Latest / The Platform: a Michigan High School Powerlifting Association Podcast / Levi Hoffman, Defiance College | The Platform Episode 9

Transcript

Levi Hoffman, Defiance College | The Platform Episode 9 · The Platform: a Michigan High School Powerlifting Association Podcast

• Chris Whittaker: Welcome to the platform where the stories weigh a ton. This is where some of the MHS PLA's best tell real stories about what it takes to build themselves and their teams under the bar. I'm your co-host, Chris Whitaker. We're glad you're here. Hey, before we get to this episode, if you're enjoying this show, please make sure you subscribe, follow, and leave a review on all major podcast hosts: Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Amazon Music, and many more. That support helps us continue to grow. Bring the conversations that you want to hear to the platform and allows other people to find our show. If you'd like to give us feedback or suggest a guest or topic for the show, please email info at mhspla.com and we'll get back to you. In this week's episode, we have episode nine with Coach Levi Hoffman from Defiance College. And here we are back with another episode of the platform where the stories weigh a ton. I'm your cohost as always, Chris Whitaker, ⁓ Dexter High School, Iron Dread, Strength and Conditioning, Iron Dread, Powerlifting and MHS PLA board member. My cohost is here as always, Coach Chris Gillum, our director of the MHS PLA. Coach, good to see you again. And he shares his insights into building a successful powerlifting program, recruiting, training, and the growth of the sport in Ohio and Michigan. So step up, lock in. Bar's loaded for episode nine. Hit that intro music. Chris Gilliam: Good to see you. Chris Whittaker: And we have our guest today. Our guest is the head powerlifting coach at Defiance College in Ohio. His name, Mr. Levi Hoffman. Coach, welcome to the podcast. Levi Hoffman: Thank you so much, really glad to be here. Excited for this. Chris Whittaker: We're happy to have you here. ⁓ We love spotlighting and you're part of our series that we're doing spotlighting all the ⁓ NCAA powerlifting teams in our area here, Northern Ohio. Obviously we prefer you weren't down there in that state. We prefer, we were a little bit further North. ⁓ Levi Hoffman: course. Chris Gilliam: They're close enough. Chris Whittaker: Close enough. I mean, there's Michigan fans down there, right? Levi Hoffman: Yeah, for sure. I'm actually from Michigan, so I grew up in Michigan. I competed in MHS PLA. I actually still live in Michigan and I coach in Defiance, so I balance it out between the two. Definitely see a lot of the rivalry in my recruiting though. Kids talk about it all the time, coming to Michigan. Oh, you're from Ohio, but it works out. It works out. Chris Gilliam: Yeah, I'm sure you do. Chris Whittaker: Yeah, so you've you've invaded enemy territory down there and are building up something great at Defiance. You just had your inaugural season this this past ⁓ winter, right? Winter, fall, winter, spring. ⁓ Levi Hoffman: Correct. Yep, so I can end in August and yep, that was our first group, so. Chris Whittaker: I'm getting ready to go into year two. So coach, we have some questions that we're going to ask you coach Gillum and I will kind of bounce back and forth on these ⁓ as we go. And it's very conversational. If you answer something, we'll just kind of keep moving along and keep the whatever we're talking about going. ⁓ So coach, I'll kick the first one off so that we can flip. Chris Gilliam: You bet. Chris Whittaker: ⁓ what drew you to the sport of powerlifting coach? Levi Hoffman: What drew me to the sport? Well, I was lucky. I was born into ⁓ a powerlifting coach family. My dad was a powerlifting coach. He was a football coach, also a track coach. ⁓ I started going to meets as young as five and six years old. I was involved in Michigan High School Powerlifting Association then that came from the Michigan High School Football Coaches Association. I got involved super young when there was only an equipped division. ⁓ And then I started competing in middle school myself. ⁓ And then after that, when I was finally old enough to compete in USA powerlifting, the cutoff was 14 back then. I started competing on USAPL. Michigan High School Powerlifting Association was loaded with really good athletes and coaches. I have a lot of coaches that were mentors to me and my dad as well since we were new in the sport ⁓ back in the late 90s. But Coach Todd Miller from Plainwell. He was a really big influence on me. actually trained with his daughters. trained with his daughter Kendra at the USOAC when I was an Olympic weightlifter at Northern Michigan University. Coach Birchmeyer, Brian Birchmeyer from Flint Powers. He was our deadlift guy. When we needed something and we needed to focus on a specific aspect of the lift, he always had some solution for us. So we were able to ⁓ be involved just from training. ⁓ training with these people and moving into USA powerlifting. And once you start to get successful, it gets really addicting. So I stuck with powerlifting. ⁓ trained from the time I was probably nine or 10 years old. I trained in powerlifting until I was 19, 18 or 19. And then I switched to Olympic weightlifting. At that time, it was really hard to come by. ⁓ powerlifting scholarships. There really wasn't much in the world of that and I felt like I wanted to continue my strength sport education and competition level. So I knew a few of my team members that went to IPF Sub Junior Worlds in 2009. They were going to go to the USOAC to compete in Olympic weightlifting. ⁓ So I figured that would be a good way to stick around the sport. But I've always loved power lifting. I don't want to say the most. It was really what I grew up with. But yeah, I feel like it came to me and it's always been a part of my life and I'm really blessed to have grown up with it. Chris Gilliam: There. Chris Whittaker: Now, what high school did you graduate from? Levi Hoffman: I'm from Morenci, Morenci, Michigan, Morenci High School. So Morenci's got a team again. My dad was the coach for a long time. He retired, I don't know, six or eight years ago. ⁓ He quit coaching powerlifting maybe a little before that. My siblings were out of school and I was for a while. So he gave that up. So yeah, I'm from a really small town. Coach, you coached in Adrian, right nearby. I'm a little bit after that. after I was out of high school. yeah, you know, we have like less than 200 in that high school. So it was pretty cool to have so much success in a small school in a sport that competes against all sizes of schools, class A all the way to class D. I think it's a pretty cool part of our sport and aspect in college as well. Chris Gilliam: Yeah, for sure. So obviously you've been involved in the sport for a long time. ⁓ You know, ⁓ being connected with your dad through Morenci and that's good. Morenci always had really good lifters. I know that I coached the team not that long ago. ⁓ Kids from Adrian, Morenci, Grassleg and I took them to high school nationals down in Myrtle Beach. Levi Hoffman: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Chris Gilliam: Um, so we, had, uh, Nealey Pike was a, she was a really good lifter and she, she went with us. Uh, she's a great kid, good work ethic. She was really strong for a little gal and, uh, enjoyed meeting her. And I had a good relationship with, uh, Stefan Wilkinson and, uh, Nick when they were coaching there. So, yeah, I don't, I don't know who's there now because I've moved to a different part of the state, but yeah, that's. Levi Hoffman: Yep, sorry. Sophie Corkle took over the program. She was working with Nick for a couple years and Nick decided that he wanted to step away. It's been really great for her to continue that because without a coach, as you know, in a school, nobody's going have a powerlifting team. So it's been really great to see her continue that. Actually, Neely Pike is my, her dad is one of my best friends. when she couldn't train with you, I was helping her out at her house in the evenings trying to get her ready for that meet and greet. Chris Gilliam: That's awesome. Okay, all right. So you're familiar with when she was working with us towards nationals. Awesome. Levi Hoffman: Definitely, I was really happy that she had that opportunity because at Morenci we had always taken teams. But once my sister and I and my brother were out of school, my dad didn't really take everybody to nationals. It's quite an expense and people didn't want to mess with that. Definitely. Yup, totally. Totally, that's a big barrier of entry for our sport, unfortunately. Chris Gilliam: Yeah, it is. It takes time and money. You got that right. Chris Whittaker: Yeah, indeed. And that's, think, what our association brings to kids is they're allowing to expose them to the sport without that high ⁓ barrier of cost. Levi Hoffman: Completely. Completely. That's what I love about MHS PLA so much. There are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of kids that would never even know about the sport and now they compete in regional. events and then the state meet and that state meet now that you have the limit of how many get in and you don't have a total to qualify. I think it's awesome to see those kids compete and talk about where they're at and follow it through those, guess, three months, January, February and March into the state meet. I love it. That's super cool. And for me as a coach to recruit those kids from Michigan, ⁓ there's just one less step of making the transition from high school to college. In Ohio, we have an Organiz8. we don't have an organization. There's a group of coaches that do their own meets. And it's not quite the same. The idea is great. The barrier of entry is lowered. But they have one judge where you guys have three judges. You guys are more mirrored. ⁓ MHS PLA is more mirroring USAPL. And obviously that's the top organization in the United States at this point. it's super cool that all these kids, when I get a Michigan kid, I know like we need to work on things, but the basics are there. It's super cool to have. Love it. Chris Gilliam: Good. Chris Whittaker: So when somebody is looking into joining your program, what type of experience can a lifter expect with your program? Like how many meets a year, et cetera? Levi Hoffman: Yeah, that's fair. I wrote out the schedule for next year. This year we filled up ⁓ a little more than I wanted to as meets were being announced later in the year. I'm like, ⁓ my goodness, I want to get them into this one. ⁓ I try to keep them in two meets a semester. I'd like them to compete in two meets a semester. Minimally, I know in high school at MHS PLA, there's six, maybe six meets in a three month span or maybe seven meets sometimes. This year we have a dual meet scheduled with Northwood in September. ⁓ We might expand that depending on the number of athletes we have total. We're going to compete in the Pittsburgh Collegiate Cup. ⁓ University of hosts that. That's got a lot of different schools from Ohio and Pennsylvania out that way. ⁓ And then this year I am going to take a few of my athletes to the Arnold, since the Arnold is in Ohio. That's a huge meet and it's so important to the people of Ohio. Everyone asks, why didn't you go to the Arnold this year? Well. We went to the Olympia ⁓ this year instead in Las Vegas, but now my kids have the dot scores to get in ⁓ to the Arnold. And then the following, following that we'll have Collegian Nationals that's in South Dakota this year. So those are the four main ones typically ⁓ that I want to do for us. I would like to expand a little more and once the team is more full, I'm probably not going to be able to take every one to every single competition, which I think that's happening at like Davenport now that they're so full. So we'll have to add a couple more to keep everybody busy all year. I just try to balance how many, how many meets they have. I hear some coaches say, you know, we want to do a meet a month. I think that that gets a little tough through the year, but I think that kids can still do maybe three a semester. Definitely open to what athletes want to do too. I let a kid drop out of a meet one time this year because he felt fatigued. And you know, I don't want you going into a meet underprepared and not ready. That's definitely not what we want. Chris Gilliam: Good. ⁓ Chris Whittaker: Yeah, I mean, they got to have some sort of training time in between like. Levi Hoffman: been going. Yeah. I mean, we had a couple one month turnovers and I couldn't believe my kids were coming back with 50 and 70 pound total increases in a month. And I'm thinking this is we got, we had a really good year and things went really well. We can't do that forever. You can't just do that forever. And I know that, um, and a lot of it was experience, you know, you get into USAPL meets at your first meet, second meet, now your third meet things are clicking. Um, some of that stuff going on, but, especially with the older and more advanced lifters, um, lowering the number of competitions to some degree to keep the training. Chris Gilliam: Yeah. Levi Hoffman: ⁓ consistent and sometimes we train right through meets two. We have done that this year as well. So not peeking, you're gonna have to do it. Chris Gilliam: What kind of costs are covered for the lifters in your program? Like, do you guys cover meat registration, membership fees, is travel covered? What types of ⁓ benefits do your ⁓ lifters get if they're in your program? Levi Hoffman: Yeah. Yeah, so we cover all the travel. We cover registration, annual memberships. We cover gear. So we're considered a varsity sport at Defiance College. So they give us a full ⁓ gear budget. So we got fancy powerlifting jackets and pants and everything. And I got them a workout uniform as well. know, shirts, t-shirts, shorts, sweatshirts. We got a whole bunch of apparel. It was really cool because the kids really are involved ⁓ on campus and they're respected as a real sport and they're treated the same. So it's really nice. So this year we flew to Las Vegas for the Olympia. That was covered. ⁓ We flew to New Orleans for collegiate nationals. We cover all those costs. Kids just come with me and we even actually cover some food costs, which is really awesome. ⁓ We get our daily allowance for the kids for food. So Really, I tell them get your homework done, get your schoolwork done, and you really can't focus on anything else. This is going to be fine. We're going to take care of the rest of it for you. ⁓ Yeah, we've got the full backing of our administration and our athletic department. They asked me to get five athletes last year. We got 10, and I've got 12 signed for next year. We're over 20. So ⁓ they're getting positive feedback, and we're getting positive feedback from them as well. It's really great. Chris Whittaker: Awesome. ⁓ Any like special equipment costs that that your kids have to take on like knee sleeves, belts, ⁓ wrist wraps, any of that stuff for is that provided for them as well? Levi Hoffman: This year I provided some lifting shoes, squat shoes and some knee sleeves. ⁓ I might make some more deals with, I was buying some products from Limitless ⁓ with Quinten Myer in Wisconsin. He was actually on my... world team in 2009, so I've known him for a long time. So he has some like team deals and I bought some things. In the future we might do some more fundraising to try to cover that, but I want kids to come in with a belt and shoes and everybody wants the ends or knee sleeves. Those are the best knee sleeves right now in USAPL to use. Those are like 200 bucks a pair. We do fundraising. We have a lot of fundraising opportunities. In the following years I think those will be covered, what I have to say right now. Right now we don't have that covered. Our budget was, they were surprised all the traveling we do compared to our other varsity sports. We do a little bit more, ⁓ but we're super blessed and to have the opportunity to compete nationally is just great. It's really cool. So. Chris Gilliam: Yeah, I mean, it's a good question, Chris, because, you know, ⁓ in the MHSPLA, we don't use knee sleeves or any of that stuff. unless those kids left at USAPL to go to high school nationals, a lot of our kids wouldn't have access to those pieces of equipment. So it's nice to know that you can provide some of that stuff, but that's costs that those kids will have to have for the short term right now. Okay. Levi Hoffman: Yeah, have a- sure for sure yeah I hosted a small meet with high school kids from Michigan and Ohio and all the Ohio kids left equipped and all the Michigan kids don't and I didn't even let them wear knee sleeves and didn't let them wear wrist wraps because I didn't want the Michigan kids to have to buy all that stuff to be able to compete fairly ⁓ so yeah I would rather not use knee sleeves but USAPL sets the rules so it is what it is. It's a disadvantage right you got to play the game. Chris Gilliam: Well, and you can choose not to, but yes, it is. It's a disadvantage. Yeah, you got that right. I don't know the exact science behind it, but I know if a kid psychologically feels they can squat 50 pounds more, they probably will. Levi Hoffman: Coming. Big time. That's true. That's very true. Chris Gilliam: Is financial assistance provided to your lifters towards tuition, room and board, etc.? Levi Hoffman: Yeah, like an athletic scholarship. mean, yeah, we offer a scholarship. I set the scholarships based on student student's ability, the athletes ability. ⁓ We also give a big academic scholarship and I give that as a group scholarship. So some of my kids are paying a couple thousand dollars a year. Some are paying a bit more ⁓ based on where they're at. And I really when I'm recruiting, I look at potential. I don't necessarily only recruit first place kids. ⁓ Chris Gilliam: Yeah. Levi Hoffman: I remember watching some of the kids that were, you know, fifth place, sixth place get to college and start to take over. ⁓ It really comes down to experience at that level. ⁓ Yeah, and I've been able to give every single one of my kids on my roster right now does have some type of scholarship, but it does, like I said, vary ⁓ from top to bottom. actually have to, ⁓ for Michigan kids, because they don't get the Ohio grants, I have to give a little bit more money to be competitive with the other schools because the Choose Michigan grant ⁓ and the Choose Ohio grant, if you don't live in Ohio, you can't get it at Defiance. So that's how. I have to balance like I were 50 50 Michigan Ohio kids right now. But I noticed I noticed the difference in the kids bill right away. ⁓ Just with that. It's not an out of state tuition thing. We don't have out of state tuition. We're a private college. Everybody has the same price, but the greens just don't just don't apply. But yeah, I've got kids that have nearly you know, have all their tuition covered. ⁓ It's really great. It's really cool to get some of these top level athletes here competing and buying into the program and advancing so quickly. It's been really, yeah. Chris Gilliam: awesome. Chris Whittaker: As far as degrees, what does Defiance offer? What are they known for? Levi Hoffman: So we're a liberal arts college. have tons of programs. We have over 40 programs. I should have had a paper here with me to tell you. We're really big in criminal justice, ⁓ business. Our exercise science program is really vast. I'd say a third of my athletes are in the exercise science program. We have a great education program. I have two of my lifters that are in the education program and they really love it. Currently we don't have a nursing program. I hear a lot from people. They want nursing, but we have all the pre-professional programs and we send a lot of students off to medical school and other professional schools. have somebody that's in ⁓ occupational therapy school that just graduated from Defiance. We have tons of really great opportunities and yeah, like I said, there's 40 different degrees and there's so many different career paths because we're such a small school. We have a really great career services department. And these kids have all kinds of opportunities to do internships and get jobs ahead of time. We just published our results for this year. Our class that graduated in May has a 97 % job placement rate after graduation right now. So we've had 97 % either in their job in their field or they went on to a master's or a doctorate program. So yeah, we have really, really great programs. I would say right now we're getting an extra certification for our exercise science. ⁓ And we're going to be a distinguished exercise science ⁓ college, which I think is really great. There's so many different paths that you can take within that field. ⁓ Really Chris Whittaker: And I think that helps, right? Like for kids that want to be involved in this sport, some of them, that's the career path they're interested in. They're interested in becoming strength coaches or going into that, that side of things. So having that, I think is an advantage to you. Levi Hoffman: So. Totally, totally. Yeah, I agree with that all the way. ⁓ Yeah, like I've got two of them that are in exercise science or straight conditioning that wanted to coaching and they're taking the minor for coaching. Everyone really loves that coaching minor. And then I've got a few that are in the physical therapy ⁓ track, so they'll be going on to physical therapy school after. ⁓ We just made a partnership with a ⁓ university in Buffalo. They're going to give us six spaces in their physical therapy program every year automatically. That was a really great partnership that we made. our kids are at such an advanced level. They're so happy with us from the last few years that they're going to just take our kids right away and put them right into physical therapy school. And yeah, what a cool opportunity. Since we've changed from Division III, NCAA, to NAIA, the whole college has changed. The atmosphere has changed. Things are getting better. on the up, I know a lot of small colleges are closing and having trouble staying open. We had our biggest incoming class in 13 or 15 years. We were over 300 freshmen this year. And we're going to have about the same again next year. So we're definitely on. On the right track, we have great administration taking care of things currently. Chris Whittaker: Awesome. Which school? The University of Buffalo or which one in Buffalo? Chris Gilliam: Awesome. Levi Hoffman: Well, I can't remember which university it is. wish I had that with me right now. It's a smaller university in Buffalo. Chris Whittaker: Be Chris Gilliam: Yeah, cause Whitaker's from New York. So. Levi Hoffman: you'll know about it then it's something that I do think it starts to message on that after. Chris Whittaker: A quiet now, what is it? Aquinas? No. ⁓ I don't know. There's a bunch of them there. used to play. Chris Gilliam: Isn't there like a Quinnipiac or something like that? Chris Whittaker: ⁓ Yes. ⁓ What is it? I'll find it in University of Canisius Canisius College in Buffalo. ⁓ Then there's there's a couple other ones, but we I played Division three school in the College of Brockport in Western New York and we play Buffalo State every year. That was a big game so. Levi Hoffman: I knew you were New York, I didn't know where you were at in New York. To me, New York is like, I don't know, it's kinda far away. I don't really go there for anything, so, yeah. Chris Whittaker: It's about 10 and a half hours by car. Feels like about 18 when you have a three year old and a one year old in the back seat. So if I had to guess, it would probably be Canisius College, another private school. There's a couple of them. Levi Hoffman: Yeah, okay, all right. Chris Gilliam: you Levi Hoffman: I can imagine. Chris Gilliam: Yeah. Levi Hoffman: It is a private school, so I wish I had that information. can't believe I didn't bring it along, but that's our big partnership this year. Yeah, definitely. We have a lot of nice partnerships. We've been doing the right things. We only have about 700 kids in the college, but with this incoming class and the graduating seniors, we're going to be closer to 1,000 in the next year or two. Chris Gilliam: Mm-hmm. That sounds like a great opportunity for the kids. That's awesome. Levi Hoffman: This power-looking team growing is making a difference too. I see us above 30 in two years and who knows, who knows where we go from there. Chris Gilliam: Yeah, it's interesting. Defiance College, because I went to Alavette and we used to play Defiance and football. And back then, Defiance was NAIA, I believe. And then they went into NCAA. And then I seen that they went back into NAIA. How many years ago did they change from NCAA? Levi Hoffman: I think they started three years ago. They had a partial change. They did play some NCAA teams the first year, especially football. And then they played in the NAIA, we're in the Wolverine Hoosier Athletic Conference in football. We've been two years full member though. Yeah. So for us as powerlifting, since we're like an NGO, USA powerlifting, we're under NAIA rules for scholarships, but the NAIA doesn't pay attention to us really. Chris Gilliam: No, no. Levi Hoffman: For anything else, we don't even really do much like any IA compliance. Chris Gilliam: Yeah. Well, you're in the same boat, you know, the top powerlifting school in the country is Medlin University and they're in an AIA school, you know, so. Levi Hoffman: Okay, yeah. I heard that Missouri Valley is as well, right? They're pretty, they bring in ton of NIL money. It's really impressive. I saw they brought in like $16 million in NIL money last year. Really impressive. So. Chris Gilliam: Yes. Yeah. It's crazy. And the sport is just power lifting is growing more and more schools are starting to change it from a club into a scholarship type sport. You know, and hopefully, you know, it'll keep growing because I think it's a great sport for lifelong learning, obviously. Levi Hoffman: Yeah. Chris Gilliam: Yeah, providing these opportunities, but you're right. Like you talked about there were no schools giving scholarships back when you were going and you know, back when I was in high school powerlifting in the state was like, it wasn't like it is right now. The Michigan High School Powerlifting Association really hadn't even started yet. There was people doing it sort of like how you explained it is happening in Ohio. Levi Hoffman: I had some. Yeah, yeah. And that's, that's our sport grows, right? People care a lot about it and they want other people to see it. So they put their time and energy into making it happen. I mean, we got to be like, I'm so thankful for so many people that cared ⁓ enough for so many years to get it caught on. Cause it really caught on here. Like I'm not sure if you graduated high school. I graduated in 09. I was, I left it equipped until my ⁓ junior year in Michigan high school power lifting association. And then we switched to raw. And that was just like another like. Chris Gilliam: Yeah. Levi Hoffman: turn it up, like it got a lot better, a lot more competitive once that happened. I love it. Chris Gilliam: ⁓ yeah. But you've mentioned Todd Miller earlier. then, you know, I've talked to Whitaker about this. It was after the 07 state meet at Plainwell that we voted to get rid of all equipment. that 08, 07, 08 season was the first all total raw. So that's when all the records started changing because we retired the other ones because most of the kids that had them. Levi Hoffman: Yeah. Yep, I remember. I remember. was... Yep. Chris Gilliam: We're wearing bunch shirts or squat suits. Levi Hoffman: or for sure. I, I don't want to like, yeah, I'll just, I was really blessed to train with great people my whole life. And I set every total record through MHS PLA, I all four years. ⁓ And I set every total record, but now all the raw, all the equip records are gone. I can't even find them on the website anymore. And Chris Gilliam: Yeah, I, I, that's something that's been brought to our attention. I think we can probably track down some, but I think back, back in the early two thousands and stuff, there really wasn't a website then. So I think everything was on paper, you know, and as a matter of tracking down the people that might've been in charge of it then, ⁓ Levi Hoffman: Yeah. Yup, yup. For sure. I love that you guys, went followed all the way back to like my senior year. I can find myself when I fought, but that was the end of. Chris Gilliam: Yeah, if you go to the old website, you can find stuff from back then too. Levi Hoffman: Okay, awesome. MHS FCA website, yeah. Chris Gilliam: ⁓ yeah, there might be a link through there still, but you can still go MHS PLA, but it'd be the H2O or HTO. So it's like the home. Home team, original website. Yeah. Sorry. We're getting off topic a little bit, but it refers to things. ⁓ what type of programming are you doing with your kids? Like, you know, are you training them year round? ⁓ and if so. Levi Hoffman: Okay. Okay. Okay, the original. Chris Gilliam: Do you have a certain philosophy that you like to follow? Like are you a linear periodization? Are a conjugate? What's your philosophy? Levi Hoffman: Yeah. No, I'm so, I'm so hybrid. I, to be honest, we do, we do a very hybridized program. There are some really good things ⁓ in conjugate method. think that, I almost think it's better for equip lifting. In Ohio, the conjugate method is king. It really is the king. ⁓ You know, I, I really, ⁓ my program is hybridized between what I learned at the Olympic training center and Olympic weightlifting and power lifting with my dad. ⁓ I think that there are aspects of all training that can be really beneficial. We train three to four days a week. I really try to focus on fatigue and recovery. A lot of these kids come in beating their head against a wall for five years before they get to me. Coach, I maxed out every week for the last two months and I don't know why I didn't get stronger. If we see that so much, it's really crazy. It's really disappointing sometimes. Chris Gilliam: Yeah. Levi Hoffman: I guess progressive overload would be a method that I believe in. I trust a lot in, and I believe that technique training, number one, if you're training with proper technique. ⁓ your overall results and your overall feedback is so much cleaner. It's so much better. ⁓ We clean things up every single day to try to make sure that my kids are ready to compete. ⁓ We don't do, you know, necessarily competition every single, every single rep of every single lift. But we really, really do try to push them in the right direction so that we're prepared when we get to that competition. So for my training cycles, we run one day, ⁓ We squat and bench one day, we deadlift one day, we squat and bench variation one day, and we deadlift variation one day. Our variation days are more ⁓ mirroring the conjugate method. ⁓ We don't necessarily do speed or violent movements quite the same, ⁓ but we also don't go full exertion at all ⁓ on those additional days. And it's a lot of technique work. It's a lot of technique work. I wrote down my numbers of my kids totals from when they got to me till till today. ⁓ From our increases are you guys is that all right to go? So ⁓ I had a boy. ⁓ Can I give names or should I just just give? Yeah. Alright, so I got a boy Riley Riley Kennedy Kennedy chaff and he's from Madison Plains, Ohio came to me. ⁓ Chris Gilliam: Yeah, for sure. It's up to you. Chris Whittaker: Give the kids some love, Coach. Levi Hoffman: Was not prepared to compete in USA powerlifting, but he's worked super hard and he's done awesome. His first USA powerlifting meet, his total was 953. This week he totaled 1360. So he's up 400 pounds. Since September, that's not all strength. That's also precision in the sport. That's also trusting. Trusting in a program. I think that he was just kind of randomly training in different things. for that cycle. He's my highest increase. Griffin Trevino, another one came in with a 10-30 total. He's total on about 13-45 right now. He's a 165. Zachariah Burroughs, his first meet totaled about 11-13. His total is about 14-20. So that's another 307 pound jump. So these are my Ohio kids that came in not knowing about. all the powerlifting rules and what was going to be expected of them in USA powerlifting. And their increases from 400 down to 300. ⁓ My Michigan kids, Dominic Bingham, he's from Davison. He's a good athlete. was a good lifter in high school, but he was hitting the wall. He was over training a little bit and he kept the first, the last three meets I recruited him at. He missed his last two deadlifts in every single meet. And I was thinking something's wrong here with. Chris Gilliam: Mm-hmm. Levi Hoffman: with this because he knows his numbers. He knows where he should be. We really lowered his volume and increased his recovery time. His total at High School Nationals last year was 1240. He ended up in seventh place at High School Nationals. At Collegiate Nationals two weeks ago in New Orleans, he totaled 1499, 680 kilos, a 259 pound increase, and he took 17th overall in that 181 weight class. He had come in at 36th place and he jumped. He jumped two full flights, one his flight and one the flight above him as well. And was two lifters from being into the top flight. So next year, we're just so excited to see where he goes from there. Yeah, he had a 120 pound increase on his deadlift from high school nationals to collegiate nationals this year. Like what, we couldn't ask for anything more. And then we've got one girl from Ohio, Braylon, Shayner, she was a golfer. She... She really wasn't a lifter and she came in not being able to much at all from her first meet till now. She's up from 630 pounds to 875 pounds. She's up about 245 as well. And then everyone knows Michaela, Michaela Chum from Troy, Athens high school. So she set the, American record high school deadlift last year at 425 pounds, 190 kg. So when she came in, I knew she was going to be good and it was going be hard to make progress. Whether I didn't know what would happen, she had some technique things that we really wanted to work on. But her total at the IDFPA World Championship last year was the first meet she competed in in her current weight class of 198. She totaled 887 pounds and at Collegiate Nationals she took second. She totaled 1096, 497 and a half kilos. Set the American record deadlift, she deadlifted 501. She almost got a 522. Yeah. Incredible. mean, she's almost, she has pulled more than that in the gym. Um, you know, 550 is an outside of her range, like very soon. She's only been training in bar lifting for a year before I got her. Um, it's, it's really crazy. These kids have made tremendous progress and it's, it's about training, but it's about team too. They love, they love to train together. They love to challenge each other. They cheer each other on. We have such a great. Chris Gilliam: Thank Wow. Levi Hoffman: We have such a great social aspect of our team that I think it really, really increases the progress that we've been able to make. ⁓ I know that we'll be competitive in a few years. We're all young, but we're competitive and all my kids now have reached the qualifying totals for collegiate nationals. So next year, mean, we won't have a full team, but we'll be pretty close. We'll be pretty close. I think we'll have 15 to 20 kids that we'll be able to take. So it's pretty exciting to see this. ⁓ And also Michaela won the overall. ⁓ best female athlete of Defiance College for the year, which is quite an award ⁓ for a freshman and for powerlifting. They kind of treated us like we weren't really a sport. They weren't sure what to think of, but we've really made some waves in the college. And Michaela deserved it. I mean, it's really cool for her and really cool for us as a team. super blessed. Thank you guys. it. Yeah, it's crazy. didn't, I... Chris Gilliam: That's great. Some impressive numbers. Levi Hoffman: I had to make goals at the beginning of the year and I kind of got upset with them. I'm like, all right, so I said, make goals, don't dream, you know, like, let's do something. almost every single one of these kids has broken all of their goals that they set at beginning of the year. And I'm thinking, well, next year we're going to do it again. We're to set these goals and we're going to try to do whatever it takes to get there. ⁓ yeah, it's been, it's been really cool. It's been, it's been a really cool ride, short, short timeframe, but really cool experience. Chris Gilliam: Yeah, that's good. Chris Whittaker: So you said you guys are carrying about 30 kids right now? Levi Hoffman: No, no, we hope to have. Right now I have nine on the official roster. We lost one after the first semester that left. And I have 13 signed for the following year. So I'm at 22. I believe, Connor told me from Davenport that 24 I think is the full collegiate team, 12 males and 12 females. So I'm going to be like, just short, I might have a full male team this year and not a full female team to go. But yeah, we're almost there. Chris Whittaker: 22. Chris Gilliam: How many females do you have currently? Levi Hoffman: Right now I have four and I've signed seven for next year. I've got one girl that's coming to visit from Texas. She's really awesome. She's coming in May. I think we have a good shot of getting her. And if we can add her to the team, we'll be at 12. So that's. Chris Gilliam: Well, if you can't, maybe you can get somebody on campus to walk on. Levi Hoffman: Yeah, yeah, actually I have a girl coming. I have a girl coming to train with us. I think she's just a really nice kid that doesn't do a sport and she told me she I love bench press coach. I was like I can take kids that. I mean, I had my dad around me. would take kids that never played a sport in their life and they'd join powerlifting and they would end up in state in a year or two, you know? So I believe that any kid that really wants to put their mind to it, cares and does the right things can make those advancements. But as you guys know, it's a long-term sport. You can't just show up for a couple of months and be good at it. Yeah. Chris Gilliam: That's right. All right. ⁓ power lifting, you know, you, you did it, you're coaching it. It's a sport that experiences failures. ⁓ it could be attempting, you know, a new PR or going for a lift that helps you win or place higher. And, know, sometimes you go for it and you don't make it. So, ⁓ can you think of a failure you had either personally as a lifter? or it could be in another sport that it ultimately set you up for success later. Levi Hoffman: Yeah, I was talking to my dad the other day. When I went to Sub Junior Worlds in 2009, I had been in 181 weight class, 82.5 kilo for like three full years. And then I made the world team and now I've got to be there until September and that was in March. And I got, we were in Brazil. for that World Meet and when I arrived, I got there about four days before I competed on Thursday. We arrived on like Sunday. ⁓ I was like nine and a half pounds overweight. And I wasn't when I left my house. I don't know what happened. I was like, what? What am I going to do here? And that was equip days. So like my squat suit, I know it's not going to fit. I know my bench shirt. I'm like, I'm in trouble. Like this is the biggest thing that I've done in my whole life. And I'm in the worst position I could ever be in. How do you lose that much weight that quick? I was so scared. was worried. Got to the meet, suit didn't fit that well. Had a hard time, it was sliding up extra high, wasn't staying down on my legs. I was like, oh no, here we go. My first squat, I got a little out of position and moved and stepped. So I missed my first squat. My second squat, I got called on depth, which is crazy. I don't even know how I ever got called on depth after being an Olympic weightlifter. I don't know how that happened to me, but it did. So I'm in my final attempt on my squat and you know what? It's time, it's time. to prove yourself. You've been doing this since you were a little kid and I had to come out and hit this squat and man, I'll tell you, didn't know what was going to happen. But those two failures motivated me and I came out of the hole so easy and it was so fast. And I'm like, man, I can't believe I just put myself in that position. those misses stick with me today. I almost bombed out at Worlds. And then I went to bench and I almost did the same thing. I missed my first two benches. I couldn't get the bar to my chest. And I, ⁓ my gosh, I made another mistake. Ended up getting my third bench and surviving. ⁓ But then I had to all three of my deadlifts to get in metal contention. And my whole life, my biggest dream was to get an IPF medal. I mean, that's the pinnacle of powerlifting, the IPF. So ⁓ I was able to pull all three deadlifts. I hit a PR on my deadlift. I had been in a little bit of a plateau for a little while, especially trying to stay at a weight class. ⁓ I think those near failures pushed me. was able to get a medal for my deadlift. I think it was 255 kilos as a sub junior. I got third place for deadlift and I got third place overall. So I got third place in sub junior. And you know what? That taught me. right there that you can't give up. You can't give up no matter what happens and what's coming along. You gotta stand up to it and face it. And I wasn't prepared with my suit, my situation, but I just... In our sport, you got to stand up and come back from failures. Kids miss lifts, kids bomb out of meets. mean, shoot, I've bombed out of a meet before. It's not a good feeling. But what really matters is how you come back and how you compete in the future and how you do on the next lift. You have to have a short memory in powerlifting. I'm sure you guys tell that to your lifters. The last lift you can't think about because that's not the lift we're currently doing on the platform. ⁓ Chris Gilliam: with them. I think it falls on deaf ears, but yeah, you're right. Levi Hoffman: No, totally. The anxiety factor eats at him sometimes, but... Chris Gilliam: I try to explain to kids, you know how much energy you are wasting sobbing and getting angry. Like you need to reserve that energy, especially if it's like in the squat. Cause I'm like, you still got bunch and dead left to go to. Like this is only one 30 year me. Levi Hoffman: Thank Yeah, it's totally true. And it's hard to get them to understand, but once they start to understand that and can conserve their energy, sit down between lifts, ⁓ not think about what happened and only what's ahead, those are the kids that are successful. ⁓ That's the route that I the best athletes really have to deal with. Chris Gilliam: for sure. Chris Whittaker: All right, so we're a little bit running a little bit longer on time here, coach. So I think we move to our speed set ⁓ questions. And these are just real, real fast, ⁓ quick answers. ⁓ We'll just throw them at you real quick as we run down through them. They're kind of fun. First one is your favorite lift, squat bench press deadlift. Chris Gilliam: Thank Levi Hoffman: Thanks for Chris Gilliam: Yeah. Levi Hoffman: Yeah, sure. I was always a squatter. I like squat the most. I don't compete anymore. I don't train anymore. I got hurt pretty bad. I was getting ready to compete in the American open in like 2000, oh shoot, what was that? 2014 tore my bicep and my rotator cuff. I don't love training heavy anymore. I still love squat. I love front squat. I love squatting. That's, but yeah, definitely. Chris Gilliam: Awesome. So are you a low bar or high bar swatter? Levi Hoffman: I was always a high bar squatter. And even in Olympic weightlifting, was a high bar squatter. By the time I got done in Olympic weightlifting, I was squatting, know, raw, raw and O'Neese sleeves, 300 kilos and training often. I was a 105 kilo at that point, but that was definitely something that came natural for me. And high bar. I know that low bar is better. I think if I would have thought about that back then, I might've changed things, but I move some of my kids down now currently too. Chris Gilliam: I'm a high bar squat or two, I train kids both ways. Levi Hoffman: Yeah, there's no one technique the whole like, ⁓ this is the way to do it. That's not every person is different. Every body shape is different. Every kid is different. So yeah, you have to base base it on them. Based on them, right? So Chris Whittaker: Sumo or conventional deadlift. Levi Hoffman: I lifted sumo all the way until I was like 19 and then I conventional deadlifted more. So I like sumo more because of the leverage aspect and since I'm a squatter, the lower body. But my only American record that's still alive in USA bar lifting is bench press. So I probably shouldn't say that here. I like both. I like both. know, every kid is different. So my girl, Michaela conventional deadlifts 500. Chris Gilliam: Ha ha ha ha. Levi Hoffman: ⁓ She's got huge long arms. She could be a sumo, but she's better at conventional. Dominic Bingham, he's a sumo. He was a conventional, but now he's up 120 pounds. I don't know. I don't know what's better, coach. That's a tough question for me. Chris Gilliam: No, it's good. Do you prefer a one max, one rep max or a rep PR? Levi Hoffman: for my own personal enjoyment. Yeah. I like, mean, max now it's awesome. That's where our sports all about, right? There's something to it. ⁓ in our training, I have a board, ⁓ the kids can see their one through 10 rep maxes and we focus on those all the time. ⁓ most, almost every week we have a best of two, best of four, best of six, something that we're looking for and they can go back and look and see what they've done. But the kids want singles. I want a single too. That's what matters, right? Chris Gilliam: All right. Chris Whittaker: your best accessory exercises and we'll start with the squat. Levi Hoffman: on squat. Yeah, we love leg press. Leg press is great. That's one opportunity for kids to really, really build up some strength. We do Bulgarian split squats as well. think that that's been a beneficial exercise. We also do pause squats. I know that that's become pretty popular, pause squats. We used to do bands and chains. I do chains. We've done a couple cycles of chains rotating with pause squats. I'm not sure if you could consider that ⁓ an auxiliary ⁓ or a squat variation, ⁓ but currently we're pause squatting and front squatting on deadlift days and then we're regular squatting on our first day of the week. Chris Gilliam: All right. Best accessory exercise for bunch press. Levi Hoffman: Yeah, I think depending on the kid, but I really, really like dumbbells. think dumbbell bench press and dumbbell incline can be really, really beneficial. ⁓ We do a lot of board press. ⁓ I know some people like to do pin press. I like board press ⁓ maybe a little more because we're activated on the way down ⁓ and that bar path is a little more focused on, but we do the other as well. Since we're in our first year, next year things are going to look different. I love, as you guys know, variation is a huge part of our sport. If you don't have variation in your workouts, ⁓ there's a lot of plateauing that goes on. ⁓ Chris Whittaker: And the last one, your best accessory exercise for the deadlift. Levi Hoffman: I think RDLs are the king for deadlift. mean, kids, they're doing, think single leg RDLs are great. I think regular RDLs are great. ⁓ I like doing RDLs off of a plate, ⁓ getting us a little bit elevation to get deeper into that. But RDLs are the king. Coach Brian Birchmeyer from Flint Powers, he had some of the best deadlifters in the really early 2000s. And I think my deadlift really took off from that and my kids too. ⁓ Proper position is important though. RDLs can be really bad if you're in the wrong position. I know there's a lot of things that we do on our court, right? yeah, definitely say RDL. Chris Whittaker: Mm-hmm. Chris Gilliam: Yeah. Chris Whittaker: All right, so Coach Gillum, ⁓ before we give Coach Hoffman the floor to kind of share anything that we haven't discussed yet, do you have any additional questions or comments for him? Chris Gilliam: No, I mean, it sounds like you got a good thing started there. We wish you continued success. I'm hoping you get to the 12 and 12. So you have a complete team for collegiates. But congratulations on a, sounds like a pretty good start to your program and keep recruiting our kids out of our state. think they're well trained and they do a great job. And, you know, as we talked to some other coaches, I mean, I think Michigan's very underrated. Levi Hoffman: Yeah. Chris Gilliam: for its power lifters. And ⁓ I know you're in Ohio, but you're close enough to our state. We want to keep our kids closer to home so their family can see them. ⁓ But they're representing our state really well at a variety of colleges with yours being one of them. And so thank you for that. And we appreciate you recruiting our kids and continued good luck. Levi Hoffman: Yeah, thank you so much. appreciate it. It would be great and continue working with MHSPLA. That's exactly what we want. So thanks a ton. We really appreciate all the support. Chris Whittaker: So coach, anything we haven't discussed that you'd like to share with our listening audience? Levi Hoffman: Well, I guess so in my recruiting, I recruit Michigan and Ohio. Last year I hosted a meet called the Border Battle. We had about 160 kids is about 100 kids from Ohio and about 60 from Michigan. Next year I've got commitments from a lot more schools. ⁓ I think it's a really good opportunity to cross over ⁓ and for the kids to see different competition. Right now I have about three to 400 that have verbally committed that haven't signed up yet. That'll be December 5th. I think it's a great opportunity for kids to compete with real USA field commands. My kids are the judges and the spotters and loaders as well. ⁓ We try to get kids into the sport and actually have an idea of what they're going to be looking at ⁓ when they get to college. I think that's really important. Yeah, and also we're going to try to expand the collegiate powerlifting world. We're going to try to host a meet. We're call it the Ohio Collegiate Powerlifting Championship. We'd like to do a Michigan and Ohio one as well. We'd like to cross over with Northwood and Davenport. Michigan State and Michigan have clubs as well. I know some kids that live for my community college. ⁓ We're just trying to expand it and make it more accessible because even though we have collegiate teams, it's hard to find meets. It's hard to find people to compete against. ⁓ But we're going to be inviting a lot of people and we hope to expand the college world. I think it's going to expand on its own without. without our help, but hopefully we can keep it moving. ⁓ yeah, I don't know. I think you guys had really great questions for me. I appreciate you ⁓ showing the importance of what this program has been for our college and for our athletes. They're all different kids from September to now, their confidence. ⁓ They're sure of themselves in a different way. There's a lot more cockiness when kids don't know how good they are. And when they, when they realize where they're at and they've some, some humbling experiences, but also getting better. Um, it's just advanced them as people. It's really cool to see. I mean, you guys, you guys know, coach in high school kids, you get to see them from 14 year old. They're almost kids, like little children to 18 year old adults. Um, and I'm so lucky to see that next four years, 18 to 22 to 23 range. Yeah, it's really great to mentor. Chris Whittaker: Awesome. Awesome. Well, if people want to get in contact with you or follow you on socials ⁓ or your program on socials, where can I do that? Levi Hoffman: Yeah, so our Instagram is at DeFi College Power, at D-E-F-I College Power. That's our Instagram. We're also, that's the same name that we use on X on Twitter, DeFi College Power. You can find us there. ⁓ We have direct contact with our athletes through there. ⁓ You can send us a message if you want to visit, if you want to be recruited. ⁓ Sometimes I just don't know athletes and I don't know who they are and I do want to recruit you. So reaching out to us is a good thing. Interacting is a positive thing. There's thousands and thousands of kids out there. It's hard to know exactly where they all are, but DeFi College Power, we can set you up. We'd love to have you come to our meet. We'd love to have you come to our Border Battle event. And even just come visit us and check out what we have to offer. We're a really fast growing program with great kids. Chris Whittaker: Awesome. All right. So give them a follow there. Get in touch with coach if you're interested in defiance and getting after it there. Coach Hoffman, thank you very much for your time. We're gonna bring this thing in for a landing. Any last words, coach Gillum? Chris Gilliam: No, man, it was great having you Levi and good luck Levi Hoffman: Thank you so much, Coach. Appreciate it. Thank you both. Chris Whittaker: Thank you.