A quarter-of-a-ton deadlift and espresso to die for

You’re a MakoLab expert of more than ten years’ standing! Congratulations!

I’m a dinosaur!

Oh, come on! Prehistoric you most certainly are not!

Well, OK. So I’m a thirty-something dinosaur!

But everything you do belies that claim, doesn’t it?! Especially your passion for sport…

I was always good at sport. When I was a kid, I played football. I was picked for my school’s teams in quite a few disciplines, even though I wasn’t all that tall. I was also a sprinter. Why short distances? Because endurance sports aren’t my cup of tea… or coffee, for that matter! I do a lot better with strength sports.

Didn’t you have a break from sport, though?

Yes, I did. Then a few years ago, I realised that I was in a condition that disgraced me, so I started taking exercise. I was craving to be as fit as I was when I was young. That’s when I discovered CrossFit. I began going to classes four years ago and, slowly, I got fitter again and my weight improved. With time, it became easier.

Is the story ‘to be continued’?

For two years now, everyone’s been telling me not to do CrossFit, but change sports, switch to powerlifting… but, in the long run, that’s boring. CrossFit’s a lot more varied.

In effect, you went for strength sports… and you achieved quite a record for an amateur, isn’t that right?

A quarter-of-a-ton deadlift! Well, 257.5 kilos, to be precise. That’s the first magic threshold in weightlifting. The world record is more than 500 kilos, but that’s beyond the reach of ordinary mortals. You have to be born to it, to be genetically predisposed.

Like coffee, right? Your other great passion!

Yes. I’m a fervent coffee aficionado! I’m capable of spending several hundred zloties a month on beans. I went on a barista’s course and I’ve been deeply into experimenting ever since. It’s outstanding fun! Streets ahead of messing about with the innards of cars.

Not so long ago, I tried a freddo cappuccino for the first time. Actually, there are plenty of cooling coffee drinks I could recommend. Espresso tonic, for example. There are several ways of making it. I chose the method based on good-quality tonic water and cold brew. That’s coffee steeped at a low temperature. You grind the beans, pour on the water and then pop it in the fridge for twelve to fourteen hours. That produces the essence. To make espresso tonic, pour the tonic over some ice, add the cold brew, then mix.

Where do you buy your coffee beans?

Coffee shops where they roast the beans on the premises. There are more than ten in Łódź alone. The best coffee I’ve ever come across comes from Kenya and tastes of blackcurrants. There are so many varieties. Top-end coffees are classed and numbered. Real enthusiasts will be able to look at the number and tell you what bean it is and what the coffee profile is. There are some beans you have to wait a year for. You’re waiting for a new harvest from a particular spot in the world.

So, what happens when you want to order a coffee in a restaurant or café?

I always ask where the beans are from! To me, coffee’s also a seriously good reason to go for working from home. What you get from an industrial coffee machine that’s producing more than two hundred cups a day just isn’t the same as the espresso you make for yourself to perfection at home!

We hope that, one day, Wojtek will find the time to teach us a thing or two… and we’re most certainly not talking about deadlifting

translation by Caryl Swift

Wojciech was talking to Marta Piotrkowska