Iron Minds

Sam Bolotta

Great powerlifting isn't just built in the gym. It's built in the conversations between coaches: the debates about programming, the lessons from failed attempts, the ideas most people never get to hear. Iron Minds brings those conversations to you. Every episode features a coach worth knowing, talking about the work they actually do and why they do it that way.

  1. 5d ago

    Give Every Sheffield Lifter a Bad Mindset and Some Would Still Make It w/ Steve DeNovi

    In the twenty-first episode of Iron Minds, Samuele sits down with Steve DeNovi to talk about what actually separates Sheffield-level lifters, why mindset may matter less than we think in a low-skill sport, and how he builds programs that a lifter 500 miles away can execute. 0:00 - Intro 1:26 - From hockey to bodybuilding to powerlifting 6:41 - From percentages to RPE to integrating everything 13:25 - Why more beginners should try extreme programs like Smolov 17:05 - Why he's still not on the velocity tracker train 20:03 - Variable percentages and the art of programming 22:40 - How much programming matters at the elite level 27:36 - How flexible a coach's system should be 32:32 - Why intermediates plateau: lifestyle first 36:28 - Ranking the six variables behind Sheffield athletes 47:58 - The pressure and expectations of being elite 53:52 - Why mindset matters less in a low-skill sport 56:22 - Technique: dictate for beginners, self-organize for elites 1:06:32 - Top-down blocks, adjusted to the body's response 1:10:04 - Push into fatigue, don't sustain it 1:12:56 - What to track: sets, tonnage and E1RM 1:20:24 - Injury risk: it all comes back to load management 1:24:35 - Powerlifting in 10 years Samuele: https://www.instagram.com/giulianodontario/ Steve: https://www.instagram.com/prs_performance/

  2. Oct 8

    Coaches Who Say Tracking Is Pointless Are Just Lazy w/ Joe Sullivan

    In the twentieth episode of Iron Minds, Samuele sits down with Joe Sullivan, multi-time world record holder and legend of the sport, to talk about what really drives progress when the program isn't the problem. 0:00 - Intro 1:03 - From a 310-lb 14-year-old to the powerlifting club 3:29 - Wrestling, college, and switching to powerlifting 5:47 - ADHD, obsession, and the first national podium 7:37 - Two degrees and the first elite total 11:19 - How the sport has changed — and his hot take 13:37 - Why a submaximal extra bench day is dynamic effort work 16:43 - How important is programming? Leave room for vibes 19:58 - Advice to an 18-year-old: plant the seeds 22:17 - Nick Walker and a 1,000-lb jump in total 26:39 - The Jordan mentality and the tight grip / loose grip 31:12 - The world record that changed nothing 33:44 - Why plateaus are rarely the program 39:04 - The accessories debate 41:59 - Coaching as storytelling 47:16 - Tracking metrics: controlled variables are the best PEDs 51:36 - Intuition vs data — and ego disguised as intuition 57:00 - If he could track only one variable 1:03:30 - Top-down vs bottom-up: Adapt or Die 1:08:37 - Technique: self-organization, cues, and Bull Durham 1:14:44 - Percentages, RPE, exertion levels, and velocity 1:18:48 - Injury risk: stress and sleep 1:21:44 - One last recommendation Samuele: https://www.instagram.com/giulianodontario/ Joe: https://www.instagram.com/joesullivan_aod/

  3. Oct 1

    The Real Gap Between Italy's Women and Men Is Consistency w/ Carlo Alberto Bonomelli

    In the nineteenth episode of Iron Minds, Samuele sits down with Carlo Alberto Bonomelli - coach of Chiara Bernardi and sub-junior Aurora Scapini, and one of the partners behind the Strong4Real powerlifting and weightlifting team - to talk about why he keeps training simple, sustainable and built on trust, and why his athletes' meet week looks just like every other week. 0:00 - Intro 1:01 - From soccer to coaching, and building Strong4Real 5:37 - Three words: psychological, sustainable, practical 10:08 - Ranking the six success factors (and taking genetics out) 13:12 - 100% trust: why coach, athlete and program are one factor 16:52 - Why technique comes last 20:45 - Why Italy's women are world-class and its men aren't yet 29:34 - Why intermediates stall — and the new-coach honeymoon 36:05 - Top-down vs bottom-up programming: 4-week blocks, no percentages 41:28 - Meet week looks like every other week 48:47 - Smolov kids and the cost of monster volume 53:43 - The Agata Sitko thought experiment: frequency and nine bench sessions 59:27 - Quality over quantity 1:03:21 - Velocity trackers: solidity beats speed 1:07:46 - Technique: natural movement vs coach-built lifts 1:12:12 - Intuition vs data: programs on paper 1:16:30 - What really causes injuries 1:20:26 - Powerlifting in ten years Samuele: https://www.instagram.com/giulianodontario/ Carlo: https://www.instagram.com/carloalberto.bonomelli/ Strong4Real: https://www.instagram.com/strong4real_/

  4. Sep 18

    Could You Coach Agata? Not Without Climbing the Ladder First w/ Matt Sharafinski

    In the eighteenth episode of Iron Minds, Samuele sits down with Matt Sharafinski to talk about why he'd trust bar speed over a lifter's word, what successful training blocks have in common, when a coach should follow a gut feeling, and why lifestyle, not technique, is where he sees injuries come from. 0:00 - Intro 1:13 - How Matt got into powerlifting in the raw era 4:06 - Why powerlifting: objectivity and owning every variable 6:42 - Objective, pragmatic, logical: Matt as a coach 11:38 - The coach-athlete relationship, and where it should end 16:47 - Ranking six variables: the Sheffield lifter vs the average lifter 26:02 - What great genetics actually look like 31:48 - What successful blocks have in common 39:30 - Could he coach a 7x-a-week lifter? Stepping stones, not leaps 45:40 - Protect the downside, then chase the upside 49:28 - Can you force the rate of progress? 53:41 - Tell lifters less and watch what they pick 58:11 - How each week of a block should feel 1:05:39 - Technique: top-down until it doesn't work 1:10:22 - Deadlift grip: skill for hook, setup for mixed 1:18:07 - Programming: top-down with caveats 1:24:32 - Autonomy, RPE and load caps 1:30:49 - Why velocity is the most useful metric 1:42:16 - Intuition vs data: the duck-footed lifter who switched to sumo 1:55:58 - Getting lost in the weeds as a coach 1:59:37 - The biggest cause of injuries: lifestyle Samuele: https://www.instagram.com/giulianodontario/ Matt: https://www.instagram.com/the_sheriff_lifts/

  5. Sep 11

    Rush a Talented Junior Into High Frequency and You Run Out of Keys w/ Nicolas Peyraud

    In the seventeenth episode of Iron Minds, Samuele sits down with Nicolas Peyraud, a fellow coach at TSG and an elite lifter who has spent eleven years in powerlifting after playing high-level rugby in France. They talk about ranking the variables of long-term success, why average intensity is the one number he would keep, how velocity tracking can be both the most honest tool and the hardest to live with, and why he would slow a talented junior down before handing them high frequency. 0:00 - Intro 0:49 - From high-level rugby in France to powerlifting 4:46 - Cardio, and what rugby taught him about hard training 7:43 - Junior aggression vs. patience in a slow sport 12:29 - Ranking the six variables, and his sister's deadlift 19:02 - Why intermediate lifters plateau 20:36 - Self-talk and his counting routine under the bar 22:32 - If a block works, run it again 24:21 - The one variable: average intensity 28:40 - Total weekly dose vs. primary and secondary days 31:36 - Percentages, RPE, and why velocity doesn't lie 35:55 - Why he stopped tracking velocity for six months 38:38 - A slow bar means fatigue, not weakness 41:01 - Top-down or bottom-up programming 43:45 - Technique: let the body find it, one cue a week 47:36 - Intuition vs. data, and how high frequency caught on 50:53 - Would he put a young Agata Sitko on high frequency? 53:49 - The mistake coaches make with talented juniors 56:47 - Injury risk: not listening to your body 59:41 - Powerlifting in ten years, and why local meets matter Samuele: https://www.instagram.com/giulianodontario/ Nicolas: https://www.instagram.com/nicolas.peyraud/ TSG: https://www.instagram.com/thestrengthguys/

  6. Sep 3

    I Train World Champions at Under 50% of Their Max w/ Josef Eriksson

    In this new episode of Iron Minds, Samuele sits down with Josef Eriksson to talk about why his world-level athletes train at under half of their one-rep max, almost never take a single before a meet, and why he thinks most lifters peak themselves into a worse total. 0:00 - Intro 0:50 - A hip problem at nine, and finding the bench press 12:16 - Ranking the variables: why genetics doesn't belong on the list 15:54 - Sheffield lifestyles, five hours of sleep, and Kjell Baklund 21:11 - Technique isn't the perfect position — it's owning the position 26:01 - Lift 100kg the way you lift 50kg 33:53 - Why he doesn't use RPE, and the champion who called it lazy coaching 39:19 - Velocity-based training, and the correlation he couldn't find 55:14 - The one thing he'd monitor: intention and integrity 1:04:04 - How fatigued a lifter should be going into a meet 1:07:19 - A 251.5kg world record, five days after 12 reps with 200kg 1:12:51 - Jonathan Henningson's 49.7% average training weight 1:18:19 - The pause is a rule, not a bench 1:22:31 - Where the high-rep method came from 1:26:47 - Devil's advocate: when rep PRs don't convert 1:36:21 - "We peak ourselves to death" 1:54:50 - Why injuries are stress over time 2:09:50 - How leverages, not gender, decide your reps at a percentage Samuele: https://www.instagram.com/giulianodontario/ Josef: https://www.instagram.com/josef_eriksson/

  7. Aug 27

    If Everyone Says Mindset Matters, Why Does Nobody Train It? w/ Dr. Kate Cohen

    In the fifteenth episode of Iron Minds, Samuele sits down with Dr. Kate Cohen, sport psychologist with a PhD in sport psychology from Florida State, two-time USA Powerlifting national champion and USAPL national record holder in the deadlift and the total at 48kg, who now teaches sport psychology at the college level in New Jersey. They talk about why every coach ranks the mental side near the top and almost nobody actually trains it. 0:00 - Intro 2:50 - Fourteen years competing, national records, and a PhD in sport psychology 5:41 - Before and after the PhD: the nervous wreck in the warm-up room 8:06 - The Michael Jordan problem: is a toxic mentality something you fix? 13:44 - Why no one working with him wanted to touch that part of him 15:20 - The talented, anxious teenager — preserve the fire or calm it down? 17:02 - What happens when a PR shrinks to 1.25 kilos 19:55 - Powerlifting vs team sport: one shot, and you have to generate the anger 22:15 - The coach-athlete relationship, and an American-vs-Italian culture gap 25:47 - Winning the athlete vs helping the human: are they the same job? 29:53 - Psychological plateaus, and what flow state actually is 31:29 - Manipulating the environment to make flow more likely 33:19 - Four traits psychologically strong athletes share 35:16 - Failure, plateaus, bad meets: "you missed the point" 39:14 - How much of the mental side is genetic? 43:18 - Advice to parents raising a future athlete 46:26 - Male vs female athletes: what the research actually shows 49:02 - Top-down or bottom-up: how she runs a first session 56:54 - The data: no coach ranked psychology lower than second 58:07 - Not a value problem — a knowledge-implementation gap 59:30 - Treated as an outcome instead of a trainable component 1:02:52 - Why the physical side has the infrastructure and the mental side doesn't 1:07:32 - The stigma: if you seek help, you must be mentally weak 1:11:24 - Stoicism, journaling, and why you can't theory your way to a squat 1:15:58 - When powerlifting coaches try to be the psychologist 1:18:14 - Sport psychology in powerlifting ten years from now Samuele: https://www.instagram.com/giulianodontario/ Kate: https://www.instagram.com/kateco220/ TSG: https://www.instagram.com/thestrengthguys/

  8. Aug 19

    The Best Programming in the World Looks Vanilla w/ Chris Ferratti aka Big Body

    In the fourteenth episode of Iron Minds, Samuele sits down with Chris "Big Body" Ferratti to talk about why he ranks mentality above everything and genetics last, why he has never once used a velocity tracker, and why he thinks the new IPF bench rule has quietly killed leg drive. 0:00 - Intro 0:36 - August on the Flex roster: Sheffield, Houston and run-through meets 2:45 - The Chance Mitchell comeback rumours 4:58 - Taekwondo, football and what other sports taught him 9:38 - Two years without a deadlift PR, and the film database 12:57 - Ranking the six variables that build an athlete 14:00 - Why mentality outranks genetics 20:11 - What separates Sheffield athletes: Gustav Hedlin's routine 24:48 - Technique only has to be good enough to pass 28:46 - "I enjoy boring": Agata Sitko and Alba Boström 32:31 - Programming and technique are both just coaching 37:56 - Why genetics ranks last 41:35 - The most common reason lifters plateau 48:42 - The one variable he'd track: bar speed and RPE 54:24 - "The closer you ride to the sun" 1:03:12 - One squat day a week, two sets, fried 1:11:06 - Intuition vs data tracking, and vanilla programming 1:20:22 - Russ's third bench attempt at Sheffield 1:28:03 - Ugly PRs, and when movement quality is allowed to drop 1:31:06 - Waiving depth on secondary squat days 1:39:56 - Injury risk: lifestyle, and lifting crooked 1:44:04 - Hot take: there's no leg drive under the new bench rule 1:48:13 - Hot take: America has the most potential to sweep Worlds 1:59:18 - The question he wishes someone would ask him 2:03:19 - "It's uncomfortable to be unique": the cost of greatness 2:09:26 - Chris turns the mic around on Samuele Samuele: https://www.instagram.com/giulianodontario/ Chris: https://www.instagram.com/theofficialbigbody/ Flexx Training Systems: https://www.instagram.com/flexxtrainingsystems/ Flex Training Systems: {Flex Training Systems Instagram URL}

See All (21)

About

Great powerlifting isn't just built in the gym. It's built in the conversations between coaches: the debates about programming, the lessons from failed attempts, the ideas most people never get to hear. Iron Minds brings those conversations to you. Every episode features a coach worth knowing, talking about the work they actually do and why they do it that way.

Information

  • Creator
    Sam Bolotta
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    21
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Sam Bolotta
  • Show Website
    Iron Minds

You Might Also Like