While in Egypt Dmitry Klokov did answered some questions of his viewers.
Translation below thanks to Sergiy Turchyn.
More: All Dmitry Klokov Interviews ATG.
Translation
Why no seminars in Russia?
I need money. If I do seminars in Russia, I will not have enough. Russian weightlifters are not rich people and are not used to pay money for such activities. People abroad are more willing to pay. However, I will not forget about Russia and will still do seminars sometimes, just not as often.
What’s the secret of a long and loving relationship?
Be honest. The most difficult is to be betrayed. We learned to tell the truth all the time, so we have very few quarrels.
Do I have to sacrifice something to achieve success?
When I was a weightlifter, I was always in camps and sacrificed family time. Now I am abroad and still sacrifice family. That’s the hard life of weightlifter’s wives. One can say that you sacrifice friends, etc., but it is not that important. Family is the main sacrifice you make.
Why don’t you produce weightlifting shoes?
We are working on that. It is not profitable to manufacture them in Russia. Were almost got to do it abroad, but it appeared to be expensive. It costs $60-70 to make a pair of very good quality shoes. However, I also wanted them to look good. With the price I want to sell them for, I need to look for better options.
Some asked if you can send me your T-shirt designs.
Yes. We have a problem with designers. If you have a designer talent, write me on email, WhatsApp, phone and we will discuss everything including payment.
You tried weightlifting [of course, 20 years…], crossfit [not really], and bodybuilding. Do you want to try powerlifting?
I have somehow never wanted to compete in powerlifting. I will not do it for sure.
You signed a contract with Baltimore GRID team. What will happen out of it?
Most people probably don’t even know what GRID is. It is like a team Crossfit. I don’t know yet what I will do there. We will have a team of 6 (3 guys, 3 girls). My team has Igor Zaripov, Matt Frazer, and 3 girls.
Each of us will compete in their respective activity. The GRID competition should start in June and will be about 5-6 rounds, or 8, if we win. I will film this and show what athletic show business is like in the USA. This is something we lack in Russia where most competitions look quite boring.
Why do you prepare for Dmitry Yashankin’s bodybuilding competition?
Firstly, it is like Thai holidays. You are used to one person showing one thing in some fitness YouTube channel. However, I believe that everything has already been shown and the whole movement will halt if no one creates something new. So, the idea of Thai holidays was to unite athletes from different sports. It is the same idea here. I believe that we need to unite, so I decided to participate.
Secondly, it is interesting for me too. People always said that I look good and should compete in bodybuilding. Now I have about 2 months to finally do that.
Does it impact my weightlifting? Of course, after benching the bar is a bit too forward overhead. But I can afford that now. Just need to stretch and go to sauna. If you don’t max out in the snatch, clean, and jerk, it is perfectly safe to combine both styles of training. This is only my opinion and I will tell you for sure in the end of April, after the Yashankin’s Cup.
Why did you start removing your VK friends?
I didn’t start removing them. I make then followers instead. I also want to follow my friends in social networks and it is pretty hard to do when you have 8000-9000 friends. Thus, I manually delete everyone and will add my true friends later.
Why are all videos with bad quality after Thai Holidays?
I changed the camera. I used to upload right from the camera. Later I met Misha Prygunov and decided to learn how to edit the videos. I bought a very good camera. However, when I started using iMovie, the quality dropped. I don’t know why this happens. Tell me what’s the reason.
How often did you have to cut weight?
I compete in 105 since 2003. Of course, I had to cut often. If you look at my old videos, I was always in clothes. I was rarely just in T-shirts. I wore 3-5 layers and sweated about 3 kg of water out. If you sweat, some useful elements also leave your body and make it weaker.
Thus, I wore warm clothes only around chest, abs, and butt. My shoulders are injured, so it would be bad to make them warm too. I also never trained in pants (wore shorts instead) because I didn’t want to cut weight from my already small calves. And there is this belt on me all the time (my wife also wears it) [18:05].
My bodyweight PR was 122 kg in the morning. Normal weight is 115-117 kg for me. Cutting 8 kg was easy. After that it is very hard, especially psychologically.
So, I used to wear as much as I can in a car in summer, and we turned on the heat. We drove from Taganrog to Rostov and back. The whole road took about 3 hours and I lost a lot of water, about 3 kg.
This idea is that it is easier psychologically. The road took my attention rather than weight loss. So, pick a woman who can handle this, put the clothes on, and go for a car trip.
For some especially talkative people: I have never competed in nationals overweight. Never. I was even offered that opportunity, but I have never done it.
Have you encountered Osgood-Schlatter disease? How to train with it?
Yes. I encountered it around 13 years, after 0.5 years of weightlifting. During this disease, there is a thing in your knee that starts soft, and gets harder with time. It hurt a lot for 1-1.5 years while it was soft, it was nearly impossible to squat and pull. After that it turned into bone and has not bothered me for the next 18 years. This is a disease in children who play sports too much, usually soccer and other game sports. You can read more about it online.
What weightlifting exercises are the most useful for beginners?
I am not a coach. From my experience, I would recommend the basic exercises: Squats, Pulls, and Presses with correct technique. When you see how people train, they have incorrect technique that doesn’t translate into Snatch, Clean, and Jerk. Weightlifting beginners (crossfitters in particular) should not start the classic lifts straight away because their muscles and joints are not ready.
Do you want to relate your life to weightlifting like becoming a coach?
Those who coach in other countries get paid pretty well. Since Russia does everything late, I believe that in 2 years weightlifting will get popular here. I will do my best to make weightlifting cool. I think that it has never been as popular like today ever (talking about the whole world). Weightlifters are poor people. Crossfitters are all kinds of people. Crossfit created many different businesses. If you start training for a coach now, you will be useful several years from now.
What plans do you have for your channel?
My goal is to make it the basement for the all weightlifting television that will produce videos every day: old school videos, interviews, training, etc. I hope one day I will get into better relationship with the Russian Weightlifting Federation (it is not very good at the moment) and this will happen. [Correction: earlier this post said IWF, but Dmitry meant RWF]
[29:00] One guy trains the whole life, becomes Mr. Olympia many times, and then his image is used illegally to promote a pharmacy that sells steroids. I think Ronnie Coleman would not approve.
Will there be Thai Holidays, part 2?
We are working towards that. We have already rented a house. [Shows pictures at 30:30]
Many questions have answers in old videos. I recommend watching them again if you missed something.
How is it possible to meet you?
On Tue, Wed, Fri, I am in my Winner office [office 3/6, Olympic Sports Complex]. Better to inform me beforehand, and then you may come. My wife will make you some tea and cookies.
I guess he’s not doing Rio then?
like 90% he retired
“I need money” he said.
His body will likely not be able to endure during much more times all the weights (and stress) he must lift for his seminars around the world. This means continuously taking “supplements” and (probably) health damages.
He knows he has only a few years left to promote his growing business.
That would be madness he train for the next olympics.
Why would he? He saw the last year’s Worlds and he has almost no chance of getting gold in Rio. I would rather see him doing some new and interesting projects because this is something no one else will do.
so only athletes with a 70% chance of winning gold should go to olympics?
if you could get the possibility to represent a weightlifting country like russia at the olympics, you will go, if you are a real athlete.
however klokov is not longer an athlete, he is more some kind of business man, aiming on making money and creating a positive self-expression [this should be no judgement].
The only thing he hasn’t accomplished at this point in his career is Olympic Gold. He has represented his country for a long time and done it well, and the Russian Federation has rewarded him by treating him like crap at times. What he would have to put his body through is simply not worth it for a 3rd or 4th place finish, especially when you consider his age, and what he would have to sacrifice from a family and financial perspective.
Klokov is such a cool and down to earth guy
Cheers guys. Short and sweet!
So he’s living in las vegas atm?
Interesting how he said he would never compete in powerlifting. I was in a gym the other day watching a few beginning olympic lifters, some of them over 30 years of age. One of them told me he would rather be an average olympic lifter than a good powerlifter because powerlifting is very easy to execute and olympic lifters are better athletes in general. My belief is that olympic lifting seems to have a better grasp on the drug issue and powerlifting has too many federations with their own sets of rules, records, championships ect. to be considered a serious sport.
Maybe in USA. In Europe we consider it a serious sport and if you go to a competition, the athletes are low bf%, tight, agile and tough.
I was about to say…there are some serious athletes in powerlifting 900+lb raw squats. Not to mention powerlifting tests “raw strength” not speed strength. They’re different sports.