Latest / The Platform: a Michigan High School Powerlifting Association Podcast / Connor Birchmeier, Davenport University | The Platform Episode 5
Transcript
- Chris Whittaker: Welcome to the platform where the stories weigh a ton. This is where some of the MHS PLAs 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. If you're enjoying this show, please make sure you subscribe, follow and leave a review on all major podcasts hosts, Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Amazon Music, and many more. That support helps us continue to grow. and bring the show in the conversations to you that matter and that you want to hear here on the platform. 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 with you. Today's episode is episode number five and it features Connor Birkmeyer of Davenport University, our first college coach. Connor shares a lot about his program himself and gives a good insight into powerlifting at the collegiate level. So And here we are episode of the platform where the story is way at on your Michigan High School Powerlifting Association podcast. My name is Chris Whitaker. I'm going to be one of your co-hosts for this podcast along with my partner in crime. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Chris Gillum, Chris Gillum introduce yourself to the people. Chris Gilliam: Hello, I'm Chris Gillum. I am the executive director for the Michigan High School Powerlifting Association. ⁓ Chris Whitaker is the assistant associate executive director of however you want to look at it. He's my right hand man and ⁓ we are on with Connor Berkmeyer. So I'm going to let Chris introduce some background on him and then we'll ask some questions and get to know Connor really well. Thank you. Chris Whittaker: step up, lock in the bars loaded for episode five. Hit that intro music. Connor, first, welcome. Thank you for being here. You are the head powerlifting coach at Davenport University. You founded that program. You hold your CSCS, which I can respect. And you've competed in the USAPL yourself. Prior to your time there, you were at Granville High School. You've had multiple champions in our association. And again, right now you are building the program at Davenport in 2023 when you started that. Thank you for being here. Connor Birchmeier: Thanks for having me guys. It's awesome to be doing this and be able to spread the word about collegiate powerlifting and just spread information to high school students throughout the entire state. Chris Whittaker: And that's kind of why we wanted to have you on Connor is, you know, as an association, we believe that we provide the first step in their development to compete in high school powerlifting to then take them to the USAPL either while they're during their time in high school, or should they want to continue in the college and you provide an opportunity for that in a scholarship program, am I correct? In a scholarship program. Connor Birchmeier: Yes, correct. Chris Whittaker: for kids to go and do it at the collegiate level. So we'll get in. We got a bunch of questions we want to ask you with regards to powerlifting. It's kind of a loose guide of our questions. Chris and I will kind of bounce back and forth and kind of wherever the conversation takes us on these, it'll take us. So Chris, first question is yours, my friend. Connor Birchmeier: Sounds good. Chris Gilliam: All right, Connor, tell us what drew you to the sport of powerlifting. Connor Birchmeier: Yeah, that's a great question. ⁓ So I really got into it when I was 15 years old. I think the thing that really drew me to it, there's a few aspects. One thing was just listening to good music and lifting and pushing my body. I've always kind of been an adrenaline junkie ever since I was little, like riding roller coasters and things like that. And so I got that same sort of feeling through lifting, pushing myself as hard as I could. I couldn't really find that as much in other sports. And so that's something that really drew me to it. And then the other aspect of it was setting goals and writing out what I was going to do and then go and accomplishing that and that feeling of accomplishment and continuing to build upon that throughout following the training program and then seeing my results after time. ⁓ That was something that drew me to it and you know, learning more the education portion. I consider myself a lifelong learner. And so all those different aspects really created a perfect storm for me to really latch on to powerlifting as a whole, learning as much as I could about it and really delving into it. And so those were the big draws to it. Chris Gilliam: Thanks. Chris Whittaker: So about, you said you competed before. You may have mentioned this in our connection here. We're on the interwebs here, so sometimes stuff goes in and out. What year did you get started, and how long have you been involved? Connor Birchmeier: Yeah, so, um, started training when I was 15. Uh, so was a long time ago, about 12 years ago, but didn't actively start competing until, uh, 2017, uh, spring of that year. Um, so I had my first day in college. had. went to the gym and met someone that ended up coaching me and mentoring me in life for a couple years. His name was Jason Ralia. So he took me under his wing. He's about five years older than me. He already had a coaching company. was a very competitive lifter in the USAPL in the 220 class. And so he encouraged me to sign up for a meet. I had wanted to my senior year of high school. We just so happened to have had a team my junior and senior year, but I didn't do it my senior year because I went through some different injuries and setbacks that kind of prevented me from getting on the platform. And so he encouraged me, said, you know, you're never going to feel strong enough to sign up for a meet. You just got to go for it and, you know, just see where you're at and then just keep building from there. And so ended up doing a meet the spring of my freshman year of college. And then he encouraged me to reach out to a local high school called Granville high school and do an internship there. And so. Worked with their football program over the summer and had a lot of fun there and the head coach there. He was another mentor of mine named Tully Chapman. He wanted to start up a powerlifting program that fall. And so he had asked me if I'd be willing to help him with that because he didn't have a background in powerlifting. He was actually Olympic weightlifter. He was ranked eighth in the nation. It can be that like the Arnold and things like that. Very good weightlifter. And so we founded the program together back in 2017. And so there was kind of a big storm that year, my freshman year going into sophomore year of college where things started lining up. You know, I started coaching my brother. He was the first person I ever wrote a program for during the summer. And I had a big ego back then, didn't want to help out my brother get stronger than me. He was a older brother and things like that. I enjoyed being stronger. And so I started working with him that summer when I was interning. And then that fall I started actually coaching in person. And so I was only 19 years old at the time. Chris Gilliam: Thank Connor Birchmeier: But that's how I got started and it's through that that I was able to grow and develop. I really attribute a lot of my success to starting young and then being consistent over long period of time. I coached at Granville for six years before I was ever hired on at the collegiate level. Chris Gilliam: Thank Chris Whittaker: So Tully Chapman broke you into the game, huh? Connor Birchmeier: Yes, did. Yeah. No, tell you, he was a great mentor of mine. Still keep in touch with him today. And, um, he, he really did some amazing things when we were at Granville. Um, you know, his first couple of years, they didn't have the weight room that they have today. And, uh, they were kind of in this little dungeon hall that they had, uh, you know, some squat racks in and things like that. And they ended up, uh, passing the bill to build a $2 million facility. And he ended up building up that program to 700 athletes in the weight room per day. and one of the largest athletics program in the state in my opinion. And so I learned a lot from him and he's someone that really took me under his wing during my time there. Chris Whittaker: Yeah, I had some opportunities to interact with Tully here as I'm learning who's who here in the state of Michigan. What is Tully doing now? He's not coaching anymore, is he? Chris Gilliam: Awesome. Connor Birchmeier: Nope, he's working ⁓ for, I think they do custom athletic, apparently does all their social media and marketing throughout the whole state of Michigan. I think they have a few locations, but he kind of stepped away from that and kind of transitioned down that role. He started to develop a passion for videography and photography and things like that, social media content creation. And so he went down that path. Chris Gilliam: Awesome. Chris Whittaker: Sounds like a guy we need to talk to Gillum. Maybe he can help us with this podcast thing. Connor Birchmeier: Well, seriously, yeah, he's recorded something before. Chris Gilliam: there. ⁓ Chris Whittaker: I know if he did mine. don't think he did. Gillum, next question, buddy. Chris Gilliam: Yeah. Well, I wanted to talk to you about your program a little bit at Davenport. So what type of experience can a lifter expect within your program? For example, how many meets will they compete in during the year? Connor Birchmeier: Yeah, great question. So, you know, with college athletics, ⁓ and specifically powerlifting, it's very dependent on the coach as to what experience you're going to have as an athlete. And obviously, you know, the different opportunities that the university provides. And so, you know, for our program, I like to describe it as all encompassing experience and, and honestly, all paid for, for for, you know, college athletes. And so they can expect to compete between three and four times a year. It really depends at what phase of their college athletics that they're in. their freshman year, they might compete four times. You know, for this upcoming season, we're going to have a opening meet for all of our rookies, you know, our first years in September, kind of break them in, you know, break the rust off and get the year started. And then we'll have a big meet in November. both for the men's and the women's teams, where we'll go and travel and go compete somewhere against other college teams. And then generally we'll have a last minute qualifier for nationals in late January, early February, where athletes can either change their weight class or hit their qualifying total, whatever they need to do to be selected for our national team. And then something that we're going to be working on here in this coming year. is actually having our entire team attend nationals. I know that's what some other programs are doing out there in the country. And that's how they do so well as they can have their scoring roster, but also the rest of the roster to help push people down the totem pole a little bit, pad their lead. So we're to be doing that here this coming year. And so nationals every year is in first week or second week of April. So we actually just got done with that. So that's generally the structure. But in terms of the actual experience as a college athlete, I mean, you really get a full experience. know, obviously we're a scholarship based program, but we also cover every expense related to the sport. So, you know, their powerlifting equipment's paid for, their memberships, their meet registration fees, their travel, whether that's hotel or food, they get a special ⁓ athletic apparel and ⁓ obviously a training facility. We really try to take all of the thinking out of it for our college athletes so that they can focus on being athletes and I can take care of the logistics and just manage that for them. Chris Gilliam: That's awesome. Cause that's something that them and their parents would have been doing on their own in high school, especially if they lifted USA PL at all. So that's huge. mean, to be able to provide those things because the top programs, that's what they're doing. And so that means you guys should be. Yeah. Able to compete at recruiting all the other top athletes in the sport of power lifting. Awesome. Connor Birchmeier: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Chris Gilliam: next one I wanted to ask. So I know you said your scholarship base, is there financial assistance provided to the lifters towards tuition room and board? How was it applied? Connor Birchmeier: Yeah, so they can actually choose how they're going to apply their athletic scholarship, ⁓ where they want it to be room and board or, you know, can apply it towards tuition, etc. But, you know, we are a university that can stack scholarships and financial aid together. So you get your athletic as well as your academic scholarship. And then any financial aid or other outside scholarship sources are also combined together. So that's one thing to look into when you're looking at programs is if they do stack scholarships ⁓ and making sure you really have a good understanding of how it all comes together to get the final ⁓ cost of attendance. Chris Gilliam: Well, that's great. So any kid that has academic scholarships, they can also receive power lifting scholarship on top of it with you. Connor Birchmeier: Yep, yeah, and I mean, cool thing about powerlifting is the scholarship size can vary quite a bit, you know, from just, you know, a reasonable amount to quite a large amount. And so it's pretty cool to be able to offer those types of things, especially for, you know, hardworking athletes that really deserve, you know, something for all their hard work they put in over their high school career, be able to offer that opportunity for them going into college. Chris Gilliam: Awesome. Thanks. Chris Whittaker: Yeah. So like from the collegiate side of things for me, this is all brand new. Gillum really could speak more going through it with his daughter and being heavily involved in the the USAPL and in the collegiate area. If a kid is interested in competing, how can they get in touch with you? How does that how does that whole process work? The recruiting process, I guess. Connor Birchmeier: Yes. Yeah. So, ⁓ you know, the first thing you need to do is look into what universities actually offer, ⁓ you know, powerlifting scholarships. ⁓ there's a lot of different clubs around the U S there's over a hundred different clubs that compete in USA powerlifting, but there's probably only a little over a dozen, ⁓ different universities that actually offer a full athletics experience with scholarship and everything like that. And so, ⁓ you need to do your research, figure out what programs there are. You might want to look into whether you want to do USA powerlifting or powerlifting America, kind of two branches of collegiate powerlifting. USA powerlifting is the much bigger one. And that's what we compete in. But from there, after you know what schools that you're kind of interested in looking at, generally they're going to have some type of recruitment questionnaire. And that can either be found on their athletics website. Generally there'll be a tab that you can click and You can go and fill out that questionnaire or you could find that potentially on their social media such as Instagram. think every single collegiate powerlifting team has an Instagram page that they actively manage and they all have their recruit questionnaire in there. And so the first thing is I think try to find that, fill that out. From there, next step that would be helpful is actually trying to look up the head coach's email and sending him an email. ⁓ that can be a big, ⁓ thing for me. That's going to help set someone apart is if they also emailed me in general, introducing themselves, make sure your email is actually professional. not just, you know, I've had athletes email me that don't even see what their name is. ⁓ and, and things like that. And so obviously that's not a good look. So take some time, you know, right? Maybe a little bit about yourself, maybe why you're interested in the sport. And then from there, ⁓ the head coach, ⁓ will reach out back to you. Chris Gilliam: Yeah. Connor Birchmeier: You know if they would like to talk further it might be you know a phone call ⁓ For me a person I found it to be helpful just to have athletes if they're in state just invite them out if I'm interested Obviously, I like to do a kind of background check, know I check I call their coaches see what their coaches have to say about them I See I'm looking at their grades. You know they have to put those types of things in my questionnaire Talk about their background what the sport means to them how it's grown and change them Things of those nature and so I'm looking at all those and if you know, I'm getting green flags everywhere I'm going then you know generally reach back out and see if we can line up a potential visit So that's what that looks like for you know, the average student trying to get in contact with the college program Chris Gilliam: Right. Chris Whittaker: And when you're recruiting any, like any specific totals you're looking at, like what, what is drawing you, you know, finished placing in their state rankings, right? Those sorts of things. Like what, draws you to a recruit to say, I'm interested in that kid besides like from just on the platform, you talked about a lot of the background stuff, grades and Connor Birchmeier: Again. Yeah, no from the platform, know, as our program gets more and more competitive, right now our women's teams ranked second in the nation, men's teams ranked third in the nation out of, you know, over 100 ⁓ programs in both. ⁓ For me, I'm getting more more selective. So generally I'm looking for state champions, sometimes multiple state champions. Sometimes there's some years where we got some really competitive athletes that really do king it out and you any one of the top athletes in a certain weight class would be a good candidate. But from there, honestly, you know, I am looking more at those ⁓ intangible things ⁓ like, you know, what their coach has to say about them, what they have to say about the sport, grades, work ethic, things of those nature. I even look at their social media, see what type of things they like to post. ⁓ Because not every athlete is going to be a state champ. Not every athlete is going to be the national champ. So that's a small subsection of our team, which obviously there's a need for that. But from there, I want really ⁓ quality athletes that are great teammates, great leaders, create a solid culture for my team. And so I'm looking for those things. ⁓ Generally, I'm looking at athletes that are hopefully top 10 in the nation or so, or not in the nation, in their state. And from there, know, I think competing in USA powerlifting kind of taking that next step is also a big thing for me. If they, you know, decide they want to get involved, maybe go and compete at high school nationals, things of those nature that really shows me that they have a true passion for the sport. When they and their family are willing to go and invest and travel and do these other competitions and, you know, have to buy a single. make sure that they perform the lifts to the standard in USA powerlifting. Those are all green flags for me when I'm looking at high schoolers. Chris Gilliam: Awesome. What type of degrees is Davenport University known for for our parents and potential lifters? Connor Birchmeier: Yeah, so we started off as a business school back in 1866. So we have a lot of different business degrees. We're one of the top business schools in Michigan. But from there, we got a lot of different health programs, education and technology. And so those are our biggest fields. We have offer over more than 70 degree programs. But business is definitely our big one. We have an amazing nursing program. Our nursing program, the last two years, we have a 100 % pass rate on the NCLEX, which is the nursing exam. So, you know, I have a few athletes that are in that program right now and it's very demanding, but that's a big one for us as well. But I generally, you know, really, really enjoy how we do education. We are a private university, which means, you know, we're not funded by the state. But what's cool about that is we don't have like general education. So like your first two years of college, you don't have to take a bunch of random classes like underwater basket weaving and things like that. You can actually ⁓ start right off your freshman year taking some courses in your actual, you know, major and figure figuring out if you actually want to go down that path. And then what's nice is our first year is kind of structured in a way where you can actually, you know, there's a few general classes you have to take. and writing and things like that. But after that first year you can actually transition, especially in our business ⁓ programs, to really any route you want to go. If you've gotten take that first course or two and you feel like it's not for you, whatever you decided, you can kind of switch it up. And so that's kind of, you know, some different aspects of our academics that I really enjoy about our university. And we also require all of our professors to work in their field for five or more years, which is really neat that they require that. of our professors. Chris Gilliam: ⁓ that's great. Good. ⁓ How many lifters do you currently have in your program, ⁓ men and women, and what is the goal? Connor Birchmeier: Yeah, yeah, currently we have 32 on the roster and so we have 17 guys and 15 girls. But we are growing over the next two years. We've been approved to grow to 45 next year. So we already have over 40 on the roster working on kind of finishing those last few here over this next month. But from there, we're gonna be growing up to 55, which will make us one of the largest raw teams in the country. There's some larger teams, they're raw and equipped, which that's a whole rabbit hole in and of itself, explaining what that is. But ⁓ we'll be a very large team and we're very well supported by our university and have big goals for our team. And I think having a roster of 55 athletes on scholarship, will be able to get the job done. So that's what we're working towards over the next two years. Chris Gilliam: Right. And just so maybe our listeners would know, like you talked about equipped and you guys are raw only. So that's how many kids you have competing raw. And how many weight classes are there in USAPL? Cause they're used to 13 weight classes in the Michigan high school powerlifting. Connor Birchmeier: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I believe we actually do have 13 in each. They ended up dividing the women's 67.5 kilo class last year. And so now they have a 65 and a 70. They also go as low as 97 pounds. And then on the men's side, we got a lot of heavier weight classes. So we've got a 220 and 242 and 275, a 308 and 308 plus. And so wide variety. It's a challenge sometimes to find some of those outlier weight classes like the 114 boys and the 97 girls. ⁓ you know, that is one cool aspect of our sport. You know, it's very inclusive, but also, you know, from looking at it as a college athlete perspective, you know, if you're, you know, let's say you're a hundred and five, 110 pound boy, ⁓ you know, and most athletic endeavors, you might not be selected for a college team just due to that fact that you're smaller than most. But within collegiate powerlifting, that would actually be a huge advantage. I believe there was only four or five ⁓ men competing at 114 this past collegiate nationals. And if you're putting a lot of hard work and dedication over your high school career, and get your total to something competitive. You you're going to be a very hot commodity for a lot of these college coaches that have been looking to fill this work weight class and get someone in there. Because if you don't know, you know, your top 10 athletes in any weight class are going to be point scores ⁓ and the higher you can score. And so when there's only five athletes in a weight class, you know, right off the bat, you're already scoring five, six points for the team, which is huge. And so. That's one thing I really like about the sport is we really welcome all different types of athletes. Chris Gilliam: Awesome. Chris Whittaker: All right, well, we're getting a little bit close to our time here. ⁓ So Chris, do you have any any additional specific questions for Connor before we give him the floor of anything that we haven't talked about that he'd like to bring Chris Gilliam: ⁓ couple little things. mean, you know, I guess just to, you gave us quite a bit of background on yourself and your program, which is great. ⁓ you, you currently are the only power lifting program in the state of Michigan offering scholarships. Correct. Connor Birchmeier: So there will be another program next fall, ⁓ Northview University in Northwood, sorry, in Midland, Michigan. And so we'll be starting up a program here this fall. So we were the first, obviously, but there's been a lot of different programs popping up over the last few years. You know, we've had Defiance College in Ohio. There's actually a Cumberstone University down in Tennessee that just started a program. I think they're starting up this fall. Chris Gilliam: Northwood? Yeah. Yeah, that's all right. Connor Birchmeier: Greenville University before that out in Illinois and then before that was us. So it continued to pop up, know, it seems one to two a year, but I think that will start to increase from here. Chris Gilliam: Okay. ⁓ then your experience, both high school and college Connor, what's the hardest thing to coach or teach in the sport of powerlifting? Connor Birchmeier: Yeah, would say, you know, the hardest thing to teach really is, is honestly the right attitude for your athletes having, you know, a positive attitude athletes that, you know, they really have to honestly want to grow and develop themselves. And, you know, I've had athletes that are great athletes, but they don't take their personal development seriously. And so that's not something I can't pour into someone that doesn't want to be poured into. And so having that hunger to grow as an individual and get better and be supportive of your teammates is huge. I I would say that's the hardest thing to coach. Sometimes you'll just have those athletes that don't respond to you as a coach. Maybe they, or maybe a little arrogant, don't want to take your advice or coaching or. or apply what you say, you know, it goes in one year and out the other. And so I would say that's the hardest, hardest thing to coach is just ⁓ a learning spirit willing to humble yourself, be a, you know, a student of the game ⁓ and really teach or learn and, and see what your coach is teaching you and apply that and consistent basis so you can grow. Chris Gilliam: All right, awesome. Did you want to do like the one questions, Chris? Chris Whittaker: But the all the speed the speed set questions there. ⁓ The speed. Chris Gilliam: Like, which do kind of a quiz for you. Yeah. The speed set of questions we have. So you just got to answer. Don't think about it. Don't give it a lot of thought. We just want your instant reactions. All right. So what do you prefer? Yep. All right. Ready? Favorite lift squat bunch or deadlift. Connor Birchmeier: Alright. Okay. Chris Whittaker: We gotta get back underneath the bar in 45 seconds. Chris Gilliam: Low bar or high bar? Connor Birchmeier: Low power. Chris Gilliam: Sumo or conventional. Connor Birchmeier: conventional. Chris Gilliam: Max out or Rup PR. Connor Birchmeier: Rep PR. Chris Gilliam: What's the best accessory exercise for squat? Connor Birchmeier: high bar squat. Chris Gilliam: What's the best accessory exercise for bench press? Connor Birchmeier: close grip bench. Chris Gilliam: What's the best accessory exercise for deadlift? Connor Birchmeier: I like 45 degree back raises, heavy. Chris Gilliam: All right, good. Thank you for answering those. Appreciate it. Connor Birchmeier: And that's it. Yeah. Chris Whittaker: All right, so Chris, if that's all the questions you have, I think we give Connor the floor here as we bring this thing in for a landing here, try to keep them to our time. ⁓ Anything Connor that we didn't discuss here that you'd like to bring up or that you'd like to share with our audience? Chris Gilliam: Yeah. Yeah, without a doubt. Connor Birchmeier: Yeah, no, I really think the future of our sport is in our teenage athletes. It's the fastest growing ⁓ membership base in USA powerlifting. And I think really the key is what we're seeing that's happening in Michigan high school powerlifting is these college or these high school programs really blossoming and developing. I've seen a lot, a number of programs go from, you know, five to 10 athletes to 40 plus within a two, three year timeframe. So I really think the key to the sport is in that growth there. But from there, it's really retaining those athletes into adulthood. It is a sport that you can compete in for lifelong. You know, I still compete, I'm to be competing on July 18th this summer. And so. ⁓ retaining those athletes, making sure they're having a good experience, we're keeping them healthy, but also having a solid pathway for them to go on into college sports. And so I think colleges and high schools working together to really grow the sport and working with the Michigan High School Powerlifting Board. I think that's really the key. I think there has to be a synergy there. And so that's something I'm looking forward to seeing growing, developing here in the next few years. I think we've got a lot of momentum going. We've got a lot strong lifters in our state and so I'm really looking forward to just working with you guys to continue to grow our sport, do what we love, but also provide a great experience for our athletes. Chris Gilliam: How many of your lifters are from Michigan? Connor Birchmeier: 31 of 32. So I have a few more Wisconsin athletes joining next year, almost exclusively Michigan. Yep. Chris Gilliam: So 31 out of 32 this year and the women placed second in the country and the men placed third in the country. Connor Birchmeier: Yes, they did. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. And that's why I say we have the talent. I think we have the numbers and I've always believed that I could win a national championship just with Michigan. I'm going to be branching out to Wisconsin. I think they got a lot of good things going on over there. But I like to stay home. I don't want to go fight over those. Some of those recruits way out yonder that. know, every college program is going for them. want to find some of the diamonds in the rough here in Michigan, give them an opportunity. And so those are what I look for. And, and, you know, I'm just really proud of our state and how far the sport has grown over the past few years. Chris Gilliam: Yeah, I think it's great. And on a personal note for me, ⁓ I've watched too many Michigan kids leave to go to other schools to compete and they had great success there. ⁓ I'm glad that we have a program within our own state because I think our state is definitely one of the top five states in the country producing power lifters. ⁓ and that's because of people like you that coached in the MHS PLA. ⁓ people like Coach Whitaker and everybody else that is still coaching and competing. So we thank you and we appreciate your time. Connor Birchmeier: Mm-hmm. Yeah, appreciate you guys having me on. This is awesome and just really looking forward to what's to come. Chris Gilliam: Alright. Chris Whittaker: Connor, if people want to find you on social media, what's your handles? Connor Birchmeier: So Davenport powerlifting is our Instagram handle. ⁓ Last summer I got rid of all my personal social media is too much of ⁓ a time waste so Got away from that, but that's where you can find our social media. Give us a follow We post pretty consistently on there and working on obviously growing that so Chris Whittaker: Alright folks, so you heard the man. you want to keep up with Connor and everything he's got going on at Davenport Powerlifting, find them on social media at Davenport Powerlifting. Connor, thank you very much for your time. Hopefully we'll do this again. Connor Birchmeier: So thank you guys.