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Chad Wesley Smith: 900 Pound Squats and the Ultimate Strength Debate

Written by David Tao
Last updated on November 11th, 2024

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Chad Wesley Smith has squatted over 900 pounds, started one of the world’s most respected strength centers, and built an AI-powered system for training programs. Now, the Juggernaut Training Systems founder reflects on a decade of growth and talks about how artificial intelligence is helping his team train more athletes with greater precision. 

In this episode of The BarBend Podcast, guest Chad Wesley Smith and host David Thomas Tao discuss:

  • A look into how Chad creates podcasts, articles, and videos for Juggernaut (2:00)
  • Deeper dive into Chad’s relationship with his business partner/weightlifting coach Max Aita (5:20)
  • How Chad discovered powerlifting after a track & field career (7:30)
  • Founding Juggernaut at 23 years old (10:00)
  • Chad’s strength before and after preparation for his first powerlifting competition (13:00)
  • How desperation became the catalyst for Juggernaut’s growth (18:52)
  • Building new tools and leveraging artificial intelligence to program for athletes (22:30)
  • Training: Differing between type vs. differing between magnitude (25:20)
  • Listing the scientific principles behind strength training and scaling them for all athletes (29:30)
  • How a powerlifter ingratiates himself with the weightlifting community (32:30)
  • Ideal podcast guests, debating coaches, and why you need a common glossary in order to engage (35:10)

Relevant links and further reading:

Transcription

…I’ve said that there’s no greater motivator than desperation but the thing that’s made us successful for 10 years and what will continue to make us successful for the next 10 years and beyond, is a commitment to doing it right.

David TaoDavid Tao

Welcome to the “BarBend Podcast,” where we talk to the smartest athletes, coaches, and mine’s from around the world of strength. I’m your host David Thomas Tao and this podcast is presented by barbend.com.

In this episode, I’m talking to Chad Wesley Smith, a coach, powerlifter and martial artist who founded Juggernaut Training Systems. Now in its 10th year, Juggernaut is one of the world’s leading centers for developing athletes with an eye towards strength. Including weightlifters, powerlifters, throwers and more.

In addition, he is one of the most accomplished RAW powerlifters of his generation. Squatting over 950 lb, benching over 550 lb, and dead lifting over 800 lb at the top of his strength.

Chad is also a prolific content creator and his thousands of videos, podcast episodes and articles through Juggernaut have reached millions of people online. In today’s episode Chad and I talk about his evolution from standout track and field thrower, to International powerlifter and how his personal growth influenced what is Juggernaut today.

We also talk about differences between training for weightlifting and powerlifting and how artificial intelligence is powering a new wave of strength programming. Also, we are incredibly thankful that you listen to this podcast, if you haven’t already be sure to leave a rating and review of the BarBend Podcast in your app of choice.

Every month we give away a box full of BarBend swag to one of our listeners who leaves a rating and review. Today I’m talking to someone who needs no introduction in a lot of realms of the strength community and that is Chad Wesley Smith.

Chad, thanks so much for taking the time to join us in the middle of celebrating 10 years Juggernaut Training Systems. I’m sure you’re pretty busy these days.

 Thank you, thank you, my pleasure. Some days more than others. Over the last 10 years we’ve been able to figure out how to get a lot of this down to a system, able to batch a lot of the work, but always a pleasure to join. Thank you for having me.

David TaoDavid Tao

 I am curious. Juggernaut is obviously known for training fantastic athletes, putting out fantastic content training programs. How much of your week is spent in actual content creation and curation for the company?

Along with the content creation stuff, we do in batches. Two or three weeks ago, Max was here for a weekend and I think we recorded 10 videos, 12 videos, something like that. Week or two after that Dr. Mike Israetel was here and we did another 10 or 12 videos with him. Where we used to be constantly recording videos all the time check it out when Max was living in Southern California.

When he moved away that precluded our ability to just record whenever we felt like it. And we got into having these sort of marathon recording weeks, where we like the first one we did, we recorded 60-70 videos in one week and that also sort of shifted.

I don’t know if it was a correlation or causation, but shifted the type of videos we do a lot. Get into doing more of these series where a lot of people will probably watch things like our squat pillars, bench pillars, videos where we do these series of five to eight videos on the same topics. Trying to give people a little bit more on digestible five to eight minutes rather than what can be overwhelming 30 to 40-minute video.

David TaoDavid Tao

It’s interesting because a lot of people, I mean, we get asked at BarBend, some of my friends, some of our readers will ask us. What the schedule is? They assume that maybe we’re filming things or recording things dripped out evenly. But really, we are recording in batches and we are dripping them out a little bit more digestibly a little bit over time. So planning that content calendar ahead is definitely something that happens behind the scenes now.

When Max moved away from where you are located. Max, your business partner and one of the other very well known coaches at JTS. Was that the plan that he would be coming back at regular intervals? Or was that a bit up in the air as to what the future of his involvement with the company would be?

No, that was the plan. No problem with that. Pretty easy because through the 10 years — and people can go for more in-depth on this — I have a series that we’re doing on our YouTube right now called Juggernaut X, which is year by year storytelling, more or less.

From the startup of the company and a bit about my competitive career, coaching career year by year, the growth of the company, ups and downs, struggles and triumphs.

Max became involved with Juggernaut officially in very end of 2015, start of 2016. I’d already been going for six, going on seven years at that point and had gone through some different iterations. It was cool for the time that he was able to be down here and that was great. It was also a lot of long days, long weeks, long months for him traveling back and forth to Oakland.

I think the staff on the Orange County to Oakland Southwest flight got to know him very, very well.

He made that trip something like 30 times in 18 months. Not always flying, but several driving times in there as well. [chuckles] It was much better for his rest and sanity to be in Oakland full-time and just to come down and visit for the videos.

For the athletes part of things, we’ve always had athletes spread across the country. Nothing really changed there.

David TaoDavid Tao

That makes a lot of sense. Even coaches need a break from time to time. They’re not dynamos that can go forever.

That’s a little bit of a tasting about where JTS is now. We’ll get to that a little later in the podcast.

I do want to talk a little bit more about Juggernaut X and a decade of producing fantastic content athlete programs in strength training.

As a little more of your background, for those who might not be aware, obviously you’re the founder of Juggernaut Training Systems. You’re a world record-holding powerlifter. You’re a martial artist, which I want to touch upon a little later.

How did you first get involved in strength sports? When did you decide that competing in strength sports — particularly powerlifting — was something that you wanted to pursue pretty heavily?

Track and field is my background. I competed throughout high school and college throwing the shot put. I won two NAIA National Championships in the shot put for Concordia University, which is a small school here in Orange County. Previously to that, I threw for the University of California Berkeley.

I’d always been into lifting, been into training. Even in high school, we didn’t have a strength coach, or anything. I used the much more limited resources of the early 2000s Internet to figure out how to train. I’d watch “World’s Strongest Man” on ESPN like so many people had.

I was always into it, whether it was lifting myself, Arnold Schwarzenegger movies Rocky montages, whatever it was. I was always fascinated by strength and realized, at 14 years old, freshman in high school, that lifting weights was going to make me a better football player and a better shot putter. I’d better figure out how to do it.

Through teaching myself and a little bit from our football coaches and stuff, learned how to train. Was lucky in that, as everyone tends to gravitate towards what they’re good at. I was good at squats, cleans, sprints and jumps. Much better at those than I was at curls and flies, and the bro workouts that so many other 14 and 15-year-olds fall into.

I did that. I liked it. I saw the results from it in my performance and went on to have a good track career through one year as a post-collegiate. In that year as a post-collegiate is when I had started Juggernauts. I graduate college in May 2009, started writing — air quotes — a business plan for Juggernaut in June 2009.

I say that because my degree is in History. I was writing what I thought was a business plan. I googled, “How do you write a business plan?”

Got an investor in July 2009. Got keys to our first warehouse for the first gym in August 2009.

We were open in September 2009. Barely 23 years old, thinking I knew what I’d gotten myself into, but really had no idea.

I stayed trying to shot put for that next year but my coach Len Bluetreich, could coach me through my last two years of high school and then last two years of college, passed away shortly after I graduated from cancer.

That next year, I wanted to keep competing as I’d thrown pretty far even I was at a small school. I was at a little in the high school, but I would have had the third farthest throw for all collegiates, my senior of college regardless Division 1, 2, 3.

I wanted to keep throwing, chase what would have been the 2012 Olympic dream, honor Coach Blue’s memory, but with no coach at that point, and working anywhere from 60 to 80 hours a week — I was starting Juggernaut up there — it just wasn’t sustainable thing.

Through that next season, and then completed my last track meet about June 2010. For about that year, I had been sponsored by EliteFTS as a shot putter. I spent my training logs up there and certainly write some articles and everything.

When I came to the realization that the Olympics weren’t going to happen for me, I figured I’m already strong and I’m on this powerlifting website, so I guess I should do powerlifting. I’d never been to a powerlifting meet. I’d seen videos and stuff of what was all multi-ply powerlifting at the time, but I really didn’t understand what that was.

Then about July 2010, shortly after my last track meet, that I decided, all right, I’m going to start training for a powerlifting meet, and did the program, “The Juggernaut Method,” which was something I’d written for athletes at the gym, and then using with a lot of high school and college football players, soccer players, basketball, that sort of stuff.

I said, “I’m going to use this for my own training. Let’s put my money where my mouth is.” That means something like…

David TaoDavid Tao

Yeah, put your money where your mouth is. I am curious, going into this first block of dedicated powerlifting training…Obviously you’ve been lifting weights for almost 10 years at that point.

This is the first time you’re training specifically for powerlifting and not throwing, do you remember what kind of powerlifting numbers you had going into that first dedicated powerlifting block? Obviously you had a pretty good base of strength and especially explosiveness leading into that.

When I was throwing the shot put, I bench press 500 lb. If you’ve seen shot putter’s bench press, we’re definitely not past powerlifting standards. It’s like with a very big bounce, ass off the bench. That’s very useful for shot putting, so I benched 500 lb in that fashion.

Then I was like, I better figure out what I could pause bench. I think I did 425. In the squat, I was really into Westside. I did a lot of Westside style of training through that. I box squatted 725. I figured I better see what I can free squat because there’s no box at the meet.

David TaoDavid Tao

Not that I’m aware of in powerlifting unless they’ve changed something in the past few weeks.

 

I remember squatting like 550 for a triple, and it being hard. Especially that the last, from right above parallel to right below parallel where the box would have been, being a very challenging portion of things.

It’s a 420 bench, low 600s, maybe 650 in the squat and a belt. I use the Juggernaut Method program just as it is in that original book to do my first meet in October 2010, which was in fact the first ever USPA meet, the president USPA Steve Denison had just broken off from the USPF.

I signed up for what was the USPF meet turned into USPA meet before we completed. I competed in belts and knee wraps, squatted 800, benched 462, deadlifted 700.

 

David TaoDavid Tao

That’s a pretty marked increase from [laughs] what you were going into that training block with. You put your money where your mouth is.

Yeah, and the knee wraps part of things is hard to quantify their value at that point, because at the meet, was only the second or third time I’d ever won them. Like I said, I had never been to a powerlifting meet.

I didn’t know people in Southern California where I lived that were powerlifters. I just showed up and like, “OK…” I mean knee wraps aren’t that hard. You wrap it around your knee a bunch of times as tight as you can. That was my extensive knee wrapping technique.

I’m there at the meet, I wrapped my own knees for my last warm up, and a guy saw me. He’s like, “Hey, do you want some help?” I was like, “Sure, that would be great.” He turns out to be a really, really good single-ply lifter, a guy named Alan Best.

He asked me if I had a preference about how they are wrapped. I told him, “Wrap it the way that’s going to make me squat the most.”

He helped me out a little bit with the knee wraps there.

I’ve done that 545 for three before, and I squatted 635 for five in sleeves before the meet. I guess about [indecipherable 16:32] one of my favorite acts probably.

David TaoDavid Tao

Now, fast forward four, five, six years later, you’re an established name in the powerlifting community, especially as a competitor around 2014, I believe, you were starting to compete internationally. What were your all-time numbers at the peak of your powerlifting prowess, so to speak?

Those 970 lb, 440 Kg in the squat with knee wraps in the super heavyweight division, benched 567 lb so 257.5 Kg, and deadlifted 815 lb, which is 370 Kg for 1,055 Kg, total is 2,325.

When I did it, I think, was the ninth heaviest total ever at super heavyweight, somewhere around there. It’s moved down the list quite a bit since then but at the time, it was pretty good.

David TaoDavid Tao

You talk to anyone who was lifting at a very elite level four, five, six years ago, and their overall rankings on all-time total list. A lot of them have plummeted because powerlifting over the past four or five years has, A, skyrocketed in popularity but B, there are some monsters across weight division, absolutely crushing it these days and across Federation’s as well so still…

When I did my first meet, up till 1962 at 308s and it was tied for second in the US. Ernie Lilliebridge Sr. and I were tied for second in the US at 308s and that’s a number now that 181s, John Hack has done more than that.

There’s several 198s and then a lot of 220s and stuff. That was a huge number, anything over 2,000 was really elite of elite. Even for 308s and super heavies.

 

David TaoDavid Tao

Now, Chad one thing I didn’t realize coming into this recording was that the chronology of the Juggernaut Training Systems, I didn’t realize you had started it quickly out of college. I thought you had a couple years of a buffer in between when you graduated and started JTS?

No.

David TaoDavid Tao

The story of Juggernaut X and decade of Juggernaut Training Systems is really the story of your professional and adult life in many ways. Do you think…

Definitely.

David TaoDavid Tao

What do you think has been one of the biggest factors in JTS’s success and growth over the past 10 years?

Desperation. [laughs] As I look back 10 years ago, 2009 when we started, we’re in November 2019. November 2009 seems like ten lifetimes ago to me and there was many, very, stressful early times as any business owner is going to have regardless of age.

Particularly, probably any 23-year-old business owner is going to have…you’re making a lot of mistakes. It was such a different climate for not just powerlifting and weightlifting, which you could not have had a powerlifting and weightlifting gym.

That could not have existed, I don’t think 10 years ago. As a true viable business, especially not in southern California, where rent is not cheap. We were not that, we were a Sports Performance gym, even once I started powerlifting we were not a powerlifting gym we were a sports performance gym.

I did powerlifting and there was some very lean early days there. Seeing double digits in the bank account when the rent came out of there. Getting the times when it was, man, we’ve got to figure out how to get more clients or I’ve got to figure out to make some more money.

Online coaching, writing articles, and writing books, the original Juggernaut Method was definitely part of that, and that’s why I jokingly say desperation. When you’ve got to make some money you can write an e-book pretty fast. [laughs]

If you’re in college and you’ve got a 20-page paper due in two days or the next day you can write 20 pages pretty fast. Same type of thing comes up when you have to pay the bills.

David TaoDavid Tao

Yes, it’s college but with real consequences. Rent is more pressure than grades. [laughs]

There was definitely times where, I’ve said that there’s no greater motivator than desperation. The thing that made us successful for 10 years and what will continue to make us successful for the next 10 years and beyond is a commitment to doing it right.

That there’re decisions I could have made that maybe are more lucrative, that are marketing decisions but would not be true to what I feel is the right way to teach, to present information, to go about business.

We are committed to presenting the best information, the most useful information which is not always the easiest to digest. Simplest, sexiest, information but it’s principle-based, and we know it’s here for the long haul.

David TaoDavid Tao

The next question I want to ask is about how you’ve changed as a coach and one thing I do want to lead in when asking this question is in regard to the tools you use.

One thing we talked a little bit about before this recording was some of the very cool artificial intelligence tools that JTS, Juggernaut Training Systems, is using to improve athlete performance and client outcomes these days.

How have you changed as a coach over the past 10 years and what new tools like the AI systems have you started to incorporate to help your athletes perform better?

Great question. As a coach I’ve gained much more experience through my own training and through coaching athletes from 9-, 10-year-old kids who are going to be playing AYSO soccer and Pop Warner football and all that, to some of the best powerlifters in the world, NFL’s players, UFC, Consulting for Olympians, all things like that.

I’ve gained so many more tools in the tool box, whether it’s different cues, whether it’s different perspective on these ideas, gotten to talk to so many other successful coaches and athletes, and glean information about what’s making them successful.

As far as what my coaching looks like from a programming standpoint, it’s totally different. I’ll do Q&As on Instagram and Facebook, and people ask, “Well, what about this and this on The Juggernaut Method,” and I’m like, “Well, you know, it’s a book I wrote seven years ago,” or The Juggernaut Method 2, a book that came out seven years ago.

Almost everything has changed in that sense, and a lot of it has gone towards my understanding of how to individualize training based on athlete type. Most programs that name programs, Juggernaut Method, 5/3/1, Starting Strength, whatever, programs that have a name that are fixed parameters, that are this many sets and this many reps.

When you look at a bell curve of all the possible athletes out there, whatever bell curve that is — size of the athlete, age, strength, experience — those fixed programs may work very well for a section of that bell curve but understanding what changes the needs of beginner to intermediate to advanced, that’s something that has become very frustrating to me is — whether it’s on Reddit or in Q&As — people asking, “What’s the best beginner program?

“What’s the best intermediate program? That program is just for advanced athletes.” If you understand the principles that guide the programming, there’s no longer beginner programs, intermediate programs, advanced programs. There’s manipulating these principles to be appropriate for beginners.

If I were to take two very — on paper — divergent athletes that I coached, Marisa Inda and Brandon Allen, five-feet tall, 114 lb, 43-year-old female, lifetime drug-free, to six foot one, 350 lb, openly untested male, you would think many people would think that their programs are totally different, like they’re different types of programs, but they don’t differ by type.

They differ by magnitude, by — pardon the pun — but by dosage, in the sense of, “How do we change frequency, how do we change volume, how does relative intensity change?” That’s what allowed us to create Juggernaut AI System — working with Garrett Blevins — is having this understanding of, “Why do beginner athletes need relatively higher intensity than advanced athletes?”

“Why can females tolerate more volume than males? Why do tall lifters not need as much volume as shorter lifters?”

Taking all these factors and helping them work together within the context of our volume landmarks — developed with Mike Israetel and James Hoffman, and all the great people at Renaissance Periodization — to manipulate maintenance volume, minimum effective volume, maximum recoverable volume, on these sliding scales.

As you get taller, you need less. As someone gets lighter, they need more, so on and so forth. That’s been the big change, understanding how all those individual differences impact the athlete’s needs.

David TaoDavid Tao

You’ve talked a lot about the powerlifters you work with. You mention Marisa and Brandon as two examples there. Juggernaut Training Systems is also known — and this is certainly Max Aita’s purview as well — for training weightlifters, very, very high-level weightlifters, people competing for the United States and even other countries on the international stage.

What are some of the challenges that you face in programming and providing for athletes across different strength sports? If you can, maybe give a couple examples of weightlifters that JTS works with regularly today.

In the weightlifting part of things, Max is the weightlifting coach. I don’t coach any weightlifting. I think the best description of the relationship there would be like, I’m Jerry Jones, who’s Jimmie Johnson.

I’m the one who’s like for his actual approach, I just take the credit for it.

David TaoDavid Tao

Now, Chad…

We’ve all seen videos of your muscle snatching 275 lb or 125 Kg.

It’s beautiful. It’s like watching. It’s poetry in motion. Yeah. So definitely check that we posted those on BarBend before people always have a great reaction. Sorry to interrupt, [laughs]

What actually one of the great regrets of my own athletic career is when I finished throwing the shot put, I in hindsight wish I would have transition to weightlifting because I’ve done when I was 18 or 19 years old, I cleaned up 280 Kg. I probably could have kept that going and I stopped doing really any of the weightlifting movements my last two-and-a-half years of college. That’s a different thing.

Working with the weightlifters, I think something that Max and I have done extremely well is that we both have our systems and their scalable systems to go from Alyssa Ritchey, national champion world team member for team Juggernaut 49 Kg class up to like David Garcia, who look for us in the 96 Kg class at American Open and he’s ready to do some big numbers.

Understanding why Alyssa needs what she needs compared to why David needs what he needs and taking the scientific principles of strength training like in our book specificity, overload fatigue management, stimulus recovery adaptation variation, phase transition and individual differences.

Understanding the implications of those for powerlifting, weightlifting for super total for the athletes like Meghan Scanlon who Max’s coaches in both powerlifting and weightlifting, understand what that actually means to them.

It allows Max and I to speak with a common glossary to steal a phrase from one of the greatest humans of all time Jack Clark, who listen to “The JuggLife” episode with Jack Clark. He’s the head Rugby coach for the University of California, 28 and the last 34 national championships that they won, something like that and talks about one of the real tenets for their team’s success is this idea of establishing a common glossary.

When the coaches are referring to whatever rugby technique, I don’t know what they are, but all the athletes know exactly what they mean. So when we as coaches for team Juggernaut talk about big toe pressure in the squad or keep your knees forward or whatever the cue is that all the athletes know exactly what that means that when we put out videos and we refer to MRV, maximum recoverable volume, it’s consistent and the audience can understand what that is.

I think that’s been hugely beneficial. It’s been such a great thing to have Max come in and like said about late 2015. Where we actually established a official USAW club team Juggernaut or prior to that, had sponsorship type of relationships with weightlifters but we’re not an official USAW club.

When Max came in there there’s really no one else I could think of who could fill that role because no one else has the background in both powerlifting and weightlifting and the knowledge and prowess that Max does in both of those.

That was funny because that was the way that we got to know each other was we met at powerlifting meets, like been there competing together and had a five minute conversation here there. But then I would go to watch our weightlifters at these weightlifting meets and I didn’t know anyone. And then I saw Max and Joanne and I was like, I know them.

I’m safe talking to them. Because [laughs] all the other weightlifting people I think back 2013, 2014 they’re like, who the hell is this? Why is this huge powerlifting guy here he’s not one of us.

I knew that Max and Joanne they knew me so they were like…I latched on to them at these weightlifting meets and because I knew that I was like oh they know that powerlifting too so it’s good I can talk to them.

David TaoDavid Tao

 I just have this vision of you at your heaviest competition weight showing up to a weightlifting event and getting like really scared people are going to bully you and like…

…point their fingers and you just try it’s like trying to hide in a corner and not call too much attention to yourself. Weightlifting…

 In my mind they were probably like why is that guy sitting by himself? Is he too big to have any friends and eat his friends?

David TaoDavid Tao

 [laughs] , I don’t think either of us have reached the point where we’re too big to have friends but maybe we could ask some very active super heavies today. Like when do you get too big just to be around other people would you just get too strong? Well, Chad…

Yeah, because people probably. I may have eaten my friends. That’s why they weren’t there sitting with me anymore.

David TaoDavid Tao

People get suspicious the absence says a lot. I do have to ask since this is a podcast, I do want to mention the Juggernaut Training Systems podcast, which you and Max, co-host and it’s been going on for quite some time now has a ton of ratings and reviews and subscribers. It’s something that I listened to regularly and really enjoy. I got to ask, is there a dream podcast guest you all haven’t had on yet and if so, who is it?

Just like podcasts we’ve been doing for like three years, I think there’s…by the numbers of our episodes, I think we’re on 150 but I know that there’s some other like bonus ones and ones that we didn’t number in the mix there. I know someone who we’ve been meaning to get on who I think could be very interesting would be Pyrros Dimas.

I’m so excited to get him on it at some point as far as a dream guest goes. A lot of these stories that Max has of training and living with Ivan Abadjiev certainly obviously deceased now but the stories that Max does of him are pretty excellent he would have been fun to have on maybe we’ll just do an episode in which Max just does a nonstop…

…impersonation of Abadjiev and always people are asking us to have Louie Simmons on and or Mark Rippetoe because, we’ve been pretty outspoken and are critique of their methods, though it is not really appealing to me to have either of them on. Not that I’m nervous about them saying something and it’s stumping me or changing my mind. I don’t feel that they are capable of having a real discussion about things.

To go back to the common glossary idea, if what I say is a squat, is when the crease of the hip goes below the top of the knee but if that is not being commonly understood when we’re talking about squats. Then the numbers that people talk about are not exactly relevant and things like that.

That would be an interesting one if it could be moderated well or I would probably have to bring someone else in for that but no one that really comes to mind. Pyrros is someone we need to have on in the near future.

David TaoDavid Tao

 I’d listen to all of those, although it sounds in some of those situations there might need to be riot gear or some restraints that can hold very, very, very strong people. No, no I’m kidding. Chad it’s been an absolute pleasure talking to you.

I know you’re a busy guy especially with all of the fantastic initiatives that Juggernaut is pushing out for your 10th year anniversary founding the company, over 10 years now. Where is the best place for folks to keep up to date with what you’re doing and then with what JTS is putting out as well?

On Instagram they can follow me @ChadWesleySmith and then follow the company @JuggernautTraining. The spot where it’s all getting consolidated into one place is jtsstrength.com, all the videos get posted there.

Couldn’t really tell you the last time I wrote an article with regular words, but we have a deep archive of a lot of great articles as well that they can find there, as well as Juggernaut apparel.

All of our coaching, the AI coaching that we mentioned that’s been amazing for powerlifting and powerbuilding. We’ve had some really, really strong lifters on it. Even a bit surprising to me how strong some of the people who have used it are and how strong they’ve gotten.

They did design it with the capability to coach from beginner lifter to the most advanced. I didn’t necessarily expect really advanced lifters to give it a shot, but we’ve had a guy that totaled 2,170 at 275 with it in knee wraps, had a 2,000 lb total a couple weeks ago, which was the fifth guy who used it to dead lift over 800 lb.

A silver medalist at RAW nationals is using it, that’s been really cool. Max and Garrett have been working really hard on the weightlifting AI, which no surprise to anyone who understands the implications of powerlifting vs. weightlifting training is immensely more complex than the powerlifting AI.

It’s been a really hard process with in there but that’s going to be out in its beta form soon as is our Jiu-Jitsu strength and conditioning AI. We’re excited about that. They can find all that stuff there, our apparel, all the podcasts, JuggLife Podcast.

All the normal places people find podcasts and then Juggernaut Training Systems on YouTube. I have 270,000 subscribers or something, which is always funny and strange to me to think.

I started that channel to put my own training clips up there and being a YouTuber was definitely not a thing when I started that, even before Juggernaut existed. I would not consider myself to be a YouTuber.

I rather put things on YouTube and that’s an important distinction, if I ever become a YouTuber I will probably hate myself, but they can subscribe there. Two to three new videos a week, my ultimate goal with the YouTube is that when I do a Q&A every question that gets asked I’m linking a video to it.

We’re pretty close to that point already, if you have a question about powerlifting and weightlifting training, and you’ve got a little bit of initiative to search through the channel you can probably find a very in-depth answer to that question because we’ve got many videos on there, 1,300 or something.

When we hit 250,000 subscribers a couple months ago, we actually went and curated all of our, what I feel is our best most useful content by topic into one PDF with all the videos embedded right there in it.

If you want to learn about squat technique, you go to the squat technique section and boom. There’s two hours worth of videos, that ended up being 250 videos and 40 hours total of content.

They can find that on our website. Just Google “Juggernaut YouTube book,” and it should be right there.

David TaoDavid Tao

Chad Wesley Smith, thank you so much for joining the podcast, look forward to chatting again in the near future, appreciate it.

Thanks for having me, David.

About David Tao

BarBend's Co-Founder and CEO, David is a veteran of the health & fitness industry, with nearly a decade of experience building and running editorial teams in the space. He also serves as a color commentator for both National and International weightlifting competitions, many through USA Weightlifting.

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