S1E03: Greg Nuckols on Lifting Heavy Things, Beer, & Business Ethics

The guest on the show today is a good industry friend of mine, Greg Nuckols.Greg is the content manager for Juggernaut Training Systems, one of the biggest strength training websites in the world. He's also the owner of Strengtheory.com, a site that has exploded in popularity over the last year due to the quality and originality of the writing that he's putting out. In addition to being a very well educated and exceptional writer, he’s also an elite level powerlifter, with best lifts including 755 pound squat, 475 pound bench and 725 deadlift (so over 1900 pounds total). Greg holds one all-time world record, he used to have two more but those were beaten in the last year, and I know he is itching to get those back.I hope you enjoy this somewhat rambling conversation between two friends. We cover a lot of topics, not just on lifting, but on business, ethics, beer and Greg's terrible taste in music.Show notes- Greg’s surprising music taste confession-On beards & hipsterism- Q) What do you do? - "I try my hardest to not sound like a drug dealer"- Stephen Hawking, Wall-E, Big Boys Aren't Afraid To Cry- Greg's lifting world records & how genetics played their role- 'The Art of Lifting' and 'The Science of Lifting' - Greg's books- The credibility hit we take when recommending fitness products- Q) If you could change one thing about the industry, what would it be and why? - "More transparency"- The power of honesty - "When I started doing everything wrong with my website is when things started taking off."- Don't do this for the money - "If you computed my hourly earnings over that 2.5-yearr span, even taking out all the social media stuff, I guarantee you I've averaged less than $3 an hour. You have to embrace the grind. You have to love what you are doing. If money is what drives you, you're going to have a bad time."- Sleep & stress - "The two best strength gain periods of my life were where I was sleeping an average of 11 hours a day."- Greg answers this commonly asked question: "If you know what you are doing with your training, why aren't you any stronger than you were two years ago?"- The importance of 'buy-in'- Andy's ultimate buy-in tool to get Greg shredded... and why it fell through.- Beer talk. "I don't make enough money to become an alcoholic drinking the beer that I like to drink."- The importance of training environment for strength and muscle gains. "The longer that you can think of yourself as weak, the less chance there for your brain to get in the way of you continuing to make progress, and I think that is a big benefit of training in a gym with really strong people."- "Beating my hero, Tavis Mash, flipped a switch. 'I went from thinking, 'I'm done,' to 'I can do anything!'"- How taking fake steroids can gain us size and strength if we believe they are real.- Why it's sometimes best to turn down business.For links to the resources discussed, check out the show notes here: http://rippedbody.com/podcast-greg-nuckols/