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In the nineteenth episode of Iron Minds, Samuele sits down with Carlo Alberto Bonomelli - coach of Chiara Bernardi and sub-junior Aurora Scapini, and one of the partners behind the Strong4Real powerlifting and weightlifting team - to talk about why he keeps training simple, sustainable and built on trust, and why his athletes' meet week looks just like every other week. 0:00 - Intro 1:01 - From soccer to coaching, and building Strong4Real 5:37 - Three words: psychological, sustainable, practical 10:08 - Ranking the six success factors (and taking genetics out) 13:12 - 100% trust: why coach, athlete and program are one factor 16:52 - Why technique comes last 20:45 - Why Italy's women are world-class and its men aren't yet 29:34 - Why intermediates stall — and the new-coach honeymoon 36:05 - Top-down vs bottom-up programming: 4-week blocks, no percentages 41:28 - Meet week looks like every other week 48:47 - Smolov kids and the cost of monster volume 53:43 - The Agata Sitko thought experiment: frequency and nine bench sessions 59:27 - Quality over quantity 1:03:21 - Velocity trackers: solidity beats speed 1:07:46 - Technique: natural movement vs coach-built lifts 1:12:12 - Intuition vs data: programs on paper 1:16:30 - What really causes injuries 1:20:26 - Powerlifting in ten years Samuele: https://www.instagram.com/giulianodontario/ Carlo: https://www.instagram.com/carloalberto.bonomelli/ Strong4Real: https://www.instagram.com/strong4real_/

In the eighteenth episode of Iron Minds, Samuele sits down with Matt Sharafinski to talk about why he'd trust bar speed over a lifter's word, what successful training blocks have in common, when a coach should follow a gut feeling, and why lifestyle, not technique, is where he sees injuries come from. 0:00 - Intro 1:13 - How Matt got into powerlifting in the raw era 4:06 - Why powerlifting: objectivity and owning every variable 6:42 - Objective, pragmatic, logical: Matt as a coach 11:38 - The coach-athlete relationship, and where it should end 16:47 - Ranking six variables: the Sheffield lifter vs the average lifter 26:02 - What great genetics actually look like 31:48 - What successful blocks have in common 39:30 - Could he coach a 7x-a-week lifter? Stepping stones, not leaps 45:40 - Protect the downside, then chase the upside 49:28 - Can you force the rate of progress? 53:41 - Tell lifters less and watch what they pick 58:11 - How each week of a block should feel 1:05:39 - Technique: top-down until it doesn't work 1:10:22 - Deadlift grip: skill for hook, setup for mixed 1:18:07 - Programming: top-down with caveats 1:24:32 - Autonomy, RPE and load caps 1:30:49 - Why velocity is the most useful metric 1:42:16 - Intuition vs data: the duck-footed lifter who switched to sumo 1:55:58 - Getting lost in the weeds as a coach 1:59:37 - The biggest cause of injuries: lifestyle Samuele: https://www.instagram.com/giulianodontario/ Matt: https://www.instagram.com/the_sheriff_lifts/

In the seventeenth episode of Iron Minds, Samuele sits down with Nicolas Peyraud, a fellow coach at TSG and an elite lifter who has spent eleven years in powerlifting after playing high-level rugby in France. They talk about ranking the variables of long-term success, why average intensity is the one number he would keep, how velocity tracking can be both the most honest tool and the hardest to live with, and why he would slow a talented junior down before handing them high frequency. 0:00 - Intro 0:49 - From high-level rugby in France to powerlifting 4:46 - Cardio, and what rugby taught him about hard training 7:43 - Junior aggression vs. patience in a slow sport 12:29 - Ranking the six variables, and his sister's deadlift 19:02 - Why intermediate lifters plateau 20:36 - Self-talk and his counting routine under the bar 22:32 - If a block works, run it again 24:21 - The one variable: average intensity 28:40 - Total weekly dose vs. primary and secondary days 31:36 - Percentages, RPE, and why velocity doesn't lie 35:55 - Why he stopped tracking velocity for six months 38:38 - A slow bar means fatigue, not weakness 41:01 - Top-down or bottom-up programming 43:45 - Technique: let the body find it, one cue a week 47:36 - Intuition vs. data, and how high frequency caught on 50:53 - Would he put a young Agata Sitko on high frequency? 53:49 - The mistake coaches make with talented juniors 56:47 - Injury risk: not listening to your body 59:41 - Powerlifting in ten years, and why local meets matter Samuele: https://www.instagram.com/giulianodontario/ Nicolas: https://www.instagram.com/nicolas.peyraud/ TSG: https://www.instagram.com/thestrengthguys/

In this new episode of Iron Minds, Samuele sits down with Josef Eriksson to talk about why his world-level athletes train at under half of their one-rep max, almost never take a single before a meet, and why he thinks most lifters peak themselves into a worse total. 0:00 - Intro 0:50 - A hip problem at nine, and finding the bench press 12:16 - Ranking the variables: why genetics doesn't belong on the list 15:54 - Sheffield lifestyles, five hours of sleep, and Kjell Baklund 21:11 - Technique isn't the perfect position — it's owning the position 26:01 - Lift 100kg the way you lift 50kg 33:53 - Why he doesn't use RPE, and the champion who called it lazy coaching 39:19 - Velocity-based training, and the correlation he couldn't find 55:14 - The one thing he'd monitor: intention and integrity 1:04:04 - How fatigued a lifter should be going into a meet 1:07:19 - A 251.5kg world record, five days after 12 reps with 200kg 1:12:51 - Jonathan Henningson's 49.7% average training weight 1:18:19 - The pause is a rule, not a bench 1:22:31 - Where the high-rep method came from 1:26:47 - Devil's advocate: when rep PRs don't convert 1:36:21 - "We peak ourselves to death" 1:54:50 - Why injuries are stress over time 2:09:50 - How leverages, not gender, decide your reps at a percentage Samuele: https://www.instagram.com/giulianodontario/ Josef: https://www.instagram.com/josef_eriksson/

In the fifteenth episode of Iron Minds, Samuele sits down with Dr. Kate Cohen, sport psychologist with a PhD in sport psychology from Florida State, two-time USA Powerlifting national champion and USAPL national record holder in the deadlift and the total at 48kg, who now teaches sport psychology at the college level in New Jersey. They talk about why every coach ranks the mental side near the top and almost nobody actually trains it. 0:00 - Intro 2:50 - Fourteen years competing, national records, and a PhD in sport psychology 5:41 - Before and after the PhD: the nervous wreck in the warm-up room 8:06 - The Michael Jordan problem: is a toxic mentality something you fix? 13:44 - Why no one working with him wanted to touch that part of him 15:20 - The talented, anxious teenager — preserve the fire or calm it down? 17:02 - What happens when a PR shrinks to 1.25 kilos 19:55 - Powerlifting vs team sport: one shot, and you have to generate the anger 22:15 - The coach-athlete relationship, and an American-vs-Italian culture gap 25:47 - Winning the athlete vs helping the human: are they the same job? 29:53 - Psychological plateaus, and what flow state actually is 31:29 - Manipulating the environment to make flow more likely 33:19 - Four traits psychologically strong athletes share 35:16 - Failure, plateaus, bad meets: "you missed the point" 39:14 - How much of the mental side is genetic? 43:18 - Advice to parents raising a future athlete 46:26 - Male vs female athletes: what the research actually shows 49:02 - Top-down or bottom-up: how she runs a first session 56:54 - The data: no coach ranked psychology lower than second 58:07 - Not a value problem — a knowledge-implementation gap 59:30 - Treated as an outcome instead of a trainable component 1:02:52 - Why the physical side has the infrastructure and the mental side doesn't 1:07:32 - The stigma: if you seek help, you must be mentally weak 1:11:24 - Stoicism, journaling, and why you can't theory your way to a squat 1:15:58 - When powerlifting coaches try to be the psychologist 1:18:14 - Sport psychology in powerlifting ten years from now Samuele: https://www.instagram.com/giulianodontario/ Kate: https://www.instagram.com/kateco220/ TSG: https://www.instagram.com/thestrengthguys/

In the fourteenth episode of Iron Minds, Samuele sits down with Chris "Big Body" Ferratti to talk about why he ranks mentality above everything and genetics last, why he has never once used a velocity tracker, and why he thinks the new IPF bench rule has quietly killed leg drive. 0:00 - Intro 0:36 - August on the Flex roster: Sheffield, Houston and run-through meets 2:45 - The Chance Mitchell comeback rumours 4:58 - Taekwondo, football and what other sports taught him 9:38 - Two years without a deadlift PR, and the film database 12:57 - Ranking the six variables that build an athlete 14:00 - Why mentality outranks genetics 20:11 - What separates Sheffield athletes: Gustav Hedlin's routine 24:48 - Technique only has to be good enough to pass 28:46 - "I enjoy boring": Agata Sitko and Alba Boström 32:31 - Programming and technique are both just coaching 37:56 - Why genetics ranks last 41:35 - The most common reason lifters plateau 48:42 - The one variable he'd track: bar speed and RPE 54:24 - "The closer you ride to the sun" 1:03:12 - One squat day a week, two sets, fried 1:11:06 - Intuition vs data tracking, and vanilla programming 1:20:22 - Russ's third bench attempt at Sheffield 1:28:03 - Ugly PRs, and when movement quality is allowed to drop 1:31:06 - Waiving depth on secondary squat days 1:39:56 - Injury risk: lifestyle, and lifting crooked 1:44:04 - Hot take: there's no leg drive under the new bench rule 1:48:13 - Hot take: America has the most potential to sweep Worlds 1:59:18 - The question he wishes someone would ask him 2:03:19 - "It's uncomfortable to be unique": the cost of greatness 2:09:26 - Chris turns the mic around on Samuele Samuele: https://www.instagram.com/giulianodontario/ Chris: https://www.instagram.com/theofficialbigbody/ Flexx Training Systems: https://www.instagram.com/flexxtrainingsystems/ Flex Training Systems: {Flex Training Systems Instagram URL}

In the thirteenth episode of Iron Minds, Samuele sits down with Giuseppe Gargiulo — one of the most decorated coaches in Italy — to talk about Soviet vs American programming, why he ranks technique above programming, and why he thinks coaching is an art rather than a science. 0:00 - Intro 0:47 - Junior Worlds, Tommaso Buscaroli and three Italian records 7:47 - Italy is pushing its juniors too fast 9:36 - Build strength all year, express it only in competition 12:43 - Why he never writes RPE on variations 16:09 - Two tapers: the cyclic and the Soviet acyclic 22:12 - Ado Gruzza, Sheiko, and learning the Russian method 28:04 - What he changed his mind about in ten years 32:54 - Italy's junior injury problem, and the one who survived it 37:59 - Volume, frequency and pacing are all connected 48:00 - Ranking the six variables 51:50 - Why technique sits above programming 56:35 - "Coaching is an art, it's not a science" 1:01:29 - Being friends with your athletes, and losing authority 1:05:35 - Can an elite athlete have bad technique? 1:11:39 - Against the body self-organizing 1:16:53 - One bad session — and when he lies to an athlete 1:25:02 - Why he doesn't trust velocity trackers 1:40:29 - Powerlifting in ten years: the professionalization problem 1:48:32 - The question nobody asks him Samuele: https://www.instagram.com/giulianodontario/ Giuseppe: https://www.instagram.com/giuseppe_gargiulo_ebbast/

In the this new episode of Iron Minds, Samuele sits down with Meg Scanlon to talk about where individualization actually belongs, what actually causes plateaus, and how to chase your genetic potential without letting the sport eat your life. 0:00 - Intro 2:50 - Gymnastics, soccer, marathons: the road into powerlifting 6:56 - The squat-every-day phase, and why fun still matters 10:17 - People respond similarly — individualization lives outside training 11:12 - Getting closer to genetic potential means giving things up 23:53 - Tonnage on squat and bench, deadlift as a byproduct 28:58 - What actually causes plateaus 35:52 - Her biggest risk: going all in on powerlifting 37:10 - Training that fits your life, not the reverse 43:49 - Ranking the six factors 46:43 - Programming vs. coaching — the underrated half 50:58 - "It's your life": lifestyle, expectations, and keeping people lifting 55:40 - What technique actually is, and the technique continuum 59:52 - Over-cueing, perfectionism, and chasing perfect reps 1:13:04 - Two variables: average intensity and tonnage 1:19:25 - Autoregulation without fearing hard sets 1:22:22 - Intuition: what makes good coaches great 1:26:00 - Injury risk and the moment load starts climbing 1:38:12 - "I don't care what's on the barbell" Samuele: https://www.instagram.com/giulianodontario/ Meg: https://www.instagram.com/megscanlift/

In the eleventh episode of Iron Minds, Samuele sits down with Marcellus Williams - the "swolefessor" - to talk about why pacing, not structure, decides your best blocks, how genetics really works, and why powerlifting undersells sports psychology. 0:00 - Intro 0:42 - Coming off IPF Worlds with eight clients, and what's next 2:59 - How long he's really been coaching 3:46 - Calisthenics with his dad, boxing, and lifting at 17 7:20 - Discovering raw powerlifting in college 9:10 - Doing everything to the best of your ability 10:11 - The quality he values most: truly caring about people 12:16 - Why a client's trust is a big deal 15:54 - The biggest influence: his dad, the pastor and firefighter 18:11 - Knowing when to be tender, when to be blunt, and saying "I don't know" 22:20 - Ranking the six variables 24:17 - Genetics sets your ceiling; effort fills it 28:53 - Why we shouldn't obsess over a ceiling we can't see 33:51 - Why powerlifting underrates sports psychology 35:28 - Why so few coaches talk about the mental side 37:06 - Retention, and the Brandon Petrus story 38:55 - Is good technique a point or a spectrum? 40:32 - Principles over positions: consistent, repeatable technique 44:09 - Guiding the athlete "within a box" as they change 47:29 - Technique, hypertrophy, and missing the forest for the trees 49:39 - Cue first: the least invasive change wins 51:43 - Symmetry for performance, not for its own sake 55:19 - Top-down vs bottom-up, and the five-hours-of-sleep trap 57:14 - Deadlifting first: a principle, not a problem 59:19 - The low-volume-responder myth 1:02:23 - The common thread in every great block: pacing 1:05:33 - The one variable he'd track 1:07:53 - Static vs dynamic RPE 1:12:01 - The fatigue-to-fitness ratio he wishes existed 1:18:45 - Velocity tracking, and why it's the least useful tool 1:20:48 - Variable percentage-based training 1:24:14 - Intuition vs data, and how the curve bends back 1:26:16 - The Ashton week-four story that became a metric 1:30:26 - The Agatha six-days-a-week thought experiment 1:38:18 - The most common cause of plateaus 1:40:36 - Powerlifting in 2035 1:45:55 - The question nobody asks: legacy Samuele: https://www.instagram.com/giulianodontario/ Marcellus: https://www.instagram.com/theswolefessor/

In the tenth episode of Iron Minds, Samuele sits down with Anas Anbar to talk about why you can't separate fatigue from the stimulus that builds strength, and what that means for how we program, cue, and read a lifter. 0:00 - Intro 1:55 - Growing up on soccer in Jordan, then finding the gym 4:26 - The coach's line that stuck: "the gains begin after you get tired" 8:05 - The most important quality in a coach 10:06 - What he changed his mind about: expanding the dosage continuum 11:46 - Hot take: RPE is overrated 17:04 - The John Song contrast — RPE as a teaching tool 18:38 - Second hot take: the golden microcycle will die out 20:26 - You can't separate the fatigue from the stimulus 22:59 - Why you shouldn't be scared of fatigue 24:36 - Strength depends on other qualities you have to build 30:47 - Raise the floor, don't just chase the ceiling 36:13 - Top-down vs bottom-up, and why it depends on the lifter 41:43 - Powerlifting as a moving target 44:04 - Is there objectively good and bad technique? 47:35 - Reading technique: levers, hip drop, center mass 53:24 - Coaching technique: environment vs cueing vs learning 1:03:53 - The most common cause of plateau right now 1:06:34 - What success looks like: force production, not top sets 1:10:39 - Velocity, and force as mass times acceleration 1:16:24 - Ranking the six variables 1:23:53 - How injuries actually happen: stress vs capacity 1:29:23 - The mocha-pot analogy for dosing stress 1:32:19 - Data vs intuition 1:38:21 - Powerlifting in ten years 1:47:25 - The question nobody asks: projects and gratitude Samuele: https://www.instagram.com/giulianodontario/ Anas: https://www.instagram.com/anasanbar/

In the ninth episode of Iron Minds, Samuele sits down with Filippo d'Albero - a former MMA fighter and engineer who came to powerlifting through injury rehab and turned it into a data-driven coaching practice and a decade of content - to talk about genetics, technique, data vs intuition, and what actually moves the needle for a lifter. 0:00 - Intro 0:50 - From MMA and a shoulder surgery to powerlifting 5:36 - AI and data analysis in powerlifting 12:42 - Who shaped him: Jason Tremblay & Eric Helms 15:41 - What he learns from his athletes 21:41 - Ranking the 6 variables (genetics first) 30:54 - Hot take: the underdog can't beat talent 40:51 - Why lifters really plateau 49:01 - What good technique actually is 55:28 - The squat: why the hips shoot up 57:04 - Fix the oven, don't split the line (the donut analogy) 1:07:20 - Programming: theory vs what works (Brett Gibbs) 1:15:37 - Data vs intuition 1:21:15 - The one variable to track: estimated 1RM 1:23:12 - VBT, RPE and the encoder 1:33:11 - Injury risk 1:37:54 - Powerlifting in 10 years 1:42:48 - The question no one asks Samuele: https://www.instagram.com/giulianodontario/ Filippo: https://www.instagram.com/filippo_dalbero/

In the eighth episode of Iron Minds, Samuele sits down with John Song — one of the most successful coaches in the world as well as a physical therapist — to talk about how he reads technique, writes programs, and manages fatigue for elite lifters. 0:00 - Intro 0:42 - From violin and wrestling to powerlifting and PT 5:09 - Coach McHugh and what makes a coach dependable 10:01 - What his athletes taught him 13:25 - Ranking the six variables of long-term success 18:22 - Why psychology is the long-term end-all 20:58 - Good technique as a boundary, not a point 31:07 - Programming: fundamentals-first vs bottom-up 37:39 - How a lifter should feel heading into a meet 42:50 - RPE/RIR vs percentages vs velocity 46:49 - Coaching intent and constant-velocity squatting 49:26 - Angelo's ultra-slow squat, explained 51:40 - The most common cause of plateaus 54:16 - Data vs intuition when writing programs 56:53 - The role of AI in powerlifting 1:01:31 - Where injury risk really comes from 1:06:04 - Where powerlifting will be in ten years 1:09:13 - The question nobody asks Samuele: https://www.instagram.com/giulianodontario/ John: https://www.instagram.com/john_song_dpt/

In the seventh episode of Iron Minds, Samuele sits down with Youssuf El Adlani to talk about why an athlete's mindset matters more than genetics, technique or programming, and how he adapts the method to the lifter instead of the other way around. 0:00 - Intro 0:47 - From tennis and martial arts to powerlifting 2:36 - Rafael Nadal and his first coach Anthony Graziani 6:33 - Ranking the 6 variables: mindset #1, technique last 10:57 - Being relentless & the comparison trap 16:37 - Diagnosing a plateaued lifter 20:33 - Finding the pattern & coaching block-to-block 27:25 - How a block should feel & back-end deloads 30:43 - The one variable to track: average intensity 32:38 - Quality of work over tonnage 36:35 - Reactive coaching, RPE & the 5x5 question 41:14 - Can AI and data analytics help powerlifting? 46:03 - Intuition stories: Noemi Alabert & the junk-volume lifter 52:02 - Adapt the method to the athlete, not the reverse 57:41 - Good vs optimal technique & submaximal loads 1:05:29 - Velocity tracking as a monitoring tool 1:10:08 - Changing his mind & the women/volume hot take 1:14:34 - What really drives injury risk 1:17:49 - The future: 10 years, the Olympics & Sheffield 1:23:36 - Getting through the lows Samuele: https://www.instagram.com/giulianodontario/ Youssuf: https://www.instagram.com/youssuf_el_adlani/

In the sixth episode of Iron Minds, Samuele sits down with Matthew Henry — an Irish powerlifting coach, sports and exercise science graduate, and elite lifter heading to Worlds — to talk about why most plateaus are psychological, how to build and ride momentum, and why he keeps a toolbox of methods instead of a single doctrine. 0:00 - Intro 1:04 - Who Matt was before powerlifting 5:19 - The coach who shaped him & talent that works hard 8:46 - Ranking the six variables of strength 13:39 - Coaching technique: cues vs programming 16:09 - Reacting to a bad session & stacking the cards 20:32 - Diagnosing the stuck intermediate lifter 25:51 - Why lifters plateau & the junior-to-open crisis 30:01 - Momentum vs forcing progress: Jordan's road to Worlds 35:51 - RPE, percentages & velocity in prescription 41:11 - The one metric that tracks real progress 45:34 - Velocity drop-off & work capacity 48:20 - Top-down vs bottom-up programming 53:14 - Brett Gibbs & the work-capacity debate 59:16 - Intuition vs data 1:05:59 - Hot take: stop taking powerlifting so seriously 1:08:10 - What he changed his mind about 1:11:18 - The future of elite coaching 1:17:38 - Legacy & the question he wishes he'd be asked Samuele: https://www.instagram.com/giulianodontario/ Matt: https://www.instagram.com/mhenry94/

In the fifth episode of Iron Minds, Samuele sits down with Matt Vena — a Canadian èlite coach, competitive powerlifter with a 2,100+ lb total, and exercise-science grad — to talk about why psychology outranks programming, why he believes genetics is the most overrated variable in the sport, and how a submaximal, motor-learning-first approach drives long-term strength. 0:00 - Intro 0:40 - From high school gym class to Starting Strength 2:03 - Alec Blenis & how cardio coaching reshaped his thinking 3:39 - How aerobic training added 80kg to his total 6:00 - Ranking the six variables: psychology is 50% 10:17 - Coach-athlete relationship, autonomy & buy-in 14:32 - Diagnosing a year-long plateau & the role of externals 19:10 - What a successful block feels like & training at RPE 4-6 21:10 - Submaximal training & motor learning 23:22 - The one variable to track: a fatigue rating 26:20 - Workload over primary/secondary days 29:33 - Velocity tracking & the case against auto-regulation 35:04 - Top-down programming, bottom-up technique & biomechanics 39:05 - Planning backwards & his 16-week progression 42:12 - Coaching a Sheffield athlete & "lying by omission" 43:48 - Intuition vs data analysis 45:29 - Hot take: genetics is the most overrated variable 51:10 - What actually predicts injury 53:16 - What he's changed his mind on 55:22 - Why powerlifting will decline in ten years 1:01:05 - The motor-learning gap nobody talks about Samuele: https://www.instagram.com/giulianodontario/ Matt: https://www.instagram.com/mattvena/