#389 Why I Smash My Head on the Bar (The Truth About Psych-Ups) | Justin Zottl
Dave Tate's Table Talk
Dave Tate
4.9 • 586 Ratings
🗓️ 23 December 2025
⏱️ 150 minutes
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Summary
Justin Zottl — Canada's strongest powerlifter (All-Time Total). From national champion cyclist to 2300+ totals, Justin breaks down winning American Pro 3 three weeks after herniating L5, why standards matter more than hype, and what ABS is doing right on meet production.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I love my wife. |
| 0:02.0 | We were practicing and I blew my backhoe. |
| 0:05.0 | This is what I'll say. |
| 0:06.0 | It's time. |
| 0:07.0 | It's all right. |
| 0:09.0 | It's time to sit down, keep it real, and cut the bullshit. |
| 0:25.8 | Welcome to Table Talk. |
| 0:28.1 | All right. |
| 0:28.5 | Where I want to jump off with you is tell me about the last meet. |
| 0:32.0 | Oh, yeah. |
| 0:33.1 | Yeah, it was. |
| 0:34.1 | So we did the ABS rumble in California at STS gym. |
| 0:39.3 | It was a power bar meet which I knew going in was a little bit risky, being a bigger |
| 0:44.3 | dude and being a like kind of, you know, a squat specialist, that power bar walking |
| 0:48.8 | out was a little bit sketchy. |
| 0:50.8 | But it was a lot of fun man. |
| 0:52.8 | It's a different, you know, people get on apps because they do different styles and meats. I think it's fun, you know, kind of doing the same thing over and over again. It can be a little bit, you know, repetitive. It gets a little bit boring in your head. But when you throw in that new challenge, right, it's a different element, you know, and getting up there and going against guys like Frank Allen, going up against guys like cal curvey and luke tollman those guys are nuts you know and to go into a competition |
| 1:14.6 | where you're like yeah this kind of took this nerfed the best the thing i'm best at but let's see |
| 1:19.9 | you know it was a lot of fun so going into it you know we we had some concerns with the with the power bar |
| 1:25.5 | uh can you fit in it uh yes yes sort of um i've been |
| 1:30.0 | working a lot of my mobility to get under the bar but that was my biggest concern like yeah i'll do |
| 1:34.0 | the meat and then my wife's like i don't know if you can do the meat you know you can't put |
... |
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