Chris Duffin is a strength athlete, coach, and engineer, setting multiple strength world records including squatting and deadlifting 1000 lbs for multiple reps. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
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EPISODE LINKS:
Chris's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mad_scientist_duffin
The Eagle and the Dragon (book): https://amzn.to/3Ckpfoj
Chris's Website: https://christopherduffin.com
Kabuki Strength: https://kabukistrength.com

PODCAST INFO:
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Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr
Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8
RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/
Full episodes playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOdP_8GztsuKi9nrraNbKKp4
Clips playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOeciFP3CBCIEElOJeitOr41

OUTLINE:
0:00 - Introduction
1:28 - Performing feats of strength
8:10 - What does it take to lift 1000 lbs for reps?
11:01 - From 500 to 1000lb
11:33 - The mechanics of heavy lifting
22:50 - What did it feel like to do 1000lbs for reps?
24:44 - Achieving peak performance
29:34 - Importance of Singular Focus
32:06 - Chris's childhood
44:55 - The Eagle and the Dragon: A Story of Strength and Reinvention
52:39 - Lex on business
59:10 - The Disciplines of Strength
1:03:51 - Powerlifting
1:16:55 - Role of strength in MMA, BJJ... and baseball
1:26:56 - What is Kabuki Strength?
1:33:13 - Equipment
1:44:27 - The importance of strong feet
1:53:33 - Chris's diet
1:59:55 - Lex on moderation in food
2:00:29 - Steroids and PED's
2:18:32 - Whiskey and deadlifts
2:27:21 - Is it better to work hard or smart?
2:36:10 - Advice for young people
2:39:20 - Fear of death

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The following is a conversation with Chris Duffin, the mad scientist of strength.

He's 1 of the strongest people in the world, but is also an engineer of some of the most innovative strength equipment I've ever seen.

He's the only person who squatted and deadlifted 1,000 pounds for multiple reps and achieved many other amazing feats of strength.

He has lived 1 hell of a life of hardship and triumph as he writes about in his book called The Eagle and the Dragon.

Quick mention of our sponsors, Headspace, Magic Spoon, Sun Basket, and Ladder.

Check them out in the description to support this podcast.

As a side note, let me say that I was always a fan of strength, both powerlifting and Olympic weightlifting, both as a fan and practitioner.

Mostly I'm a fan of people who are willing to put in years of hard work towards finding out what the limits of their body is and then smashing past those limits.

People like Chris Duffin, or on the Olympic weightlifting side, people like Dmitry Klokov.

This is why I love watching the Olympics, both the heartbreaks and the triumphs.

They all reveal the incredible heights that the human mind and the human body can reach.

This is the Lex Friedman Podcast, and here is my conversation with Chris Duffin.

You've been a part of several incredible feats of strength.

Which was the hardest or maybe 1 you're most proud of?

Definitely the 1 I'm most proud of is that journey for the grand goals.

It was like a 5 year scope that I chased this.

And so when you think about training, it took more than 5 years, obviously.

By that point, I'd been training for over 25 years.

I mean, there were 3 distinct things that I wanted to accomplish out of this.

And this was kind of my exit from being a competitive lifter and basically saying, hey, I'm gonna be, you know, an Instagram lifter, an exhibition lifter or whatever.

I was number 1 in the world for like 8 years straight, all time world records.

And I'm like, I'm not gonna do that anymore.

What I wanna do is just something deep down to me that is really important.

And there's 3 things that were driving this.

And this is a 5 year journey that I went through to do this.

I really wanted to showcase that you could do something that is well beyond the scope of what people think is humanly possible.

So just this inspiration thing, this grand over the top, like if you set your mind to a single-minded goal, you can go so much further.

And I didn't even say what the goal was up front, because it was so far out there, I would have been laughed at.

And that's, I think big goals should be kept pretty damn close to start with for that reason too.

But, And then the second piece was to walk the walk, to show the principles of what I believed in around human movement, the ability to manage and control the spinal mechanics and the output that can have on the body.

And so I wanted to take the 2 most basic movements that every able-bodied person should be able to do.

So fundamental movement patterns, the squat, which is like in the developmental approach is around 9 months as a baby from a developmental kinesiology standpoint and a really basic pattern that every able-bodied person should be able to master.

The other 1 being the hip hinge, being able to pick something up off the ground, a deadlift.

And I wanted to do those 2, not just 1, because I wanted to show the principles that I wasn't built for 1.

I wasn't a specialist because of my lever links, torso links, all that, any outliers.

Because nobody had ever done a 1,000 pound squat, so this is it, and a thousand pound deadlift.

It was outside of the scope of what anybody's, there's like half a dozen people that have done 1 or the other, but nobody's ever done both.

I wanted to do them, not only do it, but do them for reps to leave literally no question out there.

So it was, this is what I'm going to go do.

And to pull it off, I had some past issues with my elbows and stuff that I couldn't work around, so I had to wear straps, which was another reason I couldn't do it in the competition setting.

So the first year I worked up and I did a thousand and 2 pound deadlift.

And that still stands as a Guinness World Record, just the 1 rep does, is the most weight ever sumo deadlifted.

And 1 other person has deadlifted a thousand for reps at this point and that was Thor Bjornsson from Game of Thrones, he's done a thousand for a double as well.

So then the next 4 years, and I did a bunch of feats of strength on the way, but it was all about building that axial loading capacity, the strength that, because now I'm moving the weight from my hands up to my shoulders.

And so to do it for reps is like so much harder than a single, like 5 to 10 seconds versus 30 plus seconds to be able to buffer and manage all that with that kind of load is just

So- It's literally about the duration that your body is carrying the load.

Because you have to, you're using the resource of the diaphragm for stabilization, and so it's also responsible for respiration and all this other stuff, So even when you're not squatting, you've got to be handling those loads.

It's like, it's fascinating that the human body can do that, can maintain that structure, just everything working together, that the biology, the skeletal structure, the musculature on top of that can hold the weight.

Everything is very intentful about positioning and how you're creating pressure and all that sort of stuff, especially for me.

So when I mentioned that half a dozen people have squatted it and half a dozen people have deadlifted it.

You understand, those people all weigh 380 to 440 pounds.

I weighed 265 to 285, depending on where I was between the 2.

And over the course of that, I did a lot of other feats of strength that fit in that capacity, and we can skip over those.

But that was hugely invested as far as what I put into being able to accomplish that, because it's over the top, which means the other stuff had to shift and I had to learn some, there's so many things that came into place to pull that off.

And so yeah, last March, 2 days before the world shut down, I did it.

It was supposed to be at the largest equipment exhibition in the world down in San Diego as an event.

And that got shut down a week beforehand, obviously.

So we moved to, let's do it in my gym and invite people.

And Thursday or Friday, they limited it to 25 people for gatherings.

So if I hadn't done it, it would have never got done.

Because I'd pushed to the limit, I couldn't come back and do it.

It was at the total limitation of my capabilities.

And the last piece was every 1 of these feats along the way, I collaborated with a charity that I believed in, and there was a lot of those tied to my life story, which we probably will get into.

So that inspiration piece, inspiration, motivation, walking the walk and showing just these methodologies that a guy that had to learn to walk again can do something like this with no back pain.

And the third 1 is to provide awareness and recognition around a lot of key charities.

So your heart was in this journey, but also your mind.

It's just, you're like a scholar of strength, a scientist of strength, an engineer of strength.

For reps, do a thousand pounds of squat and deadlift.

Let's first talk through the actual day you did it.

What does it take to lift that much for reps?

The lift itself, other than a few seconds, is really easy and not challenging.

People always ask me, what was it like, How beat up were you after that and the deadlift?

So even the psychology of the day, you weren't, there was not a fear.

There were certainly doubts on that day from some training history.

So there was some major breaks to my confidence in the couple months leading up where I had issues with passing out under the bar.

And this was on weight less than 1,000 pounds even.

So that was like all this buildup in me going, what if?

What if it – I think I have this resolved, but what if I get up there and I can't even do a rep?

How embarrassing will this be that I've been talking about this and planning for this for so long?

But outside of that, I knew I could do it.

In fact, I wanted to do even more, even up to the second rep.

Training is about working into a fatigue state.

So you're building an amount of fatigue in your system.

And then when you let off of it, that's when you get a compensation.

But leading into a big event, you're accumulating this massive amount of fatigue.

And so I was performing at a level that I could do it.

And so I knew I was gonna be able to on meet because then you give yourself that window to be able to recover and super compensate and be able to do a little bit more.

So like that first rep when I did it, strength-wise, I went, I could do this for 5 reps.

I mean, it was easy and it was fast and it felt like amazing.

And then set rep 2, the realization kicked in.

It's like, oh, this is for reps with a thousand pounds on your back and you're fatiguing just like, and then the third 1 was every last thing I could muster to just finish.

I mean, I just barely got it done because the strength is there, but that capacity to be able to manage all those resources for that amount of time, because it's not just leg strength when we're talking about this stuff.

What does it take to go from, I don't know what, from 500 to 1,000?

That feels like a journey that's exponential.

In the early 2000s, like I said, I started lift in 1988, but my first meet in the early 2000s, my max deadlift was 523 and my first squat was 550.

For people that like to lift, what should they understand about the difference between doing 500 and a thousand?

In terms of the actual lift that you were experiencing that day, in terms of the mechanics, in terms of all the things you have to be, like the neurological adaptation you mentioned, the breathing, the core strength, like techniques, like little tricks, psychological tricks, anything that kind

The level of intent And the opportunity for error are at a different level.

So just the minutest changes of position by 1-1⁄4 inch, 1⁄2 inch can be make or break at that level.

So these things, everything gets amplified.

So the ability to start with having the pelvis just in the right orientation to the diaphragm before we start initiating what we call the the eccentric loading of the abdominal cavity to create this intra abdominal pressure of working against this outward expansion working against the outer sheath of abdominal, thoracolumbar musculature, obliques, causing the co-contraction at the pelvic floor, all this stuff and how you cue that, because you can't think about all this stuff, you need to break it down and distill in practice to like it's 1 simple cue that we now lock down and control this torso stability because this is what these fundamental movements are about is being able to control our spinal mechanics and then now be able to maintain that while articulating the joints around that through a range of motion and then using the main power drivers.

So in this instance, both instances, it's the, you know, the hip complex to generate that power and transfer it from how we're rooted and connected to the floor through to the distal end, you know, which would be the barbell on the shoulder.

So 1 is that what we just talked through is how to actually maintain that stability.

So if you have either the diaphragm, so which is connected at the rib cage, so out of alignment in any position, it needs to be in alignment with the pelvis.

So this is simple engineering here because what we're gonna do is eccentrically load this.

We're gonna use the diaphragm, just like you would in a diaphragm pump, where it's gonna press down on all the tissue in there.

our breath was actually a lot of times a default pattern when people do that because they'll bring it into their chest and raise their rib cage.

So what we wanna do is just initiate the diaphragm, air can be used as well over the top at the final to create just a little bit more downward pressure.

But if we have out of alignment there, we have a pressure leak where it's going to be push out the front or the rear if you're either inflection or extension.

And then that causes this co-contraction and all this pressure of the organs essentially against outward against all those tissue for the co-contraction as well as surrounding the spine to be able to stabilize that.

And then it puts all the muscles on both sides of the body in what we call the best length tension relationship.

So if you think about a curl and we reach our arm out, at the extended length, our bicep is not as strong and then all the way in the curl position, it's not as strong.

There's somewhere in here that's this control of both.

And so when you're sitting there, arched or bent over, we have muscles that are past either 1 of those ranges.

So they've got a lot of tension, which then will create relaxation on the other side, right?

So we want to have, and all of that needs to be working.

And now the next important thing is the foot.

So it's actually this connection to the ground and how we're actually using the foot and ankle complex to grab and grip this connection to the ground and elicit an effect.

And because of this, and then the everything between will naturally kind of do what it needs to do.

So people like to focus on knee position or how far out their hips are or all this other stuff which is outputs of this.

So if we control the torso and the knee, the only thing that can happen from that point is for the squat to happen.

So, this allows us to use this massive, you know, the hip complex for all the muscles around that that are built to drive through hip extension to complete the squat.

So that's key in controlling function at the TL junction, which is just above the lumbar spine.

So kind of right opposite where your sternum is, and you'll see people kind of roll over sometimes like in an Olympic squad or something like that where they lose position.

And that's often because they're close grip because you can't engage the lats very well that way, and they're pushing up in the bar.

But you want to be able to drive and pull the bar to your center, and that's gonna create and use the lats now to drive and connect the shoulder into this, and we're kind of congressing and tightening all this stuff towards that center to create that entire torso stability.

That's why I was using torso stability, not just core stability in my conversation earlier.

Torso stability, okay, so there's all these like modules of the body then connected to the grounding with like your feet on the ground.

Is this over time you kind of develop the feel that ultimately boils down to this 1 simple cue that you mentioned?

Or can you like literally study each particular module in yourself and see how it affects the lift.

So the best way, and I believe it's because I hate just like people getting out and just doing just movement stuff and not actually adding load because we only adapt when there's load.

Maybe we can get some, you know, some proprioception or awareness of position and other stuff, doing some corrective patterns and other stuff.

But this is basic physiology, is that there must be an imposed demand for us to have adaptation.

And this is mental, this is emotional, this is all these areas.

So, I prefer to be able to look at a person, and this is our methodology, and do the assessment in any basic loaded movement.

So, with developing an eye for that, you can actually see and go, okay, we've got a fault pattern right here in the foot and use a cue or a set of cues.

Doesn't really matter till we find the 1 that works and bring that.

And now we know we want to simplify this stuff.

And it, it is, if we try to break down and distill it all.

But let's just find the basic stuff that gets us in the range, start working.

Now we find where's our next area that we're starting to fault at, and then go there again next.

So this is what we do, what we teach in our educational platform.

So we are the only, I believe, everybody wants to do a lot of these assessments, on a bench, on a table, and it's like, no, let's go squat, let's go deadlift.

If you do strongman and it's a yoke carry, let's yoke carry.

Because these are basic human fundamentals.

Like this is how we function this is why we we work with 29 of the 30 major league baseball teams and 90% of all professional sports out there in North America.

Sorry, although we do some work with Tour de France and other stuff as well.

But these principles, like, you know, if the Dodgers won't bring us in, they're not learning how to power lift.

You know, we're gonna, obviously we'll probably be do, we do a little bit more shoulder focus than hip focus with their athletes or their coaches.

We're usually working with the coaches, not the athletes.

And so you help them and then the same thing on yourself to understand the role that these different muscle groups have on the holistic list.

Yeah, So it's all about getting the joints in the appropriate position so that we can manage load so that we're not putting undue stress on the joint, we're getting the proper link tension, we're getting these basic fundamental things with the body.

And so the largest global impact that you will have is through spinal mechanics.

I can't look at a shoulder if I'm not managing this because it's your spine.

So for those that are just listening, like I'm arching and then flexing, that's gonna affect shoulder extension, flexion, all these sorts of things.

So it could even affect things down at what's looking at dorsiflexion issues on the foot.

And then that's why I go to the foot next because it has the second largest global impact.

And then from there, now I'm gonna look at the big energy drivers, which is the hip complex, shoulder complex.

And then we can start looking at kind of the peripheral things.

But usually that's some sort of output of the other, but the knees, the elbows, the things like that.

So it's all about getting the stack, which affects neurology.

You get in a car, modern car today, and a lot of them will have this traction control button in there, and there's a big misconception that, you know, I'm out and it's snowy, or here in Austin, only rainy.

Well, it probably doesn't rain much, but you're going around a corner, start slipping, it's like, oh, it's going to send the powers from the wheels that are slipping to the ones that are gripping and keep me from crashing and dying a fiery death.

We've got the tires, which are our foot, the connection to the ground.

We've got the power driver, which is, you know, the engine, the transmission delivering, you know, the power through it.

And we've got the stability or suspension.

And what the neurology is doing, it's sensing that we don't have good stability or a loss of connection somewhere, and so I need to save you from crashing and hurting yourself.

And so it goes to the engine and says, Let's retard the timing, let's reduce the shift patterns, and we're just reducing the power output.

And that's straight how the human body works.

So when I do this stuff, it's actually affecting that.

I mean, I can take somebody and do some minute changes with the neck position at the thoracic outlet, okay?

And immediately see an enhancement in power output.

We measure this stuff with velocity devices and see like a 10%, boom, jump.

And so if you think about that, what about all your training through the years where you actually had additional capacity, but you weren't using it because your traction control was on.

Now you figure this out stuff and now you start stacking it and now you can see so much greater.

This is performance and additive performance over time.

This is huge and people don't really think about this stuff, but we can turn that stuff off, which is actually gonna also, again, make us safer.

But what we wanna do is the performance tuned race car.

No, they got some amazing tires to grip the ground, a performance tuned suspension, and that driver's going to put what?

I wanna continue on that line, but first I have to ask, how did it feel to accomplish the grand goal?

Okay, when you just stand back, thousand pounds for reps, What'd it feel like?

Oh, well, the movies, so we actually have the final footage of that, the good footage, not posted yet.

So it's literally just an Instagram video or a phone video right now, the only 1 online.

Came out just timed to the music perfectly too, which is, I listened to some odd music, which there's some reason behind that.

You're saying there's full length footage.

There's a documentary that's, it's got a little slowed because of COVID because it's also a backstory of the Eagle and the Dragon, my book, about why I do kind of the things that I've done in my life or that's what I'm assuming the director's working on.

I don't really have the control of the movie, right?

It was overwhelming to have worked so intensely and so long and hard at something that pushed every ounce of me to the limit.

I did exactly what I said I was gonna fucking do.

I mean, I was just crying uncontrollably.

Just with a mixture of, I don't know what, the mixture of emotions is hard to explain because it was the completion of something.

So 1, you set an impossible goal and you accomplished it.

2 is like on the broader humanity aspect, like how many humans in this world accomplish perfection in a particular direction required to do this?

So like, you're basically representing like 1 little like little glimmer of excellence of the human spirit.

So anytime you reach something, any amazing workout or accomplishment in life, could you have put more into it?

I said, this is it, I'm gonna work towards, I've been training for 30 years, I'm gonna do this thing that is, like I couldn't even say that I was gonna do it years before, I'm gonna do it and then I'm done.

I wasn't forced to, I wasn't, I left on, I did exactly what I said.

I went to a level that I, I left on my terms.

Usually you kind of either taper out or it doesn't matter.

I'm talking like anything in life in general, right?

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Chris Duffin: The Mad Scientist of Strength | Lex Fridman Podcast #207