yet important contributions. And what I’m interested in is not merely what he is doing himself, but the ideas and points he’s raising, since others could perhaps implement those even better in the future, which I would think would be a good thing for us all. More recognition for the sport, more gyms, more stars, more money, and more people lifting weight with good technique.
It’s not very romantic. Doesn’t have to be.
The popularity of weightlifting in the US has exploded since Crossfit became a thing. Say what you will about CF, as it certainly has serious flaws (which Klokov is not loath to point out), but it’s arguably the best thing that’s happened for our sport here. I myself came into WL from a Crossfit background (I doing WODs on my own without drinking the cult koolaid, but it was my background nonetheless), and I am able to train regularly because Crossfit gyms exist and have the necessary equipment (even though I don’t actually do CF in them). Klokov knows what he’s doing.
Haha, always ready for 195/220. Maybe in training at a juiced 110+kg bodyweight, he hasn’t had a good competition in 5 years and there are better russian lifters than him. Never saw what all the rave about this guy was. Aramnau 2008, now THAT was a performance. Hope he can bring it again in the future.
so 196/232 at world championships are no good performance? 😀
I think Lapikov should reconsider Dima’s offer and hitch a ride on the Klokov Express.
Here is the translation of first 20 minutes of 3rd part.
“Why do you put crossfit hashtag in everything you post”
First, because term crossfit is googled so much more than term weightlifting
-second, many crossfit athletes understand they have no technique. Many crossfit coaches understand they have no technique. They watch pro WLs to pick up it! They understand crossfit is a cult and they know it does not provide relevent WL knowledge.
“You seem to curse a lot lately”
You can hear me cursing only if I do something serious! Complexes I post are VERY hard, and I cannot cut it out, and I cannot really control what I say. After 140 barbell frog jumps I could not sit for two weeks. I could not even squat with 140 kg squat!
“Why did you open your channel?”
Last july I understood I should treat myself as a showbusiness person. I brought myself to sponsors. You need to do that, or nobody will ever know you exist. Our first polovnikov-ilyin-klokov videos were wrtitten before we shot them. The jokes we told were scripted beforehead. We tried to make them as entertaining as we could.
“You moved from WL videos to crossfit videos. Aren’t you afraid of losing WL-s audience? I personally stopped watching them cause I knew there will be more crossfit stuff”
There is more crossfit watchers than WL watchers. I don’t really care. Obviously some WLs can lose interest. But there is time for everything. We are making a e-book about how to train, how to eat etc. It will be in English. I can give a lot of information, but I won’t give it for free. I can make a free seminar, but guess what, I don’t want to spend my weekends on free seminar, and people don’t come to seminars on weekdays.
“I thought I was going to speak with a sportsman, but now I realize I am speaking with a businessman, a commersant.”
Yes. 100% sure. My ego tells me “go back to the WL, go back, take a title. But I am very spontaneous and I follow what I decide. If I announce: “I gonna be the best, I gonna beat Akkaev and Ilyin I gotta do my best to fulfiill that. I am a man of a word. But that is not good for me. So I gonna think ten times before I decide in April. Right now I don’t want. I try to suppress the desire ti compete. I am a 32 years old.
If I knew I gotta be first, goddamn, if I knew I gonna be SECOND, I would easily go. It is just too much work, too much competition, too many people don’t want me to go.
The rest is really boring, they mostly chat about nothing. Notable moments:
The video where I lifted girls on the beach actually become somewhat viral in Mexica and USA. Several TV channels asked my permission to publish it (not only in WL context, also in entertaining context: “how to pick up girls on the beach” etc).
“On par” is a “rip off” from a popular russian business TV show (‘business secrets’). I like business from childhood – I collected empty bottles when I was a kid and recorded music tapes for my friends for money (LOL).
“What do you do to be able to sit so low in the squat position?”
Nothing, I could do that from the beginning. Judo made me very flexible. I happened to touch the ground with my ass during the snatch.
He admires bodybuilders and says real pro BBs know how to gain muscle/remove fat at least as good as weigthlifters. Still he notes that “A lot of bodybuilding tips are simply nonsense.”
Where did Part 1 go?
They uploaded an edited version. I just replaced part 1.
Ah, thanks. What did they edit? I watched part 1 yesterday. Watching part 2 now. Should I re-watch part 1?
No idea.