Built by Stone: Derek Poundstone on Strength, Pain and Purpose

Rebecca: Welcome back to the Table Podcast. your host, Rebecca Innes. ⁓ There's a moment that happens when you over heavy stone with no knurling, no handles, no perfect balance, just cold, awkward mass sitting on the ground, daring you to figure it out. You can't out technique it with fancy equipment. You can't negotiate it with it. You either it ⁓ or you don't. I've had two I'm 50. And when I'm going like your maximal loads for Atlas stones, it's a nightmare. so ⁓ sometimes I'm thinking about the bracing and breathing because I would don't want to piss on the competition floor, but then it's kind of like, ⁓ just happens. ⁓ Stone lifting has always been the most honest test in my view of in the strength sport. Long before modern strongman arenas and television lights, men proved their strength by lifting whatever the earth gave them, rough, uneven and forgiving stones. Even today when the lights are bright and the crowds are loud, Atlas stones still remain one of the last events where strength, courage and problem solving collide. And in my view, there are very few athletes and modern strongman
Derek: Yeah, I got to tell you, like, I mean, I get that and I've been to a few competitions. mean, I think every competition I've gone to where there's female athletes, I there's always a certain amount of floor peeing. I don't think, I think I can understand, like, I don't think I even remember who, it's not like, ⁓ she's the peer that I saw last week. ⁓ can understand, listen, I can understand how it can be embarrassing. ⁓
bex: And welcome back. As always, we start with Peter Martin's The Twixt, the Stone, and the Turf, readings and quotes from that as it relates to historic lifting. I had originally recorded a session ⁓ on Thogalaich ⁓ but recent events, ⁓ we're gonna shift gears a little bit and we're going to speak more about Gaelic culture.
Rebecca: Yeah. you that have mastered that challenge the way today's guest has. And I'm a bit biased on this as I have watched many of his videos, as I'm sure many of you all have as well, and his own Strongman journey. So we have Derek Poundstone, a two-time champion of the Arnold Strongman Classic, multiple-time winner of America's Strongest Man, and in my view, ⁓ one of most technically gifted atlas stone lifters of his era. Right. ⁓
Derek: but it shouldn't be, right? Like at the end of the day, you know, it just is what it is. I guys generally don't piss, but they'll definitely shit themselves. It's just not visible, you know? So, I mean, it does sort of happen. And I think that, if you're really worried about something like that, then take steps to prevent it, right? Like, I mean, you can't stop, but you could, you know, put some sort of device, you know, like a pad or some sort of, if, it's...
bex: And what Peter had in mind. And this episode with Derek really speaks to something Peter Martin would have ascribed to. And the more I've sat with Derek Poundstone's words ⁓ that episode with him, and honestly the way he carries himself off the mic, and we had ⁓ really amazing conversation about my own personal goals. ⁓
Rebecca: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ of the best ⁓ stone lifters. ⁓ 2008 at the Fortisimus Strongman World Strength Challenge, he loaded the legendary Louis Cyr Stone, which we'll talk about today, ⁓ feat tied to the legacy of the great Louis Cyr securing his place in strength history. But moments like just don't come from being strong. They come from years of figuring out how to move awkward weight, how to stay calm, and kind of work through the pain. And we'll talk about all those things today. Yeah, yeah.
Derek: But you need to do something so you don't, so you're not thinking about it. Because the more you say, don't think about it, either you're going to piss on the floor or you're going to do something so you don't. But the last thing you want to do is inhibiting your ability because you're worried about it. And ironically, the less you worry about it, the less it's going to happen. The perfect example is in snowboarding or skiing or skateboarding or whatever.
bex: But the more I keep thinking about Peter Martin's work. And Peter wrote, strength was always there, and it was always respected. And maybe more importantly, quote, nowhere will you hear stories told of the personal strength of the individual speaking. It's the Gaelic way, end quote.
Rebecca: Yes. ⁓ Yeah.
bex: That hit me hard with this podcast. Even Derek said to me during the episode, Rebecca, you don't need to talk about your strength. People will talk about it for you. And that really hit me hard after the podcast. Because after the Louis Cyr stone lift, Derek never walked around proclaiming himself the greatest stone lifter alive. He never needed to crown himself world's best at this, world class at that.
Rebecca: Derek, welcome to the show.
Derek: You don't want to look at the thing that you want to avoid because then you're going to hit it. Right. So like you look away from, you know, the, the, if you see Oh shit, there's, there's a cliff there. Then you're going to, know, or there's a tree there, then you can hit the tree. So what you need to do is you need to look away. Well, the same thing when you're training is if you're thinking about getting injured, you're going to get injured. If you're thinking about, you know, something besides what you're doing, it's going to happen. And it doesn't always happen that way. it. It's. I was like, who's this badass? Is this like a threesome here? I don't know who the hell she's talking about. You're too kind. I appreciate all that. And you'll learn probably very little about stones. You'll probably learn more about how to keep a conversation going in the direction you want with me. I tend to go a little, I tend to meander a little bit.
Rebecca: Yes. you No.
bex: He never chased that world first energy. The community instead did the talking. That feels deeply connected to the older Gaelic strength culture Peter writes about, where memory, conduct, and action mattered more than words or noise. The body dies, but the memory lives on. Personal strength is remembered.
Derek: 90 % of the time when I'm squatting, I've tore my quad twice while squatting. that thought enters my mind, I would say 90 % of the time, and I'm like, fuck, don't think about it. Don't think about it. Don't think about it. And sure, shit, while I'm squatting, I'm thinking about that feeling. That feeling of your quad tearing when you're squatting is not a fun feeling. So instead of telling myself not to think about it, But I think that's the point, right? You know, it's fun.
Rebecca: Yeah, yeah, it's supposed to be a natural conversation for sure. And as much as you plan these things, you tend to wander, wander off in new directions as information gets revealed. But as I always start with every guest, what are you drinking today?
bex: That line could honestly sit underneath so much of what Derek represents, not only in this podcast, but in his career of strength. It's not just his strength, it's not just his pain tolerance, not just lifting really impossible things, but it's his deep humility, his respect for history, the respect for the stones, and respect for the people who came before.
Derek: Well, caffeine, I'm not sure if I should show a little little little bang. Well, you know, I.
Rebecca: Perfect. ⁓ perfect. Yes.
Derek: I just embrace it. I'm just like, ⁓ what's the worst that's going to happen? I've already felt it, twice. So there's that. So there's either you, you, you ⁓ don't think it. And the more you don't, you tell yourself, I think about it, you're going to think about it, ⁓ or you embrace it and say, fuck it, whatever. it is what it is, you know? So. ⁓ I'm somebody that tends to burn the candle at sort of both ends. You know, I go to school, you know, almost full time and work full time and, you know, kids and wife and house and work out and stuff. I, know, I'm good for a couple of caffeinated beverages a day. So it's necessary.
bex: Peter also warned about strength culture becoming spectacle instead of stewardship, about forgetting the meaning underneath the feats themselves. And I think this conversation with Derek brought that meaning back into focus. The lift itself speaks, the conduct of the individual speaks, and yet it's the community that ascribes the legacy and remembers. And now on to the show.
Rebecca: I like to fuck it or whatever. I have just a few more questions before we round out this episode and I nearly didn't cover like of the things that I wanted to glean from you. But ⁓ your peak, how many times a week were you training stones? Well, I've already had my caffeine today, but I'm prepping for my workout tomorrow. just before this episode, I went to the store and grabbed two rotisserie chickens and realized as I was getting to one pound of rotisserie chicken, that two pounds was just going to be way too much for my shake. So today I've got a one pound
Derek: at my peak once. But I would do, you know, if we're, depends on what you're calling stones. You're calling sandbags and kegs, stones. mean, there was a point in time where I was doing sandbags and or kegs ⁓ probably three times a week and then stones ⁓ once. And, you know,
Rebecca: Yeah. Okay. chicken and 20 ounces of water mixed for the Poundstone shake to chug while I'm doing this episode and I hope I survive it because it actually took a whole rotisserie chicken and I don't think I've ever I've ever ate that in my life but my squats should be amazing tomorrow with this nourishment. ⁓ didn't taste bad either it doesn't taste bad.
Derek: you And I was doing it specifically for the, the, exactly what I talked about. Like I wasn't doing it for technique. And when I was doing, kegs and sandbags multiple times a week, it was always for, quote unquote, conditioning. Um, one of the things that that's something I programmed and, I trained with, I helped train Nick, uh, Chaperols for a bit, out of, out of Massachusetts, out of the Cape. Um, and. Well, is it a first time? Are you just a regular thing with the chicken shakes?
Rebecca: No, I saw one of your videos that said that you did ⁓ two pounds of chicken as part of your eight meals, two pounds of chicken, 40 ounces of water, and that was your shake. I added some creatine as well.
Derek: One thing that he's actually, is amazing at sandbags, and I'm going give you a little, little, little, little, little, little secret. He got good at sandbags because I programmed a ton of sandbags in his training, right? Like, imagine that. And you can guess how many times he did sandbags a week, you know, two to three times a week, and he did sandbags into loading. did sandbag carries. Yeah. Yeah, I had done that. So the, the, the story behind that to really start off in the, you know, to give you, well, delay the foundation of, of how my mind works. And I think it'll, we pull back the curtain a little bit of, as, as we sort of get to know each other. And I say, we, I mean, you know, the audience and you and I, you know, you're the facilitator, right? Like they get to listen and you get to ask the questions, right? So, but, but. back and forth and back, ⁓ and and behold, ⁓ like year or so later, he's like loading 500 pound, know, shouldering like 500 pound sandbags. Surprise. ⁓ No, mean, he did a fuck ton of sandbag training and he didn't do like heavy shouldering. I mean, he did, he did like, but the base of that was a ⁓ huge of sandbag carries. So ⁓ there go. Really one of the things that I found early on is the limitations really become, they're really just barriers to what successful outcome you want. And I found that early on, I couldn't really get enough food in. I'm not a big eater. don't really, I mean, I was always a bigger sort of kid, but I was first getting into working out.
Rebecca: Yeah. And so what would you say, like, I mean, you are kind of carrying on this, you're a coach, you continue to coach, correct? No, you don't coach now? Well.
Derek: No, because I hate people. just kidding. No, I don't. No, I don't. I coach. No, I love people. just, don't. I don't. I knew I couldn't just rely on protein shakes and supplement protein. So I was always trying to find ways to get you know protein and other nourishment in while I was leading a real life. Well, a bunch of guys that were my age at the time, 17 years old or so, were running around and just working out and working part-time. I was a full-time worker. I was doing construction. So I needed to get the food in.
Rebecca: You
Derek: I don't, it's a relationship, right? I, for me, coaching is a very sacred sort of thing. Like I loved coaching Rob. I mean, loved it. And I probably got more out of it than he did, you know? Hate to say it. Like, as I developed a friendship and a bond and, and I was really, and it, like, it's just, that's just life, right?
Rebecca: Yes. Hmm
Derek: When I was working and I only had short breaks, I had a coffee break and I was a union labor a little later on 19. But I needed to be able to get the food in quick. So that's where the chicken shake, as a matter of fact, it was tuna first. would use five cans of tuna and I would blend it up and that was two different shakes and did that for a number of years every day. And you heard that correctly, it was five cans of tuna, was about 150 grams of protein. I was thinking like I'd retire and I'd have like, it'd be like, I would have my tommy gun, right? Like I would have the guy that I coach, ⁓ the listeners know what I'm talking about here. If I gotta tell ⁓ just here. But like, I'd have this guy who'd like, you I'm better than you, know, nope. the guy that I get is, is ⁓ world's gay. of course, know, like that's, that's like, ⁓ like.
Rebecca: ⁓ Yeah.
Derek: ⁓ and it was two different protein shakes, you know, I call it protein tuna shakes. I, I smelled like tuna, you know, ⁓ most of the day, was solid white Albuquerque cause it had the higher tuna content and it was a little, it was a little less like squishy. ⁓ I did it for a number of years. probably two years or so. And then, ⁓ I kept on hearing these things about, you know, I gotta be careful of mercury. So I went to a nephrologist and they checked on ⁓ a of things.
Rebecca: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Derek: And he is everything that I am not. He takes care of his body. He's in tune, does a lot of prerehab and rehab. I did none of that. And he was a good great deadlifter. Not my style. He had a great hitch. ⁓ Moving events, hit or miss.
Rebecca: Mm-hmm.
Derek: one of which was my mercury level, which was starting to get a little high. So then I was like, well, I'll use canned chicken. Um, and the tuna shake, by the way, came from reading a muscle and fitness, article in the late nineties. there was a surgeon that was pretty fit and he talked about how we do these 10 hour surgeries. I think it was an orthopedic surgeon and he would drink these tuna shakes. So it wasn't really my idea, but I, so I did the tuna shakes and I switched over to. ⁓ got much better. ⁓ I hope that I helped a little bit that, but I, I, I offered nothing by way of his overhead press thought, you know, like, I'm like, how can I help him? but I found I was able to help quite a bit, ⁓ well, well, we working together. I the guy was, was, was within, you inches of pressing, ⁓ think he tore his tricep right around 500 pounds or so, but I'd seen him. ⁓ He, doing during our, our, I was programmed as training. uh, chicken, canned chicken shakes. And that was like super gritty. Uh, I get it from, I get it from Costco, like a big wholesaler. And I'm like, I could just boil my own chicken. I'd boil the shit out of it, you know, the technical term. I would just boil a little, you know, 25, 30 minutes. and then I, you know, I would, you know, boil several days worth of chicken. think towards the end, I would, again, I would buy 40 pound bags.
Rebecca: Mm-hmm.
Derek: There was like six weeks in a row where he was hitting a 400 pound log in 450 pounds, sorry, a 450 pound log in training every week for multiple sets and multiple reps. Like by the time that he was looking to hit a 500 pound log, he was more than capable, right? he had turned himself into just this, he had fortified ⁓ body into just this, this, this overhead pressing machine. And if you remember, everyone's like, well,
Rebecca: You
Derek: I cleaned up as much as possible because the fat would kind of be a little weird if you blow when you blended it. And, you know, I did that from. The boiled chicken shakes. I probably first started. You know, I would say around 98, 99, maybe. 2000 at the latest, and I did that all the way through up until about 2013 or so. So it wasn't like, and I did that, you know, every day.
Rebecca: Mm-hmm.
Derek: It's it's a push jerk. But if, people really think back and they look at how he was pressing the mid 400 pounds for reps, he was straight push press in the shit out of that with very little jerk. ⁓ that's when I think people realize like, holy shit. Well, at least me, my perception of kind of what the strength of me was realizing was ⁓ the push jerk is not like he's just a sick overhead presser, right? Like. I would take like one day off or so on the weekend. Maybe I just got tired of doing it because it's, you but, know, mean, thousands of, of, of, of shakes. And, ⁓ you know, it was like, I see these sort of folks talk about it and like, ⁓ you know, these, know, like now, like I didn't invent the idea and You know, the fact he's able to grind out the reps, he was able to grind out with the weight, was able to, it's just the fact he, would weigh at most 300 pounds when he was pressing the heavy, heavy logs. I mean, he was cleaning logs that weighed almost 200 pounds more than he weighed. that's crazy. And then pressing it, like that's just wild. So, um, so at the end of the day, the, you know, the train, You know, so people say that's my, know, I just got the idea for somebody else, but I perfected it for you know, for me. And then, you know, there's folks that doing it now, but I mean, I think the real, real thing to, to realize is it's to do it one off is one thing, you know, I mean, I did this for, you know, well over a decade. And I think that that should just really the picture that this wasn't like a, this is cool. I'm going to do this was, you know, this was part of the,
Rebecca: Yeah.
Derek: stones and train sandbags and kegs to get better at stones. And the frequency is going to be really, is going to dictate the level that you're going to increase your performance. as with all things, think about the treadmill pushes and the lesson that you can learn from me there is, well, if training at two days a week is good, well, let me just train at five days a week. the cautionary tale is, no, don't do that. Two or three days, you The key to success, right? Like is I have to do what it takes. It's not finding something that I can do today once or tomorrow or a week or a month or year. I need to find a path forward that I knew I can do for years on end. And that was what I did. And that one thing, it's small. But when you add all those small things that we'll sort of talk about, you know, they
Rebecca: Mm-hmm.
Derek: stones, kegs, sandbags, that's a nice little mix. But like not just heavy loading, the carrying is what really got, I feel like is what really makes people better at the heavier sort of stuff.
Rebecca: Hmm, I like that. And this is a kind of a nice segue out of the episode. So usually I ask every guest if they have kind of three pieces of advice, whether it could be life or stones ⁓ related. What would you tell folks listening?
Derek: the sum of the total becomes quite large. You those little things that you do, like not missing a workout, making sure I'm getting the proper ⁓ nourishment, sure that my training was always difficult, never being complacent, always pushing myself. ⁓ And you always push yourself physically, right? Because there's only limits. But then it was pushing myself mentally, which is, you know, that's where the high rep curls came in.
Rebecca: Mm-hmm.
Derek: Wow. ⁓ Three piece of advice. That's a tough one. think the whole show is around one of the main piece of advice is, well, no, it's not paint. It's not about necessarily pain. You can endure a lot if you have hope, ⁓ if you're building towards something. I think that the first thing I would say is just,
Rebecca: It's paint. Yeah.
Derek: Now that's where some of the odd stone stuff came in. That's where, you know, there's, like no one really cared about shouldering Atlas stones. You know, when I was, you know, early in my career, but I would do it just because it was hard. Like there was zero benefit, you know, I mean, when you think about this is pre like crazy social media, YouTube and stuff. I would do it with my train. The first time I ever shouldered a 400 pound Atlas stone, you know, I was like, I had loaded, I, Find something that you love doing and do it, right? Don't do stones or don't do anything really. If, if, if you have some sort of preconceived notion that like, that's going to make you cool or like who would think that in the first place, but, do it because you love it. Find the thing that you love and do it. And then when you no longer love it, I mean,
Rebecca: Mm.
Derek: I set up too far for I was loading stones over a yoke for reps. And I found that was a really good test of stone loading because the box is in front of you. So it really messes with your perception. It really makes you very comfortable. It just grip and rip, just pulling it and just turning something imperfect into something that's perfect. Well, I say perfect, just pick it up and go. It really allowed. It's one thing if you're like 11 year old and you're like, I don't want to play football anymore. ⁓ okay, too bad. Get up, Johnny and you're gonna play football, right? you you don't get to choose at this point. But I think that, as an adult, we're only on this, this world for a certain amount of time. do the thing that you enjoy doing. And if you don't enjoy it anymore, what are you doing? ⁓ Either you got to find way to make it enjoyable ⁓ or find something else. But, but. ⁓ because it just introduces additional chaos, loading without the box in front of you. And the yoke is slick, slippery, so you just have to just kind of toss it over. it's an additional sort of challenging, it's way to make something that's not maybe, that's somewhat challenging, extremely challenging. So the goal was to load the stone, but I was standing too far from the yoke. So one of my training partners, Dave Mahalov, The little bullet point below that is, do you really like really look at the things that you're doing and do you really enjoy them or do you just really enjoy posting about doing them or telling people that ⁓ enjoy doing? That's ⁓ I said, well, you know, don't do it because it's cool. ⁓ do it because you want to post some shit on Instagram or social media about you doing it. ⁓ it, do it ⁓ see if you can just, if you can not tell anybody. He's like, what are you gonna shoulder that? I was like, yeah, that sounds like, I was like, but that's exactly, the idea didn't come into my head until he mentioned it. And I was like, yeah, but this still was in my lap already. And so I just transitioned and shouldered it and it was a 405 or 420 or whatever. And my workout partners were like.
Rebecca: Yeah, I am.
Derek: I've been going to gym. I never stopped going to the gym. would say, I would say I'm still pretty, pretty strong, but I don't post my workouts because it's, it's, it's sacred to me at this point in my life. Like, I don't want you to know what I'm doing because it's none of your business, you know, because for me, I'm doing it for me. Like I don't need to kiss and tell, you know, so that's the first piece of advice, which is very long, but it's fun thing you love doing. Did you just shoulder a four? At this time, the heaviest stone that people were loading was at the worlds was 380 or 400 and I'm shouldering it. Like they're like, what is like what in the world? But I think that's the sort of stuff that, uh, you know, that's what it takes. Like those little, you know, and it was, just did it once. Then it was like, well, this is, this became a thing. would, I would add it to my, sort of my, my routines, you know, I would, I would have like lighter stone days where I would.
Rebecca: I like it, it's good.
Derek: And that's why make sure you enjoy what you're doing. Make sure you're doing it for the right reasons. And before you give up on it, make sure that if you don't enjoy doing it, you know why, right? If it's because whatever, just try, give it a chance, right? And the second thing is, I think is dream big because when I was a young guy, I watched World's Strongest Man in the 90s. I would shoulder to the left side and to the right side just to add a little bit more of a complexity to the lift. So I wasn't always lifting, because at that time I had like a 450 pound Atlas stone. This is before I had the 555. I'm sorry, I did have the 555, because I got that pretty early on. So the funniest, well, I'm like going down a little rabbit hole here.
Rebecca: The 555, yeah.
Derek: I remember seeing Stubby Reigns deadlift, like I think it was 800 pounds or something like that in the late nineties. And I was like, I can do that. And, ⁓ my friends are like, ⁓ no, can't. ⁓ if I listened to them, you know, we wouldn't be having this conversation, right? I would, I would be, John Q citizen, which is fine. ⁓ cause that's all I am now. I mean, but I wouldn't have had the experiences that I had. So.
Rebecca: That's fine, go down the rabbit hole.
Derek: So the 555 was ⁓ Steve Slater made that for me very early on. I had talked to Steve Slater. This is before, it's like 2006 maybe. Yeah, I'm thinking it's sometime around 2006. I get linked up with Steve Slater somehow. forget. I think it was a mutual friend of me, Garak Daft, who did the Viper video. He's the who filmed it. dream big and who knows, right? ⁓ But you can't just say, you I want to grow up to be a superhero. it's like, Hey, I want to lift this stone, but now how am I going to do it? Right? I need to, I need to know that there's a plan and here's my plan. you can hire, do whatever you want to do, but make sure that you ⁓ wake up every morning. And edited it. That's his video. And he did an amazing job. This is, this is early 2000s. Like no one was doing this sort of stuff. He was out of his time and he came out and whatever. So, I had early. So that video was, like a year worth of footage, which is wild to think about. And it was probably, you know, tens of hours of footage, right? Like to make this sort of short little clip. ⁓
Rebecca: Mm-hmm.
Derek: And you know exactly what you want to do that day. Not, like a, I gotta go to no, no. Why are you on this earth? Right? if you want to, if, if your goal is like, have all these, I want to be a wife. I want to be a husband. I want to have kids. Yes. But who are you? You know, if you're somebody that says, Hey, I want to climb the Himalayas. I want to, learn how to, uh, ski. I want to build a car.
Rebecca: Mm-hmm.
Derek: So I had got linked up with Garrick and who would come out to my house from Ohio a couple of times to film. Just, he just thought it was cool what I was doing and thought I was a little nutty. Me and he picked like two guys who were on the opposite ends of the spectrum. You both of us were pretty strong, but Travis is like the Tasmanian devil. And, you know, I'm more like, you know, this sort of calculated, had the...
Rebecca: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Derek: You know, I want to go back to school. I want to be a cop or a fireman. I want to join the military. I don't care what you want to do. Pick something. ⁓ Make, your life not revolve around that one thing, but then make sure that your, your, your life is set up to achieve that, success. Right? Like it sounds so easy, but why, I said I was, could, I can compete in world's strongest man and I competed in world's strongest man. the clean cut hair, you know, we just completely two different ends of spectrum, both I think equally gifted. probably better stone loader, dare I say. yeah, would say he's definitely a better stone loader. ⁓ but what ends up happening is I get linked up with Garrick, Garrick ends up connecting with Steve Slater. Steve's like, what's the biggest ⁓ stone can load? And I'm like, I don't know. I mean, ⁓ like time I said I can win Fortissimus and I won Fortissimus when nobody else would go because world's strongest man was shutting all the other athletes out. I drum to my own beat. No one's telling me what the fuck I'm going to do. Right? I'm living my life and I don't care about money or whatever. like it's, I can, I could say, cause look at me. don't, I don't monetize my videos. don't make, don't follow my, I've done plenty of shit wrong, but I'm, I'm, I'm happy. You know, there's, you know, the, Arnold had the five 50, five 15, I think, or five Oh three. And I was like, that's peanut and I can, I can do more than that. I could probably do five 50. And he's like, no, he, and I think he thought I was, I was full of shit, but this time I was already loading, you know, 400 plus pound Atlas stones. I was doing at a time when worlds had like a 300 pound farmers. I was doing 415 pound per hand farmers. was doing 800 pound yolks. I was doing. I'm healthy. I love what I'm doing. I can come on a podcast and I can chat your ear off for an hour and a half ⁓ because I've learned a thing or two. So know who you are. And part of that is making sure you have goals and that you know how you're going to achieve those goals. And you wake up every day with that in mind. Like it's not like, I'm going to be the best stonelifter in the world all those other things in your life are But am I eating all my meals? Am I hitting my training? mile long ⁓ farmer's walks. Like it was wild. mean, I had around me and I had the, I had the worst enablers. Like my, my training partners was Tom, Tom McClure. Like the guy looked like he walked out of the, great lagoon somewhere. You know, that was a trend. Justin Sepulki, who I still, I talk to occasionally and a few other Kevin Cronin, who was like,
Rebecca: Mm-hmm.
Derek: Am I visualizing? I watching? Am I making sure that I'm supporting myself? Right. And the last thing is I think just don't take yourself too seriously. know, humility is a tough thing nowadays. I feel like everybody has a platform and everybody has an opinion and everybody feels like their opinion is important. ⁓ ⁓ know, there's so much chatter out there that winds up happening is ⁓ If you, if you don't record it, it didn't happen. You know, we called like, he's like, uh, like I, that's why I was, started recording stuff. Cause I guys like Kevin Cronin and be like, Oh, you didn't record it. Didn't happen. so Steve Slater ends up trying to make a 550 pound Atlas stone. and he ends up, he ends up sort of, uh, missing the target and it ends up being 555. it had 230 pounds of lead in the center as a 22 inch mold.
Rebecca: You
Derek: you know, nobody can really get a word in edgewise because everyone will tell you how to load stones and everyone will tell you how to lose weight and everyone will tell you, but who the fuck's listening and everybody's talking, right? Then who's listening? And, know, I think it's that simple, you know, is like slow down. ⁓ don't take yourself too seriously and you'll be all right. And, and So he makes it, you know, and I think, I don't even know who paid for it. think Garrick don't know if he, ⁓ an expensive stone, I imagine, but I get the stone. ⁓ was working, I get off work. ⁓ We shipped this, the stone's gotta be shipped to my buddy's, ⁓ had nursery, like a flower, like a, you ⁓ know, was a nursery, a garden center.
Rebecca: Yeah.
Derek: I would never tell somebody to do something that I don't do. And those are the rules I live by. I don't do social media and stuff because it's, I don't really think it's that important, right? If there's so much content out there that if you want to know something, ask, right? Rebecca, you wanted to know something and you ask and what happened? I told you, right? So a captive audience, I only tell people. ⁓ his parents had owned it. So we had to have it shipped there because it was a commercial address and it was a, it was a big stone on a pallet. So we put it on my buddy's truck. He's got a big diesel, like a Dodge pickup. we, bring it to another, another, another Tom's house. We, ⁓ you put a bunch of tires and stuff. We drop it off the truck and I'm just wearing like, I'm not even sure if I was even more workout pants. Like I had done like a couple of warmups ⁓ and,
Rebecca: Yes.
Derek: that asked me the question, right? I'm not gonna go out there and broadcast it because if I tell you, if I post something about, no one gives a shit, right? But if you really wanna know something, ask the question, if people are giving free advice, guess what? It's free for a reason. I mean, I'm giving free advice, But you get what I'm saying, it is what it is, right? You know, the couple of guys were like, he going to load it today? I'm like, yeah, I didn't even thinking about it, but I was like, yeah, I'm going to try, you know, first attempt. I get it up to the lip and everyone's just like, what in the hell? Get it in my lap. The first attempt and get it up to lip. then the last attempt, you hear me talking about it, how I, I was trying to front squat. It was just too heavy. mean, it was so heavy that when I tried to
Rebecca: Yeah. Yeah.
Derek: front squat, it was pulling my whole body forward because it weighed, I mean, shit, a couple hundred pounds more than I weighed. so I had found that needed to get the stone closer to my body. So by, by lifting my hips, was able to, know, so like I was able to keep the stone low, my hips high, and I was able to drive forward and throw my head back. So stone would rotate opposite of my butt. Right. So I'd be able to sort of toss it, and loaded it and Don't fall victim to this sort of like, you know, I haven't arrived, like, I'm, you know, once you start getting good at something, don't think you're an expert, right? Like just always be teachable and you'll be all right, you know, so.
Rebecca: Well, these last pieces of advice just hit home like super hard. And like, I'm just really, really happy that you that I reached out to you that you were so kind enough to agree to this episode. I think a lot of folks will take many things away from this. And especially if they even just listen to these last three pieces of pieces of advice, because I mean, there's a lot of stones out there.
Derek: In an instant, think that's when the folks that were around me were like, did he just load a quarter ton? Like, was that, did that just happen? yeah, then Garrick made that video, remember that video, King of the, well, King of the Stones. Yeah, and it was like, and he was already making the video and it was like that death metal and.
Rebecca: that are, you know, gigantic and not just the physical stones. And it's in how you approach them and your mindset. And I think I'm going to walk away from this episode with that in mind. But Derek, this has been absolutely amazing. Thank you for sharing the window into your life and the Louis Cyr Stone And I do hope that Yeah, I do.
Derek: And then at the end, just sort of cuts to, like you think you've seen, like, you know, the bad assery of like the stone and then it cuts to just in a garage, just loading a, 555 pound Atlas stone, you know, and that was early. mean, that was, you know, and I don't think people folks surpass that, you know, for, I would say close to a decade. Um, it was just messing around and I had loaded that stone probably like 40 times, um, you know, over the years.
Rebecca: that those stones will reappear at some event in the future. I I'm trying to find them. I don't know where they're located now, but I really hope that we can ⁓ those out of some storage locker somewhere ⁓ get those back on the world stage because I think that that would be absolutely phenomenal. You don't know where they are, do you? ⁓
Derek: And, you know, it, and I think that, I think, you you think about like the shouldering of the Atlas stone, the loading of that stone. was just dumb luck that there was video cameras around for, for the, mean, I guess this was early cell phones and stuff, you know, so like, like flip phone cameras, I guess, and stuff, but, ⁓ it just you know, we, we were having fun. And I say, we, as if it was just by myself and I was trying to just be like, Yeah, you know, they're, they're, they're, I was gonna say something funny, listen, I, you know, no idea, you know, and, I think, I think that's the, you can always make a 530 pound stone, I think, do you really want to find them though? Because I think that this caliber of athlete now can, there's plenty of folks that can load it, right? I think. I'm the best in the world. was never, it's never about that. It was just like, I love what I doing. And I loved like looking at, I love the look on, on my training partner's face when I would just do some just completely wild, like they're just like, like the, again, another one, the 800 pound deadlift for nine reps. was my back hurt. And I'm like, I'm going do some reps. They're going to keep it light, you know, and my training partner is like light, like 800. And I'm like, yeah, you know, and, and, you know, that's how.
Rebecca: Mm-hmm.
Derek: part of the nature of what makes this conversation interesting is the mythology of it all. I know for a fact that there's a couple athletes now that can load it. So if it's found and then that happens, it's not about me. For me, there's this sort of
Rebecca: Mm-hmm. You
Derek: it always progressed was just, you know, doing what I do best, which is just make poor decisions because, know, it's just somebody says something and I'm like, yeah, that sounds like a good idea. You know, it's just a challenge. a, it's a, it's a way to make the mundane a little more exciting. you can go to the gym and make training, painfully boring and routine and get amazing results, or you can go to gym and just do some, there's this connection, to people because what I had witnessed there, it transcended the lift. mean, I saw people crying, and I had realized that my role in this is a caretaker of this sort of, you know, this relationship of, it's important, right? it's not really that important. stuff that's just off the wall. I'm not like these guys doing like, know, pull up handstands, like all that sort of stuff. Like it's okay. But for me, was just, I would always do the work, but sometimes I would sort of deviate from that and try new things. in the course of trying new things, I became pretty good, you know?
Rebecca: Mm-hmm.
Derek: to me, right? I think when I hear people talk about it, I realize that it's important to them. Probably more important is to me. And I think that's disingenuous for me not to acknowledge that and not to make it important to me. Right? Like, and I realized that, like, you know, I forget when you messaged me first, like, it have been a decade ago. ⁓
Rebecca: Yeah and so again I've watched those videos those videos were given to me by my coach as I was trying to prep for my own kind of atlas stone journey and I'm sure countless others have. Did stones have to be like where was it natural for you at the beginning because obviously if you know you watch your videos the hip drive and the placement of the stone is is really in that hip crease. Mm-hmm. It was a decade ago. It was a decade ago.
Derek: Yeah. And you know, you were you were moved to action by a feat, right? By something I did that at the time, I was just doing my thing, right? so when I ask you the question, do you really want to find it? Because I think then it loses that hold on all of us, and I would be sad because I
Rebecca: Hmm. Did you start that way or did the technique develop like over time or were you just always really good at stones?
Derek: So I always sucked at stones. ⁓ You know, when I first started, know, the ability is always there. think, I don't know what, something clicked. you know, my history, you know, did construction for a bit when I first was competing, I was a mason tender, ironically, you know, so I would very early on in my career before I had turned pro, well, I think I competed for,
Rebecca: You
Derek: Any like plenty of people, plenty of the athletes now, there's a handful that I think can load up, load that stone, right? it's like the six minute mile. Like once somebody breaks a six minute mile, then it's just, sort of four minute mile, geez, five minute mile, once somebody breaks that, that, that barrier, then it becomes easier. So, it's found, great, ⁓ I think that would be cool, but it'd be a little sad, not necessarily just for me, but I think that it has a hold on a lot of people. I still talk to plenty of folks, people that aren't even into strength and they watch the video because they hear about, know, they see me, whatever, you know. Like a year I turned pro my first year, but even before that, when I was powerlifting, I, I remember ⁓ being Mason tender. I basically was like the Mason's bitch, right? Like I have to like, give them the mortar and stuff. And ⁓ no, no, offense to Mason tenders, but you know, that that's, you I was at their beck and call and I had a couple of cool guys I worked with and they would hire me on the weekends to help them lift
Rebecca: Yeah.
Derek: It can be coworkers I work with that they're like, it's a big goofy guy. And then somebody like whispers like, he's like, you he used to do this. And then they watch the video and they're like, they could give a shit less about pulling a plane or a train, but it, it, it has a grasp on. I mean, I would say a good number of people. mean, there anytime that video is posted, I see thousands of comments about people that just, they may be know nothing about me, but they know about the lift and it holds a special place in their heart. So. Um, like for, would be, they build fireplaces, on, on, on homes, like, and they do like the, the, um, the stone facade on the, wasn't facade, but they would do the stone exterior of the fireplace. And so I would, they'd have the scaffolding and I'd choke off a big stone with a rope and i had a pulley. And I would pull it up and like the, was crazy. Like I, I'd like almost ripped down the scaffolding because the stone was so, they wanted the big stones because they would be able to.
Rebecca: Mm-hmm.
Derek: It holds a place in my heart and it has become more important over the years because, you know, I see how it motivates people like you that have this sort of like, you, put this thing on a pedestal and you, you, you're like, that is awesome. And that embodies everything I want to do. know, and then you realize that you're doing it. Right. Like, so like, but that's, that's the thing that you hold up to that sort of, to that light. make more progress. And I'd like almost ripping off the scaffolding off the side of this big, huge mansion, and on down the shoreline. ⁓ it's sort of stuff. So, you know, early on, I, just, ⁓ I mean, I'll back up even, even ⁓ before, like as kid, I grew up in Europe and then, ⁓ I'm, ⁓ my family had moved to Dakota when I was around nine or ⁓ nine, ⁓ just before I turned 10.
Rebecca: Yeah.
Derek: and You know, I don't want to see that go, not for me, but for all the people that have been motivated to follow their dreams, right? I don't know why it's the stone. it just, is what it is. You know, there's a large amount of people that see that lift. And for some reason they're like, you know, and I don't, can't put words to it. wish I could, but I want that to stay as long as possible. Not for me, but we, this long, like 200 foot driveway and, ⁓ we had a separate like cabin. was like an old one room schoolhouse. My parents had a sort of redone the inside and turned into like a little rental property. We rented out to folks every, you know, like short term sort of deal, you know, and, know, our driveway get like weeds and stuff occasionally. So my father had this great idea. We dug out the whole entire driveway, like down like a foot. And I say, we wasn't like, you know, my brother, myself and my father was like, for these conversations because I can tell that it's had an impact and I don't want that impact to go away, you know? My brother and me, my father like supervised. We was like the chain gang, you know, I mean, it's yeah. And, I was, when I say kid, like I was like 11 or 12. And then he, know, he, dig out like a section, put the plastic stuff down and put like the, the barrier up, you know, like, so we use the split, the split rail type type looking wood. And that was a barrier. And then he, he'd go out and we had a mini van with it and he had a trailer. So he'd load a ton of gravel into the trailer and.
Rebecca: The foreman. Yeah, it's an, this is an incredible way to end off the episode, but like they say, they say that never meet your idol. And like, I don't want to call you that because I know that will make you feel awkward. So, so I won't call you that, but someone that I really respect that can lift heavy shit and, and, you know, one of them was the Louis Cyr Stone ⁓ completely proved that saying wrong today because I feel, ⁓ more more
Derek: the He'd pull up to the house and we'd be in the back of the trailer, like shoveling off, literally a ⁓ ton of ⁓ gravel. we did that, probably 40 times over the course of like a year or so, ⁓ and we found out very that like, if we would, if we'd unload the back of the trailer first, shovel it over the front and then unhitch it from the car. We're kids. mean, my brother's two years older than me.
Rebecca: And I'm definitely moving off whey protein and doing this. Because I'm done. I'm done. I have a little scope left, but I finished the whole rotisserie chicken during this episode. But no, you have left me more motivated to do my Louis Cyr Stone And it's not going to be a 500 pound stone, but it's going to be close to that. I hope you've motivated and...
Derek: you We'd unhitch it, which we stopped doing that because it was too dangerous, but there's a bolt that we would pull from the trailer and the trailer would tip up and we were able to, you know, then shovel a little easier. But you know, the way that you shovel a large amount of stone with like a stone shovel, with like a flat shovel, the way that you use your core and your hips is somewhat similar. How you have to shovel and you have to, think, don't think of it as like an adult, think of it as like a kid. Like you got to.
Rebecca: kind of allowed other people here to see like anything is possible. And so thank you so much, Derek. And I'm trying not to cry right now, but it's been a really amazing ⁓ opportunity to have to speak with you today. And hopefully I'll check back in, in year 11 and tell you I, no, I will tell you I did the thing. So. Mm-hmm.
Derek: Well, thanks for having me and listening to me ramble and thanks for reaching out and allowing me to be a part of your journey. I think that's a very sacred thing. you know, I, it means a lot to somebody that, you know, it was a big part of my life and it's a relationship that now is gone, right? Like I'm not, I don't compete, I miss it, but I think that's the point, right? It's like, Then got to like use your hips to kind of like push it. I'm like, as I'm trying to demonstrate in the video here, we got it. But, know, um, so like that's the sort of stuff like, and then going into the house, like after grocery shopping, my mom would, we go to the store and she come back, you know, she's got two kids. Imagine me and my brother's taller, taller than me in ways about the same. So you can imagine, and my father is six, three at a time, probably around 300 pounds. you had a three. I'm supposed to miss it. And if I was like all up in this, the business, would, I it would ruin these experiences where it's sort of this mythical thing, you know, and I kind of want that to remain. because I think that's what motivates people is, the, unknown and the, to put things on a pedestal and sometimes things only be put on a pedestal, but, know, but that's just the way it's supposed to be. Right. That's why we're human. Right. We need something to achieve and to strive for. So. boys, my father was this man, but you know, you had three of us and my mom, we would eat like, ⁓ I a gallon of milk almost a day. So we would, she'd come back from the grocery store and she would just, mean, like, I remember just like, I hated going back and forth and, know, so ⁓ I'd up like 10 bags of groceries per arm, like just putting my hands through and then everything, everything was always like, can I do more? Can I be more, not more efficient, but can I just, you know,
Rebecca: Yeah.
Derek: you know, to you and everybody else is keep, you know, keep striving for the thing. And, I want to say one last thing is, a lot of people say like the training and the stones, it's like about being a better version of yourselves. And it's not to say that the current version is bad. I think the most important thing to realize is, ⁓ we can all a lot more than I think we realize, you know, if How can I just carry more? You know, how can I do this easier without having to like make a million trips? and even early on before I did the construction, did a little landscaping. We would like do some clear leaves in a yard or whatever. And, ⁓ I like trying to like blow the lead. I didn't pull a big pile that I got up. So I would use a tarp and I would blow like all the leaves onto this big tarp. And then I would, I would use a rope around the, the, the eyelets of the, of the tarp. And I like. If we were to limit ourselves by what we think we can do, wouldn't, we would have never made it to the moon, right? I would have never lifted the 500 pound stone because if, I would have done what I thought I would, you I went to that competition ready to drop out because my tooth hurt, if I would have listened to my friends, I would have never been a strong man. I think I want everyone just to, just to stop for a second, and, and, and realize that. like a plane pull and it was, kid you not, it was probably as hard as pulling up. Like I pull like a thousand pounds of like wet leaves across this yard. I'd be like out of breath. And my, the, the, the guy who the company is like, what in the hell? I always, you know, as a matter of fact, my wife, think just took a video recently. I was doing some yard cleaning. I had a big log in the yard there for like ⁓ was probably ⁓ 400 pound, like 10 foot long log.
Rebecca: Yeah, yeah.
Derek: this is not a journey of self-improvement because the version that is, that it exists now is not good enough. It's that we are all capable of so much more than we ever realized and ⁓ never stop trying to be a better version yourself because you can always do more. You can always achieve more. And I think the, ⁓ you the number one takeaway is it's a, it's, it's an inside job, right? It's, it's, it's me, Two of them, I mean, they're different, different sizes, but they're both about the same, like 10 foot or so. I like pick it up like, like a, like it's a fingels finger, right? And I get it. I, like walk it up. get, I feel like that's about halfway and I, and I get my shoulder on it and I pick it up and I'm walking and it's every bit 400, 500 pounds. I'm walking into the backyard and my wife's like, she told me later, she was trying to grab a video of it. Cause she's like, what?
Rebecca: ⁓ my God. Mm-hmm.
Derek: But I need to, need that sort of external motivation sometimes. And that sort of like things like the Louis Cyr Stone come from. That's where conversations like this come from. the fact that my experiences can move people to the point where I was loading the Louis Cyr Stone and people were moved to tears that, that like, I can't explain that, but it's but ⁓ the awesome nature of, of, of what we do. Right. You know,
Rebecca: Ha ha ha!
Derek: Like this is, you know, like insane, like, but this is what I, it's, it's like, it's ⁓ the loading stuff isn't a byproduct of the, of the, this sort of dedication to the gym. It's really a mental, it's a mindset, of like, just having, I to say fun. That's kind of a, doesn't, that stuff isn't fun, but just sort of drumming to my own beat and enjoying what I do and just using the human body for what it's really, it's intended purpose, which is. I'm an imperfect person and I think that that's what makes me relatable. You know, but that's what makes me somebody that when, when, when you reach out, I don't reply because I have this desire to, you know, to help. I reply because it makes me feel important, because I'm, I'm imperfect as well. And it gives me a glimpse into somebody else's version of me, because the version of me that I live with is unremarkable, but the version of me that you hold on the pedestal is not.
Rebecca: Mm-hmm.
Derek: We're not supposed to be veal, breast feed us milk in a crate, sit home all day watching TV, like like Jabba the Hut right? When I die, I've said this before, you're not gonna be able to harvest any organs from me. You're not gonna, I'm gonna be done, right? Like I'm gonna be, my joints are gonna be shot, my body's just gonna be, it's done, right?
Rebecca: Yeah Hmm.
Derek: Right? So I think that's the goal, right? At end of the day, you know, we're our own worst critics, it's an inside job. So as long as we're just always trying to strive and achieve something, it kind of gets us outside of ourselves. So, you know, keep doing what you're doing. you know, it's, it's, have, have, ⁓ we have a limited time on this earth. So I think it's, that's the important thing is just, keep doing what you love. The goal is like, none of us are getting out of this deal alive. Like we're all dying at some point, you know, like I'm, you know, this is not going to be money in a bank, right? Like you're like, my account is going to be depleted zero, you know, when, when, my time comes and like, why not just like I snowboard and just to give you like, what does that look like now is like I snowboard with my son. was snowboarding last, ⁓ was it last Thursday or Thursday before I ride a one wheel. crashed. I almost fractured my skull.
Rebecca: Well, I don't know if you've ever made a podcast host cry, but I'm here for doing that right now. No, thank you so much, And I'll keep you posted on 2027. Take care. All right. Bye.
Derek: Um, go on bike rides and hikes and hike up fire towers. I, I try to remain as active as possible, and I think that's the most important thing for me. This, this idea of like stones, as a microcosm of life is, is really true. the cool part about stones is they're everywhere. I mean, you can go to, Thanks so much. I appreciate it.
Rebecca: Mm-hmm.
Derek: anybody's yard that lives in the woods or whatever, and there's a ton of stones. And can train with stones or you can work with stones or you can... And they're ultimate sort of test in the sense that the only way to get good at stones ⁓ is not be a wuss. ⁓ I you just have to do the work. ⁓ You train the different elements of stones. ⁓
Rebecca: Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah.
Derek: But you ultimately, like you, can tell, ⁓ a strongman that puts or woman that puts their, that puts their time in the gym by their ability to, to lift stones, because you can never lift a stone and be pretty decent. you bust your ass in the gym, or you can bust your ass lifting stones and be great at lifting stones, right? Like, or you can bust your ass at the gym. And you can bust your ass lifting odd shit like sandbags and stones and kegs and just be pretty well rounded, and, and you'll burn a ton of calories doing it. You'll, you'll look pretty good because you're, the amount of energy and calories you burn doing it and the body becomes a very efficient machine. it's, it's, it's a perfect sort ⁓ it's, it's an equalizer in the sense that it just takes a ton of work and you got to do your homework. I don't care who you are. You can even be a 400 pound guy and suck at stones, right? because like it's, it's, it's really, it's based on the work you do in the preparation.
Rebecca: Mm-hmm. Yeah, and I didn't think we would divert off here, but I was watching... ⁓
Derek: You didn't have you not talk to me. You know, I never I like I'm like.
Rebecca: No, but I'm going to take this way off because, one of the things with stone lifters is, or, weight lifters are strongmen they do focus on kind of the strength base. But one thing that I saw you do was your treadmill training where you would like, it would be off and you would like push your heart to like 180 beats a minute. or something like that, but yet your strength gains. And I think that that was in what, 2007 or some, yeah.
Derek: I did that for years. did that so much that kind of creating creating a fib. when I say the a fib, like not like old person a fib, what happened is, and this again, just, just, just shows you that sort of unhealthy mindset. Um, that, you know, I had found that like my contemporaries in the sport, or were way more talented than I was. So like, Marius like, mean, mean, just super explosive. mean, like a Greek god, like I'm like, I mean, that's like, I'm, I'm more like, like, ⁓ it, ⁓ I can't even Like I'm not that, you know, I was in great shape and I'm not talking like a visual thing though. mean, like aggressive and fast and explosive.
Rebecca: Yeah. Yeah.
Derek: That's not me. I'm not this hyper fast. know, then you got like other guys like Travis Ortmeier, who just were like, just ⁓ ⁓ what is that? Like the guy can PR in competitions. I'm like, like, how do you, and then you got Z who is like, like an Android, you know, just goes out there and like, my lift and you're like, what the fuck, and then Misha who's like this, who, whose body like, like a whip.
Rebecca: Yeah You
Derek: or like a dolphin's tail, it's just, it's got this complexity that goes so far beyond the movement itself. Watching guys, and I'm just naming a few, like you, and I'm like, what's my shtick? Like what's my thing? Like I just, and I was like, early on I realized like I can train for three hours and these guys, like I would, I would do powerlifting meets and then after be ready to work out. And I'm like,
Rebecca: Mm-hmm.
Derek: And this wasn't like this sort of conscious like, aha, was over time I had realized that my skillset and this is, is everybody, right? Like the one thing that we can bring, all of us can bring to the table is work ethic, right? We all have it. We just choose how much of it, how much of it we want to apply. We all came, you know, from cavemen, right? And women.
Rebecca: Mm-hmm.
Derek: We all started ⁓ from something, ⁓ thousand years ago where we had to hunt and gather for our food, survival to fitness. We are all direct descendants of that. So we all have it in it to ⁓ be wusses and to train our ass off. so we have evolved into a predator of all predators, right? But then you look around, you're like, I don't, don't see a lot of predators, right? Like, ⁓ I a lot of sheep, right? So, ⁓ ⁓ the thing there's not anything wrong with that, right? Like, because you could say that's why we have such high crime rates, because, know, ⁓ whatever, so ⁓ without diverging this sort of other the, point is that one thing that I can control is I can control my effort and, and that's it, right? So what I had learned is pretty early on that.
Rebecca: Yeah.
Derek: I can just train really hard. And what I found is the harder I trained and the harder I trained the, the, the harder I needed to figure out how to train. I had to find ways of introducing a level of complexity and effort into my training that, that like no one had even heard about. Like I could, like you couldn't Google it. Like how can I like increase my ability to withstand punishment? Like it's pretty sick, but like how, like, why don't I have someone go beat me up in an alley? Like, ⁓
Rebecca: Mm-hmm.
Derek: Like, in all seriousness, what can I do? So I came up with this idea of doing like a hundred rep curls, right? and it wasn't like, oh, I'm going to, it was this evolution of well, let me just empty curl bar. if I over train my biceps, it's not going to affect anything else. Like in my training, and if I get like bicep 10 is I'll take some \motrin where like in a little knee or whatever, but it's not going to, I'm not going to. At least this was my logic. It's not necessarily true. but I'm not going to tear my bicep tendon doing a stone load or doing a farmer's walk because it's like too tired from So I figured, let me just experiment with high ⁓ rep curls to what, what, what happens. And you might be thinking, what's the, what would high rep curls? Well, pain, right? The idea was how to introduce pain, you know, super physiologically into my training, right? So not pain from high rep squats, because then I'd be doing too much work. I wouldn't be able to recover from that. And it would actually become, put me in this sort of recovery deficit. how can I introduce something externally into my training that will give me a little taste of the pain that I would feel like during a truck pull or during a farmer's walk or whatever. And I came up with a high rep curls. And that journey over a couple of years,
Rebecca: Mm-hmm.
Derek: You know, led to me doing a set of like 450 reps, 12 minutes of curls and people like the videos out there and people will post stupid stuff. And I don't think they understand the point. The point it wasn't like, Ooh, look at me. can do four. No, the point was find a way to inflict maximum amount of pain into your body safely. Right. That has a benefit into your training. I mean, it has a benefit for me. It was competing, right?
Rebecca: Mm-hmm.
Derek: You can see at at the, at the peak of my career, I could go until the body was incapable of going anymore. to have that much control over, ⁓ your, your and your, your mind really is the one that's controlled, for, for your mind to know the outcome of everything, like ⁓ nothing was harder than my training. where the treadmill pushes came in. I need to find a way now to tax my heart breathing. I need to find a way to get to that point where you feel like you're gonna shit and puke and hold that as long as possible. And at first was 30 seconds. was like, wow, I suck. it was 30 seconds of ⁓ a treadmill as hard as I could, get my heart up to 180.
Rebecca: Mm-hmm.
Derek: And then I would do, and then I would rest for 30 seconds. And then it was 30 seconds of that. And then I'd had a treadmill that was on, and then I would jog for 30 seconds. Jogging was easier than the treadmill pushes. Cause treadmill pushes is like a truck pull. That turned into two minutes on, two minutes off, two minutes on, two minutes off, right? That turned into 12 minutes of my heart being 180 beats a minute, purple, you know, for 12 minutes straight.
Rebecca: Thank Mm-hmm.
Derek: And to the point where, at the time it was my fiance, wife, and then ex-wife, Kristen, I don't know how to explain all that, where Kristen was like, just getting a little, little crazy, you know? And, people talk about other sports, like, the need to blood dope and all that sort of stuff. I'm ⁓ there's a way well, guess that's a little cycling and stuff is a little different. ⁓ But in strong man, it's not about red blood. It's not about energy production, right? It really ultimately is pain. ⁓ a lot of stuff that ⁓ you do in sport of strong man is incredibly painful. And ⁓ most of the it's not, you're not actually seeing failure. You're seeing, like the...
Rebecca: Mm-hmm.
Derek: this overwhelming is this pain becomes overwhelming that you got to drop the, the, the, the, deadlift hold or the side handle deadlift hold that, or the crucifix hold, you're usually not seeing actual failure or seeing, the perception of failure. And it's not a conscious decision like, I'm to make it look like I'm failing. It's just like, Oh my God, it hurts so bad. I'm going let it go. Right. And to get to that point where you can withstand the pain to the point where you actually hit real true failure is a, and I got to that point. Um, but as I alluded to before, what happened is my heart had become so efficient that it created external, uh, sorry, extra, um, electroactivity in my heart. And like 2012, I went into like a fib alone, a fib. my, resting heart rate was, Oh my God, like 42. Um, like, you know, like, like 60 is normally is normal low. So I had made my heart so efficient because it would pump so efficiently. That was almost like a car idling so low, it would just start to misfire. So I had to go on medication occasionally. was, ⁓ every two or three years I'll go into this like lone AFib, not like the high, you know, super ventricular tachycardia, 160, 100. No, like my heart rate would be 80, but it'd just be, I'd have this AFib ⁓ the SVT. it's just, and I ended up seeing a specialist in, out of NYU. I saw cardiologist up here and I got a second opinion from a guy down in NYU and he's like, it's very common, like ultra marathon runners, people that push themselves to the absolute limit, their body adapts. But the problem is that when you're not pushing yourself to the limit, you have this machine that, that maybe doesn't perform the way that you're expecting. There might be some sort of undesired consequences. Well, ultra marathon runners, it's common to have, this, this loan afib Well, let's say it's not, it's not common. It's seen only he's only seen an ultra marathon runners, not marathon runners, ultra marathon runners. So yeah, that, that sort of paints a picture of, of what, what the treadmill pushes were about, but, I, the point I'm, I'm really want to make though is we're talking about the treadmill pushes and I want to go back to what I said in the beginning, is everyone has that ability in them. you don't need to do it till it creates like a heart issue. Not that's a heart issue, but you don't need to do it like for 12 minutes. But if you heard it in the beginning, I was just doing 30 seconds on 30 seconds off. Like that's it. mean a minute and it doesn't have to be treadmill pushes. You know, it could be, it could be cold plunges. Now it could be anything that that just pushes you outside your comfort zone.
Rebecca: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Derek: They say that cold plunges are great, but you know what isn't great is doing cold plunges every day. Because then what ends up happening is you become accustomed to that, right? The whole point of cold plunges is that shock, that I have a hard time breathing. It's the adaptation to that stimulus, that foreign sort of thing.
Rebecca: Mm-hmm.
Derek: So what that really tells you is if I do it once, it's okay. If I do it a thousand times, I'm losing the benefit. The idea is let me just add a level of complexity, add another dimension to my training, but don't just stop there, keep adding, keep evolving, and use me as an example. Don't do it for 12 minutes. At some point in time, I should have maybe like, got into like maybe jogging, which at one point I did take up running, which is, that's a whole nother story. ⁓ But it's like this, this evolution, you load stones ⁓ to stones, right? what's the point? know, it's the, the, it's the, the planet fitness commercial. I lift things up and put things down, right? Or lift things up and put things at whatever. mean, it's okay, like what's the point? The point is the journey, right?
Rebecca: Mm-hmm.
Derek: The distance that we cover is not time-based. my journey, I retired young and strong man, but the amount of distance I covered mentally, physically, emotionally was extreme. People can go their whole life without experiencing what I had experienced in a short period of time. And it wasn't because of money, fame, or fortune. It wasn't my travels. It wasn't the extreme strength. It was the constant evolution of me as a person. My deadlift sucked when I first got into powerlifting and I became one of the best deadlifters in the world. My stones sucked, I became one of the best stone lifters in the world. My overhead press sucked, I became one of the best pressers in the world, right? I kid you not, I sucked at deadlifting, I sucked over pressing and I sucked at stones. I have records in all three of those lifts, right? That still stand today. That's not a testament to physical ability.
Rebecca: Mm-hmm.
Derek: It's not even a testament to ooh, who I am as a person, like I'm a tough guy. It's a testament to I have no idea what the fuck I'm doing, right? ⁓ I know. I'm 44 years old and I have no idea what I want to be when I grow up, right? ⁓ You cannot, like, what I? I don't know, right? That's the point. Because it's just when I think I have an idea, I realize that ⁓ the thing I think will make me happy,
Rebecca: Mm-hmm.
Derek: Winning Arnold Classic, it's in constant, it means nothing. know, being strong, cares, right? Lifting that stone, ⁓ like at the end of a day, it's an inside job. It's me, and I'm using these outlets as a way just to, as a way better understand the internal, you know, and ⁓ that's what's ⁓ about stones it's a philosophical journey of discovery. And the best part is you don't even have to being on it, right? You just lift stones and it makes you better, right? It makes you better because if you do, if you lift stones for 10 years, you're either weird, right? You know, or you're on a journey. And I hate to tell you, I hate to tell you and all this, it's a little bit of both, right? So
Rebecca: Yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah, we're definitely somewhere. are some weird folks amongst us, myself included. But it is it is absolutely so true. And, it has it has changed my relationship with myself with pain. ⁓ And think pain is one that I'm still working on with stones because I'm I'm both a competitive lifter and a just a natural out in the woods lifter, as many of our folks are. But One of the biggest parts of stone lifting that still really scares me is when I'm doing bumps to shoulder and it's like at my maximum capacity. It's that feeling like you're gonna die or the overhead press for reps for time. ⁓ Again, like feeling that you're gonna die. And I think this is one key takeaway that I think folks can, and again, as you say, maybe, you know, don't do reps for 12 minutes or things like that, but push that pain threshold, ⁓ your own pain threshold by listening to yourself as you do stones. Is there anything that you can think of that would be relatable to stones to do those kind of like pain tolerance tests?
Derek: it Yeah, I I mentioned the curls, um, but, but, I had, had a recent sort of journey with lunges. I mentioned this, I think I posted some stuff on social media about it, but, I, I always, I had bad knees. I mean, I say had, knees were pretty rough for a period of time. I some STEM cells and I actually stopped squatting heavy too. So maybe that helped. I don't know. And I ended up having hip surgery too. Um, a couple of years ago, but I never liked lunges. Never. Just like to me, it was like just the worst movement ever. Just.
Rebecca: ⁓
Derek: So at typical fashion, right? Like if I don't like doing it, just, then I, then I, I just got to dig in and do it. And, um, so my training partner is a bodybuilder, you know, competitive bodybuilder. And, he's like, let's do some lunges. And I'm like, Hey, great. Let's not, you know, but whatever we'll do them. You know, so we, we start doing lunges and when it's happening is, you know, I realize these are really, really like challenging, right? I mean, of course they are, you know, but We were doing weighted weight behind the neck, ⁓ dumbbells and we, settled like kettlebells are kind of our, ⁓ favorite thing is, a couple of 30 pound, ⁓ kettlebells or so 30, 35 pounds, do them for whatever a hundred feet. ⁓ but during our, ⁓ at one in time, cause we'd switch, we do them, we'd want to do them, whatever, you know? ⁓ but the root, the real point is I was having a really shitty workout one day. He wasn't, my training partner wasn't there and you know, We were doing lunches and I was like, you know, normally do a couple sets of two minutes. I like doing stuff for time sometimes because it's so, so much more challenging because you can't just like do your 10 reps and then you're done. You're just, you're just, you're like, kind of savoring it, like in a sick sort of way, you know, it's like, I imagine it's like sucking on a lollipop. That's like me with like, like chicken broth or something. You're like, really? it's, it's a weird sort of thing. You know, like you're like, it's good for me, but it's kind of weird, you know.
Rebecca: Mm-hmm. Yeah. You
Derek: That's a super odd analogy, but it just came to my head. So I apologize. So we ended up doing this, this, so I ended up, so we do lunges, whatever. And I'm not, I'm I'm not feeling it. It's early morning workout. And so I I had this bright idea, like, what if instead of doing, the four sets of two minutes, I'll do just eight minutes all at once. ⁓ And yeah, straight. So I did the immense lunges and I was like,
Rebecca: You That's right.
Derek: That's an eye opener. Wow. mean, you know, fast forward, uh, next three months, I'm on this, this journey and I hit, end up me and my training partner ended up 26 minutes was the maximum doing of lunges like nonstop. And to me, that was just this and this was the last, uh, last December.
Rebecca: Yeah.
Derek: you go, right? Like ⁓ I'm telling you, you know, the pushes, ⁓ the, ⁓ the rep curls, ⁓ the lunges. ⁓ was even treadmill pushes with my hands for, like I do them like reverse, like I'm not that smart of a guy. think that. ⁓ you just find something that's hard. Like if you like, ⁓ if you like to live and stones in the woods, grab a stone.
Rebecca: Mm-hmm.
Derek: put it on your shoulder and then go for a walk. When I say go for a walk, like, don't think like a hundred feet. Like you gotta think bigger, like say something insane. I'm gonna walk a mile, right? And like I used to do the mile farmers walk. My back would be sore. I would do a farmer's walk for a mile. Light it was like 15 pound empty farmers, right? that's what it, just think way outside the box. mean, shouldering a stone, like your hands will go numb within five and, you know, five minutes, and then you'll have to go to the other side and then you have to go, you know, you have to switch back and forth or carry it in the front or do something. But what ends up happening is if you, if you dream sort of, cause this is like, these are like these, these things come to you. you're, know, if you're, if you're just open to the idea of well, ⁓ not my Don't think what I can't do. Think what I probably could do.
Rebecca: Mm-hmm.
Derek: And then that goes into, I'm just going to think big. Right. And if we think all the way back to the beginning, 550 pounds stone, right? I think I could do that. And then I get some, you know, crazy guy who sends me one, you Steve Slater and Garrick Daft and I fucking lift it. Right. I can cuss this podcast by the I I'm not like beep. It's colorful language is appropriate, you know, when, when, you know, when it's appropriate. So.
Rebecca: Mm-hmm. Absolutely, yeah. Katsue. Yeah, no, that's absolutely incredible. And I think a lot of the here, they wanna lift the Husafell they wanna lift ⁓ Dritvik they want ⁓ lift ⁓ of the new Irish stones, which are incredibly, incredibly heavy. ⁓ And think, as you say, you have think big to be able to do that. But I'm kind of rewinding back to something you said kind of earlier on that, that Travis was actually a better stone loader. And I just kind of wondered why you said that. What separates kind of a good lifter, a stone lifter from a not so good lifter or like a better one from a less better one?
Derek: You know, there's really not one thing, if I'm comparing me and Travis, Travis has super long femurs, ⁓ super long arms, not really crazy long torso. ⁓ so, by the proportions he's, he's, he's built a manner that he can really get himself around the, ⁓ the stones, but also just, think it's maybe it's mentality. No, he, he, he, ⁓ He has the ability to lift a little more, I'm saying this, you're gonna people are gonna be like, what the hell? He has ability to lift a little more reckless, right? Like everything it sounds like I'm saying is I'm reckless, but I'm actually not. I will think recklessly, but the way I move is not. I have an ability to understand my body, I think, and how I move better than most, but I don't think it's because, maybe it's a gift, I don't know. Or maybe it's because I worked hard my entire life. I, you know, I do yoga, like now, I lift at six o'clock in the morning and I do ⁓ like, is it a, ⁓ what came first, chicken or the egg, right? Like did the physical ability come, ⁓ was, was that that I, that, that I was born with or is it a byproduct of fact that climbed trees and swam and ⁓ ran around like like a crazy kid, as a kid, right? Like ⁓ I,
Rebecca: Mm-hmm.
Derek: I don't know. But I will tell you that both my kids are super physically active and they're both super athletic. My son's nine, he's 100 pounds and like almost five foot tall. My daughter's, she's just over five foot tall. She's also 100 pounds. She might be six foot tall, Jesus, can you imagine? So it's hard to say because they're also pretty physical, right?
Rebecca: Hahaha Mm-hmm.
Derek: They're fit, but they're, they're, they don't fit into a box, right? Like they're, they're, so I, I don't know. So with that being said, why I think somebody like Travis, ⁓ he, there's just a beauty with the way that he lifts. just, it's more natural where, where I lift like an engineer, I guess. Nah, that's not a good, I'm very calculating and left it. ⁓ It's like, it's like, it's like to. ⁓
Rebecca: Mm-hmm. calculated.
Derek: somebody play piano that can play it perfect but that's got no soul. That's me. Travis plays piano like ⁓ a you know a soul right like the way he lifts is is very much art the way I lift is is is very much you know not art. I mean it depends on what you're you know but I'm just more everything's got to you know I can I can ⁓
Rebecca: Mm-hmm.
Derek: I've pressed a log on uneven ground, a 400 pound log and, and I'm walking while I'm walking out. So, I mean, it's not, I can do the dynamic thing and I'm very good at that sort of stuff. But when it comes to stones, there's very much a, ⁓ a that, some people just attack it and maybe it's mentality. When the Travis attacks it much more, like Errol Hougan is a perfect example. Like ⁓ not a technical lifter lifts. odd, not beautiful at all in the way he lifts stones, but ungodly strong. I think he's a better, way better stone lifter than I was, but not able to really understand the nuance. I think what I bring to the table is from, from Errol Haugen, who is a, who I would say is a much better stone lifter than I ever was. He just lifts like, like it's like a, it's like a car accident almost like it's just.
Rebecca: Yeah.
Derek: You're just like, holy shit, can't, it's amazing to watch. Travis, it's like watching a dance. Like you're just like, what in the hell? Like he's dancing with the object, you know? Where I lift like a rock climber, you know? I'm studying it and I'm feeling it and I'm fully engaged. I'm actively thinking about it the whole time. That I think is maybe the difference is I'm sort of, I'm more,
Rebecca: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Derek: it's a more analogical, I guess, about my the way that I'm I'm I'm lifting like you'll see the Louis Cyr stone for example.
Rebecca: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Derek: I don't approach it like a stone. I approach it like, what's the best way? I'm approaching the Louis Cyr stone like a ⁓ competitor, like a you know, that's my opponent, And it's just sitting there and I have to just understand. ⁓ in my mind, I have a my plan was, they told me I couldn't move the stone before. ⁓
Rebecca: Mm-hmm.
Derek: the big one because they didn't think they didn't think anyone was going to move it. So like the other ones I can kind of get set that one. didn't want me to set because you know, if I'm being honest, they're probably like, it's not going to lift this. even bother like, and that's, that's actually what happened. Paul Uul who was a promoter for, for, Fortissimus He's the stone was it five 17. So they're like, it was five 30 and they're like, nobody's going to lift it. We'll keep it at five 30.
Rebecca: Yeah. ⁓ Yeah.
Derek: numbs the word just like no we're confident that no one's going to lift it for many reasons not just the weight the size of it was just it was like shaped like a giant pizza you know like so it's you know and it had like this sort of and it was right so you you couldn't figure out the balance point of it everyone's trying to lift it up left to right that means the right side's like 380 pounds or whatever the left side's like nothing you know not nothing you know i'm saying So most guys, including Z, is trying to lift it so their right arm is just getting way overtaxed. it's literally pulling them over. You see, Z gets it off the ground like a quarter of an inch, a few millimeters right now. so I have to face the audience. I have to face with the box to my left because I'm going to do what no one else is doing. I'm going to lift it so ⁓ length of it. is, you know, so it's, it's a trot, it's a, it's a, it's a rectangle, but I'm going to lift it. So it's, it's lifting the heavy parts away from me. You know, the goal is if I do that, I can get it. Once I start tipping it, it's going to want, you know, it's not going to want to fall between my, if it wants to fall between my legs, I can catch it. Cause it's shaped like a pie. So that's the way that was my idea. And then also it was sitting flat on the ground. The ends had like a little lip that you can grab it when you grabbed it the wrong way, the way that everyone else was grabbing it.
Rebecca: Thanks.
Derek: The way I was grabbing it was sitting flat on the ground. the goal was to the left side had a, I heard every between every person I'm looking at it, the left side had a little bit of a handhold on it. can get my hand out. The right side did not. So I had to take my hands, lift it, jam my hands in it. And then it had to fall on my hands. it my hand, which was insanely painful. I had to get my hand completely under the stone, my right hand, my left hand. And as I pull, you'll see I'm more with my right hand because my right hand has an insanely good grip on it. And then I get it to my lap and then I have to rotate. I knew that I couldn't rotate until it was in my lap. So now it's in my lap, but it's sitting in my lap. The point of it is between my legs, but I need to get it now turned sideways. So if I try to load it onto the platform, all the weights up on top, there's very little weight on the bottom. It's wanting to slide down. So I wanted to go long ways and load it like the 550 pound stone. Get it.
Rebecca: Mm-hmm.
Derek: close to my body and then just fall into a platform and then just, just, the tech technical term, I muscle fuck it up to the platform. Right. That was, ⁓ that that was the goal. Right. You know, why was it muscling? Cause I was like using the hip drives, you know, so, so well, that's, and that's, that was the, the, the sort of the piece that, really highlights the difference of, of, you know, like, let's say an Errod Haugen type of loader versus.
Rebecca: Yeah. ⁓ Yeah, yeah, no, it was absolutely incredible.
Derek: Travis type of, and there's others, there's a ton of amazing, Brian Shaw, another one, you know, Brian Shaw is very analog in the way that he loads a stone. Like, watched Brian Shaw load a stone, and I love Brian, it's boring, it's too easy. I want it to look, like, don't make it look so easy, and for him, he just, so strong, he's got amazing leverages,
Rebecca: Yeah.
Derek: That's why I point out Harold Haugen and Travis, because when you watch him load stones, like you're like on the edge of your seat, right? It's not that it looks hard. just looks dynamic. It's like watching it like, Mike Tyson, you don't want to, you don't want to watch him knock somebody out in five seconds. you want to see some rounds. You want to see, opponent put up a good fight. And that's why I like, you know, as I mentioned, Harold and, um, Travis.
Rebecca: Mm-hmm.
Derek: And think that's what, what I bring that I brought to table was this ability to, ⁓ make stone loading into more of a chess match, or, ⁓ or just into sort of battle as, as I'm really getting my, I'm, I'm imposing my will on it very slowly and methodically. And I think that is what made that stone so cool for people to watch, because you could see that my mind was going a mile a minute. There is, there is a, there is. ⁓
Rebecca: Yes.
Derek: During that lift, took 30 seconds. That lift itself was like 18 seconds or 20 seconds or something. And that seemed like an eternity, because the whole entire time I'm just, I'm fully engaged. I'm going to give you a little sort of more information about that competition. Not that people don't know this, but I went to Canada. At that time I still had my, my bottom wisdom teeth in. So one of my wisdom teeth on my left side, I think it was my left side, you could see, my jaw was swollen. I had an impacted wisdom tooth and I had an abscess, I had an infection. So the day before, the morning of Fortissimus, I was gonna drop out. The day before day one. I remember vividly because, The night before I talked to Paul, when he said he'd get somebody to bring me to the doctor. And I was like, I think it was right around the time Michael Jackson had passed. I was like watching the news. I did it stuck in my head because I was like, this sucks. Like I shouldn't even come. my mouth is killing me. ⁓ what the fuck. So then I go to the doctor. I go to the clinic up there. They give me some medicine. ⁓ the before. Like I'm sorry, the morning of it, the competition started like early that day, like not early, but like early the afternoon, like one or two. I take the, I forget the hell the medicine, like it couldn't lay flat and messing up my stomach. And I proceed to compete. and now Z and I are one and two and I wasn't even going to compete. ⁓ taking a bunch of antibiotics. I'm not eating. I'm shitting my brains out. I like I'm dehydrated. I'm like,
Rebecca: Mm-hmm. Okay.
Derek: But I'm saying though, it's not saying that I would have been better had I not been dealing with this tooth issue or that would have that this that I competed well in spite of it. I think that sometimes we put so much pressure on ourselves. That you want, know, we want to play, you know, we're like, ah, you know, I got to do good. got to do good. But when you just go into a competition with no expectations and that's what happened, zero expectations and ended up having,
Rebecca: Mm-hmm.
Derek: one of the most amazing experiences of my life. And I was almost, I was this close to dropping out because of an abscess tooth. So that's life, right?
Rebecca: Well, yeah, and it was and it's crazy because there that was like there was 10 events and this this stone or 12, 12 events.
Derek: It's 12. was 12. There was 10 events, but the last event on each day was broken into two. So there's Atlas stones and the natural stones. Those count as one event, but it was two different events, really. So it's 12 events. But yeah, it's 10, 12, however you want to call it. yeah, was technically 12 events, though, which is a...
Rebecca: Yeah, because that was wild is before you lifted the Cyr stone, you had what was called the circle of stones, which was five Atlas stones loaded to a ridiculous. The first three. I'm only five like four. So ⁓ it was a ridiculous height for the first three. And then you went into the other three stones, which was the Kazimire at 350. ⁓ Paul Anderson, ⁓ I think. 400 and then the Cyr stone at 513, 530. And so you'd already been through like the whole day and then on top of it, you lift this stone and you say you were sitting there and you could see you calculating the stone. And like, I wonder the takeaway for folks here is that I... I do prefer like a technique analog type lift. What would you say then is kind of like the biggest takeaway technique wise, either from that lift or where you have seen others kind of fail to get, you know, their lifts.
Derek: I mean, you can't fake technique. mean, you can try to mimic my technique or Travis tech, you know, and realistically, you just have to lift the style that really comes natural to you, that's the cool thing about stones is the stone will teach you, know, that's the stone is the ultimate teacher of how to lift, So I think the best way to really understand it and master it is to first, watch a bunch of stones, like watch.
Rebecca: Mm-hmm.
Derek: Especially the early stone lifters, because we weren't really doing it, when I say early, mean, this was Strongman round for long, long before I competed. But when he saw the level of, of, of athletes jump up and when 400 pound stones became a joke, right? Like I remember, I remember it clear as day. I mean, it was like one day 400 pound stones in a competition was like, Oh my God, it's so heavy.
Rebecca: Mm-hmm.
Derek: And then you had a couple of us that came along and we, you know, I would hope to think I was one of those, one of those guys. Travis was definitely one of those in the United States. Van Hatfield, another one. There was, there was a group of us right around that time. Jesse Morandi, John Anderson. mean, like there. We just all at the same time had solved the Rubik's cube, which was. really, we had to put the work in, we had to understand the stones, we'd all seen stones because we're competitions, we're watching everybody else do the stones, know? So, monkey see, monkey do, we're watching them, we're kind of like, okay, you know? And so you have this idea of how a stone load should look and you can kind of sort of pick it apart. So I don't think that's why we're doing, we're just like, I wonder if he's gonna drop it, I wonder if he's gonna get it, But so you gotta watch and understand the stone and see it from a different perspective and then you also have to ⁓ do it ⁓
Rebecca: Yeah.
Derek: you have to do it a lot and you have to, have some amount of measurability. like Atlas stones are great because they're, they're, they're, know, a 400 pound Atlas stone. They can be different size shapes and sizes, but if, if you, if you make a 400 pound Atlas stone or 300 pound Atlas stone or two, whatever it's that's, that's your, that's your, your test, right? That's your, that's the one, that's your, your sets and your reps. You could do stone roll ups and you can do, you know, shouldering, you do all this sort of stuff. to train it. And then you add the other stuff, the holes and the, and the walks and the shouldering and the, the pressing and all that sort of stuff that adds that level, that, that dynamic, ⁓ element to the training. So ⁓ that's the best to get better at stones and to really ⁓ understand what style stone lift you are is ⁓ watch it, do a lot, and then start recording it and sort of, ⁓ and, and picking apart. ⁓ And then you sort of start to see. ⁓ But I think the most important thing is, especially with stone loading, there is no right or wrong way. mean, there is a little bit, cross fitters would always like bend their arms and then they're tearing their biceps. mean, the biggest tip I found with the Atlas stones is your arm should be over the top. I see a lot, even like side ⁓ stone loading with their hands like right around the sides, but that leads to bicep tears because it rotates your arm down. That's how I end up, well, I tore my bicep on the
Rebecca: Mm-hmm.
Derek: big stone just because I was beat up and over trained and pulled too hard for the Arnold in 12. think it was 13. Sorry, 13, 12. can't remember. Jeez. but the point being is, just there's very little, there's, there's a lot of technique, but the best way to sort of learn the technique is to watch some stone lifters, some good stone lifters evaluate and then apply it. Most of the people that give advice as stones, I have seen at least not so much recently, but maybe back in the day, had no idea what the fuck they're talking about. So I caution people to listen to the people that give advice are generally people that shouldn't. The people that should give advice usually don't because I don't, know, like I don't, I'm not going to tell people what I think because generally it's not, it's not really relevant, unless they ask. So.
Rebecca: Mm-hmm. Well, it's super relevant to the folks listening to this podcast for sure. yeah, think watching it, I mean, there's various different techniques. But there's one thing I kind of wondered ⁓ with maximal stone lifts like the Cyr What is the role? As you're calculating and doing all of this and figuring out where the stone is, you're also probably thinking breath and internal pressure as well. What role does that play for the maximal lifts?
Derek: You mean like breathing and...
Rebecca: Yeah, like internal pressure, like ⁓ bracing and such. Obviously bracing is a requirement, but like...
Derek: Yeah, mean, breathing, breathing is an important point, but it's gotta be, it's like. If you're, I'll put it this way is this is a, this is a, my wife says I always have really weird analogies. This one's going to go down the really weird analogy. I mean, ⁓ shouldn't really be thinking about breathing. It's like thinking about breathing when you're, when you're, when you're making out with somebody, right? Like if you're thinking about breathing, then you're, then you're probably doing it wrong. You know, right? Like, ⁓ know, ⁓ you, if you're like, ⁓ in it? No, just do what fucking comes natural.
Rebecca: Okay, right. Yeah.
Derek: Right. I only say that because I think that your cycle, if you're thinking about that, you're maybe psychoanalyzing something that doesn't need to be analyzed, right? Like, yes, there's, there's, there's a point to being like, to bracing and, know, but it should come naturally, right? to go to my weird analogy, like if you're, if you're thinking, you'll know, because sometimes I'm breathing, I'm taking a big breath. It depends on lift. It depends on,
Rebecca: Mm-hmm.
Derek: how fat I am, right? Like when I was super, super heavy, the way that I would have to lift a stone was different than when I was, you know, super light, like lighter, like 290, you know, I can get all in there. can get my hands underneath and I can, right, and I can set, take a deep breath, let it out and then pull, right? When I was 350, no, I mean, I had to like,
Rebecca: Yeah. Mm.
Derek: I'm like standing up out of breath, okay, here we go. I don't want to pass out. Cause when I, when I go down there and grab the stone, I'm, I have no breath feels like my head's going to pop, puts my lap. then I'm, I'm more comfortable when I'm heavy in the lap. I can like, I'm like, yeah, it's 400 pounds of my, but I'm, this is easy. Right. When I'm lighter, I could feel like I'm kind of shaking a little bit. I have a little harder time balancing it because
Rebecca: Yeah.
Derek: All those little muscle fibers and I don't have the, you the math, even we're talking about a 40 pound difference throws as a 300 pound plus guy, would throw me way off. So how I breathe, ⁓ it change based on how heavy I was, ⁓ the condition, the condition I was in. listen, I used to like, I remember tying my shoe when I was super heavy, like tying my shoes in the morning. I had to, I had to I had to think about it. It was as much of a mental process as preparing for the Louis Cyr stone Like I'm like, okay. My work boots, I'm like, okay, if I go down with a full breath of air, I'm not gonna be able to reach my shoelaces, but if I go out without a breath of air, then it's like I'm free diving, right? Like I got no air, so like how deep can I go? So I'd be like, I need like a half breath.
Rebecca: You Yeah.
Derek: And then, I'd be like, oh, then my, my, ex wife, when we were living together, before we got divorced, she, she would I remember one morning she came in, I just told this story a couple of times, it's pretty embarrassing, so why not share it? She comes in the room one day, I got one boot on, I got one boot off, and I'm like, in my guest room, and I'm laying back on the, the, on the bed. And she's like, she's like, oh, thank God. And I'm like, what?
Rebecca: You
Derek: What's like, do you mean? Thank God. She's like, I thought you were like in here like jerking off or something. I'm like, tying my shoes. She, you know, like, so, ⁓
Rebecca: ⁓ my god, that's great.
Derek: So next time, you and one of your listeners is like, when should I breathe? Just think about me tying my shoes. it doesn't fucking matter. ⁓ it but if you're thinking about it, you're probably doing it, ⁓ probably it wrong. ⁓ You you, ⁓ you ⁓ I, you can ⁓ go the nuance, but there's really no wrong way to do it. It's stone loading, right? ⁓ Olympic Yes. ⁓
Rebecca: probably doing. Yeah. Well, yeah. I think the main thing, at least for me as a female athlete is like, I worry because like I'm 50, I've had two kids and I'm going to piss my pants. Like, cause I'm, you know, trying to lift a 200. So you kind of are thinking of that as well. Like, so the bracing becomes somewhat important, but then I guess at the end of the day, really you just piss your pants. so. That's why that's why I asked about breathing and embracing because ⁓ there's a lot of shit going on in this body.