Thank you for checking out The Community Conversation, brought to you by Prototype Training Systems, home of CrossFit Prototype! The Community Conversation highlights a different member of the Prototype Community each week and allows them to tell their story, share their life experience, and communicate their perspective on all things fitness.

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This is our 37th episode of The Community Conversation and today’s guest is Prototype Barbell coach, Joe Black! You won’t want to miss this episode as it’s a good one!

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Mike Collette 0:02
All right, we are live with the man — Mr. Joe black, Coach Joe Black of Prototype Systems. Joe, thanks so much for jumping on today and being part of the community conversation man.

Joe Black 0:15
Course Mike, appreciate it.

Mike Collette 0:16
Yeah, dude. So obviously, it’s a little bit different than directly talking with like our members and like about like, journey but what the first question I got for you dude is like, what was like the big reason? or How did you kind of get into like the fitness industry because your your journey is pretty unique. And I’m glad that that could be like a, you know, part of it and I’d love for everyone else that might not know, like much about you to kind of learn a little bit about how you got involved in coaching and, and then kind of got down the path of getting into into weightlifting, because that’s what your, your true passion is now.

Joe Black 0:52
Yeah, man, it started…I mean, like, I’ve always been pretty active. I played sports my whole life up through high school, and then you know, intramurals and stuff in college, but then after college, there’s kind of this period where, you know, it’s like, what do you do now, and I started, you know, going to the gym doing, you know, the typical, like, “bro workout” barely working on my legs, all upper body, and you just get sick of that I was like, repetitive and no idea what I was doing. And then I got, I was like, I’m going to try these tough monitors. I started hearing about them, and somebody got me to do one. And I did a couple of those. And I was like, yeah, this is like good and stuff. But I hadn’t run in high school when I was done with like, sort of endurance distance stuff. And somebody kept saying, like CrossFit, CrossFit. And I kept hearing this CrossFit. And I’m like, alright, what is this? So I ended up going to CrossFit, a Marlboro. And I think it was in. This is like 2011. And I was like, instantly hooked. I was like, Oh, this is awesome. You know, like, there. It was just different. It was fun. I felt like athletic. I was like, this is really, really cool. And so from there, let’s say like, 2012 I got my level one. Because I was like, I just want to learn more about CrossFit. And then probably, you know, sometime in 2012, definitely 2013 I started getting a little bit more into weightlifting. There is this guy, right. And at the time, he was coaching, he just had this like theory like it this is like Matt Fraser is kind of coming up. And he’s talking about you know how weightlifters make really good crossfitters. So it’s like, I got to get better at weightlifting, if I want to be better at CrossFit. And then I just sort of started to like weightlifting a lot more, and just the technical aspect of it, and just the challenge of it. So I started getting into that a little bit more, I started training with a coach in like, 2015, I was like doing my own thing, again, not really, I didn’t really know what I was doing. But then 2015, I got a coach that really helped a ton, it really accelerated my growth. And you know, all the while I’m working at a desk job. I’ve been doing digital marketing for close to 10 years. And it was just something I fell into after school. And so it really wasn’t a passion of mine. And I just found myself being unable to, like go to a job interview and say, Yeah, I want to like work for your company, because I didn’t want to do that I want to do something else. And I was like, you know what, like, eventually I got two jobs in a row. They’re absolutely terrible. And it was like a sign it was like you have to do you have to you have to leave this industry and just figure it out. So I want to say that shortly after I did that I might have reached out to you at that time because I think Katie, my wife, Katie had said, you know there something about you know, like coaches program that they had, I was like, I gotta talk to Mike. Meanwhile, I’m working construction with my buddy doing carpentry and whatever else he needed help with. And then I started in on the program at a prototype. And so I started doing, you know, coaching CrossFit. And you know, all along I was like, I want to create a weightlifting team. I want to coach weightlifting, I want to you know, Coach youth athletes so I can I can start them young and bring them up and progress them into adult lifters. And you know, of course, I wanted to work with anyone, adults, youth athletes, like who wanted to go into weightlifting and so over, you know, so probably full time I started full time coaching in 2018 that was when I could like finally leave the construction job and didn’t have to do it’s like back and forth. You know, and it’s just been steady progress ever since then. So as you know, it’s kind of went from like a pretty kind of scary time in my life, but also like, pretty felt like free and is like, Okay, I have control over this and, you know, now we’re here in 2021. And yeah, things are things are going real well.

Mike Collette 5:12
Are you glad you’re not working behind a desk anymore?

Joe Black 5:14
Oh man, I can’t even like think that, you know, like, think of that it’s just, it’s not me, I couldn’t, you know, I couldn’t, I feel like I can be much more myself in the gym than I ever could have been in any office or anything like that.

Mike Collette 5:30
It’s pretty cool that go from like, you know, the journey just kind of described from like, you know, finding CrossFit in 2011. Then finding kind of like the niche within that, you know, this, this, you can call it the sport or the the applied, like the practicality of like, the training methodology that you found that, like you really enjoyed, like wasting what was about it that you really liked so much. Now, you mentioned that, you know, there was someone mentioned to you that, like, you know, weightlifters make the best crossfitters and, like, an example would be like Matt Fraser. And there’s some other athletes that I think just kind of transition from weightlifting into, like, into CrossFit. Like, what about it, like, got you so fired up that you liked so much about it? And like, I would assume you still love about it?

Joe Black 6:15
Yeah, for like, the biggest thing for me is it makes me feel athletic. And that’s just why I like to do it, and, you know, trying to hold on to the glory years as long as possible. And that makes me feel like, I can do that through weightlifting. And I just like the technical aspect of it. And I like the I like the training. I like how, you know, they’re, to me, like training for weightlifting is really applicable to, like life, like an approach that you have to take, it’s not linear, um, you know, there’s ups and downs are times when you’re just, you know, crushing it and times when you’re struggling. Um, and it’s all about like, just doing a little bit, do a little bit more, do a little bit more. You know, like, in one of – I just love this saying “Little by little, a little becomes a lot”. And that’s kind of like, it’s through strength training, in through kind of that structure strength training that like I realized, Oh, I can apply this to other areas in my life and take that same approach where it’s like, alright, you know, I don’t have to wake up tomorrow and you know, have this huge thing accomplished, but over time, I can work towards that and little by little, you know, it will come to fruition so

Mike Collette 7:43
Now for everyone that’s listening that like when they hear weightlifting, like it might not mean what it actually is like lifting weights is different than weight list weightlifting or the sport of weightlifting. Can you kind of describe the difference there just for anyone that’s listening that might be like, Oh, yeah, I like to lift weights, but it’s not just about lifting weight.

Joe Black 8:03
Yeah, this is a kind of can be contentious, like topic in the weightlifting world, because you know, weight lifters like they they sort of get this like outsiders looking in or like oh weight lifters are elite because like they want to use the term weightlifting. But so when I’m referring to weightlifting, I’m talking about the snatch and the clean and jerk. So those are the movements that are contested in the sport of we’ll say like Olympic style weightlifting and even that saying Olympic style weightlifting. With everything going on in weightlifting, right now, weightlifting might not be in the Olympics in 2024. So there’s a lot of a lot of craziness behind the scenes there. But with the those movements, the snatch you taking a barbell from the ground and putting it overhead and one movement, and on a clean, you take the barbell from the ground and bring it to your shoulders, and then on the jerk from your shoulders to overhead.

Mike Collette 9:03
And so hold on. So the weightlifting might not be I didn’t hear about that might not be in the 2024 because there was like the US did. They had a couple of medals, right. And in weightlifting this year. I mean, [I] thought CJ was gonna, you know, contend for some medals, but I think he kind of said, Yeah, not that good of a day. But that’s, you know, it is what it is. It’s what happens, but, I mean, like I think everyone listening to this probably watched at least five minutes of the Olympics and saw some of the events. I mean, it’s incredible to see those weightlifters and what they’re doing and I think it’s for I don’t know what your opinion is, but like my opinion is like if you’re an outsider looking in and you don’t really understand, like how difficult that is or how much weight they’re actually lifting… It’s like it’s freakin insane. And just to be able to get to that, like, capacity is is crazy. But I think that like, what, why? Why is there? Why wouldn’t weightlifting be in 2024 Olympics you think?

Joe Black 10:11
So there’s a lot of behind the scenes, the international governing body of weightlifting, is international weightlifting Federation. And it’s run. So a lot of its like board members and just people associated with it. It’s kind of like what I guess would be maybe describe is like the old guard of weightlifting, it’s these, like older, like Eastern European countries. And some, like Southeast Asian countries where they don’t really view performance enhancing drugs like we do here. Um, and so there’s been since the 20, I want to say like, since 2008, there have been samples coming back, like metals have been stripped from lifters who tested positive after the fact and in 2008, in 2012, in 2016. So there’s just been a huge amount of positive drug tests. And, and then, in addition to that, the head of the AWS was this. I forget his name, but he was like, super corrupt, would take money, you know, basically, like countries could pay to pass drug tests, or he would take, like bribery to, you know, ensure that somebody got, you know, place in a competition stuff, like really kind of shady stuff like that. And it was exposed in this big documentary, like a year and a half ago. I forget what it is, it was like a German documentary that came out and they looked into all this, like this, this corruption in this guy, and they like laundered money, the International weightlifter did the huge mess, like you know, and so like really just for mismanagement. And it’s, you know, and it’s, it’s almost like, it’s frustrating, because it’s like not, it’s like these people aren’t even thinking about the future of the sport, because the International Olympic Committee has issued several warnings to the swf, like, you got to clean up your sport, otherwise, we’re gonna kick you out of the Olympics. And so from the 2016 Olympics to this year’s Olympics, I think weightlifting, lost, like over 100 spots or something like that. And they’re going to reduce that again in 2024, or maybe even kick weightlifting out of the Olympics, and they could possibly bring it back in, like, 2028, when it’d be in Los Angeles, but it’s just a really unfortunate, you know, serious event events is that, you know, it’s kind of like individuals just putting themselves above the weightlifting community, international weightlifting community. So it’s pretty frustrating. But, you know, there are a lot of countries that have banded together to try to, you know, push back against this to get recently there’s a call by a number of countries to have the entire AWS board resign, replacing with, you know, with with new board members and president and vice president. So it’s kind of- It’s a little bit of a mess right now.

Mike Collette 13:37
We’ll see what happens. But I was totally unaware of all that stuff. That’s actually interesting. I’m sure not a lot of people are aware of that situation going on. It sounds pretty unfortunate. You know,

Joe Black 13:46
it’s a bummer. Because we were actually at a when we were in Tennessee on our vacation recently, and we were at a restaurant, they had weightlifting on the TV, and I think it was the like, it was like one of the lighter men’s categories. Um, you know, and these in we were watching it, you know, Katie, and I were like, this is awesome, like that we actually get to see this on TV right now. This is so cool. And there was some people also watching it and you know, super impressed and we’re kind of talking about, you know, like, because they show the weight and kilos. And, you know, most Americans don’t know the conversion. So I’m like, telling them oh, you know, like, this is X amount, and this person only weighs this much. So it’s like, pretty, pretty amazing that they’re able to move weight like this and

Mike Collette 14:29
like two and a half times three times their body weight.

Joe Black 14:31
Right. You’re not just gonna go into a gym one day and do that, you know, that’s, that’s decades of practice. So it’s really you know, I think people are pretty impressive sport even if they don’t, they don’t know it. But yeah, I mean, with with a benefit

Mike Collette 14:47
with like, you’re like, I think your story kind of, and I think a lot of people that got involved in CrossFit specifically around the time you did and then plus like everyone kind of getting involved in it as that kind of like turned out Like, in my opinion, I feel like weightlifting has been one of those sports that has grown in popularity as a result of the growth of CrossFit. Because CrossFit kind of put more light and exposure on this, you know, on this, these those lifts because like, the end of the day, before CrossFit, unbeknownst to my knowledge outside of like competitive athletic training, or sports specific training for like athletes in strength conditioning facilities, you really weren’t seeing the Olympic lifts trained or even utilize at any capacity for general population. Right? And so, like, like, would you agree, or, you know, what are your thoughts on, like, how CrossFit is impacted, like weightlifting and maybe vice versa.

Joe Black 15:44
It’s like, without a doubt, the reason why weightlifting is so big in the United States right now, because like CrossFit, CrossFit introduced everyone to the barbell, you know, like, whether you’re doing elliptical cliffs, or your you know, deadlift in or your, you know, bench and, like, it just introduced people to this implement in the gym that you can use to, I mean, like you can, you could train with just the barbell, you know, like, there’s so much that you could do with just the barbell itself. But without a doubt, like, if CrossFit. It’s, it’s the number one reason why USA weightlifting, has grown to where it’s at now. And it’s, it has the most like membership it’s ever had. And, you know, it’s certainly played a role in exposing people outside of the country. As you know, CrossFit continues to grow in South America and Europe, that, you know, even even in those countries where Olympic weightlifting is a bit more, you know, probably well known by your average person, because it’s bigger in those countries. You know, there, it’s, it’s really starting to make an impact. So you know, that’s why, in the last couple of years, team, USA, weightlifting, it’s gotten really, really good, because we have some of these people coming over from CrossFit, I’m pretty sure on the lady’s side, like three or four of the Olympic athletes were former crossfitters, at least like started, you know, like, that’s how they got exposed to it. I think Mattie Rogers was a fairly high level CrossFit athlete at the time, and then on the on the men’s side, that actually that was, no one came from, from CrossFit on the men’s side. They’ve all been lifelong weightlifters or found it through other means, like, like gymnastics, or sports or something like that. But, you know, it’s, if you look like you could probably go to nationally, and ask, you know, everyone is standing on the podium, where do you find weightlifting? And if, you know, I would say like, you know, 80% of those people are probably going to say, CrossFit, you know.

Mike Collette 18:04
I think that’s incredible. Like the carryover. And, like, you also mentioned, like, you know, the carryover to like the best weight lifters and crossfitters. But you I know, you’ve talked a lot about like, how can you use mentioned Mattie Rogers, like gymnast’s really make great weight lifters? And there’s like this carryover in these like, skills to like, you know, from not just like your athletic skills, but like, you know, mobility and like awareness and coordination, like, can you like, and this is like, the part that I’m really excited to talk to you about. He’s like, Can you talk a little bit about like, just the, I guess, the benefits, and maybe the carryover that you’ve seen in like those sports, but the benefits of like, weightlifting and why people should do it, you know, and then maybe the people that are listening, they’re like, you know, they come in, they do a CrossFit class, and they do power cleans, and they do, they’re learning how to do some of those basic Olympic lifts. Like, what are those, the benefits of incorporating that or at least practicing and learning those skills and how that might carry over translate into like, everyday life or like you’ve talked about, you know, how it translates into, like, other athletic endeavors.

Joe Black 19:12
Right, I think like in, in general, just like strength training, like doing the Olympic lifts, it just come with this sort of like empowers you, as you get stronger, and as you start to get noticeably stronger. There’s a certain confidence that comes with that and it helps to build your self esteem. And, you know, I think that’s like a really great, great outcome of, you know, strength training and doing Olympic lifting in general. And then it’s, it’s a skill based movement. So you’re learning skills, you’re learning how to move the barbell properly. And you know, someone that may struggle with it in CrossFit spending one time a week at least dedicated to With the skill of it, or maybe after class, you’ve just taken the barbell and spend in 10 minutes. Working with an empty bar. It’s just like if somebody wanted to learn double unders, you know, we tell people to, they want to learn double unders, do double unders every day, you know, like, and maybe don’t have to use the bar every day, or you can use a PVC pipe or something like that. But you’re, it’s a skill that you’re learning. And so the better you are at that skill, the more able you’re you can apply that as the weights increase. And, you know, so that’s where I think, thinking of it as more of weightlifting being more of like a skill based, you know, like movement versus we’re trying to just lift the most weight as possible. You know, taking that approach is great for a crossfitter to just learn the technique before you start adding the weight’s on. It’s really hard to unlearn bad technique.

Mike Collette 21:00
But it’s with anything golf swing, I always compare the golf swing to like the Olympic lifts, it’s like, you got to slow down to speed up. It’s not about it’s not Happy Gilmore, right up to it and slamming, slamming it because it’s way more technical, like you talked about technical proficiency that’s required in the coordination to be to be successful in the left. And then what I think is really cool. And I don’t know, how many people know this is like, you set out a goal of, and you were kind of alluding to earlier about, you know, getting some of these kids involved in weightlifting and developing them, and then being able to kind of take that and carry it over to its adulthood. But also, you know, taking in helping inspire these athletes to take up the sport of weightlifting, and you have just come back recently from nationals and brought some girls, you know, on the team there, and you know, I’ll let you talk about them and kind of give them praise. But it’s been pretty incredible to see the progress overall, you know, it would be great for you to kind of talk about the kids that are in the program, your program, the barbell club right now and what you’ve seen.

Joe Black 22:10
Yeah, I mean, just like from our youth, to our adults, it’s just a great, awesome group of people. They’re super hard work in, and they’re just like, dedicated. And, you know, it’s really great to, like, I just love to see the progress that people are making. And over the last few years, we’ve had a lot of success. Being able to take both youth and adults to national level meats, we haven’t just with COVID kind of ruined our plans. But we’ve had, you know, a number of adults qualify for national masters nationals. And then on the youth side, every year, we’ve brought it at least to, you know, start in 2019. We had two girls, I’m sorry, three girls go in 2019. We had three in 2020, which is kind of like a online sort of situation where you go anywhere. And then this past year, two girls went and it was like, really, really successful trip. We had our youngest lifter, she went six or six it was their first national meet in person meet ever and she just looked really poised and she just did phenomenal and then followed it up with our Riley rohloff has been at the gym for like 10 years.

Mike Collette 23:42
Yeah, 2013. Since that we set our kids class it was like her it’s like a negative energy about it. She’s I think she got she started doing kids classes after Megan her older sister did, but it wasn’t that long after maybe 2013 2014 Maybe, yeah. Like she was like, I don’t even know three and a half feet tall. Then one day I walk in the gym and she’s like, tall as me it was the craziest thing, I’m like, who are you.

Joe Black 24:12
Strong, super strong. And she won a national championship in the 14 to 15 year olds. She’s a 76 kilo lifter and she won that category for her age group is best lifter in the country. That’s incredible. So just like, you know, really phenomenal and her you know, her progress. It’s a lot of lollies, you know, like kids they’ve like sort of, you know, dabbled in other sports and stuff like that and they start weightlifting and when they realize that it can you both you know, something that you can do, you know, for coming to the gym for some stress relief and and you know, to kind of get away from you know, maybe some of the anxieties of school and home. And then they can also use it as a sport. So like it can it’s also a sport we compete in weightlifting, so it can become a sport, you know, they can play, they can play, you know, softball in the summer. And then you know, in the fall, they’re, they’re doing weightlifting, and you know, and not only is it beneficial, like, just like for them personally for their mind their body. But it also will help them with their other sports because now they’re stronger, you know, and they’re, you know, like, I doubt many kids their age are in the gym, you know, strength training, and you know, doing, you know, power movements like snatch, clean and jerk. So that’s only going to help them be more athletic.

Mike Collette 24:13
I’ll tell you one thing, I wish that I did that when I was a kid,

Joe Black 25:52
Right? I think that’s like, if you pulled every adult at the gym, like that percentage would be super high, like, oh, man, why don’t we had like, I can’t count the number of times someone’s like, why didn’t we have this when I was going off? Or man, if I started this 20 years earlier, it’s like, yeah, we all. We all wish that was the case.

Mike Collette 26:10
I know. It’s, it’s so funny. But it’s true, though, because you see the benefits now as like, an adult and you see, understand how hard it is. And like you mentioned, it’s really hard to relearn or teach or reteach, like, you know, poor movement or, you know, learning anything, you know, you kind of like- you’re scoring that line over and over again, if you’re off track, it’s a lot harder to kind of get back on track and it takes more like concentrated reps to get to get better at it. And so great to hear these kids getting involved in this and doing this stuff. If they you know, anyone that’s listening if like they want to get involved in barbell club if they wanted to get their kids involved in like working in like prototype strength or in like the barbell club, like how do they How do they go about doing that? What’s that process? Like, look like?

Joe Black 27:00
Yeah, well, you know, they can reach out to me they can you know, if it’s a member of the gym, come talk to me. If it’s, you know, somebody outside of the gym, send me an email Joe at CrossFit, sorry, prototype training, calm Joe at prototype training calm. And, you know, or we’re on Instagram prototype barbell club, you can send me a message there, too. And then we sort of just have a talk there like from, you know, if it’s a youth lifter, like, what are they looking for, you know, is weightlifting, going to be the right thing for them, or, you know, we have great we have strength conditioning program, you know, for athletes, we have a fundamentals program for, for kids to learn the basics of, you know, just strength training, and that’s literally, you know, like, they gotta learn how to use their bodies before they can go and take a barbell and manipulate that. So, you know, we kind of start there and see what would be a good fit. And then I take everyone who joins every youth athlete who joins and it depends what the adults what their experiences, because they might have been exposed to snatch and clean and jerk, and CrossFit glasses. But with youth athletes, we work together for one on one sessions, so that I can really just take the time to teach them all the positions of weightlifting, because that’s really sport comes down to it. If you don’t know the positions, if you can’t get your body in the right positions, you’re just, you’re not going to move well, and you’re gonna have a bad time. So it’s really important to set that like good foundation, you know, like to get them understanding so that when they come to class, and I use these certain, you know, terms and stuff like that they can they catch on to it versus just throwing them to the wolves and like good luck.

Mike Collette 28:49
I know there’s limited spots, there’s not many, the barbell. Yeah, you’ve kids especially is getting it’s getting busy, man. So

Joe Black 28:57
it really is

Mike Collette 28:58
hats off to you for growing. That’s so special. And fantastic.

Joe Black 29:03
Thanks. I mean, I’m hoping it’s been the local meets, it’s been slow getting those back. I’m with COVID I don’t know if you know, some of the places that used to hold multiple meats a year and no longer doing it. And so we’re trying to just figure that out because I want to get these kids to a meet and see what it’s like because it’s it’s pretty fun. You know, like it’s it can be intimidating. But you go with your group and you have like the team, they’re with you and then you go anytime somebody competes for the first time, we’re going to try to make that as accessible as possible. They’ll they’ll go six for six and have a good time and get kind of understanding of the field of weightlifting mean. And usually that gets them pretty pumped to come back, you know, for more and they’re like, Oh, yeah, I’m hooked. So I just spend dying and talking to some folks. I’m like, what’s the deal? Like, are we gonna are there gonna be any meats and then maybe in the future, we’ll have one a prototype I feel like that’s, that’s where it’s looking. Like it’s head and so I just need to the organization around that is there’s a lot involved in it. We need like a lot of just a lot of people, we need referees and they need to be certified through USA weightlifting, so there’s a lot there. But I think like, if if nothing materializes, um, you know, and in 2022, like, then that’s gonna be the, that’s gonna be the big thing, trying to figure out how we can get a meet going at the gym.

Mike Collette 30:27
Make it happen, man, I’m excited. I want to get into this spitfire round here get you a little Spitfire. So I always say I want to change these questions, but I just never get around to doing it. So first, his favorite movie of all time favorite TV show of all time, and what do you currently binge watching?

Joe Black 30:48
Man, favorite movie, this is tough. Like, it’s probably Lord of the Rings like that trilogy. I just love that. I’m huge, like Star Wars. I love Star Wars, but just like Lord of the Rings, I’m gonna go on ring to rule them all. Exactly. It’s just a great epic journey. And I just love it. TV show, and that’s tough. I don’t watch a ton of TV. Um, my TV would be like, I watched a lot of YouTube. So like any like any person like making things with wood with metal something like I just like to learn how they do that so that I can like do that at home. I love doing that stuff. You know, in my spare time. So that’s like, That’s like my TV. And what have we been been? We’ve been binge watching. Clearly, I’m not paying too much attention. Oh, lately. It’s been the movies that made us yeah. Oh, yes. Great. Yeah, so we just watched the forrest gump one last night. And that was pretty awesome.

Mike Collette 31:47
I love I I am right there with you. I all I do is I like YouTube. And the same thing. I love learning how to do stuff and making the movies that made us and like it’s so fascinating. All the stuff you don’t like no behind the scenes how quick they got together. If you haven’t, you’ve only watched if you only watch a couple of those like they we go faster ones is awesome. The back Oh, we did the series. Yeah, they’re they’re great. Oh, cool. They’re great. If you’re listening, watch that on Netflix.

Joe Black 32:16
Yes, highly recommend it.

Mike Collette 32:17
Favorite musician or band of all time and favorite song?

Joe Black 32:21
Of all time, it’s Rage Against the Machine. Nice day, they’ve they’ve just been a huge influence, really influence to kind of, say where I am today. My favorite song of all time, that’s hard. I go through. That’s like a really hard one to nail down. I like music so much that I don’t think there’s any one particular song I would say that like, usually, when I’m listening to music, it’s like I have like that maybe like favorite song that I’ve done, or a couple songs that I’ve been into. And I listened to them for a couple months. And then I find something new and it’s like on rotation you know, so like, I don’t really have a have a favorite song but Rage Against machine is definitely far away. favorite band of all time.

Mike Collette 33:04
That’s a good choice. And then favorite hobby outside of like working out and like, you know, weightlifting?

Joe Black 33:12
I just like, like making stuff building renovating anything where I can like use my hands and use some tools and just, I love the feeling of like stepping back and just like looking at your work and being like I did that. And there’s a lot of pride that comes with that. So like mine. Yeah. Yeah, this is a Syrah here. This is uh, where can I go here? This is a New Hampshire and then Vermont. I made that like a couple years ago. Like huge thing Katie wants me to make this like massive. I made a United States for somebody. And she wants me to do that and put it up here but it’s like very time consuming. So maybe someday she took over my my workshop in the basement So ever since COVID. It’s been her weightlifting area. So I got to build her a new area and maybe I’ll get that someday.

Mike Collette 34:08
Maybe we’ll get your workstation back who knows? Yeah, for now he’s gonna watch the YouTube videos. You get time to do it. It’s dual joy. I appreciate you being on man. It was awesome. Yeah, I know a lot of this stuff but for you to share kind of like your journey. also kind of like your your passion around weight lifting, it’s clear that this is like super important to you and a big passion of yours. And also kind of your like I said that the journey you’ve kind of been on over the last few years and how you got involved. And you know, kind of now where you’re at today and so I appreciate you being on and sharing.

Joe Black 34:41
I appreciate this. This is awesome. And you know to everyone that you know that I get to coach and work with like I appreciate you so much. It’s amazing that I this is my job and I get to coach weightlifting and I get to help people become better versions of themselves and it means the world to me and I I just love everyone that I get to work with and appreciate you guys and just love the, you know, prototype community. It’s really one of a kind suite to be a part of it.

Mike Collette 35:11
Awesome man, and everyone listening, you know, again, every Monday we put out a new community conversation to get your week started. So make sure you tune in, check us out on YouTube also on all major streaming platforms such as Spotify. And again, thank you all for listening and we’ll talk to you soon.

Joe Black 35:29
Take care Mike.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai