Modern WisdomWhat Does It Feel Like To Squat 1000lbs? | Brian Carroll
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,196 words- 0:00 – 1:05
Mental state before a 1,000+ lb squat: visualization, aggression, and switching on/off
- CWChris Williamson
What do you do before a lift and what is the inside of your head like before you're about to put 1,000 pounds on your back in a meet?
- BCBrian Carroll
It's, uh, it's really focused and I go to a dark, dark place in my head where I don't care about anything else. And the last thing I want in the world to happen when I'm under the bar is to miss the lift and embarrass myself. So everything is extremely tight. I visualize and see the lift being completed effortlessly before I even approach the platform. I already see it happen. I see the crowd's reaction. And I strive for that feeling to happen before it even happens. So I get out there and I just go to my default mode. I tune everything out, I tune everyone out, and I go and lift and I fight for my life for a couple seconds then I put it back down, then I try to breathe and relax. So you turn it on, you turn it off. You turn it on, you turn it off. Kinda like a fighter, UFC fighter, between rounds. You gotta chill. (exhales) Breathe and relax, then you go, you turn it back on, and then you relax.
- 1:05 – 1:34
Meeting Brian Carroll: why McGill respects him and what this episode will cover
- CWChris Williamson
(wind blowing) I am joined by, without a doubt, the strongest man that I have ever had on this podcast, Mr. Brian Carroll. Welcome to the show.
- BCBrian Carroll
Thank you for having me, Chris. I appreciate it. I'm looking forward to having a chat with you.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. Me too. Uh, recently had mutual friend of ours, Dr. Stuart McGill, on the show and, uh, he was s- singing your praises. And we also briefly discussed the work that you two did together, so I'm excited to hear the other side of that story as we get through today.
- 1:34 – 3:43
Catastrophic back injury and a pivotal ultimatum from Dr. McGill (2013)
- BCBrian Carroll
Yes. It's been a very interesting journey the last six years that I've known Dr. McGill. And I met him in May of 2013, where I went to see him for a very complicated back injury that I had. Uh, the actual injury was, uh, basically I had no disc at L4, L5, L5, S1. It was flattened just the same at L5, uh, or L4, L5, L5, S1, th- both the discs were gone. And I had a couple endplate fractures working down to the sacrum where it was almost s- split in half. So I was in a bad spot where surgeons were wanting to do a spinal fusion on me. They were talking all this crazy stuff about how I'd never be outta pain. And Stu right away said that, "I can get you outta pain, but your lifting is done. You have absolutely no athleticism left in your back and I'm telling you this as, if you were my son, I would urge you to retire and never consider lifting heavy again." And I said, "Well, you just said that you could help get me outta pain." So I looked at him and I looked at my wife and I very calmly said, "I'm gonna lift again, so let's get me outta pain." And he said, "Well, you know my thoughts on this. First things first, let's get you outta pain and then we'll proceed. You come back in six months. We'll, we'll see where you are and then who knows? Maybe you're right and maybe we end up writing a book about it." And that was the first meeting that we had, May of 2013, and, uh, we wrote the book in 2017. And I held him to th- his feet to the fire when he said this-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- BCBrian Carroll
... about the book. And it's, it's, uh ... Have you ever heard the phrase fact is stranger than fiction?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- BCBrian Carroll
It's super true, man. Some stories that I could tell you, you'd be like, "How does that even happen? How does a guy from ... How do two men from totally different worlds, one in the lab clinic training center, one from in the hole-in-the-wall powerlifting gym, how do they merge and write a book that, that helps people all over the world?" So it's a pretty awesome story.
- CWChris Williamson
I'm looking forward to getting into it today and I'm sure that a lot of the listeners will be as well. So can you give us, uh, a little bit of, uh, a background to your powerlifting career? Where, where you got yourself to in the build-up to this and, and, um, some of your achievements?
- 3:43 – 6:49
From teen lifter to world-record squats: rapid rise and the cost of feeling invincible
- BCBrian Carroll
Yeah. So I started, I did my first bench competition in 1999 when I was a senior in high school. We just actually had our 20-year reunion for high school this past weekend, so I'm feeling kinda old.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- BCBrian Carroll
I just turned 38. I just (laughs) turned 38 last week. But I started when I was 17 and I actually got really serious about lifting when I was 16, when I was legally able to join the, the local gym. So from there, I just fell in love with lifting. I didn't party in high school. All I did was lift, eat well, and run. And I played baseball. So that was kind of my prerequisite to taking it to the next level. Once I graduated, I didn't know what the hell I wanted to do. So what I did is I kept working my sales job at Coca-Cola and I just lifted. I lifted, I lifted. I did some bodybuilding for a little bit. I kept competing in powerlifting. And then finally, the, the bug fully bit me in 2003 where I did my first full competition meet, which consist of the squat, the bench, the deadlift for total. So I did that in early ... I started training for that in early 2002, then 2003, that was it, man. That's all I thought about for the next 15, 20 years. It was just, you know. And it's still that way, but I've gotten a little bit more mature with my approach to lifting, my patience. Because coming up, it didn't take long until I hit some big, big numbers. Uh, within three and a half years of c- my first full meet competition, I squatted 1,030 at 220, which broke the all-time world record held by Chuck Vogelpohl at Westside Barbell. No one saw it coming. So here I am, a kid at 25 years old, break this world record. The next thing you know, I think I'm, I'm untouchable, I think I'm Superman. I, I ended up going up a couple weight classes, setting records there. Uh, 1,185 squat at 275 in 2011. But that lift cost me. You know, I had a number ... At one time, I had a number two total ever at 220, number two total at 242 multiple times, and a number two total all time at 275. But after a while, that cumulative trauma of abusing my body meet after meet after meet and not necessarily investing back into my body after each competition, I kinda became, uh, physically, in some ways mentally bankrupt because I was pushing, pushing, pushing. And you see people, whether it be CrossFit, whether it be fighting.... wrestling, power lifting, Olympic lifting, bodybuilding, you have to have rest. You have to have downtime. And one of my good friends is arguably the best bodybuilder of all time, Dexter Jackson. He takes a lotta downtime every year. He just won the Tampa Pro and he's, he's actually in line to win the Olympia this year with Shawn Rhoden pulling out. Kai Greene's not competing. Phil Heath isn't competing. It's wide open. So, do you know how d- how old Dexter is? He's 49. He'll be 50 on Thanksgiving. In November this year.
- CWChris Williamson
That man is a, that man is a beast.
- BCBrian Carroll
So, but I've learned from him, take time off. Come off supplementation. Don't train so hard and give your body a rest so you become hungry once again to do it. And unfortunately, I didn't always have that approach and my body got badly beaten up.
- 6:49 – 9:20
Training philosophy evolves: deloads, recovery, and being ‘cerebral’ with intensity
- CWChris Williamson
How would you describe your training style in those years when you were getting yourself up towards 1,000 pound and then moving from the 1,035 to, like, the 1,145 squat and stuff like that?
- BCBrian Carroll
Yeah, so the 1,185-
- CWChris Williamson
1,185.
- BCBrian Carroll
... is where I ended up. Yeah, like, every pound counts there 1,100.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) Yeah, yeah, that's true. You fought hard for them.
- BCBrian Carroll
It was whatever it took. Whatever it took. It did not matter. I trained whether I felt good or not. I didn't always listen to my body. And like I alluded to earlier, I thought I was Superman. I thought I could do everything with no con- do every and anything without any consequence. And after a while, everyone's human. We seen it, we see it in every, every field. Eventually, you slow down and Dexter slowed down some. He didn't win a pro show for three years and this was his first pro win in a while. So, we all slow down. So what we have to do is become more cerebral as we get older, as our lifting age. Our lifting age and biological age are two different things. I know many people that just started lifting heavy at 40 years old and they don't have the miles that I have-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- BCBrian Carroll
... on my body, even though they're older than me from a biological standpoint.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- BCBrian Carroll
So, uh, it was reckless. It was heavy. It was pushing at all costs. Now, I've kinda developed a, a little better philosophy over the last six or seven years, where I scale training back. I have programmed deloads where I take lightweight every few weeks. If I don't feel up to a lift one day, I'll ask myself, "Am I being a coward or am I being smart?" And I'll weigh all my options. If something feels off and it starts to feel better, maybe I keep going. Or if it feels off, I shut it down and just help the other guys for that day. So, uh, I'm a lot more cerebral these days and I have to credit Dr. McGill for a lot of that 'cause he helped, he helped me a great deal.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, I can hear the narrative, the Stuart narrative seeping through in some of the words that you say and I, like, I'm doing the same, right? I went to go and spend a day with Dr. McGill very fortunately in Canada a couple of weeks ago and I did my podcast with him and we've been in touch a lot over email and stuff like that and I find myself, uh, drinking the Kool-Aid or singing from the same hymn sheet now as well because it appears to be the right one and I wanna get onto the whole th- th- the whole ethos behind your injury and your recovery and stuff like that. But there will be some big fan powerlifters out there who'll want to know what sort of split you were doing in the buildup to your main meets, in the, the, I guess, the heyday of your comp prep and stuff like that. Could you take us through the typical sort of day and who was programming for you, what were you eating, et cetera, et cetera?
- 9:20 – 14:13
Diet and bodyweight strategy for strength: performance nutrition, health markers, and the Vertical Diet
- BCBrian Carroll
Good. Okay. So, it all depended on what, what weight class I was lifting at. I lifted at 220, 242, 275 and even 308, uh-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) That's-
- BCBrian Carroll
... at bench press there.
- CWChris Williamson
... that is a large range. (laughs)
- BCBrian Carroll
So I'm going- So, it really depends on what weight class I was lifting at. After a while, I got really big for the 220 class and so I had to go up to 242 and then th- that allowed me to eat a little bit more. So, at the end of the day, it comes down to caloric consumption and, uh, your timing. Your timing is, to me, important. You need to eat enough but not too much where you store body fat. So, at times, I've experimented. I've eaten too much. I've gotten fatter. But with powerlifting, it's tricky because it isn't about who looks good. It's about the person who's most functional and strong at that time. So, just like the whole mobility/flexibility thing for powerlifting is you need enough but not too much, it's the same thing with body fat. You don't want too much body fat to where you go up a weight class or you're unhealthy, but at the same time when you start talking about lower than 12% body fat, uh, your joints end up getting a little bit, uh, less supported. You have less fluid in them. Your core becomes smaller which... Your trunk is the pillar of strength. That, that is the catalyst to, to big lifts. You unleash athleticism through a, uh, a stiff, uh, proximal core and it leads to distal mobility throughout the, the shoulders and hips.
- CWChris Williamson
Now that is straight out of the Dr. McGill playbook. (laughs)
- BCBrian Carroll
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
That is, that is-
- BCBrian Carroll
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
That is his voice. You even said it in a Canadian accent, I think, there for a little bit.
- BCBrian Carroll
Yes, I did. I did.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- BCBrian Carroll
Hey, Stu- Stu's my man.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- BCBrian Carroll
Um, so basically right now I'm still gonna train for competition. Right now I'm taking time off and very fortunately, I just got my blood work back and I am completely healthy in every way. My cholesterol, my kidneys, my liver, my heart, um, everything came back as, uh, as good, uh, and, and really good on some things. But overall cardiac risk was, like, off the charts low, so that's a good thing after all this heavy lifting. But-
- CWChris Williamson
Congratulations.
- BCBrian Carroll
Yeah, thank you. So I'm gonna probably pick back up in 2020 for some competitions and there's still some numbers that I'd like to hit. I'd like to get that 1,200 pound squat in because 1,185 is 1,200 but it's not quite 1,200 pounds. There's only been 10 men to ever squat 1,200 pounds ever.
- CWChris Williamson
Wow.
- BCBrian Carroll
And they're all over 300 pounds.
- CWChris Williamson
So you could-
- BCBrian Carroll
So-
- CWChris Williamson
... potentially be the lightest man?
- BCBrian Carroll
Yes. That's the goal.
- CWChris Williamson
Would you be trying to do that 2- 285?
- BCBrian Carroll
I would probably do- try to do that 275. Yep.
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, wow.
- BCBrian Carroll
Yep. 125 kilo. So right now my diet consists of a lot of steak, a lot of rice, a lot of spinach, carrots, Greek yogurt, oranges, orange juice and, uh, whole eggs. That's really what I eat now and I think it's, uh...... my blood work's a testament to, uh, to eating the right foods. You can still be big and strong and healthy at the same time. But in the past, I would be on the seafood diet. Whatever I saw, I ate. I ate, ate, ate. I love to eat. I love junk food. So that's something I've been working on as well, is just scaling back the junk food and not feeding my brain those happy feelings. By, by eating it and the serotonin or whatever it is it releases when you eat, you know, a big piece of pie or a big piece of cake or a big bowl of ice cream. Uh, I've gotten better about that. But my overall philosophy is eat to, eat for performance. Eat to perform. And, and whatever fuels your body to lift the best is what you need to eat, and that's gonna range a lot from different people. I think Stan Efferding's Vertical Diet is a great, great diet for the strength athlete. And it ... Hell, I've been following it and my health is better than ever too. I eat a lot of red meat. Cholesterol, L- HDL went up, LDL went down. Imagine that. Triglycerides right on.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- BCBrian Carroll
People are scared of red meat and I, I don't really think that it's, uh, it's the poison that a lot of people think. Now for some people, maybe they respond poorly to starchy carbs like rice and, and, you know, uh, high fat meat like, like red meat or ground beef, but for me, it works really well. Uh, so that's been my ... I've always liked to eat a lot of sticken- uh, sorry, steak, chicken, uh, fish, shrimp, and then rice, pasta, oatmeal for my carbs, then I've always liked spinach, squash, uh, carrots, uh, you know, to get my micros in. And then I like to supplement with some vitamin D. I'll take some fiber to make sure everything's, you know, nice and cleaned out, and uh, fish oil. So uh, other than that, man, I ... That's really the basis of what I've used as my diet overall, and then if I feel myself leaning out too much, I'll add more calories. So I'll add more carbs and fat. Usually the protein stays about the same. And then, you know, depending on where my body weight is, it might be more carbs and fat or less carbs and fat, and I use the mirror to be that indicator for me. Um, not s- not necessarily the scale, but I can't disregard the scale because I lift in a weight class.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- 14:13 – 17:14
A practical weekly training split + why RPE and deloads prevent burnout
- BCBrian Carroll
So there's a lot of variables there. Now as far as my training split, what I've found works best for me, and it was corroborated by Stu's wisdom, is I like to squat and deadlift on day one. There's a couple reasons for that. It allows me a full week of recovery before I squat or deadlift again. So I don't have to worry about squatting Saturday and then deadlifting Wednesday then having to turn around and squat again on Saturday. So that's been something I've done for the better part of the last 12 years or so, but it really hit home when Stu told me, "You need to give yourself at least five days in between loading." So day one is squat and deadlift with a little bit of assistance. Uh, day two is off. Day three is bench press and bench press assistance. Day four is off, which is Tuesday. Wednesday is squat and deadlift assistance. So I'll do my, my hamstring work, my quad work, my upper back work, my mid back work, my bicep work, and then I take Thursday off after that day. And then Friday I do a little bit of a pump workout where I just get some blood flowing. I'll do a little bit of sled dragging and cardio and carries, which I do at the end of each workout, but it's more of a focal point on Friday. And that kinda gets me ready and the blood flowing for Saturday morning when I squat and deadlift again.
- CWChris Williamson
Interesting.
- BCBrian Carroll
Four days a week.
- CWChris Williamson
And that's that rotation?
- BCBrian Carroll
Yep. Yeah. And then every three or four weeks, I take a lighter week on the main movement. So I might only work up to 50% of what I'm capable of that day, and that's why I think a sliding scale, something like RPE, the rate of, rate of perceived exertion or effort, however you wanna put it, I think it's good because depending on what you have going on in your life, the weights are gonna fluctuate. You can't always go off of percentages. What if you're on a honeymoon and you're in Jamaica and the weight room is not up to snuff? You're gonna have to scale back the weights you use. If you're only going off percentages, it's gonna lead to a lot of disappointment eventually. So what you do is you look at what you're capable of today, then work off of that max, what you feel like you have in the tank that day. So um, a lot of the time, every three or four weeks, I'll just work at like a five RPE or 50% of what I'm capable of that day and just do singles so I reiterate those engrams of perfect form every single time. So it gives me not only a refresher for my brain, but a refresher for my body, and then I'm ready. You know, I'm a little, uh, more motivated to get back under the bar with heavier weight the following weeks. And what I like to do is take a light week before you're absolutely crippled and forced to take a light week.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- BCBrian Carroll
Because then, we know that overtraining can last up to a month for some people. They're overstimulated. They might get sick. They might not sleep well. They, uh, they might have regression in their strength, achy, the flu. There's a lot of symptoms that come ar- come along with training too hard for too long, and I've been there multiple times. You just, everything feels like crap. You become depressed. Everything's heavy. So why not stay ahead of that wave before it crashes on you? Why not ride it, like a surfer?
- 17:14 – 22:31
Readiness vs excuses: how life stress, sleep, and preparation shape training decisions
- CWChris Williamson
Mm. Yeah. One of the things that you touched on earlier on that made me think, something I know a lot of athletes that are listening will consider, which is, how much of my, not unwillingness to train, but my concern about the session that I have in front of me or the difficulty that I'm finding in this session, how much of that is because I am ... My current makeup is not in a very optimal state? I've underslept. I've not eaten very well. I might be getting the onset of a bug. And how much of that is me being a pussy? How much of that do I need to push through? And that line is i- uh, it's very difficult to define, right? And I'm gonna guess that even more so in a sport like powerlifting, where spit and sawdust, guys like Louie Simmons, West Side Barber, you know, get it done.
- BCBrian Carroll
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
H- h- how, how do you, how do you make that judgment and how do you swallow the ego?
- BCBrian Carroll
Whenever I figure it out, I'll do another podcast with you-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- BCBrian Carroll
... and I'll tell you. Because it's a ever- it's a, it's a, it's a constant battle to figure that out. And you know what? You can read all these textbooks, you can read my book, 10x20 Life, you can read Gift of Injury, Ultimate Back Fitness and Performance, so on and so forth, Back Mechanic, but until you understand the art of coaching and application, all that knowledge is crap. It's useless. So I say that to tell you it's, it's about the art. It's the art of knowing your body and paying attention to indicators. Indicators meaning physical, mental, psychological, uh, spiritual. Whatever you have going on, you've gotta say, "Hey, is the juice worth the squeeze today? Am I close to a competition? Do I really need these lifts? Yes? Okay, let's push a little bit." "Hey, I'm 12 weeks out from a meet, I don't need to go heavy today, I'm gonna shut it down. Maybe I'll come back tomorrow and feel a little bit better. My girlfriend just broke up with me." "I didn't sleep all night because the neighbors were fighting." You know, "I didn't eat good today because, you know, my child was sick at school." So it's o- there's gonna be a lot of things, and not everything is gonna be optimal every single time, but with that said, I think preparation beforehand, having your food cooked in case you can't, you know, run and cook your food or, or go home and get it, knowing places where you can get your food while you're out to eat, and always staying up to date on your sleep, and not, and not staying up all night every night, and you know, get on a schedule, because that's important. Uh, a lot of people seem to think that it needs to be regimented every single day, so that means getting in bed at 10:00 or 11:00 and sleeping till 6:00 or 7:00, and doing that every single day, uh, which will get your body in a nice, nice rhythm there. But I've still yet to optimize my sleep. I like to stay up late, man. I like to read.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- BCBrian Carroll
I like to research, I like to see what's going on, man. And the thing about being up late is no one's gonna bother you, you know? No one's gonna bother you, you do your research. I like to read and study. And that's a problem for recovery, though.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. Naturally, I'm a, a night owl as well. I recently read a blog post saying that people have a genetic predisposition to being early birds or night owls, and that's really quite difficult to, to flip around, although I've, I've worked as hard as I can to get myself onto the same, like, daily cadence as everyone else-
- BCBrian Carroll
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... um, but it's, I'm, I'm still bouncing off that limiter a little bit. Another thing that, uh, came to mind when you were talking about routine and routines, there are blog posts from Ryan Holiday, which I've discussed on the podcast before, which is where he says that you don't need a routine, you need a number of routines. And he talks about how he has his I'm away on a book tour routine when he's in a unoptimized hotel room and there's a blinking light over the far side and it's not quiet and it's this, that, and the other. But he can, he's realized, "I need an eye mask, I need earplugs, I need..." et cetera, et cetera. And you're saying the same. It's like, okay-
- BCBrian Carroll
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... what, you have this particular day coming up, and over time, a little bit of experience will show you that you need to prepare better for this. "I need to-"
- BCBrian Carroll
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
"... have my food prepped for the full day, not just for lunch. I need to make sure I've got water because I'm gonna be driving a long journey," or whatever it might be, all that sort of stuff.
- BCBrian Carroll
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
And I think-
- BCBrian Carroll
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... th- that comes across with experience, right? Which is obviously what you've been able to tap into now.
- BCBrian Carroll
Yup. And that stuff isn't gonna come from a book, it's gonna come from experience. And, um, I wish I knew back then what I know now, but we all say that, whether it be about relationships, whether it be about nutrition-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- BCBrian Carroll
... uh, about high school, wha- whatever it may be. And I mention high school because I just had my 20-year reunion, and it's, uh, definitely interesting the perspective that I have now versus back then.
- CWChris Williamson
I bet it is.
- BCBrian Carroll
Um, yeah. So i- i- it's all about preparation, and that's, that's gonna give you the most likely chance of, of success, and that's being prepared, also being flexible and being able to roll with the punches, because not everything, not everything's gonna be, gonna go your way, and it's very frustrating and I've struggled with that too. So you have to toe the line at being an absolute control freak and also being able to go with the flow.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- BCBrian Carroll
Which is, it's like saying, uh, "I want, I want my food super hot, but at the same time I want it super cold." It's impossible, so you gotta optimize. You gotta ch- pick your battles.
- 22:31 – 27:50
Equipped vs raw powerlifting: how the sport split, why gear matters, and what ‘raw’ really means
- CWChris Williamson
I get it. Uh, so many people that are listening may have seen powerlifting, they'll know what it is, squat, bench, and deadlift, those three lifts. But there's kind of two broad leagues of powerlifting, I, I guess you could call it, in being equipped and unequipped. Is that fair to say?
- BCBrian Carroll
Very fair.
- CWChris Williamson
Cool.
- BCBrian Carroll
So back in the days of, let's say, uh, Bill Kazmaier, he's the guy that wrote the foreword for Gift of Injury, uh, great strength athlete. I don't know if you saw, but we had Swiss last year in Mississauga, Canada, and we had a powerlifting panel with myself, Jim Wendler, JL Holdsworth, Ken Whetton, uh, Ed Coan, and Bill Kazmaier-
- CWChris Williamson
That is a big panel. (laughs)
- BCBrian Carroll
... and, uh, Matt Henning.
- CWChris Williamson
Those are big-
- BCBrian Carroll
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
... big names.
- BCBrian Carroll
And we had some great talks. You know, Bill wore what he could back in the day, and that was a very, um, not very helpful squat suit, ACE bandage knee wraps, uh, they'd wear tiny T-shirts to help them bench press more. So it's evolved over the years. The bench press shirt was invir- uh, invented in the '80s, and what that did initially was help protect the pecs and the shoulders from heavy bench presses. Eventually it's evolved where the gear helps a lot more than it used to, so now what you have is the belts, the knee wraps, and the sleeves that give supportive, um, give support to the, the, you know, the elbows, the knees, and the, and the core. They are way more beyond anything that was going on in the '70s and '80s, and even '90s. So with technology, everything evolves.So in 2006, ev- everyone lifted equipped. There weren't people that lifted raw because you'd be bringing a knife to a gunfight basically.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- BCBrian Carroll
Uh, you would be, you'd be very overwhelmed. And the only people that lifted raw without equipment were the people that couldn't quite figure out their equipment because there's an art to th- to it. It isn't just about putting equipment on and lifting big weights. You have to acclimate your central nervous system to that heavier load, to that extra 100 pounds on the squat that you can't lift without the suit.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- BCBrian Carroll
So it's, it's, uh, it's an art to it. You have to be strong in and outside of the suit, and that's a balancing act. So once, once (audio glitch) the, uh, the raw movement hit in 2006, a lot of people, um, started lifting without powerlifting gear or just wearing, uh, wraps and sleeves and a belt without the suit, and they call that raw, but it's not really raw unless you're not using anything, right?
- CWChris Williamson
Yep, yep.
- BCBrian Carroll
'Cause I've known people to get 50 pounds out of a belt. They get 150 pounds out of a tight knee wrap and then, you know, so on and so forth. But it, it's kind of, it kinda had a big split back in 2006 because at the first official raw meet, the New England Record Breakers up in Massachusetts, and then a lot of people started getting into the sport because the gear turned them off because it's a lot of work. You have to have people there helping them. So shortly after the birth of raw powerlifting, CrossFit started coming over and competing a lot in powerlifting. And so that made powerlifting explode, but the quality of it kinda went to the wayside. It wasn't as thick in the competitions.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- BCBrian Carroll
And you had a lot of beginner level strength athletes coming into powerlifting, and as CrossFitters, they're not gonna wear the gear. So that's how powerlifting, raw, uh, kinda took over the last, uh, 10 to, 10 to, 10 to 13 years or so. And, uh, that's where we are now. And I've always lifted equipped because when I started in the '90s, a gym rat, as we call it, would lift heavy weight in the gym, but a powerlifter would put the gear on and go and compete in a meet if they're a powerlifter. So that's the way I came up. I wore knee wraps, I wore a squat suit, I wore a bench press shirt even in the '90s 'cause everyone else did. Now things have changed a little bit because people think that the suits and the shirts have gotten way too excessive and way too complicated to use. But I've just evolved with the technology the whole time while other people have taken the gear off and lifted raw. Uh, at the end of the day, it, it is all still powerlifting. It's just a bit of a different sport. And I can get into the pros and cons of each too.
- CWChris Williamson
That would be, that would be great. One thing that's interesting, I, I have to say because I don't know the lineage of powerlifting sufficiently well, I presumed that equipped had come out of raw.
- BCBrian Carroll
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Whereas it appears that it's actually the other way around.
- BCBrian Carroll
Absolutely.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- BCBrian Carroll
Bench press was invented, uh, bench press shirt was invented in the '80s.
- CWChris Williamson
Wow.
- BCBrian Carroll
And everyone wore one, including, including a lot of the people that don't like gear now.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- BCBrian Carroll
Um, you know, a lot of people don't know that, that, you know, some of the best lifters ever, Mike Bridges, Osby Alexander, Lamar Gant, Ed Coan, they wore gear. They wore powerlifting gear. They wore knee wraps. They wore suits. They wore shirts sometimes. So, um, yeah, so it's always been equipped. Now, Fred Hatfield, Dr. Squat, one of the first guys to squat over 1,000 pounds, he actually was known to kinda bend the rules a little bit, whether it be putting tennis balls behind the knees or wearing really tight jeans his lift in.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- BCBrian Carroll
So that's literally my reaction, the laughing.
- 27:50 – 35:00
Rules, PEDs, and spectator reality: why “pure sport” is complicated
- BCBrian Carroll
So to me, the only level playing field is wear what you wanna wear-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- BCBrian Carroll
... take what you wanna take, and then come compete like a drag race. You know what I mean? 'Cause otherwise, the testing is flawed. That's why so many people every couple years in the IPF are booted out. They change the weight classes, they change the records because the cops will always be behind the robbers, the criminals. They're always gonna find ways to beat the drug test. Now you have rules that are implemented in the IPF where you can't have someone assist you put on your knee sleeves or elbow sleeves because it helps you too much. You have to be able to put them on and take them off by yourself because everyone has been in the rules.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- BCBrian Carroll
They're wearing sleeves that took three people to put them on, and they were getting 50 pounds on their squat.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- BCBrian Carroll
So that's not raw to me. But again, it's just my opinion.
- CWChris Williamson
I, I, I So the problem there is that as you start to add layers and layers of nuance and say, "You can't this and you can't that," everyone is going to find a way to do those things that you've now prohibited. And I-
- BCBrian Carroll
Yep.
- CWChris Williamson
... I, I agree. I think, wh- we've, uh, um, I've heard it on a million podcasts before, people saying, "I want to see how fast the fastest man on the planet can run with everything that, that, that he's got behind him, with his testosterone as high as he wants it, with his human growth hormone as high as he wants it, with all-
- BCBrian Carroll
Yep.
- CWChris Williamson
... of the assistance, all the kit in a wind tunnel at what..." 'Cause that's what you wanna see.
- BCBrian Carroll
Yep.
- CWChris Williamson
At the extremes and the limits of human performance, limiting anything to do with it, to me, is... (sighs) If it's for safety, uh, I don't know. It's a... That bit's a nuanced point, but definitely as a spectator of the sport, I wanna see someone go as fast, lift as heavy. That's what I want.
- BCBrian Carroll
There's been more home runs hit in baseball this year than, than ever in history, this year in American baseball, and even more than the so-called steroid era. And the problem with that is people wanna see action. They don't wanna see a pitchers' battle, a pitchers' duel. They wanna see the ball hit hard and far. That's what they wanna see.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- BCBrian Carroll
So, you know, baseball suffered for a long time after the so-called steroid era, and, uh, it died. It died a little bit. It's coming back now, but also (laughs) the common denominator is a lot of people think they're wrapping the baseball tighter and they're making-
- CWChris Williamson
I was gonna say they're changing, they're changing the ball, right? It's got a cork center or something now?
- BCBrian Carroll
Well, yeah, they, they've changed a few things about it and it's made the ball what they call more lively, where it jumps off the bat further. And a lot of pitchers are very mad about it because they s- it's making their job harder, because it's harder to get people out. Um-
- CWChris Williamson
But no one, no one goes to the, to the baseball. We went to a New York Yankees game recently, uh, on a stag do in New York. Went to a New York Yankees game. Not a single... N- I don't think there was anything more than a double that was hit. And I'm like, I was-
- BCBrian Carroll
Boring.
- CWChris Williamson
... been there for three hours.
- BCBrian Carroll
(laughs) Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
See what I mean? Like, come on.
- BCBrian Carroll
You wanna get your money's worth.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- BCBrian Carroll
And that's gon- and that's gonna be from seeing action.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- BCBrian Carroll
Home runs, doubles, triples, plays at the plate, action, clashing.
- CWChris Williamson
Yes.
- 35:00 – 41:19
What’s in Brian’s meet kit: squat briefs, Leviathan suit, belts—and why gear is brutally uncomfortable
- BCBrian Carroll
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... you're gonna go do a meet, uh, next week. What's, what's in your kit bag and what are you putting on for what lift and, and why, and what's it consist of?
- BCBrian Carroll
So for the squat I wear squat briefs underneath. Um, they're-
- CWChris Williamson
Squat briefs? (laughs)
- BCBrian Carroll
Yeah, squat briefs. So they're, they're like, uh, you know, they're knee-length or a little bit shorter actually, and they support the hips.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay.
- BCBrian Carroll
And, uh, so it, it helps a bit. Uh, now, different people get different amounts out of each piece of gear and, and how much they fine-tune it, how much they can utilize it. Because you gotta think, when you start putting restrictive clothing on, or restrictive apparel, it changes the groove if you let it.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- BCBrian Carroll
You have to keep it in the same groove. So if the bar is harder to bring down or the, the bar is harder to come down with on the squats, then that's another variable you have to control. You have to force yourself to get down. You have to stay tight. Your blood pressure's up higher. So I wear briefs under the squat suit, and I, I'm sponsored by INSR Advanced Designs, so I wear their Leviathan Squat Suit that's adjustable. And, uh, that allows me to on a, uh, any given day when I've ha- when I have it tuned in...... and locked, locked in really nice. I can get another 200 pounds over, over my raw squat. But with that said, some people only get 50 pounds. But I've mastered it. I've mastered it to make my equipped squat, as we call it, the best possible, uh, without compromising anything else. I don't care about my raw squat when I'm training for the meet. That's the- the- the- the way I've trained for the last 20 years. All that matters is what you do in competition. And, uh, to me, that- that's- that's real, the real sport of powerlifting, the variables there. Uh, you know, anyone can literally, someone that just started lifting weights at the gym can go and do a raw powerlifting meet. That doesn't take much skill.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- BCBrian Carroll
They may not lift very much weight, but it doesn't take any skill to squat 50 pounds, to bench 50 pounds, or just to deadlift 20, you know, 250, 125, whatever it may be. That takes no skill. Now you add in gear and equipment, there has to be a bit of pedigree and development of that skill and harnessing it. So it kind of eliminates a lot of people that should not be powerlifting from even trying it. So that's what I liked about it. With powerlifting being mainstream, there's pros and cons. It used to be scary and a lot of people didn't want to do it 'cause the people were crazy.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- BCBrian Carroll
Now it's widely accepted. And, you know, you can't, you can't look down on someone for being a beginner and I get all that stuff. You shouldn't. But at the same time, these strength sports aren't for everyone. And I think the- the pendulum has swung in the favor of anyone can do it, everyone's accepted, all this stuff. And I think it should be a little more scary and a little more violent, like it used to be in the days with Kazmaier and Cohn and Goggins and all those guys and when I came up in the '90s and early 2000s. Um, so th- that's a little bit about the squat gear. And of course, I wear a, a heavy duty weightlifting belt to create that stiffness and that intraabdominal pressure in the trunk. And, uh, it's an art to it, man. It's an art to be able to, to hold more weight than your body can actually lift. So you have to program and build your ser- central nervous system so it doesn't just shut off when you pick that weight up on the squat. Because a lot of people's lights go out on a big bench press, a big squat. They go out because they- they- they have too much blood pressure, uh, they get lightheaded and they go out, or they- they crumble because there's too much pressure.
- CWChris Williamson
What does it feel like physically, what, not mentally yet, what does it feel like physically to have all of those layers on? Is it just like being compressed down an awful lot? How does it feel to be in the squat suit?
- BCBrian Carroll
It's very uncomfortable. And a lot of people who have, uh, who've knocked it in the past haven't tried it. And, uh, you know, an interesting tidbit is, there's been a lot of lifters that left equipped lifting and went and did the raw and did really well. I've yet to see more than a couple lifters ever leave raw lifting and come to equipped and dominate.
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, that's interesting.
- BCBrian Carroll
There's only been a couple people do that. Yeah. And that's what I mean by the skill. If you can squat well in a squat suit with all those variables, you damn sure can squat well without all those things. So, I advise everyone to start off raw. Everyone to start off raw. Get the form, create those engrams, and then from there, if you want to add equipment, then so be it. But build the, uh, uh, base level of strength and have some technical proficiency before you even worry about that.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- BCBrian Carroll
Uh, what does it feel like? Sometimes everything in your body hurts.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- BCBrian Carroll
You know, the squat suit's very cumbersome. Uh, so that's why you have to stay calm. You know, you have knee wraps on, you have a squat suit on, you have to shimmy under the bar, you have to get tight, you have to pick the weight up, and then you have to squat with pristine form with all those layers on. So it's very difficult. Another thing that people don't realize, it's hard to tell where you are depth-wise. So you might think that you're going super deep and you're still that much above parallel. So there's a lot of, a lot of variables there that add some difficulty to it.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. Um, so that touches on a question that I wanted to ask, and I'm sure a lot of people are thinking. What- what do you do before a lift? And what is the inside of your head like before you're about to put 1,000 pounds on your back in a meet?
- BCBrian Carroll
It's, uh, it's really focused and I go to a dark, dark place in my head where I don't care about anything else. And the last thing I want in the world to happen when I'm under the bar is to miss the lift and embarrass myself. So everything is extremely tight. I visualize and see the lift being completed effortlessly before I even approach the platform. I already see it happen. I see the crowd's reaction. And I strive for that feeling to happen before it even happens. So I get out there and I just go to my default mode. I tune everything out, I tune everyone out, I go and lift, and I fight for my life for a couple seconds, then I put it back down, then I try to breathe and relax. So you turn it on, you turn it off. You turn it on, you turn it off. Kind of like a fighter, UFC fighter between rounds. You got to chill, breathe and relax, then you go, you turn it back on, and then you relax. So it's a dark place that I go to for sure.
- 41:19 – 42:56
Visualization perspectives and platform self-awareness
- CWChris Williamson
I- I- I love hearing about that. Um, l- listeners who heard the episode with Suni Webster, Olympic weightlifter, he said something interesting, and I'm gonna ask you the same. He said that he does the same. Before he steps up to the, to the, um, platform, he visualizes himself completing the lift. He gets asked the question often, I wondered the same for you, do you visualize yourself doing it from the first person or do you watch yourself doing it from behind the stage?
- BCBrian Carroll
Both.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay. Interesting.
- BCBrian Carroll
I watch myself from the crowd.
- CWChris Williamson
Yep, yep.
- BCBrian Carroll
I see myself in the crowd, how I'm gonna look, how I look so sturdy. I'll look so sturdy and stiff on the squat that as soon as I pick it up, everyone in the crowd knows that I'm gonna crush the weight.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- BCBrian Carroll
I see that happen. I go through the squat, I come up, I grind through it if I have to. And then I know, I've already done a dry run in my head. I go out there and do it. I also see myself doing it, picking up the weight, feel myself doing it. So I look at it from all perspectives.
- CWChris Williamson
Isn't that interesting that we, we view it, for some reason, we decide to view it from-... not ourselves. We look at it from-
- BCBrian Carroll
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... someone else. I think that's really ... I don't know. I don't know what that is about, about prep, but obviously, you know, some of the best athletes in the world, in the world choose to, to use that. So, um, moving on-
- BCBrian Carroll
I think it's, uh, I think it's self-awareness too.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- BCBrian Carroll
It's a bit of self-awareness that comes with the maturity of lifting, and you wanna be, you wanna s- You know what is expected up there on the platform, and you know when someone is up there and they know what they're doing. That's what you expect from yourself. So you automatically wanna see that from yourself, I think.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- BCBrian Carroll
I don't know. That's a little weird, but that's what I think.
- 42:56 – 44:37
The 1,185 lb squat that ‘cost him’: acute damage, immediate warning signs, and subsequent regression
- CWChris Williamson
It's a good one. Uh, it's g- i- interesting if you've got any, uh, any ideas, or if you're someone, uh, listening who has, uh, any more information, feel free to get at me. Um, so you mentioned that the 1,185 pound squat cost you.
- BCBrian Carroll
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
Can you tell us what and why?
- BCBrian Carroll
So I, I'd squatted 1130 just before that squat, and I wanted to go for the all-time world record of 1180, so I had to beat that by five pounds or two kilos. So I was feeling good. I figured I could get the lift. As I was doing the lift, it, it's the heaviest weight I've ever picked up and I saw stars. I s- I saw black spots everywhere. When I picked it up, it was very heavy and I was like, "Here we go."
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- BCBrian Carroll
So I, I came up with it and as I was locking out, my left leg stopped working a bit, and I had a hard time locking it all the way up. And at that time, I, I, I felt like I reherniated a couple discs or damaged something pretty bad, and, uh, that cost me a bit because my lifting started to regress after that lift a little bit. And so I got with Dr. McGill and, and got that figured out, but I knew that I'd messed something up as soon as I, I, I got from underneath the squat and walked away. I, I knew. I got a little bit forward, a little bit bent forward with it, and I got out of position, which cost me.
- CWChris Williamson
But still stood it up?
- BCBrian Carroll
Still stood up. Still got credit for it, and had to get basically helped off the platform after that. And I still finished the meet and did well. But, uh, yeah, that, that ... I left a little bit of something of myself out there that day.
- CWChris Williamson
Isn't that interesting?
- BCBrian Carroll
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
So, moving on to the progression or the regression, I suppose we could call it-
- 44:37 – 49:15
Back injury timeline, failed medical pathways, and why he chose McGill over surgery
- BCBrian Carroll
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... from that point up to when you sat down with Dr. McGill. Also, there's a, a story about when you were in a parking lot as well, which I, I, I think a lot of people might be interested to hear. So you had a I d- so I'll, I'll, I'll ask you. Do you think that there was any other significant acute episodes other than that particular squat, or was it cumulative over time? Is it just volume and volume and volume and ...
- BCBrian Carroll
There's a lot of things. I think the first, first incident was, uh, in 10th grade. I was running stadiums and I tweaked my back a little bit. The second in- so that's 1995 or '96. Um, the second incident that I had was in 2003. I strained my back a little bit and I felt a pop when I was deadlifting. That settled after a little while. Then in 2009, I was on a obstacle course. I was trying out for a scholarship with the police department, and I was the first person to run that morning, and it was eight o'clock in the morning on a July, July day, so we had a lot of humidity. And as I was jumping over a barricade, there was dew all over it, and I slipped and landed right on my butt and my back like that. And-
- CWChris Williamson
Hm.
- BCBrian Carroll
... that's when I was laying in the parking lot afterward. My legs weren't working, and I barely was able to drive myself home. It took everything I had. But, like any brilliant athlete-
- CWChris Williamson
Hm.
- BCBrian Carroll
... like myself, I, uh, I did my first 1100 squat and 800 deadlift about three weeks after that. (phone ringing) So, th- that's just, to kind of answer your question, I did a lot of stupid stuff and I just kept pushing like I was Superman. And finally, uh, in 2011, that big lift, it was another little thing that chipped away at it. And then 2012, about eight months after that 1185 squat, I was warming up. I was on pace to squat 1200 at this meet. And when I was warming up, I felt my back go. I felt, man, a lot of burning sensation locally in my lumbar spine. And, uh, I had to very, very, very much battle through that meet. I ended up winning that one, but, uh, my back started regressing. So that was '12, and then '13 it got really bad, and that's when I finally gave up after seeing multiple neurosurgeons, mor- multiple orthopedic surgeons. I'd gotten my shots. You know, people get these shots, these, these facet joint injections, nerve root blocks. The problem is if you're not removing the cause, they're totally useless because it's only a numbing sensation. So until you remove the cause of the pain and build more pain-free capacity, those, those epidurals are useless. So I, I went through that thinking they were just magically gonna cure me. Then I went down the path of trying to get surgery, thinking that would just be, "I'm gonna go in and get surgery, then everything's gonna be great." And that's not the way it works, and thank God my client suggested I see Dr. McGill, and within a month I was there with him in his laboratory.
- CWChris Williamson
It's, it's crazy to think, so speaking to Dr. McGill and also having read Back Mechanic and, uh, a fair chunk of The Gift of Injury, your book with him as well, um, surgery appears to be a, a very, very rapid option, um, I think m- perhaps a little more so in America. In fact, I was with Dr. McGill when, uh, uh, he took a phone call from a, a, a lady who said she'd had back pain for eight days, had been to see-
- BCBrian Carroll
(laughs) .
- CWChris Williamson
... a consultant, and the consultant had said, "We need to get you in for surgery." And I'm thinking to myself, "You've had back pain for eight days." Like, uh, tha- that could be anything. You could have, like, a splinter in your back. Like you literally-
- BCBrian Carroll
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
... could've sat on a bit of wood. Um-
- BCBrian Carroll
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
... so, yeah. Uh, uh, the, the, the root of surgery, um ...Dr. McGill went through a- a number of the reasons why that's a- a bad idea in- in his estimation. I think the stat is now at 80% of back surgeries are back to the same baseline level of pain within 12 months.
- BCBrian Carroll
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
I think that's a- around about right. Um-
- BCBrian Carroll
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
So you didn't- you didn't go for that. You went to see Dr. McGill and split sacrum, front to back, L4, L5, and L5 S1 are just obliterated, I think was the terminology that he (laughs) used.
- BCBrian Carroll
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, and from there, what happened? 'Cause you're used to doing deadlift and squat on a Monday, and bench on a Wednesday, and all this sort of stuff, and Dr. McGill-
- BCBrian Carroll
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... Dr. McGill does the thing where he pushes his mustache to one side-
- BCBrian Carroll
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... and he looks at you, he looks at you like this, and then he s- he gets his finger out and he points at you, and what does he, what does he say?
- 49:15 – 55:21
McGill’s ‘spine hygiene’ reset: hip hinge, daily movement changes, removing flexion under load
- BCBrian Carroll
He says that my spine hygiene is terrible. It's not of a- a top athlete. So I had to reprogram the way I moved, and that meant squatting. So everything I did when I'm sitting in a chair, I'm standing up, pushing my hips through. Then when I sit down, I'm not plopping.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- BCBrian Carroll
Sitting down easily. So I had to get the hip hinge down, the same way you push yourself off the toilet. I had to learn to lunge to tie my shoes. So for instance, it's here, put my foot up on a chair and then lean forward and lunge into it.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- BCBrian Carroll
And then the last thing is a golfer's pickup, where you basically stand on one leg and then reach down with a nice and flat back.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- BCBrian Carroll
All I was doing was bending.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- BCBrian Carroll
Bending, flexion under load, further perpetuating my injury and picking at the scab every day, so... You have a lot of people, and- and I was included, I would do reverse hypers, I would do lumbar stretches, the silly stretches he calls them, I'd pull my knee to my chest, I'd bend down and touch my toes, which is not inherently bad, but it is bad for a power lifter, especially one with back pain. Now, if you're trying to be a gymnast, those stretches are probably gonna help you, or may- they might help you, right? But you've gotta pick. If you wanna be a power lifter, you have to tune the body to be a power lifter. If you wanna be a gymnast, you need a lot of flexibility, but don't expect that strength out of it, just like the power lifters shouldn't expect that mobility out of their back. You have to- you have to choose wisely with every exercise that you put in the program. So I was doing the reverse hypers, I was doing the stretching, I was doing weighted sit-ups. I was basically creating the perfect recipe for a painful back. So I know you'll be very surprised, Chris, but as soon as I removed the hammer, the hammer that was always nailing my, uh- my prain- my pain triggers, I felt a lot better within a couple of days, and my pain wound way down almost immediately.
- CWChris Williamson
Can you take us from, what- what was it at daily? Was it a eight out of 10 or seven out of 10?
- BCBrian Carroll
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Wh- where did it go to?
- BCBrian Carroll
It was an eight... Within 24 hours, and even a- a couple hours in the lab, it- it went down to, like, a three, of just me being conscientious of, "Okay."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- BCBrian Carroll
Sitting up properly, not leaning forward, not bending. Within a couple hours, it felt a whole lot better, and, uh, within a couple of days, it was down to about a two or a one. And then I-
- CWChris Williamson
How did that feel after- after being in so much pain for so long?
- BCBrian Carroll
It was a huge relief. My- my wife couldn't believe it 'cause she came along for the ride, and she said, "You haven't talked about your back hurting one time since you left Dr. McGill," and I said, "I know, it's crazy." And- and I like to share this information with people to know that they can get out of pain. The problem is they're too blind to see how simple it really is. They think they have to take this medicine, they think that the back surgeons are the end-all be-all when they're really, th- they're designed to do one thing, and that's to cut on you. And like Dr. McGill says, and he probably explained to you, they're not likely to go in there and cut your only pain trigger out. A lot of time, there's multiple pain triggers. Uh, there's no guarantee they're gonna get that one, and- and- and likely, they're gonna open you up, they're gonna destabilize your back, they might fuse it together, and then the, uh- the above and below of the fusion's gonna suffer after that. I- I- I've yet to meet more than a couple people that have ever had m- uh, less than one back surgery. There's always more that follow. There's always more, because you know what? They don't remove the cause.
- CWChris Williamson
Have you ever met someone who's been through back surgery and has come back to be athletically capable?
- BCBrian Carroll
Yes. I have met, but they had three surgeries. Yep.
- CWChris Williamson
Wow.
- BCBrian Carroll
And they still are, um, inhibited in certain ways because they don't have... They're locked up, they have a spinal fusion, so they've had three fusions, and, uh, the first one didn't take, uh, the second one ended up, uh, reversing itself and the screws came loose. The third one took, but, um, they have a lot of struggles and a lot of pain daily that- that come and go. Because you know what? When you cut through those nerves and you cut through that musculature, sometimes it's never the same again. The nerves might reattach somewhere else, and then you have weird pain randomly, so-
- CWChris Williamson
Right.
- BCBrian Carroll
... there's a lot that- that you're risking when you let someone open you up like that, that doesn't understand how the spine is supposed to work. It's not supposed to be a bending rod like that, unless you're tuning it for it to be that, and, uh, the PTs just blindly prescribing stretching are really hurting a lot of people when they- when they get them out of surgery or- or referred to- to PT to prevent surgery, they just further complicate it a lot of the time.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. What's the quote from The Gift of Injury? Uh, "Do not cut open that which God designed to stay closed."
- BCBrian Carroll
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- BCBrian Carroll
That is what uh- uh, a, um, anesthesiologist surgeon told me. 'Cause I- I was wanting to get back surgery and he said, "You know what? Avoid back surgery. Avoid it at all costs because I have colleagues that do it and they are not successful, and it's gonna further complicate everything," and that's when he used that line, "keep it closed." And, uh, I actually... This weekend, I me- I saw a couple people I hadn't seen in a while, both of them work for a back surgeon. I'm sorry, they work for a medical device company that-... works alongside surgeons for spinal fusions. And he said, "Dude, you do not want... These surgeons, they mess them up all the time and they..." My friends are, uh, (sniffs) they work alongside the surgeons to ensure that the tools they're using, that they sell them, are being utilized properly. He said, "Man, these surgeons mess up all the time. You do not wanna ever get a back surgery." Little did they know, I already knew all that.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) Yeah, you don't re- I've spoken to patient zero, Dr. Stuart McGill himself. He knows all of this stuff. So (clears throat) moving forward from, you've had your consultation, you're now at least a little bit less pain-free, but you're not able to get under a bar without pain, I'm gonna guess, and start squatting. So what was the next f- few months, the next year like after that consultation with Dr. McGill?
- 55:21 – 1:14:30
Rebuilding to elite lifting: Big 3, walking, graded exposure, meet simulation, and post-injury PRs
- BCBrian Carroll
So it was all about discipline. It was desensitizing and removing the cause. So it was a lot of McGill big three and a lot of walking for a couple of months. And then eventually, when the pain was totally gone, I called him up and he said, "Well, you're pain-free. That was my job. Now it's your job to get back to the platform." So I took that on and I learned a lot, and thankfully because of me learning how to progress from stage one of removing the cause to building pain-free capacity and so on and so forth, I've become, um, pretty well-versed in helping other people progress. They, they, they need to read Back Mechanic and Gift of Injury to find their pain triggers-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- BCBrian Carroll
... and to remove them. Once they remove them, I can show them how to implement the exercises to build them back.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- BCBrian Carroll
And I do that with a lot of people, and actually a McGill provider now for Florida, uh-
- CWChris Williamson
Amazing.
- BCBrian Carroll
... as a clinician. Yeah. So I see a lot of people here in Florida for their pain. And again, the prerequisite is re- is reading Back Mechanic and Gift of Injury. That way, I'm covered. They need to, they need to diagnose themself, they need to remove the cause, then I can help them train as a trainer getting back to sport and whatever that may be. So for me, it was a lot of McGill three, a lot of carries, a lot of walking, and just perfect spine hygiene, whether it be sleeping, moving, working, traveling every single day. And what this did was put dollars in my bank account.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- BCBrian Carroll
I was invested-
- CWChris Williamson
I'm hearing, I'm hearing the McGill accent just pouring out here. It's fantastic.
- BCBrian Carroll
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
(inhales deeply)
- BCBrian Carroll
So I, I, I put, I put deposits in the bank account, so when, uh ... So I saw him in May, so when November rolled around, I had enough to start withdrawing. So I put it in outside of the gym so I could pull it out inside of the gym.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- BCBrian Carroll
And, uh, so once I progressed from the carries and such, I added in goblet squats, I added in elevated deadlifts and rack pulls. Then eventually, by November, I was getting back to the competition lifts. And then, I think by January, I squatted over 1,000 pounds again pain-free, and, uh, I still had a couple th- uh, roads to cross and hurdles to jump over as I went to compete in March. That was 10 months after seeing McGill. I was just flat-out too big. I'd gotten too big, too heavy, and, uh, at the meet, I was actually winning it, and going into the deadlift, my back got grumpy on me. And so I pulled out of the meet, I didn't finish. That was a blow to my ego because the whole year after that, I'd been working on getting back, getting pain-free, you know? Excuse me. And a lot of people had seen my progress, right? And it was disappointing to me that I wasn't able to finish. So Stu and I devised a plan where I would drop some body weight and I would build more capacity by squatting, benching, and deadlifting all in the same day that would simulate the meet.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- BCBrian Carroll
So you gotta get into a little bit of extension when you're squatting.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- BCBrian Carroll
A little bit of flexion sometimes, a little bit, and then a lot of extension on the squ- on the bench, and then a little bit of flexion and extension on the deadlift. So I was able to build more tolerance and more athleticism slowly, and then if I felt like I was pushing too hard, I'd back off. So I was really in tune with my body by then, and then within the next few months, I had a personal record at a lighter weight class, better than injury, pre-injury, and then I won the Arnold two more times after that, uh, with better lifts post-injury than I did pre-injury.
- CWChris Williamson
Y- so you touched on ego there, and the fact that you had to say no to this deadlift. Um, going back to the first few months, because, uh, there will be a lot of people listening, and I'm, I'm one of them. I'm personally interested. I've recently seen Dr. McGill. There will be other people out there who will be suffering with an injury and they may have been prescribed a, um, course of rehabilitation which requires them to take a big slice of humble pie, and they're gonna-
- BCBrian Carroll
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
... have to swallow an awful lot of ego. So for you, one of the strongest men on the planet, how, how did it feel? Did you have any trouble with that or was your goal to become pain-free? W- did you see this as a part of your journey or were there some questions in there where you began to get frustrated and, and stuff like that when you were doing bird, bird dog for, you know, 10 minutes a day and side plank for 10 minutes a day, et cetera, et cetera?
- BCBrian Carroll
It was a blow to my ego, but I looked at it this way. Nothing was more devastating to me than losing my athleticism. So after trying to do it my way, researching on my own, thinking I knew everything, getting the shots, getting the consults, I, I caved. And when I talked with Dr. McGill, I was a little skeptical about what he had to say, and then, uh, after a little while, I realized that he knew what he was talking about. So when I met him in that May, in that, on that May day in 2013, I went into his lab as a complete beginner. I went in there like I knew nothing. And the only thing I held tight to concerning my ego and my pride was that I'm gonna compete again. Everything else, I turned over to him completely. Now, I've met a lot of athletes that, that are world-class, world record holders, you name it, that...... are done now because they couldn't step away from the barbell or step away from the track or the octagon and get pain-free. Now I've met a lot of people that say they can't do it for a variety of reasons. And what I say to that is, biology is very binary. It doesn't care about your mental state. It doesn't care about what you have going on, your bills. Either you're giving yourself enough stimulus to build and be better, or you're tearing your body down. And so if you can't stop lifting for the sake of your mental health or your wallet, then I wouldn't expect to get out of pain. And, and that's what I, that's what I tell them. And then they go on and have a surgery, thinking they can just get their pain cut out and they're good, and then they never return back to the platform or the octagon or the track or whatever it may be. So it's very hard for a lot of people because there's a lot of stress going on right now throughout the world with the climate, uh, social media, everyone's wound up and fighting and, and, and so they use exercise for an outlet to de-stress.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- BCBrian Carroll
And when you take that away from them, they freak out. Well, you can still walk, you can still do your core work, but you're gonna have to take time away from going out there and, and drilling the barbell every day. So it was hard, but once I got going, 'cause I, I, I caught some, I caught some, some stuff from friends when I wasn't lifting and I would still go to the gym every day, but I'd be doing my McGill three and my carries and all that stuff. So I didn't care. And the way I looked at it was this. I'd beaten just about everyone in the past, and I was doing what I needed to do to get back there once again and I'd get the last laugh.
- CWChris Williamson
What a fantastic philosophy.
- BCBrian Carroll
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
What a fantastic philosophy. I mean, when you are one of the strongest men on the planet, that's the sort of thing that you can say. But I hope that that has reframed for a lot of people that might be listening just the sort of sacrifices that you do need to make. I've certainly, having seen Dr. McGill and, um, I sent him a couple of emails afterwards just asking for some clarity on some of the prescriptions that he'd given me moving forward. One of these questions asked the, asked something which I shouldn't have asked, which was, can I go to failure on any of these/
- BCBrian Carroll
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
/slash do you have an RPE or reps and sets, uh, like suggestion? Because that's the language that I talk in. That's what-
Episode duration: 1:14:49
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