Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:00:02]: Welcome, everybody, to another episode of the Weird and strong podcast. I'm your host, Jeremy Gruensteiner. With me today, I've got Max Ada. Max, how you doing today, man? Max Aita [00:00:10]: I'm doing pretty well. Yeah. I'm a little early in the morning, but just getting some work done and having a good time. Yeah. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:00:17]: Sunshiny, California in an early morning. Sounds great. Sounds great. Overall, as we do with everybody on the show, I've got a weird question for you. Are you ready? Max Aita [00:00:28]: Cool. I'm ready. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:00:30]: Okay. Describe the most awkward photo you've ever taken. Max Aita [00:00:36]: Oh, well, okay. Probably not the most awkward, but one of the greatest photos of me ever taken. That would fall into awkward. But it's one of those photos where it's like, when you see it, it totally is. It's hilarious. But there's a meet. We did a power lifting meet. I did. Max Aita [00:00:59]: I didn't compete, but I had a couple lifters compete, and it was at Mark Bell's gym. This is like, God, it's probably, like 13 years ago, and my lifter won the cash prize, right? And so we took a photo of it, like, us kind of hanging out and standing there just kind of joking around, holding the money or something. And, like, a couple days later or whatever, I'm looking at the photo and I'm wearing these pants, these shorts that just happened to, like, drape in in just the right way that, like, my crotch, like, right from my crotch down to where the pocket must have been something in my pocket. It's like this perfectly shaped, like, you know, member that looks like it's, like, it's, like, over a foot long. It's, like, hilarious. Like, it's this, like, you know, ridiculous. Like, and you look at it and it's like, I actually have the photo on my phone. I always joke around my wife, and I always, like, pull it up. Max Aita [00:02:05]: But, yeah, it's like this hilarious looking. Like, when you see it, you're like, oh, my God. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:09]: What the hell? Max Aita [00:02:11]: That's got to be the most weird photo of me, for sure. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:13]: And you still keep it around? Max Aita [00:02:17]: Oh, yeah, no, I pull it out regularly. I show people on the street, on the subway. I was, you know, hey. Hey, Jason, you might think. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:23]: What do you think? Max Aita [00:02:23]: Yeah, you might think I'm a loser, but look at this. So, yeah, that's gotta be it, for sure. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:30]: That's. That's a great kickoff to the weird and strong podcast having. I mean, it's not the first time we've gone down that route with, especially with other coaches, because let's be honest. We're all basically 13. Um, yeah. Especially. Especially when it comes to the humor aspect of it. Max Aita [00:02:48]: Oh, sure. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:49]: You know, we. We talked a little bit off air of, you know, you growing up in, in Montana, and, like, people who are listening to this are familiar with, uh, the weightlifting community and, uh, familiar with you, you know, have that. That, uh, background of your work with Abhijeev, your work that you've done over. Gosh, what is it? Almost three decades of coaching in the sports, of weightlifting and powerlifting. Max Aita [00:03:11]: Oh, wow. Yeah. Over 20 years, for sure. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:03:14]: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so with that, and, you know, you're. You're affiliated with many known brands and your own gym and your own companies. What's one thing that's unconventional about you that people may not know about? Max Aita [00:03:31]: I don't know if. I don't know if there's anything unconventional. That's hard to. It's hard to answer. I think the. The. Probably the one thing. And it's like, also, I don't know what people. Max Aita [00:03:44]: I don't know what people don't know. Yeah. So it's hard to answer that. But I would say, like, you know, probably the thing that I get, the thing that I probably got most a few years back was, like, this, the bulgarian thing that, like, that's, like, the thing I do, and that's the, like, you know, the essence of everything that's driven my. My coaching or whatever. And I would say it's not, you know, it's certainly not the case. Like, I don't. I've never been, like, this huge proponent of it or done this bulgarian style training with lots of people, but I've always been kind of, like, I would say, known for that or for the squatting stuff. Max Aita [00:04:23]: But I would say the thing that's unconventional is that I feel like my approach to trying to solve these problems is, is a bit different where I see, you know, the problem of trying to get somebody better at lifting or try to improve their performance or try to, you know, trying to produce a champion. Like, is, you know, the approach should be really methodical, and the approach should have some kind of, you know, basically objectivity to it that I think doesn't exist a ton in weightlifting now. I think people, like, like to latch on to. They like to latch on to, like, you know, what's the simplest answer for this? Like, what's the quick factoid? If you look at, like, the general nature of the way people do things now, weightlifting, even at the highest level, the, you know, at the world, you see a lot of just, like, I guess they call it, like, sort of shooting from the hip. Like the, like, methodical approach doesn't. Is not pervasive in my mind. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:05:34]: Okay. Max Aita [00:05:34]: Like, program writing, programming, doing programming, do all that stuff is not pervasive. So I'd say that's sort of my. Where I would say, you know, I fall. And I'm sure a lot of people are like that, too. But that would be the thing is that, you know, it's a little more weird in that way that, like, I would say being more methodical is the sort of element of what I do now. Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:05:53]: Sure. And then in that, you know, for the listeners, uh, do you have an example of that, that of what that looks like from being much more methodical versus perhaps some of the things that you've witnessed at maybe a world's level that do have that shooting from the hip feel sense? Max Aita [00:06:09]: I mean. Yeah. So I'd say a good example is, like, a lot of coaches, a lot of people get into this and they, they start with, like, very beginner coaches start with the most obvious stuff they can touch, which is exercises. So you get in the gym and your whole perception, a lot of coaches that have coached for a long time will understand this sort of evolution. But day one, you know, you're a coach. You're just telling people to like, you're. You're throwing cues out and you're like, hey, do this, do that. Like, stay on your. Max Aita [00:06:43]: Stay on your heels or, you know, push with your arms or whatever, and you sort of feel like queuing is like the key to everything. I just find the right cue or I, you know, what's the cue for this? Like, whatever. Then you kind of move to exercises like, oh, I discovered a new movement and we're going to do this exercise. And that's the thing that fixes everything. And then, you know, you kind of graduate to like, oh, you know, it's all about this kind, kind of program, the sets and reps and these things, and that becomes this sort of evolution of like, you know, as you progress as a coach, you sort of latch onto these things whereas, you know, methodical approach would be, you know, taking a first principles approach to the way you do things. So looking at, like, what are the principles that govern the training process? What are the principles that govern coaching, that govern any of these elements and starting from there and building a system that emerges out of those principles. So an example would be like coaching and queuing some of the principles behind that would be like, make sure that your queuing is informative in a way that it actually improves the athletes performance. Or in training programming, make sure that you prioritize the principles of training in order that they're of their importance. Max Aita [00:08:13]: So specificity, overload, fatigue management, so you don't make decisions based on the little thing you found. So a cue sounds great, and it works for a minute. And so you will see coaches build systems around that. Oh, this is the cue that works, or this is how it should feel. And they build it around that. They build their system around that. Like. Like, a good example is like, the leg strength thing, the squat strength thing. Max Aita [00:08:41]: Oh, well, I squatted a lot and my. My lifts went up. So therefore, the program should be built around making your squat bigger. But that violates some principles of training in that, like, it's not necessarily maximizing specificity. Right. So I say all this kind of roundabout in that, like, the methodological approach is one in which you take the principles of training and you build a system that emerges from those principles versus what most people do, or I see a lot is people formulate systems or formulate programs based around sort of, like, you know, gut feelings or intuition that are not necessarily corroborated by principles or evidence or anything. It's just kind of a throw it in the air and let's do it right. And you see this a lot. Max Aita [00:09:34]: You see this at worlds. You see it all the time. Like, a good example would be like, Carlos Nassar before the. Before the Europeans this year, who watched him warm up in a training hall. And, like, a day or two out, he's doing like a 160 hang snatch triple. And he missed one of the reps. And, like, he won. He did great. Max Aita [00:09:59]: He lifted super huge. Like, I would have a hard time sitting there and being like, why did you do that? Like, what was the reason for doing th
