#491: Dr. Stefi Cohen — 25 World Records, Power Training, Deadlifting 4.4x Bodyweight, Sports Psychology, Overcoming Pain, and More

I think part of the way that we react to certain situations is related to how prepared we are for that situation ... We're told to always keep a positive attitude. We're always taught to think positively—to not think about anything going wrong. I think that does a disservice because things are gonna go wrong at one point or the other ... There's going to be a point where it's not going to go your way, and how you react to that is dependent on how prepared you were to deal with that situation.

My favorite quote, and this is the only quote I have memorized, is 'Each fresh crisis is an opportunity in disguise' ... Honestly, every single time I've failed at something, it's been the best worst thing that has ever happened to me. It's opened so many doors and so many new opportunities. When you look for them, they're there.

I was the first woman to deadlift four times my body weight at a powerlifting competition. I weighed 120 lbs, and I deadlifted, I guess, over 500 [lbs]. Then, I beat that record weighing 120 or 123 [lbs]. I deadlifted 545 lbs.

The obsession of keeping your back straight when you deadlift is kind of silly because, even when you can't observe that there is rounding in the lower back, your spinal segments are at about 60-70% inflection, even when you're not seeing any flexion happening. When your back is in 'neutral,' your back is bent—your spinal segments.... they've changed in the angles that they're in there. They're already flexing.

The notion that winners never quit is just so flawed. It's such a fallacy, and it does such a disservice to people because it discourages people from trying new things.

You don't really know what your body is capable of until you actually do it. There are a lot of limitations that are placed upon yourself based on what other people are doing.

No pain, no gain—these are all things that are so deeply ingrained in our beliefs as athletes that we have a hard time taking a step back because we are afraid of exposing our weaknesses, or we're afraid of quitting, or we're afraid of our coach thinking that we don't want it enough, and so we just tend to ignore the signals that our body is sending us.

Society glorifies happiness. Society glorifies being in a good mood, and being happy, and being positive, and fails to acknowledge the important lessons that happen when you're going through dark periods of time, when you're going through tough times.

When it comes to the neurophysiology of pain, we used to tie the severity of a symptom to the amount of damage in our body. With the evolution of pain science, especially now that it's kind of permeating more into the physical therapy realm and fitness and sports, now we understand that pain isn't directly tied to tissue damage.

There were a bunch of studies done on construction workers ... They determined that those with the most back endurance were the most resilient to back injuries.

When it comes to powerlifting, you can want it all you want, you can work as hard as you want, but because it's such a specialized sport, having the right attributes for the sport is even more important.

Injuries, not most times, always happen when the load that you're imparting on tissues exceeds their tolerance.

There are three components to finding something that you're good at. You have your skills, your talents, and your passions. And what you're essentially trying to do is find the best balance of the three.

I'm a lazy successful person ... I'm pretending that I have all the habits of all these successful people when in reality I'm not like them. I do things very differently. I don't do well with inflexible schedules. I don't have an agenda that's all color-coded and highlighted. I don't have a morning ritual. I really don't. I'm more of like a free spirit. I'm a procrastinator. I am unorganized. My mind is all over the place.

I do believe it's important to give yourself a time cap for how long you're going to feel bad for yourself because, otherwise, you just end up stuck in that phase for way too long.

When people say 'science proves' or 'studies show,' you should always look at the source material because science—or I should say more accurately, really good research and studies—really just indicates the probability of something being true.

37% of 20-year-olds have asymptomatic degenerative disc disease and disc herniations. Those numbers bump all the way up to 84 and 94% for people over 80-years-old.