Iron Culture presented by MASS

Elite sprinters don't run sub-10s year-round, elite powerlifters aren't always ready to total new personal bests, and physique athletes aren't shredded in the offseason. Why is this? Are they doing something wrong the rest of the year, or are they doing something right when they're at their peak performance? In this episode, we explore what Omar always says "you may not like it, but this is what p...

You might be just one of the many chosen of the Cult, vacillating between Draperism and Paimon, but that doesn't mean you aren't a unique snowflake. Today we discuss just what makes you unique, and how with that understanding, you can unlock your potential and get so smoking hot that the heat threatens your own existence as a snowflake. That's right Cultists, today we explore the intricacies of in...

Today we explore iron game disciplines with deep historical and cultural roots with Kyle Lillie. We discuss Highland games, a 1000-year-old sport, and throwing, which dates back to ancient civilization. Kyle is a professional Highland games competitor and Division 1 throws coach at Sacramento State University. Before Highland games, he threw for Arizona State at the national championship level and...

Chris Barakat MS, ATC, CSCS is a natural bodybuilder, coach, and researcher studying body composition manipulation at the University of Tampa. In "evidence-based" circles, we like to think we're immune to the echo chamber effect because what we say is based on data. Unfortunately, this isn't always the case. The statement "gaining muscle and losing fat at the same time is impossible unless you're...

Before there was powerlifting, bodybuilding, weightlifting, and strongman, there was the iron game, and it all overlapped. Before that, there was the physical culture movement. During this era, you couldn't find a strongman or woman who didn't do hand balancing, calisthenics, or tumbling as a part of their training. Gymnastics has a long history, but today it is its own sport and embedded in some...

"Advanced lifter" - what comes to mind when you hear this phrase? Strong, muscular, elite, clearly doing things right? Perhaps, and that's why many people emulate advanced lifters. Everyone wants the athleticism, strength, and physiques that advanced lifters have, and thankfully, these days novices and intermediates are coming to understand that those outcomes take time. But what they don't often...

Kedric Kwan of The Strength Guys, Jim Elli of Reactive Training Systems and Joe Stanek of The Strength Athlete all have something in common: they started as young online powerlifting coaches who were given a chance to learn the ropes under the guidance of some of the biggest and most respected online coaching teams. Today, we host a reflective discussion with them to understand their journey; wher...

In another era, bodybuilding was considered as much as an art as it was a pseudo-sport. A decade ago one could argue that its artistic element was at an all-time low, but things have changed in the last few years. In the IFBB specifically, the creation of the classic physique division is arguably resulting in the cultural revival of these artistic elements. Today, Iron Culture hosts a fantastic am...

The World Natural Bodybuilding Federation was founded in 1989, and since its inception led the way in professionalism for drug-free bodybuilding. We have the pleasure of speaking to one of the heads, Bob Bell, who started as a WNBF competitor, became a promoter, and now sits at the helm with Tina Smith and Nancy Andrews. The story of this progression is an intriguing one that gives insight into th...

Previously in Episode 33, Iron Culture hosted a roundtable on Pain Science as it relates to lifting. It was in that episode that the hosts learned Dalton from Road House was right all along; pain doesn't hurt much. Building on top of this episode, the CULT returns to the topic of injury, getting "hurt" and what you can do about it. The hosts are joined by 3 DPTs in Nick Licameli of 3DMJ, Quinn Hen...

Things happen fast on the interwebs these days kids. You might have only recently learned what intuitive eating actually means. In the course of that, you might have come across the terms "diet culture" and "anti-diet culture". If you didn't know what the former was, then you certainly weren't aware of the definition or possibly even the existence of the latter. In this episode returning guest, Dr...

Evie Corrigan began lifting just over four years ago and started Powerlifting shortly after. This was truly her first introduction to competitive sport, yet within two years, and in her first international competition, she got to represent her home country of New Zealand and became a Junior World Champion. How did her motivations to lift change once she became an overnight champion? What pressures...

The recent explosion of washed-up lifters getting in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu has sparked some introspection within the CULT. To discover their chances of becoming a mixed martial legend, Eric & Omar bring in notable Strength & Conditioning coaches Phil Daru and Seth Lenetsky to discuss what it is liked getting punched in the face. Phil has coached many top lifters at ATT (American Top Team) and Seth i...

This episode is sure to create a lot of future apologies for the co-owners. In this far-ranging interview with IPF royalty and powerlifting phenom Jessica Buettner, the hosts immediately mispronounce her last name. Gracious in victory as well as in hearing butchered variations of her last name, Jessica has ascended to the tippity top of drug-tested powerlifting in only a few short years. Beyond th...

This is the episode where the two hosts sell out. You knew it was going to happen. Inside you'll find Eric's top tips in order to become the biggest dancing sensation on TikTok and Omar explains how there really is no moral conundrum with selling photos of your calves on OnlyFans. Somewhere between those two sizzling topics, the hosts manage to give a sneak peek at the content creation process at...

Have you noticed that more and more of the new crop of elite powerlifters were high-level athletes before hitting the platform? Powerlifting participation has grown greatly, and with it comes a greater talent pool. But what is talent? Is it just "genetics"? Or might it also be that powerlifting's recent popularity, and later age-peak for performance attracts former athletes? If so, are these athle...

Training volume has a relationship with rates of hypertrophy in research. But how do you quantify volume? Further, just because a group doing more volume often grows more than a group doing less, does that mean your volume needs to increase? When should volume increase? Are there times volume increases are counterproductive? What are the fundamental differences between increasing load or reps, and...

It is time to talk about the new old school in powerlifting. We aren't referring to Larry Pacifico, Don Reinhoudt, or Ed Coan. We're talking about the rise of drug-tested powerlifting in the last decade with two of the biggest voices leading the way, Jonnie Candito and Russel Orhii. The number of participants in the IPF (and USAPL) has grown immensely over the last decade in no small part due to i...

A few years ago, the supplement industry was in such a state that simply putting effective ingredients at their proper dosage on a label, without a proprietary blend was revolutionary. Fortunately, today there are a handful of "evidence-based" companies that do this and do it well. However, in a competitive market, where do you go from here? What is the process? In this episode, we're rejoined by...

Weightlifting is the filet Mignon to the ground chuck of powerlifting and bodybuilding, the First Class to our coach seats on the Iron Game Express. Most people can lift weights, but weightlifting requires power, range of motion, and coordination that squatting or curling in the squat rack simply can't compare to. In this episode of Iron Culture, we're joined by Amy and Greg Everett of Catalyst At...

In a perfect world, we would never need to rest between sets, because we would never need to stop lifting. Unfortunately, we live in an imperfect world, and we do have to consider rest. How long should we rest between sets? Why? What is the nature of fatigue? How do we reconcile research suggesting longer rest periods enhance hypertrophy, and other research suggesting rest-pause and drop sets can...

Biomechanics is the understanding of the body's structure, function, and motion with physics to describe what we experience. As lifters, most of what biomechanics explains mathematically, we understand intuitively. But, in a complex dynamic system like the human body, sometimes what we experience, or our assumptions based on a limited understanding of biomechanics, can be counterintuitive and misl...

Around these parts, cardio has a bad reputation. Sure, in the greater fitness community, cardio (a fancy way of saying running, usually on a treadmill) has long been one of the cornerstones of any fitness regime. Want to lose weight? Do "cardio"! Have stubborn fat to lose? Do (slow) or (really fast) "cardio"! Whatever body composition problems you faced, cardio was seen as an essential tool. This...

In the lifting community, two words are often used interchangeably: periodization and programming. Are they, in fact, the same thing? As you will learn in this episode featuring special guest Dr. Mike Zourdos, they are surprisingly not synonyms. What develops from the conversation is a more thorough understanding of the two which will yield a better perspective on your training. Find out in what c...

If you're a long time listener of Iron Culture, you've been exposed to calisthenics, CrossFit, powerlifting, bodybuilding, strongman/woman, and more! Maybe, just maybe, it's influenced you to pursue multiple avenues of strength? If so, you might have had some head-scratching moments or found yourself struggling to juggle multiple goals simultaneously. In this episode, we're joined by Dr. Stefi Coh...