INTERVIEW- Kurt Miller

Name: Kurt Miller
Occupation: Personal Trainer

Livin’ in: Richmond, VA

Age: 21

Vegan for: 4 years

So, you’re a power lifter. That’s something I’ve just started learning about, can you tell us a bit about the methodology? How did you get interested in power lifting?

Ah, well everything started I guess when I first started training Muay Thai in 2008. I played football, lacrosse, and I wrestled through my sophomore year of high school and my father has a Ph.D. in exercise physiology, so I've always been pretty educated on lifting. Hell, we even had a squat rack and bench in our garage growing up haha. But I would kickbox for 5-6 days a week and lift 2-3 days a week for a couple years. Since then I've always kind of been obsessed with functional strength exercise instead of bodybuidling and hypertrophy.

Probably around April of 2011 I was working with a friend of mine that competes in strongman meets, and I looked into, and then kind of got obsessed with powerlifting. (While SM and PL aren't the same thing at all, a lot of athletes compete in both, so one led to another bada boom bada bing.) Anyways, I started training with a basic western periodization of 5, 3, 1. After around 6 months I hit a hard plateau, almost more mental than physical, but seemed like I couldn't push anymore weight. Obviously with PL you compete in the 3 power lifts: bench press, squat, and deadlift. So I was basically killing myself lifting heavy and wasn't seeing anymore progress. After that I looked into the methods of Louie Simmons (Westside Barbell) and Mark Bell (Supertraining) and holy shit did everything change. I've been progressing like crazy. If you're interested in getting a lot stronger, especially in your powerlifts, google those dudes.

Let’s talk about that photo of you leg pressing 900 pounds. That’s uh, a lot of weight. Pray tell, what hath given thy such superior strength?

Haha, funny thing about that picture. 900 is an impressive amount of weight but that was at the end of a long workout. I had already done 5 sets of high box squats, 5 sets of front squats, and 5 sets of partial deadlifts. I'm guessing if I was fresh, and had knee wraps it would be 1250+

...woah. What does a week in the training of Kurt Miller look like?

I train 3 days on, one day off. Dynamic effort, Maximal effort, general physical prep (GPP), and then a day of rest. For example this is what I'm doing this week:

Monday - Max Effort Squat: 12x2 Cambered bar low box squat, 5x5 Good Mornings, 5x5 single leg press, and then ab work (planks, glute bridges, leg raises, quadriped exercises on stability balls.)

Tuesday: Dynamic Effort Bench Press: 10x3 Board press with bands, 5x5 Floor crushers, 5x5 Yates row, 3 sets Glen B shrugs, 5x5 Arnold press.

Wednesday: GPP: Swim half a mile, more core stability exercises, 20 minutes battling rope circuit, stairmaster for 20 minutes.

Then after my day of rest I would do dynamic squat, max bench, then GPP. Hope all that makes sense haha.

I know you’re about to start competing in powerlifting meets, what made you decided to do that?

I just want to see where I stand. I've been competitive since I was a little kid, and now that I don't compete anything I'm itching to get back to it haha.

Do you monitor your protein intake? What are your favorite proteins?

Definitely, even if I wasn't vegan I would haha. I try to take in AT LEAST 1g of protein for every kg I weigh (so at least 90 but it usually it hovers around 150) I love truenutrition's vegan protein optimizer, cause you can make it any flavor you want, and it digests super easy. Also it’s cheap as hell. Sun Warrior is also amazing, but I don't usually buy it unless there's a sale. I have a friend that works at the bodybuidling.com warehouse, so every once in a while I can get my hands on something new. Nitro fusion is also really cool.

(Hey Yo! Vegan readers, if you order from truenutrition.com, use code DBERN0812 for 5% off!)

INTERVIEW- Will Joyce

Name: William Joyce USAW L1 Certified

Occupation: Assistant CrossFit coach
Livin' in: Hanson, MA

Age: 29

Vegan for: 6.5 years

Can you tell us about your fitness background and how to came to Crossfit?

Well I have always been very active. I played team sports as a youngster (baseball, hockey, basketball). As I got older (18+) I got into MMA for quite a few years on and off but stopped finally after breaking my foot. No matter what sport I was doing I've always been a gym rat.

A little over a year ago I had a fellow vegan friend talk me into really giving CrossFit a try. He had been talking it up for quite awhile at this point. I had known about it for a few years and thought it looked pretty cool. I mean, all the YouTube videos of people flipping tires, swinging kettlebells, climbing ropes, jumping on boxes and doing deadlifts. It just looked fucking cool!

Well, I finally went into the local affiliate on a Sunday morning and we ended up doing a combination of Waiter Walks (kettle bell locked out overhead), farmers carry (kettlebell down by your side), sit ups and deadlifts. It absolutely kicked my ass. And I loved it.

I had 1 month left on my membership at the local globogym (it used to be a Gold's Gym) so I decided to do my own CrossFit training there until my membership was up. I followed programming from various blogs and loved it. I was doing something different everyday and each of those days was as inevitable ass-kicking. And of course everyone else at the gym looked at me like I was crazy. Fast forward to today and I've been at my local affiliate Cynergy CrossFit for just over a year and can't imagine being anywhere else.

Do you tell people at your gym and that you train that you're vegan, and if so how do they react when you do?

Oh yeah. I definitely make it known. At first I get the typical weird looks or questions about where I get my protein from and people saying soy is the devil and all that.

But now I don't even think anyone I train with gives it a second thought. I'm pretty sure everyone just looks at me as another crossfitter not "hey there's that VEGAN crossfitter" ya know.

Granted there will always be the anti-vegan naysayers and when I meet new people I'm sure there will be some that are surprised but I'll just let my athletic ability speak for itself.

It's Thursday. Walk us through your routine. 

I always make sure I get my 8 hours of sleep. I think that is one of the most overlooked aspect of training. I know I need my 7.5-9 hours of sleep per night my performance will suffer. I wake up around 3:45am and grab my smoothie out of the fridge (I always make it the night before so I don't have to worry about wasting time getting it ready before I head to the gym). My smoothie typically consists of coconut milk, banana, berries, chia seeds, hemp seeds, wheat grass, spinach, cacao, maca, kale, flax seed oil, avocado and a scoop of protein. I love SunWarrior Warrior Blend Raw Protein. It's a combination of pea, hemp and cranberry protein. It's pricey but it's probably the best protein supplement I've ever used. And I'll drink a small cup of black coffee. I don't really do that for the energy boost or anything I just enjoy the taste.

4:45am I get to the gym. I like getting there at least 15 minutes before class so I can stretch and mobilize. 5am class starts with a group warm up. Which varies each day depending on what movements we'll be focusing on that day. After we warm up we will do 5-10 minutes of mobility on whatever we need to get ready for that's day's WOD (workout of the day). Once everyone is warm and mobile we will focus either on a skill (muscle up, handstand push up, Turkish get up, box jump, etc) or strength (deadlift, shoulder press, snatch, back/front/overhead squat, etc) then do a WOD. 

 I'll give you a rundown of what we did a few weeks ago. We got all warmed up and for our strength aspect we worked on Snatches. 8 Rounds at 65% of your 1RM(rep max). Do 5 reps every 90 seconds. Focus on full depth on your squat. Then you take a few minutes, get some water and catch your breath for the WOD. That day we did 3 Rounds (for time) of 5 Muscle Ups, 10 Front Squats(95lbs) and a 200m Shuttle Run(50.50.50.50). Post-WOD, after you're recovered we usually do some sort of core exercise. That day we did 3 sets of 25 reps of GHD Hip Extensions. That's a typical CrossFit class. And its an hour long. I always stay after and do more stretching and mobility. Another aspect in training I think a lot of people overlook.

Immediately after finishing the WOD I'll drink a protein shake (which is just protein and water). I'll go home and eat a banana and then shower. By 7-7:30 I want to eat a good sized meal which usually consists of a sweet potato and some sprouted tofu or tempeh. Throughout the rest of the day I make sure I eat every couple of hours. If I'm hungry I'll eat. I always have some nuts (or nut butter), seeds (or seed butter), some very dark chocolate (85% cacao or higher), tons of veggies, black beans, quinoa and usually another soy product at some point.