Mike Israetel from JTS Strength sat down for an interview with Konstantin Konstantinovs.
Update: Here is Mikhail Koklyaev’s interview at GPA Worlds.
- gymnastics, wrestling background as a kid
- started Powerlifting at age 15, first meet 16
Indispensable Principles of Powerlifting
- big base of raw strength
- don’t rain too heavy too often, recovery is a must
- don’t half ass it, it has to bee a serious effort
Diet
- he eats lots of meat, lots of vegie, water, supps, doesn’t change much for in/off season
Common Mistakes he sees
- relying too much on equipment
- under recovery, overreaching
- rely too much on drugs
Deadlift Tips
- Strong Core / Abdominal
- variance of the lift, deficit, partials, rack deadlifts, against bands & chains
- upper back, pull ups, hyperextensions variations
How his Training changes for comp
- trains heavy year round
- reduces total volume, drops assistance exercises,
- always a month away from being ready to compete
His Training
- He doesn’t have / never had a coach
- intuitive program without set structure, does what feels right that day
What keeps him going?
- just wants to be stronger
- maximalist, wants the extreme for the sake of the extreme
Awesome to see KK!! Hey Gregor, why didn’t you post any of the records broken at GPA Worlds?
Because I only enjoy Raw powerlifting (now wraps, squats that are obviously below parallel, no monolifts etc). Also with countless federations, 24 hr weigh-ins records etc records don’t mean anything anymore.
Good call, if powerlifting is going to make a serious bid for the olympics, the countless federations need to go and the sport needs one governing body with one set of rules.
Also slim chance of getting into the Olympics with drugs being ubiquitous in the sport. Not to start yet another drugs argument or anything.
I think a rising bar competition like Oly lifting would make it more spectator friendly. Slightly…
Focus on the IPF then! 🙂
The IPF still has the suits and stuff. They can’t seem to focus either. Like, who’s the best SHW squatter according to the IPF? Williams or CYC? They’re both superhuman strong, don’t do US style half squatting and yet we can’t compare them. “Equipped” anything is just dumb.
Also anyone watching hour long bench press competitions is a masochist.
Jezza has the SHW Classic Squat World Record and Carl has the SHW Equipped Squat World Record.
Why would you want to compare them? They compete in different disciplines of the same sport. It’s common for sports to have different disciplines. Athletics and swimming are two examples.
Yes, but in swimming the differences are obvious. You swim either 200 m, 400 m or something else. The different swim styles also differ enough to see it immediately. Who knows what kind of difference the suits and stuff make? How much difference does the monolift make? It gets awfully complicated for just answering the question who is the strongest in the squat, bench and deadlift.
On a side note. Powerlifers often complain about 8h long meetings. Does it really take that long?
What’s a monolift?