Building ANY community is tough. So building a space and community for people obsessed with strength brings its own special challenges. And no one knows more about that than Joey Szatmary.
Joey is a multi-sport strength athlete (powerlifting and strongman) and coach who owns The Lions Den Elite Training gym. Throughout his career, Szatmary has worked with a huge variety of athletes and constantly shares his knowledge and experiences on his quickly-growing YouTube channel. In today’s episode, we talk to Szatmary about opening his own gym, training requirements across different strength sports, and much, much more.
In this episode of the BarBend Podcast, guest host Jake Boly talks to Joey Szatmary about:
- Joey’s current pro favorite strongman athlete (2:00)
- Joey’s thoughts on Brian Shaw for the 2020 season (2:36)
- Joey’s background and his origin story finding strength (4:00)
- When to narrow down your business’s niche and go all-in on a couple things (8:45)
- What Joey loves about the sport of strongman (12:20)
- How Joey adjusted training and loading to accommodate for his knee surgery (17:40)
- What are a few things every great training program consists of (19:40)
- Where do most beginners get lost when starting their training journey (21:00)
- Advice for anyone feeling burnt out from training and how to shift their goals and mindset (24:30)
- How Joey likes to structure in-season and off-season training for his athletes (27:45)
- Why Joey stopped sweating accessories and started really dialing in on compound when working with Alan Thrall (31:15)
- Building a program to strengthen a squat and dialing in frequency (35:30)
- Structuring variations when working on a compound with high frequency (37:30)
- Why tempo training has so much benefit (40:00)
- Building a timeline for a compound focused mesocycle (42:20)
- Tips for noticing when a program has run stale and when it’s time to change (44:20)
- What to do if you feel stressed after a low stress week (48:35)
- Rapid fire questions (49:35)
Other Joey Szatmary Content
Did you enjoy the conversation we had with Joey Szatmary? If so, you’re in luck. We’ve filmed a few videos with him including this awesome video discussing five great tips for improving your deadlift. For lagging deadlifts, check it out!
Relevant links and further reading:
