For today's post I am
fortunate to kick off an interview with Greg Nuckols. For those that don't know
Greg is doing a science degree at Harding University, works as a trainer in his
breaks at Travis Mash's Mash Elite Performance and has been published on sites such as
T-Nation, Juggernaught and Fitocracy .
His best lifts are 340kg (750) squat, 204
kg (450) bench and 328kg (725) deadlift. On the platform he has pulled together
777kg (1714) raw and drug free at 220 and 855 (1885) at 242 totals. So clearly
this dude can lift.
Training Truth: Greg welcome to Training Truth, we met as it were
on the back of Travis Mashes controversial article on JTS a while back. We will
touch base on that shortly but for the Training Truth crew can you give a
little bio on how you got into lifting, what your current training looks like
and your current competitive goals?
Greg Nuckols: Well, I actually got into lifting when I was training
for basketball. When it finally sank in that I wasn't going to grow any
more (I was 5'10" in 6th grade. Doctors said I was going to be
6'8." Today? 5'10"), I figured I needed to do some
strength work so I could play above the rim better. I met Travis at a
local gym, he showed me the ropes, and then after a pretty serious head trauma
that kept me from being able to compete in sports with any sort of contact
element, I decided to take up powerlifting to satisfy my competitive drive.
My current training is all over the place. I'm in offseason mode
right now. I loosely follow a block periodization model, so when I'm a
long way out from a meet, the only things I really worry about are bringing up
weaknesses, increasing training volume, getting my GPP up to an acceptable
level, and keeping by body healthy. Things are programmed more coherently
when I'm prepping for a meet, but I don't see the need to be too precise when
I'm just building a foundation. I'll occasionally have little
competitions with friends to gauge where my strength is at and to get practice
dialing my training in for a mini-peak, but for the most part it's just about
keeping my body healthy and preparing it for the level of training necessary
for peaking for a big total when the time comes to compete.
My competitive goal, at the moment, is to take at least one all-time,
untested record, but to take it in a drug-tested meet. I have a few
all-time drug tested records, but drug-free powerlifting is like little league
and untested powerlifting is like the MLB, in my opinion. Most people who
have the mental make-up necessary to be the best are the ones with a win-at-all-costs
mindset. I think that the majority of the people with the most potential
end up using drugs at some point in their career. Obviously there are
guys like Mike Tuchscherer, David Ricks, Blaine Sumner, Beau Moore, Brad
Gillingham etc who are top-tier guys but not on drugs, but for the most part, I
think untested lifting has a larger talent pool, so it's those records I'm most
interested in pursuing. At the moment, Dan Green's 2030 at 220 without
wraps, Andrey Belayev's 2094 at 220 with knee wraps, or Larry Pacifico's 2080
at 242 without wraps seem the most vulnerable. I'm not saying that I'm
for-sure going to take any of them, but within a year or two, a squat just
above 800 with wraps/high 700s without wraps, a bench close to 500, and a deadlift
around 800 seem feasible.
I hope that doesn't come off as too elitist. I am very supportive
of any lifter (or any athlete, for that matter) who has a different set of
goals than me. I'm just the type who doesn't really get animated to
pursue something unless it's something big. If any of your readers are
going after federation records or drug-free records, or something of that
nature, I don't mean to put them down. They probably have a more mentally
healthy approach to fitness and competition in all honesty.
Training Truth: Sounds like the off season is mapped out well
despite your heavy schedule and I particularly like the idea of taking an all
time record in a drug tested meet.
We made contact over the article Travis
Mash wrote for Juggernaught that outlined some very specific criticisms of Mark
Rippetoe. While I don't want to rehash that now you (as part of Mash Elite)
made what I thought to be a very classy move and wrote a piece that
dispassionately articulated what I think was an objective summary of Travis's
points while giving Rippetoe the benefit of the doubt. If I can summarise what
I took away from that article was that you should understand the experience and
specfic cohort that a coach works with to understand the relevance of their advice.
For example coaches that predominately work with intermediates and beginners
may not have as much relevance for experienced intermediate or advanced
lifters. You also suggested that the context of an online coaching video must
be take into account as the cues and instruction being given may only have
relevance for the subject being coached and their individual issues rather than
taken as principles for all of us. Is that a fair summary?
Greg Nuckols: Thanks man! And I'd say that's a pretty fair
representation.
Training Truth: You recently wrote an excellent piece that was published on Chad Wesley Smith's Juggernaught about the
Seven Habits of Successful Strength Athletes (great read check out the link below). Can I take that concept a little further and
ask from a coaching perspective what 1 change made the biggest difference to
each of your own 3 lifts?
Greg Nuckols: For the squat, I'd say making a point of taking
weight off the bar has been the most beneficial change to my squat
training. I cut my teeth on Westside, so I was used to going over 90%
week-in-and-week-out. Using that approach, my squat plateaued in the low
500s multiple times. Eventually I decided I may as well try something
else, so I gave Sheiko a shot. Lo and behold, training with 70-85% of my
max with a ton of volume shot my squat up substantially. I had to abandon
Sheiko, though, because squatting low bar all the time was wrecking my
elbows. That's when I discovered, serendipitously, that high bar squats
also helped a lot. I used a Bulgarian method to put another 100 pounds on
my max, but I only went low bar maybe 3-4 times during that period, so I was
typically only handling around 80%ish of my low bar max squatting to daily
maxes high bar. So that progressed along nicely for a few months, and
when I hit a wall again, I took up paused squats, and then breathing paused
squats, again forcing me to take more and more weight off the bar. They
eventually pushed my squat up to 750.
For bench, the things that helped most were increasing volume and
frequency. When I did Sheiko and was benching 5 days a week with a ton of
volume each day, my bench jumped from 365 to 425ish in a matter of
months. Nothing else ever got me past 365, and since I abandoned Sheiko
for bench, my PR has only grown about 20 pounds in spite of some weight
gain. Why don't I go back to it? Because I despise it. Simple
as that ;)
For deadlift, I think pulling sumo has a big carryover to my conventional
deadlift. I'm built horribly to pull, so the musculature that supports my
pelvis needs to be strong if I'm going to break the bar off the ground without
going into lumbar flexion. Sumos do a good job building glutes, and since
you can stay more upright you can typically train it more often than
conventional since it doesn't beat your back up as much. I'm a big
believer in frequency when you're trying to bring a lift up, and typically
frequent deadlifting requires a healthy dose of sumo pulling.
Training Truth: To your credit you
seem to have hit on the right prescription to blow past sticking points. Two
things resonated with me that you mentioned. Firstly volume on the bench. As most coaches say you have to practise a movement to get better and that means more frequency. Secondly ditto on the sumo deadlift. I have just
started running these myself and it is really helping get a different but complementary strength through the pelvis.
What about recovery between sessions? Can you give me an insight
into the Nuckols prescription for recovery and feel free to share a little about your infamous 'Secret
Sauce'!
Greg Nuckols: Sleep and food are
90% of it. Constantly pushing volume
helps me be able to recover from more as well.
Mike Tuchschrer's analogy on this topic is apt. If training stress is like water filling up a
bucket, then recovery is dumping that water back out. If the bucket overflows,
you're overtrained. However, by
improving work capacity, you are actually increasing the size of that bucket
and how quickly you can pour water back out of it. Self-myofascial release has also been
huge. When I'm feeling particularly worn
down, I'll take contrast showers for a few days and they help a lot.
The Secret Sauce is my little supplement blend. It's citrulline,
taurine, creatine, beatine, l-carnitine, and sodium bicarbonate. I had plans to mass produce and sell it, but
I think I'll have to at least postpone those plans. Something else much bigger came up. Why spend your time frying small fish when
you get the opportunity to hunt Moby Dick?
I will say, though, it works quite well.
Most supplement have one or two useful ingredients and a bunch of
fillers. In terms of the stuff that
actually works well for improving training quality, decreasing fatigue,
speeding recovery, and setting the optimal hormonal environment for training,
the Sauce has most of the good stuff without any filler.
But again, seriously, food and sleep make the most difference. If you're not recovering well and you're
having to wake up with an alarm, then you're not sleeping enough.
Training Truth: Yep the sleep and food are so fundamental. I can always trace an average session back to
a poor sleep or missed meal. Also I think average working Joe’s like myself
also underestimate work/life stress and its cumulative effect on training.
Interesting to hear something bigger than the Secret Sauce is on the
way...looking forward to seeing what you are working on.
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