The Secrets of Diablo Barbell

Coach Ted talks about the ideas and principles he learned from the late Louis Simmons.
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The Secrets of Diablo Barbell

Season 5/Episode 33
August 3, 2022
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

This is the Ted O'Neill Program where we explore the science and philosophies for performance optimization, and the elevation of the human experience from the mind of Ted O'Neill with Jon Leon Guerrero.
 
0:27 Ted
We're going to be filming an entire training series directed toward powerlifters called Secrets of Diablo barbell. Now, that's definitely a tip of the hat to Louie. The early 90s, he had a series of videotapes. And it was secrets of the West Side Barbell Club. And he had one of the squats, on the bench, on the deadlift, on special exercises and these things, they didn't have much in the way of professional videography, photography or editing. But they were content rich and they were game changers. They were absolutely genre, bending genre defining moments and so many of my contemporaries came up through that time were watching these videos of what was happening this little 1000 square foot gym and Demarest Ohio at the time, that was Westside Barbell Louie and all of his crazy ideas and the things he was doing and now so many people think that they take it for granted. They don't even understand where that came from. So, I've spoken about this before where I think the impact of Louis Simmons and Westside Barbell head on training in general in all facets of training, because he had done a number of seminars from the CrossFit population and all this other stuff. So now whether it's some of the exercises or some of them orthotics or some of the theories are out there and people don't even know where those things originally came from, but it came from the small little private gym. That was probably a handful of members that completely reshaped strength training, as we know it today. So, this series that we're going to be filming a little later in the year and probably released early next year. Is going to be my version of that is it's how we teach the big lifts. It's what is powerlifting to us. How do you arrange training, how do you incorporate special exercises? There are many things. It's going to be to be pretty extensive, but it's definitely an homage to Louie Simmons and what I had received from afar and from the time that he took to instill within me a lot of these different ideas and principles in his learning.
 
2:34 Jon
What do you think Louie picked you to impart all this knowledge because as much as you lacked access to a lot of this knowledge because there wasn't YouTube, but you managed to get Louie’s phone number from the magazine article that you read?
 
2:51 Ted
he would you would post his number at the end of every article. So, I don't think it was special for me. I think Louis left his number there for a reason. Anyone who wanted to call, could call and receive information. So that's pretty amazing. And I I know some other people from the same time around that I started that had spoken to Louis in those early years and they would just call up and have conversations with this guy. He does love sharing the information. He never asked for anything from me. It was never a fee involved or it wasn't the way that business is done today. He was just passing along what he had discovered as it applied to lifting down and he was to me I always said I believe him to be one of the most perfectly placed experts in the world. This is a guy who was clearly a genius. I don't know what his formal schooling was probably not particularly deep on that side. But he was Ultra passionate about what he did and that came through and the conversations I had with him. I think his imprint on the sport of powerlifting and beyond
 
3:54 Jon
His contribution to your training, and now my training. I mean, he's created generations.
 
4:03 Ted
Many generations where people he is trained to have them gone on and trained others to break records. And then that individual that trains the next generation of lifters and so yeah, I think that that imprint is far and wide and so much so that you know, like as I mentioned, now, a lot of people don't even know where that stuff came from because it's so prevalent and it's worked his way around. And it's funny. I think a lot of newer coaches or trainers think that they're reinventing the wheel where they don't understand the origin of some of the stuff, he's in was just within the last 30 years.

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