Barbell Shrugged - Devon Larratt: Why Pain Is Information And A Deep Dive Into A Sport You Know Nothing About — Muscle Maven Radio Episode #1

Episode Date: February 7, 2019

Devon Larratt (@devlarratt) is a world champion arm wrestler (in both arms) and received mainstream fame with his YouTube video defeating The Mountain Thor Bjornsson in an armwrestling match. He’s also a twenty-year veteran of the Canadian military, with time spent in an elite special forces unit, and one of the most dedicated athletes on the planet–with a healthy dose of humor, stoicism, and just plain genetic freakiness.   In this deep-dive interview with Devon, we talk about how he found the sport of armwrestling, how he came to dominate the sport–including his training, diet, mindset, and even psychological warfare tactics against his opponents. We also talk about his military service and how he is able to transfer the intensity and stress of that job to help him excel in his chosen sport, and in life in general. We also go on tangents including drugs and drug testing in armwrestling, how women are navigating the traditionally male-dominated sport, and pain and injury management— and how many arms Devon’s broken during his career.   Episode Highlights: 8 - 20 Intro to the sport of armwrestling 20 - 32 Devon talks about the physicality of the sport and gnarly injuries (both to himself and others) 32 - 54 Deep dive into training 54 – 1:06 Drug testing in armwrestling, and sports in general 1:06 – 1:10  Women in armwrestling 1:10 - 1:22  Devon's diet,  including a rabbit hole about some very weird experimental diets and a buffet-related eating injury 1:22 -1:34  Discussion of the mental game, and how to supremely mess with your opponents while still being respectful 1:34 -1:47 Devon discusses his military background and mindset, tells some actual war stories, and how his military career informs his approach to life and his career as a professional athlete ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Show notes: http://www.shruggedcollective.com/mmr-larratt ----------------------------------------------------------------------   ► Subscribe to Shrugged Collective's Channel Here http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedSubscribe 📲 🎧 Listen to the audio version on the Apple Podcast App or Stitcher for Android Here- http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedApple http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedStitcher Shrugged Collective is a network of fitness, health and performance shows that help people achieve their physical and mental health goals.  Usually in the gym, but outside as well. In 2012 they posted their first Barbell Shrugged podcast and have been putting out weekly free videos and podcasts ever since. Along the way we've created successful online coaching programs including The Shrugged Strength Challenge, The Muscle Gain Challenge, FLIGHT, Barbell Shredded, and Barbell Bikini. We're also dedicated to helping affiliate gym owners grow their businesses and better serve their members by providing owners tools and resources like the Barbell Business Podcast. Find Shrugged Collective and their flagship show Barbell Shrugged here: SUBSCRIBE ON ITUNES ► http://bit.ly/ShruggedCollectiveiTunes WEBSITE ► https://www.ShruggedCollective.com INSTAGRAM ► https://instagram.com/shruggedcollective FACEBOOK ► https://facebook.com/barbellshruggedpodcast TWITTER ► http://twitter.com/barbellshrugged

Hello, everybody. Welcome to the very first episode of Muscle Maven Radio. I'm your host, Ashley Van Houten, and I appreciate you giving me your time and giving this a shot. I think I'm going to make it worth your while, and I'm really excited to be here. But before I tell you about my incredible first guest, and I promise I'm not hyping him up at all, I could do this all day and it would not do justice to how interesting and one of a kind this guy is really. I just wanted to tell you a bit about me and what I hope to accomplish with this podcast so that you have a sense of what you're getting into and why you should listen. So I've been in the health and fitness world for more than half my life now since I was a teenager.

And I've never really been a lead at any sport, but I've been pretty good at some of them. And mostly I've just always been willing to try new things and experiment and learn. And I've really enjoyed some of my forays into different sports, including swimming and powerlifting and CrossFit and bodybuilding, among other things. My professional background is in communications and writing. So over the last decade or so, I've worked really hard to combine my skills and my passions. So my ability to write and communicate and find interesting people and things and interview them and get good stories out of them and get all that cool information in front of others and then combine that with my passion for learning about and trying different new things in health and wellness.

So aligning all that together, I've been a writer and an editor for about seven or eight years now and actually a podcast host for two. I was and am still currently hosting another podcast called Paleo Magazine Radio, where I interview doctors and nutritionists and coaches and athletes and authors about the latest in health and nutrition and wellness.

And it's not always strictly paleo based, although that's certainly the framework we start from. But I've been able to interview folks like Dom D'Agostino, Charles Poliquin, Ben McCulskey, Kelly Starrett, and many more super smart and awesome people. And I love it. I love my job. I love doing this. And so, I mean, I guess it's kind of shameless, but if you want to listen to any of those, you can just check out Paleo Magazine Radio on iTunes. You can hear some of the stuff I've already done. But with this new podcast that you're listening to right now, what I'm really trying to do is expand my reach and expand my depth by not just talking about nutrition or fitness, but trying to talk to people who are

just super, super successful and finding out what makes them tick. So it could be professional athletes or coaches or business owners, you name it. But I want to know what do they tell themselves? How do they define success and failure? How do they get past catastrophic loss and trauma? How do they maintain discipline? What are their habits and routines? And it will be mostly based within health and wellness, because that's who I love to talk to. And I know that's who you're interested in. And, you know, ever since I was a kid, like I was a seven-year-old girl watching World's Strongest Man on TV and just being obsessed with it. But now that I'm older, I mean, I still love watching all of that stuff and crazy feats of human accomplishment. But now I want to know more about the person and the

individual and their mindset and what makes them unique and what makes them uniquely able to be the best of the best. And I hope that this provides entertainment and value and information and inspiration to you. And that even if you aren't interested in the exact topic, like for example, I might interview the world's best arm wrestler, like today's guest. And maybe you're not interested in that at first, and maybe you will be after you've finished listening to him. But at the very least, I think you would get inspiration and maybe some tips and tricks, learning the routines and mindset and unique approaches that these people take towards their goals and their passions and hopefully be able to take some of it and apply it to your own life. So that's my goal. That's my hope. And I thank you

in advance for just giving it a shot. So I would love for you to reach out to me on Instagram. That's where I am the most kind of available at the muscle Maven. And let me know what you think of this episode, your ideas or thoughts in general. I don't want to speak into a void. I really want to have a conversation so that we can all learn and get better. So I welcome your thoughts and feedback on this and all things. All right, now on to the actual good stuff, which is my guest, Devin Larratt. Devin is the world's best arm wrestler, which is enough to make him an interesting guest because it's just an extremely entertaining, but certainly not mainstream sport that a lot of people don't know much about or what goes into it. But the training, the intensity,

the one-on-one competition of it all is just incredibly interesting, fascinating to dive into. So if you're into sports and athletics at all, this is a very interesting case study. But aside from that, Devin is just an interesting, charismatic guy. He was also a active special forces operator for a number of years, a 20-year veteran of the Canadian military. For a short time, he was excelling in both professions, which is crazy and complicated and intense, but he just approaches all of his work with a humor and a dedication that most people cannot approach, and I think that's a huge element of what makes him successful. I'm lucky to call this guy a friend. I'm lucky

that I had the opportunity actually to take a private essentially a private arm wrestling session uh with him which is like literally having like an hour one-on-one basketball lesson from Michael Jordan like really that's what it is um and at this point I'm basically 90% confident that I could beat like pretty much any woman in my weight class who is not a professional arm wrestler. Like if I walk into a party, have a drink, decide to be an asshole and ask somebody to arm wrestle me, I think I could beat them now after spending an hour with this guy. Really? So anyway, we talk a lot. We talk about how he came to find and then completely dominate the sport of arm wrestling. We talk about his training and his nutrition. We talk about drug testing in the sport. We talk about his many insane injuries, those that he endured and those he gave to other people. We talk about his mindset towards training and winning

and success and a deep dive into my favorite part of his athletic performance, which is his Arnold Schwarzenegger level, like psych out mind games he plays on his opponents. It's just magic to watch. We talk about his military background as much as he's able to talk about it and how the reality and intensity of that job, how he's managed to take that and apply some lessons and mental frameworks that he's learned to his other passions and his new career. So it's not a new other passions and his new career. So well, it's not a new career, but his next career. So anyway, we get into all of that and more. It truly was one of the most fun, interesting interviews I've done in nearly a decade of

journalism. So it's kind of a big deal. It's also the longest interview I've ever done. So yeah, I mean, this one was a good one. I'm very proud to put this out as my first uh my first episode with Shrug Collective so if you want to find out more about Devin you can follow him on Instagram at devlarrett which is two r's and two t's we'll put that in the show notes you can check out his YouTube page with the same handle and trust me you want to check out his YouTube page uh and again come say hi to me on Instagram at the muscle maven. And I just got to say, I apologize that my audio isn't so hot in this interview. He comes through very clearly, but I was having some technical issues. So I sound a little bit quieter and I'm not generally a quiet

person. So anyway, we're fixing that, but you can hear me and you can definitely hear him, which is the most important part. So I hope that you enjoy this in-depth look at a very successful, truly one-of-a-kind human being with the freakiest arms in the world, my pal, Devin Larratt. So why don't you tell me what you had for breakfast this morning? Oh, my God. So I woke up, and I got hash brownies downrange immediately. And yeah, my day just got better from there.

Yeah. Then I just started drinking. What is that stuff? Cannabis oil. Yeah. Just for my inflammation. For the inflammation. Yeah.

Okay. You sorted it out. All right. How much do you weigh right now? Right now I'm like 249. And that's kind of like a little bit off-season? Well, my off-season, I don't really have an off-season. I'm like a 365 kind of guy, and things just kind of change depending on what the know, of the competitive arm wrestling scene.

So you arm wrestle in different weight classes? I do, yeah. All right, so you were saying you compete in different weight classes. Yeah, so there are weight classes, but everybody in arm wrestling ultimately only truly, truly respects the king of the hill. And that's open weight, you know. So open weight category? Well, yeah, there's open weight.

So that means really the best, right? Interesting. I did not know that. Yeah. I can imagine if they had that in MMA or something. Well, they do, I i think in most mma just i think ufc tries to keep their guys pretty and what is it they have 265 that's actually a legit comment that's the same reason why i think they don't have bigger weight classes for women

right yeah and we yeah we do that in arm wrestling too but when it comes to arm wrestling dudes like they're big they're big. They're big now. Like, for the most part, in the modern era, if you talk open weight categories, 300 pounds is, like, really not that impressive. Like, a lot of guys are, like, four. Like, I went to a tournament about a year and a half ago. There were nine guys in the open class over 500 pounds. So, yeah, big dudes, big dudes. Okay. So this is an interesting thing for me because one of the things that I watch a lot

of your videos and I am really a big fan of yours and the stuff that you do, I think it's amazing. And one of the kind of common refrains is that you're like beating these monsters where in any normal world, like you are a monster to to most people but everyone's always talking about you know this your size or the size of your arms compared to this guy's arms or whatever why i mean and i guess we can get into the steroids conversation too because some of these dudes who was it that bud but aluski guy uh frank yeah well that was really more of a show than anything but yeah but so you're like smaller considering how good you are but like pound for pound you're not you're not that big of a guy in the arm wrestling world i think that actually if you look at modern history i am

probably the very smallest if you go by measurements of your yeah i know it's crazy right like when you think like i mean i am a bigger guy but when you go by the measurements of my arms like uh which is really important for arm wrestlers i've got a 15 inch forearm and a 17 inch upper arm and i don't know any open weight champion who has smaller measurements. It's something I'm actually kind of proud of, you know, because strength is obviously a huge component to the arm wrestling game. But people have to understand it's a fight, right? So you can bring tons of different components in. So if you've got whatever whatever you've got you can bring it in

so it's not just about size but man if i could get bigger arms i i would love to have them so okay i have so many questions for you i think my job as podcast host today is going to be to try to stay calm and get as many of the questions that i want to ask him as possible but before we get too far i guess i should properly introduce you dev Devin Larratt, world's best arm wrestler, in my opinion, world's best intimidation and psych out wrestler. It's one of my favorite parts of your game that I want to talk about. Former special forces, all around freak of nature. Very excited to have you here and thank you for taking the time. Hey, I'm happy to be here too. We've been friends for a long time and I love everything you do. So here we are. Very, very excited. Okay. So first let's kind of like start high level and kind of dig

down so I don't get like into a radical about arm size and then it's like two hours later. So first, what have you been up to? I know you were just in India competing. What was that like? Yeah, I've been really lucky with my position in the sport. I've set myself up so that a lot of the things that I do is not just competing, but I'm able to help people promote now and. India is like this chaotic land that has a massive population. And people are in love with strength there, just like they are all around the world. But, yeah, I got to go to the Indian Nationals. And they're doing a project over there where they're trying to make one champion for all of India. And, yeah, what a great event it was. But really, for me, it was more than just the arm wrestling.

I'm getting to experience all the cultures from all around the world right now just because I get to travel a lot. How developed is the sport there? Like, obviously, as you said, it's a very big country, but I wouldn't have necessarily thought that it was something that was kind of big over there. Arm wrestling, I'm going to say at this point in... Well, first, I'm going to say arm wrestling has got to be one of the oldest sports that is known to mankind. I think that it goes beyond equipment. I think ever since people have been coming together and shaking hands and being close to each other in any kind of a civil manner, arm wrestling has probably been right there. So our sport is like the cockroach, you know,

you're never going to kill us. We're always here. It's always going to be a part of society, but we typically are blue collar. You know, arm wrestling typically is one of those grassroots sports which every once in a while flowers and becomes visible. But mostly our home is the garages and the basements of strength lovers all around the world. In India, people love it. But if you look at arm wrestling on a global scale, what you have is you have places that have been doing it a very long time, and you have places where the government recognizes it and sponsors it on a state level. these places are ahead. Places like India, I'm going to say, are newer in this latest uprising of arm wrestling. Did you get sick while you were over there?

Can you believe that I didn't? You didn't? I didn't. I know. I'm so proud of myself. I ate everything you put in front of me. I'm like, come, come to the party, guys. Come into my body and I'm ready to accept you foreign bacteria.

That has to be the quote of the podcast. Hey, I'm I am always open for new experiences and foreign foods is one of them. Did you do like whatever shots and stuff for you because with places like that it's like even if you use a cup that was yeah whatever yeah my policy is when in rome you know just do whatever they're doing you know yeah yeah i just i just do it well listen i mean with all the stuff that i've done, I feel like I've got a lot of, you know, nasty stuff in my body. You know, I spent a lot of time in Afghanistan and this will be a great way to open up this podcast. I have experienced six months straight of having diarrhea.

Six months, six months straight. So that was your Afghanistan tour? That's one of them. Yeah, I had diarrhea for six months straight so that was your afghanistan tour that's one of them yeah i had diarrhea for six months straight so yeah exactly how how yeah yeah okay that's i'm gonna file that away for later yeah i do have diarrhea specific questions but i do have questions yeah so how did you when you were in India because when you were you were competing mostly right actually well in India what I did was I helped promote the event and then what I did is I arm wrestled everybody at the event in like a final

exhibition so I wasn't in the regular event, but I arm wrestled like as many people as I could. And yeah. What's the like language barrier situation there? Is it just kind of like the universal language of arm wrestling? It didn't really matter that you couldn't? Yeah. I mean, I feel like for the most part, uh, everybody kind of knows me. Everybody knows what I'm there for. Uh, I'm there to arm wrestle I'm there to teach people arm wrestle the best teaching of all is you know actually practicing the sport on the table so in that sense I really don't need to speak the language but English in India is really good so if the guy I'm talking to didn't know it, his friend did. And there's

easy translation. Yeah. One of the things that I think, one of the many things that I think is unique about you as an athlete and a person is how passionate you are about teaching the sport for somebody who's so competitive and has just been going out and dominating and winning everything. You're also like really into teaching people. And that's something that I hear over and over again is how good you are at it, how patient you are at it. And I've had the, the good luck to come to your garage once or twice and get a couple lessons. And I do want to kind of keep doing that because it's so fucking fun. But anyway, but you have, you really have a passion for that. And there's none of this, like, I need to keep my secrets to myself. You tell anybody who wants to learn and wants to know, you'll give all your secrets away.

Why do you think that is such an important part of it for you? Well, it's certainly never about me. That's the thing that I think is really important, that in this world, no matter what it is you're doing, I mean, it's really not about you. It's about all of us. And I think that that's always really important to remember. And when you think about all of us, things always come back to you. I feel like I've received much more than I've given. Uh, so every chance I have to give, uh, I'll take it. And what I've also learned is that we live in a new era, um, where, where secrets are basically a thing of the past. I feel like in this modern era of communication, where I can

share anything with somebody on the other side of the planet in a matter of seconds, secrets are just a ridiculous thing to try and hold on to. I feel like we've moved to a point where we're much more one thing and, you know, all together. So when I give, it makes all of us stronger, which in turn, you know, comes right back to me because I am part of this thing. You know, I am part of arm wrestling. And when I strengthen this thing that arm wrestling is because I'm so invested in it, I immediately get return. Yeah. That's cool.

And I saw that Tim Hardaway commercial. Remember that Tim Hardaway commercial? Remember who Tim, you ever heard of Tim Hardaway? He's a basketball player. Basketball? Yeah. And he had this move called the killer crossover.

And it was this commercial where he explains the killer crossover perfectly and he's like there's no point uh trying to copyright something which can't be copied you know so i mean you can you can teach somebody everything um but really ultimately you have to do the work um so i don't mind sharing my secrets um basically you're not worried because you're the best. Well, I'm, I'm. If they try, they're not. Well, it's all good. It's all good.

You know, like I feel like I'm in this till death. And I think that that's the main thing that really separates me a lot is just my level of commitment. Like I know there's no wavering in me. Like people talk about retiring and people talk about how long are you going to, and these thoughts don't even enter my mind. Like I'm in this till death. me like people talk about retiring and people talk about how long are you going to and these thoughts don't even enter my mind like I'm in this till death and um yeah I'll just continue to try and be the best that I can be until you know I get taken from this earth nice is there

are there age there are yeah um just gonna keep going with what was the biggest. Until it's just silly, you know, until it's like, oh, my God, look, there's Davin. Who's going to beat up on him? On a walker. Yeah, like whatever. Well, yeah. What about like injuries, though? Yeah. Because you've had a lot.

Yes. But you seem to keep coming back. Yeah. Yeah. Injuries are a part of anything that you do too hard. You know, if I was a recreational guy, it wouldn't be such an issue. But being a competitive athlete, you are constantly managing injuries. Arm wrestling is like human smash-up derby, right? So if you're willing to go to the—I have some sayings in arm wrestling, like test your frame.

Because really so much of arm wrestling is tied up in that thought, is at the highest level you are basically putting your chassis on the line against the person across the table from you. And when you do that, one of you is going to get injured. And so you have to learn how to manage these injuries and get stronger from them. And by having an injury, it's going to teach you that there's other ways to accomplish the same thing that you're doing. And in the meanwhile, you'll heal up. So, yeah, it's part of the sport.

What are the most common uh injuries in arm wrestling i would say that there's there's the really bad ones that are like they happen in a second so like people blow a peck or a bicep or a suspending ligament or they break their arm or something like that. So it's something that happens like bang. And then there's the chronic injuries, the 15 years of overtraining and you have arthritis and osteophytes in all your joints, you know, uh, and they're both serious and, you know, they require different adjustments. Do you have both chronic and, well, we know you've had acute ones because we've, so I've had, um, I've had arthritis and I've had surgery from, from massive, massive amounts of arthritis.

Like I think that there's a guy, Dr. Pollack here in Ottawa, who's done three surgeries on my elbows. And he's taken out so much junk out of my elbows. And I was really hesitant to do it because I'm not a fan of surgery. And I know that, you know, probably half that stuff is helping me, but yeah, arthritis can get so bad in an athlete that's pounding their joints that it can start to impinge nerve flow and blood flow. So once it gets there, you kind of start to run out of options. So I had that done. I actually haven't been too bad with, I've never broken my arm. I have blown a ligament before in my wrist,

which I never got fixed. And it, you know, I did it like over 15 years ago. So I've carried on with, with the broken ligament and it hasn't been too too much of an issue. I won an open weight world championship with that injury, and I still have it. That didn't change your mobility? It does. It does change it. But the thing about the hand and the wrist, when you talk about a martial setting of the sport of arm wrestling, you have so many options, and you have so many pathways. It's like you have an infinite movement pattern to play with. So you might have,

it might've affected me maybe 10%. I don't know. Like I have all these other ligaments. It's fine. It's true, but it's true. It's true. And the thing is, the body has a great way of compensating, you know? Yeah. Okay. So, but if you do, cause you have had some major surgeries where you have had to be out for a while, does that affect, cause you're somebody who's just always going, is that something that can affect you and make you sad and depressed? Oh my God. Yeah. No, no, no. It's, it's, it's tough. You know, like, uh, depression in sports is a serious thing. Like, I mean, but I, I do like, so I guess I'll tell the story. Um, here we go. So the first, the first, uh, right hand dilemma for me. So the first right hand dilemma for me.

So the first time I had surgery was on the right hand. And so I rose to the open weight spot, the number one spot in the world in arm wrestling, right handed. And I held it for, so in 2008 is when I won it. And by 2013, my injuries became such that no matter how much I pushed forward, I could not stop the backwards slide of my strength and my progress. And I was forced to get the surgery. So I'll tell you, there's a lot of pressure when you're number one guy in the world, you know, like there's a lot of pressure to stay there, to fight, you know, and you love it. I mean, I love it. Like anybody who's invested that much clearly loves what they do. But what is really, really nice in sports is the climb the climb is amazing

and what it was for me was it was a reset and while you're no longer the king you are now a hunter again and that's a great spot to be in the sport, to have people above you and to have people below you. So I got to rejoin that. There was a lot of frustration. There always is. You know, you can't do the things that you could do. You have to make adjustments. You have to adjust your training, but it's a new challenge and that can be invigorating. So what are some of the things that you either do or tell yourself or maybe, I don't know if it's physio or maybe you're, you go to something completely outside of arm wrestling while you're recuperating. But what are some ways that you kind of get through that period instead of just being pissed off and dwelling in it? Yeah, well, I really invest a lot so it's sometimes you have to take a round um it's not always a straight line you know

the right choice to make for any athlete is going to change and you have to, you have to keep your mind flexible. So arm wrestling, when you talk about physical characteristics, strength is of massive importance and that's the way that most arm wrestlers should train is a high degree of strength. But when you have connective tissue issues, that's, that's really challenging to do. And you're going to find like that you have limits really quickly on how much volume you can do in a strength box. So I had to do a lot of repetitions to feed my connective structures at the beginning. And that really changed the way I trained a lot. It shifted my focus. I, uh, the, the thing about arm wrestling that can keep you sane with an injury is you have two arms, right? So, you know, when the one, I tell people all the

time, you want to get a strong left arm, the best thing you can do is hurt your right. You know? So I, when my right went down, I focused on my left a bit more. But I'll tell you, I never really took my eye off arm wrestling. Like I never really did. I never switched sports or like once I bit into it, I really just fell more and more in love with it. What's the worst injury you've given someone else? Oh. Because I watched a lot of i mean listen when you and i first met i'm like i i am one of the girls that grew up watching over the top like i love that shit

yeah and anyway and i watch like the youtube videos and there's like the freak ones where the guy is this thing just snapped your bone just snapped yeah yeah because most of the injuries when it's happening to you like from outside we can't really see it every once in a while somebody's forearm snaps in half and you see it. Yeah. So what's the worst thing you did to somebody else? Well, I've stopped counting. I think I'm at nine or ten.

But, you know, the arm break is a bad one. You have broken nine or ten people's arms? It's like bang. It's like bang. Like it's loud when it happens. It's shocking. It's loud when it happens it's it's shocking it's shocking when it happens and I like to think it's never the person who breaks the arm's fault I like to think that man oh man the thing is is like I had this plan that if it ever happens on camera I'm gonna do one of those like um you know that guy who, takes people's souls when he cuts their head off, you know, and he gets filled with lightning.

You know what I'm talking about? Amazing. Yeah, I want to do that on camera. But, you know, afterwards I'll be like, oh, I'm so sorry. So you're not bad guilt ridden, we'll say. No, no. Because you're already planning. Yeah.

Post break. ridden no no already planning yeah here's the thing there's so many people who have broken their arms arm wrestling and returned actually to the very top of the sport breaking your arm arm wrestling if you're a hardcore arm wrestler is definitely not the end you don't want surgery you don't want to get a steel plate in there but But if they can set it, if you can just manage to suck it up those first couple weeks and let that thing to come together, typically people who break their arm in arm wrestling have an even higher potential in the sport. I mean, I would think ligaments and tendons are a lot trickier. Yeah, yeah. You break, you heal it, and you're coming back. Yeah. I think the worst injury in the sport is the shoulder. Like, when people blow their shoulders out, it's just so tricky.

It's really tricky. It's a complicated joint. Yeah, it's really complicated. Yeah. So you have, I feel like you should get, like, tattoos, you know, like gang members get, like, teardrops or whatever. I should. Every time they kill somebody. Yeah.

You should get tattoos. You know, you're right. You're right. I should. Every time they kill somebody. Yeah. You know, you're right. You're right. I should. I get credit for that if you do it. Man, that's a good idea. You know what? I wanted to make a stat.

So like when you talk arm wrestling stats, you know how in fighting people have like KO? So it was going to be win, loss, breaks, right? Wouldn't that be cool? So you arm wrestle a guy like his record is 35 and 2 but you know seven of his wins were by arm break and you're like yeah yeah okay think about it oh yeah yeah yeah it is a good idea the fact that you are a champ too in both arms is that pretty rare like i feel like that's not super common that people are really good in both arms. I feel like I was the first guy in the modern era to do it, to get the right and left at the same time. But I'll tell you, in the last few years, there have been a few guys who have pulled it off.

It is rare, but surprisingly, there have been a couple of guys who have pulled it off in the last little bit. Yeah, normally people have the one good arm. And what you're seeing in the sport a little bit now is you got people who are just focusing on one arm. And some guys are like freaks. And they have like this blood flow disorder. And the one arm just gets all the attention. Yeah. There's a few of those guys in the sport now.

I'm creepy. Yeah. You're right-handed? I am right-handed. attention. Yeah. There's a few of those guys in the sport now. Yeah. You're right handed. I am right handed. Okay. Yeah. So, and were you always training both arms from the very beginning? Yes. Yeah. I, as soon as I got involved, I was like, I said to my first coach, I was like, I'm right handed. Should I just, and he he's like he's like two arms twice the fun so yeah yeah there are so many um quotes we can be taking from this podcast in a really inappropriate context yeah good show notes um so let's talk a little bit about your training because that's another kind of thing that is legendary about you and there's like these youtube videos and all the guys talking about the training that you did and just like you go up on the roof and you do like the forearm like yeah twisting like off the roof and craziness so talk a little bit about your training and how it's maybe different and better than other people's well so i i feel like we're adapting all the time.

Like right now we're adapting. And I always try to do, I always try and replicate what I'm trying to achieve. And what I'm trying to achieve right now more than ever is arm wrestling supremacy. So I've had my eye on this for a very long time. And I just try and take all the data that I have and make the best program possible at the time. There's a lot of factors to consider. There's the playing field.

There's the rules format, which shifts from time to time. And there's the state of my own health. I'll tell you, when I'm feeling great, it's very simple. It's very simple. The number one thing is, well, there's a split. There's self-practice and there's team practice. And those two things are both very, very important. One of the things that's unique about arm wrestling is the cultivation of the people

around you will have direct impact on your own performance. So the better your partners are, just the better you'll be. So, and you want want to you want to foster an environment in training which is both beneficial for them and you which is difficult because it's a combat sport so you want to be careful with this with this idea because technique and aggression uh they're very important and when you practice safely these things can tend to become diminished slightly. So these are ideas that you want to be very cautious with. But at the same time, nothing is more accurate to better yourself in the sport of arm wrestling than the practice of arm wrestling directly.

But sometimes to get that extreme high- level aggression, it needs to be an individual practice. So when I'm feeling good, so much of what I do is about just top end strength. The thing is, is there's things like peaking, building a base and maintenance of your connective structures, which throws a spin on everything you do. So that means you do a lot of reps, blood flow, overtraining, undertraining. It just depends on what you got going on. What kind of strength stuff are you doing though? Because another thing that we notice looking at you versus some of these other um guys is it's not like you're all arms and nothing else like you're a big solid you know dude it's not

like you're like big arms skinny legs kind of situation so you must be doing some like full body functional strength stuff right well i because of what my job was for 20 years i think a lot of that is just that's carrying from that. Like if I was just thinking about arm wrestling, which I am more now, and I'll be really interested to see what happens to my body in like five years, 10 years. Um, I'm much more focused on the pathways required for arm wrestling supremacy now, but it is a full body thing. Like when I go to a tournament and I'm hitting like my maxes, I'll get sore in all sorts of different parts of my body. My, my, uh, one of my biggest rivals,

this guy, Matt mask. Awesome dude. He's a Canadian. Yeah. He's so cool. Anyways. Uh, yeah, that's right. That's right. Anyways. He blew, I think is, is uh what's that muscle on the inside of your leg is that your hip abductor or something it's yeah anyways he blew that like purple like blew it blew it yeah in in the match with me this year so like it is a full body thing it just like i'll tell you anytime you ask me what do you want more of it's's like in the wrist. Yeah. There's like, I like to say that there's four main pathways to arm wrestling. There's more, there's much more, but when I train, I really focus on these four lanes. And the first lane is like a rising lane. And this is a lane, which is like an escaping strength and a strength that makes the

other person have to reach for you. And if you, and if they don't reach for you, you're able to very quickly climb faster and stronger than they are. It makes your hand shoot straight up. You know, I call it rising and it's not that complicated. If you can look at any one of my videos and I talk about it all the time. Rising strength. The second one would be a cupping strength. And this is like the ace of spades. It's like the strongest movement that you have in your forearm specifically.

It just, it's wrist flexion, really, simply. And it's going to your center. It brings the match to your heart. The third one is pronation. And pronation directly counters the cup wrist flexion. It's like the cup's defense. It prevents your palm from turning over. And the last one is what I call, well, it's supination.

But it's combined with shoulder commitment. And it makes you like if you have your hand pointing straight and then you twist your palms so you are now looking directly at your palm. This is what supination is. And all these strengths, they will all fail in the hand and the forearm, but they travel all through the body. So these four movement patterns are the ones that I focus the most on out of everything. So in a, in a normal week where you're healthy and feeling good and training as much as you can, how much of the week is like your weird strength stuff? How much of it is arm wrestling with other people how much of it is like conditioning

endurance high rep stuff how do you break it down so you could ask me this question like multiple times through my career and i will have a different answer um but i will tell you what is consistent is that i'm training typically like for the last last, you know, probably 20 years. Um, I I've typically been training three to four times a day and, um, there won't be a session, which I don't do something for arm wrestling in those sessions. And since I've left the army, I do arm wrestling four times a day, like every day, like, um, and, um, the only times I kind of go outside that is like when I start to feel like my back going or like my knees going or when I'm training with my kids. Uh, yeah. When I train with my kids, I train like for, you know, just general

health and fitness. Yeah. We do wind sprints and all that kind of good stuff. Four times a day. Okay, so this is just another reminder. This is something that I have started to pick up over years of interviewing people who are very successful and good at what they do is you cannot half-ass anything. And really, you can't even just whole-ass it

the way we consider it. You go to another level. This is an obsession. Basically, you go to another level. Like, this is an obsession. Basically, if I have energy in my blood, I invest it into arm wrestling. Yeah. Yeah. And you, I mean, are you constantly, like, researching and reading and seeing what other people are doing? How does that, like, are you aware of, like, the training that other people are doing?

Are you just kind of, like, you know? Yeah. No. All the time. Arm wrestling is everything for me, outside of my family um what i do is i train um i eat and i research and i repeat right i want to talk about family and i want to talk about um eating but i want to talk a little bit more about the the training part of it so I you know I hear these legendary stories about you at the unit and you're

you've got the table set up there and you're like all right just everybody come and just you know and you just like let every single guy that's there in the gym kind of just have a go both arms they're like yanking their entire body weight down on your arm you're just like playing with them it's just like it's fun that's part of your your warm-up how do you you were talking about intensity before how can you train with intensity when you are let's be real like so much better than everybody else how do you how do you do it well see that's the difficult thing and that's why you divide it into two parts. When people, I'll tell you, what I've observed over the years when it comes to team practice, arm wrestling really is a relationship between two people. And when you have like a long time practice partner, things can get good and get better or sometimes things can get stale.

OK, and it can go both ways and things can hit plateaus and they can become reinvigorated. But one thing that's a constant is when it's new. When I go into an environment when it's the first time, like when it's the first time with, like when I go into a fresh club, I'm guaranteed to have a good workout. And that's just because of the energy that people will come at me with. So they'll come at me harder than somebody that I've trained with for 10 years will. When I've trained with somebody for a long time, we've kind of established our positions to work with and it becomes much more predictable and it's kind of regimented. So when I go into these gyms and people come at me hard, it's normally always good.

It's normally always good. And we have a rule in arm wrestling for safety that most people follow. Senior person holds, junior person works. That way the senior person can kind of control their position and the junior person is able to go as hard as they want without, you know, having their arm thrown over. Because anytime you're losing, it's bad position yeah okay so another thing you mentioned your family your wife shout out to jody she is also a world-class uh arm wrestler she's one of the best in the world your kids are good arm wrestlers obviously it's like how could they not be do you think that your career and your lifestyle would be the same if they were not as

into it? Like they were supportive of you, but they're like, yeah, you know, it's your thing, whatever. Like, do you think you'd be able to kind of be doing this to the same level and the same intensity if they weren't as into it as they are? Yeah, it's always easier when people are on board. I mean, if, if Jody was not supportive of me, this would be very difficult. And I would probably mean that I was living under a bridge somewhere, uh, which, you know, I would probably, you know, I'd be, I'd be walking around, you know, arm wrestling people on the street and yeah. Right. I know. I know. I've got the perfect jacket. Yeah. Your, your outfits, by the way, as an aside, are also world-renowned.

I think the first time I met you was at the gym, and I had not formally met you before, but someone had told me that you worked out there, and they're like, you'll know him when you see him because he's a pretty big guy. And you show up wearing a t-shirt, a giant picture of a kitten on it. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you go in and just do some, like, ridiculous workouts. I'm like, I don't know, but I'm pretty sure this is Devin. Yeah.

You're conspicuous. Yeah. I do my best to blend, but sometimes people catch on to me. Yeah. So did you introduce Jodi to the sport? Yes. Yes. Jodi and I have been together basically since high school. So she saw,

she has seen everything. She's been with me through all the dark times. And, you know, she's, she's been with me. She's probably the most educated person. Well, one of the most educated people in the sport because my house is like a revolving door for arm wrestlers. And, you know, she knows it is all that I think about really. She, I think at first it was, it was different. So I've always invested a lot in it. You know, even, even from the time I was like 18, you know, I was dedicating hours of my day, every single day of my life to this sport. And I think that at the beginning, it upset her. You know, I'd bring her to a tournament. And these are different days, you know, very different, you know.

Our biggest thing that we could possibly win was like $500. It was like, oh, my God, you just won the biggest thing ever. I mean, most of the time it was just trophies, maybe $100, maybe a couple hundred bucks. And she was around for all that. And she knew that the proportion of the work that I was putting in for the reward, you know, from an outsider's perspective, it just didn't make any sense. But for me, it really wasn't about that. And it still isn't. And I think for a while,

she was like borderline supportive. She started to come to events and I told her, if you come to the event, you have to compete. Which I would never say now. But this is what I said, you know, when I was like, you know, 23, 24. And so she got into it then. And just over the years, she slowly became

assimilated to a point where she actually like really got into it. And, um, you you know she actually was the number one ranked woman in the wal for a period you know a couple years ago but i know like i know what the cost of this sport is and i tell everybody like unless you are insane about it um keep it on the right level. You know, like if, if you are crazy about arm wrestling, like crazy, yes, chase the crown. But if you are not crazy, like, yes, do arm wrestling, practice arm wrestling. It's good for you, you know, but once you cross that line and start to go to bigger and bigger competitions, um, injuries, you know, I mean, I don't want to sugarcoat things. Uh, it's, it's inevitable. And, and that's only acceptable in an insane person's mind. Uh, so I, I just be careful what I encourage her to do. My kids are phenomenal at it.

Like they've grown up in the house. Like, I think it's very interesting to watch them, um, because, you know, three kids, uh, they're all so different. And I feel like your personality becomes visible on the table. You know, what you are in life can be visible on the table. And my kids are all a little bit different. So it's neat for me to observe them this way. Yeah, that's your personality coming out during a match is like a whole other conversation I want to have. But it's funny that you mentioned, you know, the idea of how much you encourage,

depending on how into the sport you are. And the only way I can relate to it in a sport that I've done is bodybuilding. It's very similar in that you can do it and you can have fun. You can do it at an amateur level and learn a lot about yourself. Super healthy, right? Super healthy, super fun. And then you can take it to a very dark, dysfunctional place. And I've always said

from the beginning you know i i spend a lot of time around a lot of righted out weirdos who are into bodybuilding and i've managed to i think because i got into it when i was older so i had kind of a better sense of myself i wasn't really doing it for external validation reasons it was really more about experimenting um but you know i think that if you're going to try to be the best in the world and I know like Ben Bukowski, another awesome Canadian, um, buff guy, he's one of the world's best bodybuilders. You know, if you want to take it as far as you can take it and be the best in the world, and that means doing some pretty extreme things and you are educated about that and you know the risks and you're invested fine but we're in a

world where we're all on instagram looking at people and looking at things that are unrealistic and we these like amateur kind of everyday weekend warriors think that they should be able to accomplish that and they think that they should have access to the same kind of tools and and pharmaceuticals that these people do and it's they're they're acting like they're trying to be world-class when they're really just doing this recreationally it can be very dysfunctional very physically unhealthy but it's kind of hard sometimes to find a balance because we're all trying to be ambitious in our own way and just because we don't want to be you know the

next IFBB pro but it's very hard to turn down when you've got your friends saying, just take a little of this and just like, don't eat for three days and you'll look even better. And, you know, so I don't, I guess that's kind of, it's a tough situation for people who are trying to find the balance between pushing themselves and stepping over that ledge and pushing yourself too far. A hundred percent. You know, people are, everybody's looking for their perfect fix, you know, in life, everybody needs something and all the different sports, all the different hobbies are going to provide you with some kind of different, uh, you know, excitement or stimulus. Uh, arm wrestling is some strong medicine, you medicine. It will physically rip you apart and it will expose you in ways that are unique in the sport. Arm wrestling is a sport that will let

you totally get smashed to bits, total kill. But at the same time, you're going to walk away from it relatively unscathed, right? Like you can get completely defeated. And I will say like, it is, it's a combat sport. It's the softest of the combat sports. Like if you were a boxer or an MMA fighter and you got like a total crippling defeat you're probably going to have like some serious serious damage as an arm wrestler your damage is really limited to your you know to your upper arm your your head's going to be good um your spine's good vital right so it's it's it's it's that medium investment you know it's really nice you can do it a lot. I feel like it's Valhalla. Fight every day and you can do it again tomorrow.

But the combat part of it is for real because there's something about, and this is why I like MMA too, but it's just so primal and really exciting but also kind of terrifying if you have any empathy and you can kind of put yourself in these people's shoes because it's just person versus person and it's just your will and your strength and your ability against somebody else's and everyone's watching and it's like the the pressure okay so that's another part that i want to talk about but i still have more questions about the training so do you still have a coach uh no i don't i don't a coach. I don't have a specific coach. I just try and be super open. So there's so many smart people out there, like tons of them. Um, and I just really try and listen, uh, to as many people as I can. And I just try and fit it in. Um, sometimes I think

I listen too much. Um, there's a lot of people, a lot of great arm wrestlers, a lot of great strength athletes, a lot of great just people in the world who have very sound advice. And I really do my best to listen to all of them. I feel like maybe I'm not alone that way, but I feel lucky to have a lot of close people that I can talk to. So I don't have one specific person who tells me what to do. Um, yeah. What's the drug testing situation like, and I would imagine that might be different per arm wrestling, like group or federation or whatever. That's right. So the current arm wrestling scene for drug testing is some federations do test. Some federations do not test. Um, some have plans of testing. Um, I would say that, um, for the most part, if you want to

look at the sport for the most part, I'd say it's relatively untested. The government sponsored side of the sport is tested. So like what we call World Arm Wrestling Federation, these guys are tested periodically. Not perfect, but it's definitely a great step forward for a sport. And even our professional leagues, there's probably going to be a divide where some of the leagues will test and some of the leagues will not test. World Arm Wrestling League has it written in the contract that they will test. They have not ever done a test yet. I've been told that this year will be their first year for testing.

We'll see if it happens or not. Um, yeah. Yeah. I mean, thoughts on that. Like, do you kind of care one way or the other? Do you think people should be able to just kind of do whatever they want to do? Well, my, my opinion has changed a lot over the years. Um, when I was first coming up in the sport, um, you know, I was very much for testing i was like oh my god we need to test this is a disaster like it's not fair um and you know i went through years um you know kind of talking to promoters, trying to figure out why we're not testing. And a lot of it is financial. And then on top of the financial issues, there's just the whole question of, does it even work? Like, can you even properly test? And what Um, so I mean, the way I look at it now is just get really educated, get really educated to the pond that you're stepping in. Um, drugs are a part of sport,

the same way nutrition and training is a part of the sport. Um, you should educate yourself. I believe very strongly that the human design is really good. And I think that all these billions of years of evolution haven't made massive mistakes. And when we try and think that we know better, normally we just screw it up. So I've seen drugs work really well. I've seen people, you know, in short term. And when you talk short term, you talk about, you know, a few years, five years, 10 years, but sometimes even longer.

But it has a general feel to me that it's more of a short term solution. I've always had the idea that I want to arm wrestle until I die. That's been a heavy consideration with everything that I do. But at the same time, I'm never for prohibition. And I think that whatever you want to do with your body, it's your choice. So I think that as a promoter, when people are looking at what do they want to achieve, I think that it's important for promoters to realize that the mainstream, like when you talk about what 90% of the world's population believes in, I think that the answer is that they don't want their kids to do drugs.

And I think that when you turn on a television set and you see two clearly massively enhanced athletes going at it, I think as a parent, I think that this deters you from encouraging your children to follow this path. Because I think that for most of us, it's ingrained in our wisdom to know that this is not a healthy choice. And I think that we as a people value health, you know, a lot. So I think that promoters need to be careful what they are doing. And if you want arm wrestling to be truly mainstream, truly reach a level of popularity which can be global, I think that we need to take testing very seriously. that the pioneers in this world who are willing to go to these levels of insanity should never be excluded from the party and should always have their own stage. And I think that there will always be people who are interested in seeing those people as well. So really, for me, it's about education and choosing your battles.

It's definitely a complicated issue. As you said, trying to standardize what is appropriate what isn't and the testing is so expensive and you know there are so many ways people can kind of cheat the system these days and then they're again as you said there is sort of this dichotomy between if you ask people whether they think steroids or performance enhancing drugs or whatever are good or cheating or whatever people will say we think people should be natural you shouldn't take these drugs but then we want to see the freak shows that's what we want to see like if you look at bodybuilding again and you look at bodybuilding in like Schwarzenegger's age and now we want to see these like weird over-the-top kind of freaks of nature and if

we suddenly told everybody in professional bodybuilding, they had to be a hundred percent clean and they started looking normally and maybe people wouldn't be as into it. So it's kind of hard because we're asking for something and then we're, we're judging people. I think that, I think that we're in a very, very defining period of our, of our, um, sports, uh, culture, um, when it comes to this topic, I think that, I think that, uh, performance enhancers have really, really become understood in our generation. Um, and I think that bodybuilding is one of those sports that is, is of leading right like hey the one of the reasons that I fell in love with strength is because of Arnold like I remember picking up pumping iron in my parents yeah I tell you it's it's like the first book yeah it is like if it wasn't for that book I probably wouldn't be as in love with strength as as I am today I mean I was like five years old

and my in my parents uh library and just looking at I mean, I was like five years old in my parents' library and just looking at those pictures and I was like, I'm going to be that guy, you know. So I get it, you know, but I think we also, we want to know two things. We want to know how freaky can we be with every single tool. But I think there's another part of us that really wants to focus on what we can achieve without, I don't know. It's strange. I think that a lot of people do want to know that. And I guess, why do we want to know that?

I guess is more the thing that I want to know. Like, why do we want to know who's the best without them and who's the best with them? Like, I feel like we kind of envision a future where we won't have access to these things. I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I think I totally understand why we would want to see who's the best without drugs, because I still think that even people who are encouraged or who don't are ambivalent about PED peds there's still the idea that completely clean is like the true natural just you if you can do it you are the fucking best right whereas yes you you know you still have to work very hard you have to be smart you have to be educated you have to

have the best um resources available to do it the non-natural way. But there's still, you're getting help somehow. You're getting help. But without it, it's like you really are it. And you see, you and I are, are you Canadian? You're Canadian. I'm Canadian and American. Right.

I have two passports, so wherever I need to go, I can. And I feel like, I feel like the cultures see it quite the same way. Canada and USA sees it quite the same way. But this is not, I think, the same everywhere in the world. I think that Canada, North America, I think that it's a little bit gray for us. I think for the most part, we want to see who's the best naturally. But I think that we also have interest in the freak show. I think if you go to Eastern Europe and maybe even more East, I think they don't even think about it this way for the most part.

I feel, now I could be wrong because I'm not from this part of the world, but I've spoken with so many athletes from this part of the world and so many of them have said to me that it's's just there's no question it's like you do sports you do steroids it's like you it's like if you why would you not it doesn't make sense not to these things help you like uh right and and then you go to a country like uh scandinavia where it's just even more about purity than we have it as can. Like in Scandinavia, they're like completely, like they don't even want to see these guys. It's like they have such a strong hatred for them.

So I feel like, you know, we're kind of in the middle. You've seen that documentary, Icarus? I have. Very interesting. Yeah. Well, I'm actually friends with some of the people who were actually involved in that. Yeah. Yeah. You had a first hand. Yeah, Yeah. Well, I'm actually friends with some of the people who are actually involved in that. Yeah. Yeah. So you had a firsthand. Yeah. Yeah. I know. I know some of the people involved. So, I mean, I get it. Like, it's, it's, it's a weird place where we're at right now. I think that, and one of the big problems is nobody, nobody believes in the testing. I think that that's the main problem. Everybody, even if you pass the test, people are, will be like, yeah, they'll be like, oh, he's just beaten the system. Um, so I think

that, and that's what Icarus was all about anyways. So we have this massive problem, right? So when it comes to testing, it's like, uh, you don't trust the test. No test will be good enough. Um, exactly. So we're in this really weird place where it's kind of like people are almost fed up. And it's like, okay, whatever. Just educate yourself and know what you're getting into. And, you know, assume that everybody is, you know, well, not everybody, but, you know, make your educated guess and, you know, run your experiments and see what's up. Or you just go to a place where there's a certain amount of testing. It's a complicated topic.

Very complicated. I love that you kind of got into it a little bit with me because it's fascinating. Again, the sports I'm interested in, bodybuilding, MMA, and CrossFit a little bit too. And all three of them have their own kind of issues and struggles and challenges with testing. And arm wrestling seems like it's no different. Yeah. And I think that it's funny that sports is kind of the ones that are paying super close attention to it.

Like nobody cares if you sign a business deal and you're out of your mind on coke, you know, which I think it's everywhere. I think like, you know, it doesn't matter what you're doing. People take drugs to improve their situation. You know, listen, I don't think that there was a mission that I went on when I was in the forces that I wasn't on probably about 400 milligrams of caffeine. I don't think there was a single one. Oh, yeah.

Everyone allows it. We just let that one slide, don't we? Caffeine. Yeah. Totally let that one slide. Yeah. Caffeine's great. Yeah.

Hey, I feel like I'm just, whatever I am, I'm a better person with caffeine. Yeah. Doesn't matter. I can go with that one. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, it's, you know, I feel like I'm just, whatever I am, I'm a better person with caffeine. It doesn't matter. I can go with that. Yeah. So we talked about your wife and I want to talk about women in the sport a little bit because I, it's a sport that from the outside, just like MMA looks very, very testosterone driven, very macho sport, very intimidating sport. Um, and I always felt like growing up, I was kind of a minority as a female that was interested in, and again, this is just me being a fan. I wasn't like growing up, you know, the extent to my arm wrestling, um, experience is literally like challenging other girls to arm wrestles at like parties and weddings, like for the past 15 years, because I get a little drink into me and decide that I want to show people that I'm stronger than them. But I've always been interested in it. And I've really only seen in the last few years that

there is a women's component to professional arm wrestling. Is that something that is relatively new? Has it been growing more lately? Talk a little bit about that. Yeah. Women's arm wrestling is, i'm so happy in the state that it's in because it is continuing to grow and grow um let me see what can i tell you about women's arm wrestling is it like right now like um wal yeah yeah is that like what's the percentage of men to women in that organization well typically, typically, so at the WAL events, every show will feature a women's match. And the finals had a women's overall championship.

So they are definitely including women in the show. But so are all the leagues. All the leagues have women. And the quality of women in the sport is definitely, definitely on the rise. Like, I feel like maybe when I was getting into the sport, um, the amount of like really great women arm wrestlers would be like rare, like it would be rare for me. Like, so if I, if I knew what I knew now and went back to that point in time, it would probably be rare for me to say to anybody, Oh, you have to go practice with this woman. You'll learn so much. But now I could say that about so many women, particularly, I'm going to say a lot of Europe.

And I'm going to focus in on my favorite country for women's arm wrestling, and that's got to be Sweden. Yeah, they did an amazing thing in Sweden. Like they made this one Swedish girl into like a superstar. I think that they gave her like female athlete of the year. Her name's Heidi Anderson. Great, great girl arm wrestler. She's like my age. She won the world championships a few years in a row.

And, you know, really pretty girl who was like in the 60 kilo class um so they just pushed her and pushed her and I think that so many people saw her in that part of the world and it just got I don't know what it was like before Heidi I think it was always like pretty popular there in that culture but now it's just crazy like you go to Sweden and it's like, there's more great women who do it than men almost. And, and it's not just that they do it like they do it well. So yeah. So it's like legit,

like, you know, yeah. They saw an example of somebody and they're like, I, you know, I could do that. Or that looks like somebody that I want to be.

Yeah. She was a good'd want to be. Yeah. She was a good ambassador for this. Yeah, so it's so much a cultural thing. I think that a lot of North America still tells women that they shouldn't go and crush stuff. But I think as soon as women are kind of shown that this is cool and they can do it, I think they bite onto it the same way that men do. I mean, I feel like men and women aren't that different. Like, we still need the same things, and, you know, people need to crush. People need to crush.

Right? Yeah. Great. I like that one, too. And, yeah, we all like to compete. We all like to assert our dominance. Yes. I mean, I think Sweden, too, is definitely more like egalitarian.

Like, their ratings on, like, just feeling sort of empowered and like they're able to do whatever it is they want to do. Yeah. Yeah, that's cool. All right. Talk to me about how you eat. Oh, jeez. I eat everything. So I think that I think I came into this world first loving bodybuilding. Okay. You know, like because and it's because of Arnold. So yes, I loved arm wrestling. But as as a kid growing up, like I wanted to look a certain way. Like I wanted to be lean. I wanted to be fit. And I think, you know, for the most part, when I was younger, I really cared much more about what I ate.

And then I got to an age and it was probably around like. So to give you an example, from like the age of like 19 till um like 24 I don't think I ate a dessert like not even one like not even a piece of sugar yeah no I did I did so nothing like no alcohol no nothing um and then around 25 I started to crack a little bit. I started to sense my mortality a little bit more. And I was like, oh, man. That's too short a body. Right? Yeah.

And right around that point, I started to really wrap my mind around chasing the open weight category. Because, I mean, naturally, if I just eat like a responsible human being, I'll sit around 235, 240 maybe. But I knew that size and strength have a lot to do with each other. And when you eat that little bit extra, the next morning when you wake up, you will be a bit stronger. Like if you're not obsessed about being lean and you're only thinking about performance and you kind of loosen up on your nutrition a little bit, I think that you do get a bit stronger. So then why aren't you like keeping up even more? You still have six packs. You're still pretty lean. It's for me, unfortunately, it's a bit of genetics.

Like, yeah, I'm a skinny guy by nature like i would like i eat like massive food right before i go to bed every single day like i eat sugar like i'll i'll i just had dairy queen today like i i feel like for me with food the main thing is timing everything for me is timing like i feel like i can eat anything it just i have to um do my uh exercise accordingly yeah yeah what's the heaviest you've ever been uh around 260 yeah and do you do like do you pay attention at all to like macros like you're trying to eat enough carbs or there's like a base level of protein? Yeah, I do. I mean, it's, I've just been thinking about it so long that I don't feel like I really need to write it down. Like I know, I know what I need. Um, I mean, I understand the

role of food and I know what the food is and I feel like I know what it does in my body. And I feel like something that a lot of people don't talk about with food is just positivity. You know, a lot of people look at food and I feel like they got screwed up when they were kids or something. But I feel like if you're positive about the food you eat, it'll do the thing that you want it to do. Like I feel like when I eat sugar, when I put that sugar in my mouth, I'm like, I'm going to supercharge with this thing. Like, this thing is going to make me fly. And when I put fat in my body, I envision it going to my joints and, you know, turning into hormones. And, you know, when I eat protein, I just think about it just sticking to my, so I kind of visualize what I'm eating doing the right thing for me, you know. I 100% believe that.

And they have actually done studies, like clinical studies, where, you know, people will eat a cupcake and they'll feel guilty about it and think they have to sort of work out afterwards or this is like a cheat, a guilty thing that I'm doing. And then there are people who are like, yeah, fuck yeah, cupcake. Yeah, no, I don't feel guilty at all. Their cortisol and their stress response and all that kind of stuff is different depending on how you feel about the food you're putting. I feel like that's the most important thing. It's the most important thing. Just, just think good

things about the food you eat. Seriously. Yeah. Positivity with everything. I mean, if you're going to be eating, like you spend a lot of your time eating and it should be a joy and it should also be nourishing and good for you, but it should be a pleasant part of your life. If you're riddled with guilt and you know, you, you apply like morality to the different things you're eating. That's a shitty way to go about your life. I've tried it all. I've, I've, I've been a vegetarian. I've been, I've been, I'm telling you, I've done it all all I've eaten exclusively animal for six months yeah yeah yeah for sure what were you vegetarian for I'm probably about a month yeah yeah I mean I've just tried and and I've done raw I've done only raw um you name it I've done it um so how

did the carnivore experiment go great really good so was it just you're like, I just kind of feel like eating some other things. So I'm just going to stop doing this or you kept going or what was? I had access to it. So it was on a tour. Yeah. So I was like, OK, I've got a six month period where, you know, they take such good care of us really on some of these missions. I had access to basically anything that i wanted to eat and so i was like okay for six months i'm only eating animal or animal product uh nothing no not a single vegetable uh not a grain i said sometimes

the fish was battered and i didn't really care but but I mean, I really only ate, you know, fish, pork, beef, chicken, uh, eggs. Yeah. And that was like crushing like cream and like whole milk and yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it was great. It was great. I'll tell you the craziest diet that I've ever been introduced to. Um, this one shocked me. Um, This one was, so I went down to California and visit this guy, Paul Cohen. He's this really eccentric, old stock market analyst, brilliant guy. And so he's like, Devin, come on down and show me about arm wrestling. This guy's an arm wrestler too. He's like in his 70s.

And so I go down there and he's like, while you're down here, I'll teach you about life extension. You know about those life extension? Yeah. So he's a life extensionist. So he does all sorts of wild stuff. And he's like, the first thing I'll show you about is the diet that I do. And so basically everything he eats is, is animal. Okay. And everything that he eats is raw.

So it's all raw animal. And so he's kind of showing me stuff in this fridge and he's like, try this, try this. And I, I, this is like the first day that I met him and I didn't really know, like, if he was like, I was worried he was senile. Yeah. I didn't really know like if he was like I was worried he was seen out yeah I didn't really know and I wanted to be polite so this isn't gonna be like delicious carpaccio you're oh no so here's the thing the stuff was all kind of off it was all like kind of going and then it got to the point where he handed me this um he actually actually he did drink coconut juice as well so he handed me this thing of coconut juice and you know when food is like so gone that it's like fizzy you ever had like

right exactly so this stuff was like fizzy and like the cheese was moldy and i'm like i'm like paul like this is really gone he's like it's like yeah that's that's the whole point and so his whole thing was bacterial supplementation so he was supplementing very very heavily with uh bacteria and uh like to the point where he had cultures of like salmonella and other very virulent strains and he was eating them directly and um his whole thing was wolves in the park. You know, you're inviting wolves in and they will kill cancer. They'll kill weak and dying cells. And they're a natural part of the ecosystem of your body that has been really reduced heavily in this modern setting. So that's probably the freakiest diet that I've been introduced to.

Is this guy still alive? You know what? Right now, he actually just got in an accident. He's still alive and kicking, but right now, yeah, he's a bit hurting. Did he look healthy and vibrant? Yes. Exceptionally healthy, exceptionally vibrant. He worked out for hours every day. He was extremely intelligent. He was still a constant source for, you know, evaluation of stocks, you know, by, you know, yeah. some of the concepts that he's talking about because in the more even more mainstream health world we're talking a lot about fermented food and raw food and obviously um animal protein being a superior sort of source of nourishment for a lot of people i think he is obviously taking it a couple steps yeah further yeah maybe the average person but there's different diets out there for different people like we all gotta you, find out what works for us.

But what is like, what are the general staples of you during the week? So is it like you're kind of eating? Eggs. Eggs. Vegetables. Eggs and vegetables. Eggs and vegetables, meat, vegetables. And I'll use carbohydrates kind of like pre and post.

Yeah. So my typical food is protein and vegetables. This is very normal for me. And then what I'll do is I'll spike, uh, with, with grains typically before my workouts. That's, that's very normal for me. Yeah. I'll drink oils, um, to supplement. Yeah. Yeah. I'll, I'll do all that. Um, I haven't, I'll eat as much fat as I can get. Uh, I'm not, I'm not afraid of fat. I don't do as much supplementation as I should. I should be taking more fish stuff probably. But, um, I feel like you would answer the same way. I'm always like complaining because he's like, I can't gain the weight. It's so hard to eat like peanut butter out of the jar.

I do like three avocados. Yeah. Eat some ice cream right before you go to bed. You mentioned the Dairy Queen. I do. I do. You wouldn't believe if you if you followed me around and see what I eat, you'd be disgusted. Like, like, I'll go to like I will purposely go to all you can eat buffets and just I'll I'll go to, like, I will purposely go to all-you-can-eat buffets and just, I'll eat. I think that I actually sustained an injury last year. An injury. Like, I think I actually ripped my stomach a little bit.

Yeah. Yeah. Like, I. Where, what kind of buffet was it? It was the one. sushi? Yes. Yes.

Yeah. It's very easy to almost rupture your stomach i think i did i think i did for real like i went home i couldn't move for hours i actually went to the hospital i was like i think i hurt myself they're like you're an idiot yeah maybe just stick to the 230 240 yeah i try i really try if if i like slow down on my eating i'll be 230 yeah well yeah i mean you watch like some of these um world's strongest man and like power lifters and guys who are literally they spend all day force feeding it's the hardest part yeah it's it's the hardest part to to get to these levels like and i'm small like i i don't understand how these guys get to like

three four hundred like it i i don't know that's guys get to, like, 300, 400. Like, I don't know. It's definitely shortening their lifespan, too. Because you look at that, I mean, Eddie Hall, I guess, that documentary. Yeah. And he's like, if I keep eating like this, I'll be dead in five years. Yeah. To me, it's like you're living the dream. That's just for somebody who wishes I could just eat.

We all, grass is always greener, right? Yeah, exactly. You want what you can't have. Do you have any pre-match rituals, anything you always greener, right? Yeah, exactly. You want what you can't have. Do you have any pre-match rituals, anything you do before you go out and put on a show? Yeah, yeah, I've got a few things. Well, I mean, diet, I go real high glycemic. I've been doing a little bit of supercharging lately with, you know, I just oxygenate myself like to the max. So I'll basically hyperventilate for sometimes like 20 minutes or so just to put myself in a

state where I'm like super loaded up so that I've got like a good bank account. So when stuff gets crazy, I just don't have to, you know, dip into a lactic, uh, debt earlier than the other guy. Um, and, uh, I've, I've done a few things over the years that, uh, I don't do quite as much of now. Um, I used to do a lot. So I do a lot of homework. And I really, as I get closer and closer to the match, I really only see myself winning. And I about things to really put myself into like adrenal, like, you know, max out levels. And I haven't done as much of that in the recent years. I feel like it's, I don't know. I don't know, but I haven't done as much of it. Okay.

Yeah. Do you want to take a quick break and have a drink? Yeah, let's have a drink. Let's take a break. So far, so good. We're back at it in a big way. Okay, before we transition into something else that we're going to talk about before I let you go, I just have one other kind of big topic around arm wrestling that I have to ask you about because it's kind of my favorite part.

And that is the mental game. Because you strike me as kind of like the Arnold Schwarzenegger of arm wrestling. Like, I love watching your matches because you just psych people out and you fuck with people so well. Like this, the one that you, the guy that you mentioned before, Matt. Matt. Big, tall, blonde guy. Crack. Crack. well like this the one that you the guy that you mentioned before matt matt big tall blonde crack crack he there's there's a recent match on youtube and you can just watch him fall apart you can just

watch it and watch you just almost get like more calm and more i guess like i don't know anyway the mental game is like a huge thing and the way you fuck with them is just gorgeous anyway so I really want to learn more about that side of it because I think that's a really important part of especially this kind of like man versus man sort of sport so is that something that you always were good at or did you kind of cultivate that over the years and no it's completely cultivated this is something that I have learned I mean I guess it's in my nature to do it, but it was kind of removed from me, and then now it's been reintroduced. Why were you told you weren't allowed to fuck with people?

Yeah, yeah. That's no fun. No. That's not the way the NFL end zone celebration is going. Right, right. But the thing is, I think that think that it's, it was naturally inside me. Like I love to talk trash. Like I used to play a lot of basketball and, um, I love to talk. Like I love to talk to people and, uh, you know, just have it be a weapon. Um, but you know,

I was in the military for a long time and in the military culture, you're very much taught to be humble and it's, you know, it's, it's very much a team thing. And And in the military culture, you're very much taught to be humble. And it's, you know, it's very much a team thing. And, you know, you're taught to be the gray man in a lot of scenarios. So that was really part of me. And also, when I first got into the sport, I was taught the importance of sportsmanship. And in my early kind of preschool and kindergarten education on sportsmanship, it did not include all the crazy things that I do now. But I now realize that you can be a perfectly good sportsman and do all these things so long as you show respect at the right time.

The thing that I find is when you are doing these activities, like when I'm going to have an arm wrestling match, like there's a part of me that wants it to grow. And then there's a part of me that wants to kind of keep it on the down low. You know what I mean? And the part of me that wants to keep it on the down low is reserved and respectful and maybe a little bit cautious and unsure. And then the part of me that, you know, wants to blow it up and make it bigger and add to the fire is confident and excited. And showman. Yeah. Like you even like, like talking to the crowd. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Well, I love it because here, here's the thing that, um, that, that people, people in the sport kind of, here's what I noticed that when one person escalates, the other is automatically forced to do the same. Okay. And this is like putting chips down on a poker table, going back and forth, back and forth.

And the problem is, is when, when you're going to lose, that's when it's a big problem. Like when you actually are the superior player and they've invested and you've gotten them into this banter or you've gotten them to invest in this form of escalation, what it does is when it's time to show the cards, it makes their loss larger. And everybody knows this. So some people are hesitant to do it. So really it comes down to just being really good at what you do and believing in yourself. If you've done your homework and you want to throw gas on a fire,

like people are going to see that and they're going to come around, you know? And if that other guy that you're standing with wants to match you just because of matching you, then it's going to be quite a spectacle, you know? Yeah. Well, I mean, again, this isn't new to sport. Like you watch fight sports and boxing and MMA and things like that. And part of the fun of it and part of what gets the fans excited is all of that sort of shit talking yeah kind of the drama that unfolds around fights and then you you do usually you can usually tell the difference between people who are actually disrespectful and the people who are doing it for the fun of it and for the sport of it yeah how so where where where is the balance between really messing with people's heads, but also still

showing respect? How do you do both? Well, there's a difference between war and sport, right? In war, you're actually really trying to kill the person. And in sport, you know, you're, you're kind of choosing the sandbox you play in. And typically what I do is I know the person and I try to avoid subjects, which I feel will actually cause them permanent psychological damage. Okay. Like I'm not really trying to really hurt you psychologically. Like, I mean, I would enjoy doing it cause I'm not really trying to really hurt you psychologically. Like, I mean, I would enjoy doing it cause I'm a bit sick and twisted sometimes, but I don't want to hurt people at the same time either. So, you know where the line is. Yeah. And it's a gray thing, but, uh, you know, it's great. It's really great when you can make somebody submit uh you know in this type of an event in

this type of a sport where you're really trying to pin the other person when you can have dominance over a person where they tap you know and they actually haven't actually been beaten this is a very solid victory and this is a victory to me that i kind of cherish yeah it's like you're getting them to mentally give up even before they yeah that's an awesome awesome victory only an ex special forces guy would be thinking in terms of like the things i can say that won't inflict like lasting psychological damage but will just make them feel real shitty today. That's kind of the difference. Well, you know, everybody, you can hurt people with your words. Absolutely.

You can really hurt them. And most of these people, most of these people are my friends. I'm going to say that the sport, I'm going to be in the sport for a long time. I mean, maybe there's going to come a time when my words are going to have to hurt the person. I don't know. I could see that potentially. There are some people, actually, that I don't like in the sport. It's very rare.

Tell us all the names. You'll know. You'll know when you see me go against them. But there are some people that I actually do dislike. And that person, I may choose to hurt a little bit with my words. Okay. We'll all be watching very excitedly.

But I mean, so like Matt, for example, you said you really like him. I love Matt. Cause Matt was not like you. No, I really pissed him off.

I really pissed Matt off. So I crossed the line a little bit with Matt. Yeah. But Matt and I are buddies. I mean, I've known Matt for, like, jeez, I feel like it's been, like, almost 20 years. Yeah. Well, we're going to have to put that match as well as a couple others in the show notes so people can watch this because we've been referring to a couple, like, epic videos that I think everybody really needs to watch. The other one, of course, being the one that has, I think,

like 10 million views now with you in the mountain, Robert Bjornsson, who's, I guess, the world's strongest man maybe right now. Yes, right. He just kicked his ass at arm wrestling. Wow. Yeah, don't make me do any deadlift with that guy, but yeah. There you go. But still, I think it's a cool, because people think like the biggest guy, the strongest guy, but it doesn't always translate. Anyway, it's a pretty impressive

video, but we'll anybody, anybody who's listening to this and has made it this far is going to be Googling the shit out of you after this as they should, because that's the other hilarious thing too, is when I first learned about you and we're all like Googling images and they all look Photoshopped. I've seen you enough in person to know that they are not photoshopped but are you because i think some of it is the the super long arm i have a trick i've got a trick but i think you're also like you have like arm length like similar to a gorilla like i feel like your arms go down to your knee yeah i'll do like are you just genetically freaky?

Well, I mean, I am what I am, you know, like, no, they're not, they're not normal. They're not, I'm not proportionate like that. Like, yeah, my arms are way longer than they should be. I wonder how it would have been if you actually went into competitive bodybuilding because so much of that is about like symmetry, but also like standout weird things. I don't know. It would have been weird. Yeah. Maybe.

Maybe. Yeah. But okay. You are like a freaky look. It's not just, it's not just me. It's not just those pictures on the internet. Well, I've got tricks too. Okay.

Yeah. Like, you know, when you hold a fish up to the camera and it looks. You kind of put it forward. Okay. I do that. Still though, I've seen you in person. Yeah. Shit's not normal i got a

i got a strong angle game yeah okay good i mean we all need to have that especially for on social media we need to know our angles um okay so i'm gonna make a little transition here we're gonna talk as much as we can about your other career which is as a former member of the canadian special forces and however much we can talk about it or not and reasons we don't need to get into detail we know a lot of the same people and when I was telling them that I was going to be interviewing you it seemed like everybody who had worked with you had a war story literally uh some kind of mythical weird legendary story about you and something ridiculous that you did or have been through or happened or

whatever. Everybody had a story. Um, I think someone actually mentioned the crazy food story that you already talked about. They're like, you got to ask Devin about the weird, the weird food thing. Anyway, so I'm glad you brought that up, but let's get into this a little bit. So you have been, you were, you were with the military for how long? 20 years. And was that with special forces the entire time or almost, almost I did. Um, yeah, like 16 years with, with special forces. Okay. Yeah. And was that something that you always knew you wanted to get into? Did someone kind of approach you and say, Hey, you're good for this. Like, was this something that you wanted to do forever? So I walked into, uh, the recruiting office, like totally on a whim. Like I had like dreadlocks, uh, I was walking by, you had dreadlocks. They'll be really old. I was like, I was very young. Um, I was back from out West and I was just like, I was on a little bit

of vacation and I just walked in the recruiting office and I was just like, I was on a little bit of vacation and I just walked in the recruiting office and I was on course basically instantly in the reserves. Um, so I really, it's not something that I plan to do. Like when I was, as soon as I was aware of what kind of turned me on in life, um, I knew that it was fighting. Like it just made me feel alive, like any kind of a fight. So it's something that I just always sought out. And I don't know, it's just I was walking by and bang. And then I didn't really know. The first year and a bit was like, I was like,

I don't know if I'm going to be able to do this. I started out in the reserves, actually. And it was cool. It was OK. But the cool thing about me being in the reserves was, and I think that this is why I stuck around was, so I joined the reserves in 90, 95, 95, I think it was, I think it was summer in 95. And it was at that time period that the airborne regiment was disbanded. Okay. And the airborne regiment, regiment as you know was like our coolest unit that we had in the canadian army like all of our super badasses were in that unit and so all these guys made up the airborne holding platoon or something anyways these guys got put in charge of our reserve, uh, training for the summer. Yeah. So we had like

the very, yeah, just totally fluke. Okay. So we had like the most righteous soldiers that the Canadian forces had to offer, um, for my basic training. And I saw these guys and I was just so inspired. I was like, Oh my God, like if I could, if I could just be like these guys, like my life is going to be complete. Like, um, and so right then, like, as soon as I saw these guys, um, I was like, okay. And all of those guys were all trying out for, um, the unit that I wanted to be a part of. So I knew that if I wanted, if I wanted to be like them, I was going to have to go to this unit. And so, so yeah, I kept that as a goal. I switched to regular force and I went PPCLI. So that's infantry. And right away I went on a tour and

it almost killed me. Like I was losing my mind. Was this the six months of diarrhea tour? No, no, this was Bosnia. Okay. So it was like, we did gate guard, we did patrolling, nothing happened. And I was like, when I was getting ready to go, I was like, I was like a wolf that was like ready to like, I was like, I was like a wolf that was like ready to like, I was,

I was so hardcore. Like I was like this 21 year old kid who was like so full of like, so full of fire. And like, and I got over there and I was like, we're not fighting. We're not doing anything. I was like, I'm getting out. I'm like, I'm done. And so I almost got out. I transferred to the RCR just to be closer to home. Um, so I could help with the farm and it was in this period that I, uh, continued to pursue my goal of, of getting into the unit. And I, you know, it took me two shots. Yeah. Yeah. It seems like it took a lot of people more than one shot to get in there, which kind of makes sense. Like if you're all getting in there the first time around, then maybe it's not quite as exclusive as people, people say it is. Yeah. Yeah. Well, if you appreciate it more too, if you have to do all

that. Oh yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, it'll test you. I mean, if you, if you, if it means a lot to you and you fail, I mean, it can really hurt, especially if you really feel that you belong there. You know, it can hurt. But yeah, I like my wounds. You talk a little bit about what your role was at the Special Forces unit, like what you did there. Yeah. So, I mean, I guess I was what you call um you know door kicker you know preacher right yeah that's where i spent most of my time there's a few different roles that you do but yeah badass nate basically the giant like those first right well we're the one who gets the door open that's your primary role among other things yeah yeah you're the you're the

breacher um yeah that's i i i never wanted to leave that position to me that was like the holy grail of service and uh i never i never wanted to leave that position i would probably still do it if i could but and what was the decision to retire was it it you wanted to focus more on arm wrestling? Was it you're getting old and it's hard? Was it you risked your life enough? It was a complicated thing. I'll tell you, I never really wanted to leave. I actually saw myself doing my entire, you know, really, I never really saw myself leaving.

It got a little bit complicated towards the end, mostly because of my involvement in the sport of arm wrestling and its growth and the requirement for operational security in the unit. It got gray, and at the same time, those other factors were whispering to me. So, um, I made the difficult decision, um, to, to take my departure. Um, but I'll tell you it's, it was very difficult for me to leave. Um, I felt like, you know, when people ask what is the meaning of life, um, the answer can be many different things to many people. I spent a lot of my life thinking that,

um, you know, the purpose of life is just to have fun, uh, which is a great answer for a lot of people. And I've certainly lived a lot of my life with this as a constant. But I've also always believed that the purpose of life is to contribute. And I know with my skill set and what I have to offer humanity, my primary contribution is as a fighter. And I knew that there would be no greater place for me to contribute than at this unit. And I knew that there would be no greater place for me to contribute than, uh, at this unit. So I knew that it was, it would be difficult for me to leave for the, the reason of, um, losing my ability to contribute to my country in this fashion, you know? So. I think that's some pretty incredible insight though, because as you kind of alluded to earlier

in our conversation when you want to be the best at something and you want to take it as far as humanly possible you have to prioritize and you can't be the best in the world the way you are and dominate the way you are you have been in this one sport and also be doing this intense full-time life-risking, crazy, super high-security job. I mean, you can only juggle these things for so long. Yeah. Knowing that and putting your time in and doing what you can for the country

and then knowing that this is a next step and this is another way you can contribute and kind of recognizing it rather than struggling and kind of half-assing things that you would never want to do. Yeah, it was weird you know i never ever felt stronger than when i returned from a tour um i always felt like this was the these were the strongest periods of my life i felt like these tours when we were fed and our only mission was to go out and fight, I felt like it gave me so much strength, just the warrior culture to be provided for and just to be around people whose only job it was to fight with a life and death scenario. I think every time I returned from these missions,

I was physically and mentally stronger than any other period in my life. It's different now. Like, even though I have much more time, I feel that this to the sport of arm wrestling. I feel honestly, and this is almost crippling for me to say, I feel like I was more of a warrior when I was in service with the forces. And I'm almost more of a statesman now. Like I'm, believe me, I invest everything into arm wrestling now and, and I'm very good. And I might beat that guy, you know, if I was to go back in time, but in 2008, you know, when I was fresh off of like a crazy tour, uh, you know, lifting, fighting with my whole body and arm

wrestling always in the back of my mind. I mean, I was, I was a very dangerous human, you know? I hear what you're saying too. I mean, I was, I was a very dangerous human, you know, I hear what you're saying too. I mean, you were experiencing something over there that most of us cannot comprehend, cannot imagine, would not want to imagine, frankly, a lot of us, and you're coming back and competing against men who have no idea what that's like, right? So you're bringing a kind of sense of intensity and warrior spirit for lack lack of a better term, that other people cannot have because they haven't been through the experiences that you've been through. So it makes sense. It definitely makes sense.

Yeah. But you got to do both. Yeah. That's pretty impressive. Okay, so one story, and you can tell me if you either can't tell me about it or if i'm telling it wrong but somebody told me a story about you were on some tour some mission something was happening and there was there was action there was firefight there was something you were injured you messed up like your leg pretty bad yeah and i guess the story was that you kind of just didn't tell anybody like i don't know if it was like a sh crack note or like your leg was just basically demolished and you were kind of just like, no one knew. Well, yeah, I did get

shot twice, uh, on an infill. So yeah, I mean, Hey, I'm, I'm really proud of what we did over there. Um, I did get wounded on an infill into one of the missions that we did, which was a bit of a messier one. What's the deal with, I guess because there was other more pressing things at hand, and so you just kind of dealt with your... It's such a big story, really. Is this going to have to be a part two? I feel like it's it's such a it's such a big story really I mean this is gonna have to be a part two I feel like it's a part two I can coles note it for you like I'll tell you yeah I did get shot in the leg and I did get shrapnel through the right side of my body on one of the you know we we had a bad chopper crash um and, yeah, a lot of guys got much more seriously wounded, and I think we lost some guys that day from our indige force.

So, I mean, the way I looked at it is I was still fairly good. Like, I made it up. I mean, I survived, you know. I made it up to the top of the hill with, uh, the rest of the guys. Uh, and yeah, I didn't need to go back. I didn't need to go back. Do you think that you have abnormal pain tolerance or do you think that's kind of a cultivated mental toughness that's you've cultivated through your work, through everything? Or do you, do you think you do have some weird freaky pain tolerance it's a combination of things

i certainly do have a pain tolerance like i feel like yeah yeah i'll tell you a kind of twisted story on how to explain this favorite kind of story yeah so is, is really such a teacher. Um, some people are scared of pain and some people really just view it as information. And then there's, it's a spectrum, right? Um, and then there's people who get it even more twisted. So I feel like everybody in my family is a little bit twisted when it comes to pain. Um, so me, I feel like I've got my pain down to be like an athlete, uh, or, or a fighter. Uh, I feel like the pain doesn't really bother me. Like it, I know it's there and like I register it and, but I'm not like scared of it. Like I've done so many workouts where I hurt, like so many things where I hurt. Um, and I just really, like, I don't want to hurt myself, but if it's important, I can kind

of go through it. Um, but interesting on pain, like I feel like a lot of these receptors and what they're interpreted as in the body are given to you in utero. Um, and I, and I have these theories, not from myself, but from my late brother. Um, my brother was, well, his name was Shannon Larratt. He was into body modification and, um, so he was really into pain. Okay. So this whole culture of body modification, um, is like, these are dudes mostly who actually get their pain so twisted that they actually feel good. So they actually seek out pain because to them it actually feels good. So I think there's a balance there. Like some people are scared of pain. Some people kind of register it as information and then some people

actually like it, you know? You're maybe somewhere nestled in between yeah yeah i mean i i understand this too to a certain extent because people who like to work out hard and people who like to do that kind of stuff it's it makes you feel alive yeah you're doing jujitsu or mma or arm wrestling or even endurance racing and things like that that pain and that information that you're getting you you are never more focused and more alive than when you're feeling those things. That's right. I totally get that. Yeah.

I don't know about the running around with shrapnel in my body, body modification kind of stuff. But, like, I completely get to a certain extent. And I think that I personally, this is my two cents, I think the people who are afraid of pain need to put themselves in pain. I think they need to get over it because that is how you grow. That's how you understand yourself. That's how you move through the world. If you are constantly in a state of perfect stasis and comfort, there's no way you're learning anything. I totally agree with you. But I feel at the same time, like a lot of that is maybe from birth. Like I feel like a lot of that, like when somebody's born and they like,

like, I just know this because of my brother. Like, I know that when we were young, he liked to put needles in himself because he thought it felt good. You know, I never did. But so I think there's a spectrum. At the same time, I was never afraid of pain. Never.

I always loved fighting. And then I've met other people who will avoid pain at all costs. Yeah, I think there's probably outliers on either side. And I think that there are, like you said, probably some genetic inherited components to it. But I also think that it definitely is something that you can cultivate just the way you can become a better writer or a better soldier or a better athlete many of these things you can buy it through exposure and through training and you can get tougher and more resilient and better and I think that's probably something that you did over the course of your your career too and why you're still as good as you are in your sport despite

being kind of an old man oh no oh no a little bit man i mean you're older than me so i get oh damn it damn it no but i mean all that i mean we could have a whole other conversation which we won't we'll have to do part two but you know like sports are getting more people are getting older it's true and better performing and healthier in their older ages and it's giving me hope as someone in their 30s like you see the tom brady's and the old mba fighters and all these people you're thinking okay shit like you can be in your 40s like you see the tom brady's and the old mba fighters and all these people you're thinking okay shit like you can be in your 40s and still be a super high level athlete but it takes like we were saying it takes a lot of years of consistency and taking care of yourself

and being smart and learning and knowing your sport and knowing your body it's true yeah it's true yeah crazy george 70 years old world champion yeah who 70 oh that's crazy yeah yeah crazy george 70 shoot all right makes me feel better about that yeah that's another one gets me mad if you're in your 30s don't complain to me about aches and pains because that is not a necessity of aging when you're 35 if you feel like shit that's because you're not taking care of yourself chances are yeah all right yeah all right Devin we could go forever yeah we're gonna have to do a part two but I really really appreciate you coming this has been like honestly this is my favorite interview so far I've done a lot of interviews so you should feel oh yeah all right before go, what's next for you? Like competition? Oh, such a busy year. Oh, my God.

There is so much going on. I've got competitions all around the world. I've got World Arm Wrestling Series, World Arm Wrestling League. I've got there's some television projects that are going on. That's exciting and you still have your your um training space out at your place all the time yeah tuesdays yes that's also incredible i have to say that you not only put sort of ottawa and canada largely on the map for arm wrestling but how inclusive you are you like, hey, if you can get out to my place, we've got a practice going on, come on out.

And you can learn from literally the best in the world. It's like Michael Jordan being like, hey, you want to just come play basketball in my backyard? Because I'm here. Like, that's literally what it is. It's pretty impressive. That's it. It's good times.

Get bent. Yeah, you have fun with it. People like to crush. All right. Devin, thanks again. Where can people find you online if they want to learn more and watch all your freaky videos yeah look for me on Facebook Instagram YouTube uh yeah I put stuff up on there all the time on the regular but uh yeah tune in I'll

always promote my matches next match for me well I'm going to do something with Juju Mafu but uh yeah and like what are you doing with him it's probably gonna be something crazy are you both gonna wear kilts please tell me please tell me you're gonna wear it'll be hilarious i'm sure uh yeah we've just both basically agreed that we're gonna do fun stuff so uh all right what's your instagram dev larrett okay and what's the the account? I think it's the same thing. Devon Larratt. There's not, yeah, there's not many of us. There's not too many of you. There certainly isn't too many of you. I'll say that. All right, Devin, thanks again and good luck for

the year ahead and we'll be watching. Thanks, Ashley. All right, guys, that's a wrap for the very first episode of Muscle Maven Radio. If you stuck through to the end, congratulations. This was a long one. I don't know if iTunes. Say something to me on Instagram, post something on social media, spread the love, share it, tell people that it's great if you think it's great. And yeah, just reach out and talk to me because I'd love to get feedback and I'd love to hear what you want to hear. And don't worry, I've got plenty more interesting guests where that came from. I've got functional medicine doctors. I've got high level bodybuilders. I've got, you know, business owners who struggled with addiction and are now some of the most successful entrepreneurs around. I've got a woman who was a high powered lawyer before she decided to quit and become a professional spearfisher woman. And now she basically lives on the beach in beautiful locations and just eats what she catches. Pretty badass. And that's just a sampling. So I hope you stay tuned. I hope you subscribe to Shrug Collective and I hope you had fun and learned

a little something. And I hope you come back next week next Thursday for the next episode thanks guys