Massenomics Podcast - Ep. 247: Matt Hadden of Pioneer Fitness

Episode Date: December 28, 2020

Every time we start to think that there’s nothing cool that could be changed with a lifting belt, Pioneer comes out with an innovation to rock the belt world. We talk to Matt about the company’s history and future. We also try to get him going on his competitors and IPF fees! Hybrid Performance Method: https://hybridperformancemethod.com/ and use code MASS to save 5% on all programs Lifting Large: https://www.liftinglarge.com/ and use code MASS20 to save on Lifting Large branded products Spud Inc.: https://www.spud-inc-straps.com/ Texas Power Bars: https://www.texaspowerbars.com/

You know, thanks for what you do with your podcasts and all the rest. You're doing a great job. Hope everybody keeps tuning in. You get a lot of good info, a lot of insights, understandings on how to get strong, how to stay strong, how to use your strength. You do a great job, dude. You make things better than they are in real life, I think.

If you don't follow Massanomics, y'all do it. Social media, website, everything. Massanomics! Massanomics! website, everything. Massanomics. Recorded live from Western Northeast South Dakota. This is the Massanomics podcast.

We are the lifting podcast about Neothin. My name is Tanner. And my name is Tommy. That's a new thing I like to do is say that something about Western Northeast South Dakota at the beginning. That's another thing I like to do is if I do something different, I like to talk about how you really call it. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't want anything to slip by anyone here. It's like a joke. A joke can be kind of funny, but when you have to explain them, that's when they're really funny. Yeah, that's really takes on a life of its own. Right.

Right. So 247 this is and we have ads for today's episode thankfully even better even better today's episode is brought to you by spud inc the goal of spudding straps is to make products that support sports performance and help everyone achieve their training goals they make products that last forever won't bust your budget and most importantly leave no doubt about success when everything is on the line check them out online at spud-ink-straps.com. And this episode is brought to you by Hybrid Performance Method, your one-stop shop for all things fitness and online coaching.

Whether your goals are training-related, nutrition and body composition-related, or both, Hybrid has a program for you. With dedicated and experienced coaches in each strength and fitness discipline, you can rest assured that you're in the best hands possible. Use our discount code MASS, all caps mass that'll save you five percent off any training or nutrition memberships for the entire life of the membership at hybridperformancemethod.com this episode is also brought to you by Texas Power Bars in 1980 Buddy Cap set on his own to make what he believed was the greatest bar he had ever seen seen and trained with and the texas power bar was born it was strong as a house with the best knurling and

it was maintenance free hundreds of state national international world and massonomics power lifting records have been and continue to be set and broken on the texas power bar to learn more visit them at texaspowerbars.com and today's show is brought to you by Lifting Large. Lifting Large has set a new standard for customer service within the strength world. They have live website chat support and speedy email responses. We've got a discount code with them. It's MAS20, and that'll save you 20% off at checkout. And then also we've got, in the middle of the show for Lifting Large,

we've got more exciting news to talk about them. Basically, they're a sponsored athlete. You've got the actual details, so we'll get into it better. Just keep listening. Yeah, at the mid-roll, we've got an exciting opportunity with Lifting Large, but that's exactly why you're not going to want to fast-forward past the ads at the middle of the show today

because there's something that you can all take advantage of from liftinglarge.com. And that's's our sponsors and we're sticking to it a bit of follow-up news tommy yes you teased them last time on pizza ranch yes so i thought maybe we should tell them a little bit about pizza ranch i'm glad you remembered do you know how many locations do you think there are for pizza ranch oh i would say there's got to be is there 100 about 200 really okay about 200 locations of course primarily best based in the midwest yep um do you know upper midwest even i would probably say west there's actually locations in arkansas really yeah i was surprised to that. I can't remember how many states

there was altogether. Started in Iowa. Yep, I didn't know that. Started in Iowa. We could get to menu items and that sort of thing. One other interesting fact, how do you think their pizza ranch business went

for 2020? How do you think they fared in 2020? I would assume not good. Coronavirus. With everything going on. With in 2020 oh i i would assume not good coronavirus going on with everything going on i would assume not good because if you know anything about pizza ranch i don't know very many people that order pizza ranch you go to pizza ranch because they have a buffet that is why you get people like they have fried chicken and pizza and different ones have some different things on the buffets too, but different dessert pizzas, a salad bar, ice cream, cactus bread. Yes.

So I would assume that their 2020 was not good. 2020, best year on record for Pizza Ranch. It makes no sense to me. It does not make any sense to me. That's at least what Wikipedia says. I couldn't tell you the last time I heard of someone ordering a pizza ranch pizza yeah wow no i don't i do i i i never have i not only have i i mean i've eaten at pizza ranch many times i've never ordered a pizza from pizza ranch i mean when i was a kid my parents probably did

yeah once or twice but i've i've never ordered one no not that their pizza is bad but their pizza is not that great though like i don't think i don't think it's like awesome you don't go to it's funny i don't think many most people i know don't go to pizza ranch for the pizza you go for the whole buffet yeah yeah they do have good fried i do think they have good fried chicken yeah yeah and their chicken is good yeah they do have good fried chicken. Yeah. Yeah. And their chicken is good. Yeah. They do have good. Their chicken is better than their pizza is. Yeah. I think that's a pretty fair statement. But their cactus bread is good too.

If you're a dessert pizza man. Yeah. And the cactus bread is really where it's at. That is where it's at. I mean, it's pretty good. It's not, it's not the best thing in the world, but it's pretty good. It's really hard to leave Pizza Ranch and not feel disgusting. Yeah.

Do you think you, is it even to leave pizza ranch and not feel disgusting. Yeah. Do you think you, is it even possible to go there and not feel disgusting? I mean, I've done it many times, but like you always leave feeling gross. Yeah. And sometimes, sometimes if you're lucky enough,

this is not a paid ad. You even leave and gross things happen to your body after you leave too. That's not unusual. It's kind of a roll of the dice for how you're going to get out of there yeah it is tanner this is making me thirsty all this food talk so um i'm actually just we're doing this is this the uh this is part two at last week okay so good i had to get more of these we had to don't did you have to buy more i had to buy more they were that good orange grapefruit still is good it's different it might even be better than the first go around that is refreshing um i was actually when you

first said follow-up i thought you're gonna say you know i watched all the john wilson episodes no i haven't seen that ad actually. But you have been kind of busy. That's, I honest, I'm not even exaggerating. I haven't essentially watched TV. Like I haven't, I mean, really weird. First issue is I'm in really weird living conditions. So I'm not like plopping down. Yeah, you live in South Dakota, Tanner.

I live in Western Northeast South Dakota. Very weird living conditions. Not many people do it for a reason. But I don't, not like sitting at home with my tv so that's part of it and then uh massonomics has been very busy it has my work has been pretty busy and like personally it's been pretty busy so i'm not and you know how some people like to be like oh i don't have time for tv no it's like i'm want to stress that I'm not doing that because I guess I just haven't had time, but I will again have time soon, and I do like to watch TV.

So, Tanner, you were talking there, and I had the gears spinning here. The calendar is totally slipping away from my brain because I have also been incredibly busy too. Yeah, right. We were talking about this before the show. We both have a lot of shit going on right now um we spent a lot of last week's episode talking about the kind of fit kind of fat drop yeah and uh yeah that's the follow that item doesn't exist anymore it actually by the time the podcast came out it didn't exist yeah so that was uh we're kind of bouncing over

right now but that that shirt you know we we were hyping it up talking about it rightfully so we were excited about it i think it's a really cool shirt and uh it was it was basically sold out in every size within like five hours yeah like it didn't legitimately was it it sold with a velocity that we've only seen on a few, you know, a handful of products that we've released. It sold like so incredibly rapidly that we were overwhelmed by how fast it sold. Yeah, we were shocked how quick it went. Because like we thought it was cool and everything, but it's like, well, we're doing something with another company. And they also had an item that came up before us. So it's like, I can see how people are like, ah, and it's almost Christmas time.

I don't need to get anything. Like those are all scenarios we talked through. Like it'll sell, it'll, it'll definitely sell some shirts, but we don't know how many. And it was just like, it was gone. It was, it existed for mere hours. And it's gone. Yeah. So it was, it was really cool to see how quick those went.

And before we talked about like, like, ah, this will probably be it. Like we'll just have these and sell them. But the fact that it sold that fast and how many people were still asking for it. We're going to, yeah, we are doing one more. Yeah.

We are. And this really is that. Yeah. And this, this is it. Um, I'm thinking this one will last a little more than like five hours. It should go,

but I don't know that for sure. I would say if you want it, do not wait because, uh, also if you want it, go on the uh also if you want it go on the website and sign in for back and stock notifications because when we when we do release them back out before we announce say through instagram we're going to push out the back and stock notification emails and that's a little tip for almost anyone that sees any of our products right so you get

we always push that out first so it's like ah these people took the time to like request to fill out the email so they do get the first uh you know maybe a couple hours of like knowing for sure that it's back in stock so deuce if you really want that shirt which a few people have messaged and they're pissed that they didn't get it if you want it sign up for that and be on the lookout it'll come back and we kind of got a rush order on that one even too so like hopefully like mid-january yeah i think we'll have it by back by then but even the number of people buying like two three and four of a single size like it just wipes sizes out when people are buying multiples of somebody bought five of them yeah somebody bought five of them yeah it was things that we don't normally see with our drops, but that was really, really cool.

So we were very happy with how that turned out. Yep. And it was fun to watch those go. It was, and so we were kind of coming off, like we're barely tapering off of our Black Friday sale, and then things have just been steady because it's like every company experiences this, I think, not even just our industry. It's the holiday rush holiday rush so things are busy and then we go into this

and it's it's almost been like non-stop busy for a long time which is awesome i'm not complaining about that it's uh that's that's what we want but it just has been like a little bit more so than what we've experienced in other years so that's pretty sweet it, but it just has been like a little bit more so than what we've experienced in other years. So that's pretty sweet. It is. It's really cool. And.

Yeah, I'm just trying to, but no, so I didn't watch John. No, I didn't watch that. Yes. Well,

maybe, maybe next week when you have, and I haven't watched the wire yet. What is wrong with you? Yeah. Well, maybe next week when you have a bunch of time. And I haven't watched The Wire yet. What is wrong with you? Tanner, we do have something lifting related to discuss here. Let's not get carried away with the lifting stuff. Well, it's going to be a quick one, so don't get... Federation News.

Federation News. Like the World Wrestling Federation? Yes, they're back. No, the USAPL is announcing new divisions. And I'm not a USAPL buff, like history buff. I don't know. You know, I've competed in the USAPL multiple times. Yeah.

Because we're lucky enough to have a very good meat director in our area that puts on great meats. But I don't know the ins and the outs of um um everything that they got going on but they have announced four new divisions and i can't imagine this happens very often those four divisions adaptive athlete para bench mx and raw with raps and they announced this on their Instagram. And you say, oh, tell me more information. I can't because they didn't provide any context or turn on comments. So you have no idea what that's about. But they do have a website here, which we all know that if you're on Instagram,

the best way to communicate with people is to put a link in the caption. Right. to put a link in in the caption yeah uh right but right i think probably the one that um is more interesting for most people is probably raw with raps right and i'm surprised that that's a thing i kind of am too a little bit why do you want to divide up the talent pool well like that and i don't know if they're doing i don't understand like we don't know the details of it yeah and i don't know if they're doing um like nationals for that i thought i had read something that said okay so adaptive athlete is for people that are unable to adhere 100 to the technical rules so you might have an amputation or some elbow um issue that stops from like a full lockout

sure um things like that so okay yeah good getting more people involved that's always good yep um mx is for people that um identify not as a male or female or or they're uh what's mx mean um i don't know okay i don't really know someone probably i just don't know. Okay. I don't really know. Someone probably. I just don't honestly know what that even is. I mean, I get what you're saying. I just don't know what, like, literally, like, is that like MFMX?

Like, is MX a specific designation? I don't know. So there's a new category there. Okay. More people involved. Always good. Para bench uh category there okay more people involved always good uh para bench sure getting more people involved again that's all good stuff i always thought that kind of existed me too i don't know i thought so maybe maybe that maybe the paralympics is different than right i don't know and And then finally, raw with wraps, probably the one that affects the biggest number of people I would assume out of that list

there. They can wear knee wraps that are in accordance with the technical rules. All the rules of raw lifting will be in effect. Lifters can qualify to compete at open that's equipped nationals not raw nationals if they meet or exceed the existing equipped category totals there will be no separate raw with raps division offered at equipped nationals so it's like it seems like okay you can do it but there's not really a higher level that's the way i'm reading that yeah i guess so i guess what you're saying is state and american records will be established um which oh that alone is probably like oh i can set a record like definitely people that are going to be jacked for that but that's the part to me i'm like why do we need that like why does that need to exist why do we need those records for that

like yeah i i mean i i get the fact that it's like this is how pretty much every other federation does it so they're going to have it now but when they don't i think i i liked something about the federation i liked it it's like nope we're wearing sleeves that's what raw is if you wear wraps you're in the equipped division well now this does open up more possibilities for trophies though tanner but that's like what i'm saying it's like come on we don't need like like you had i think you had something right by just saying like and i'm not even saying that i'm not saying sleeves is what is raw i'm not like that's what raw is i'm just saying like you had a federation that at least you had a line in the

sand on something and you're like no this is what we do yeah that's like now we kind of need to do that too because we're leaving get those reps yeah we're leaving 20 people out that really want to probably can collect more money on the wrap uh knee wrap well no no they already have knee for equipped yeah yeah but so it would be a still be a feeder for equipped nation But at that point, why wouldn't you just wear the... I mean, the bench shirt and do the whole thing. It seems like it. I don't know. I guess people have options now.

So you can think about that when you're getting ready for your 2021 training, meets, and all that good stuff. When meets are a thing again. When they are a thing again. Well, there's not going to be everything going on once we hit 2021 things will cease to go on we do got that going in your favor right yep the ceasing of things um tanner so we were mentioning 2021 this is actually the last episode that comes out of 2020 the last man so we will actually record one that catches the very end of 2020 okay but it won't come out until 2021 yep okay i should probably like my calendar actually make sure i'm

i'm just kind of talking out of turn here tanner i should probably verify what i'm saying yeah this will come out on like the 28th the next episode will come out on like the fourth so that we've we've uh wrapped up in the past we've wrapped on the podcast we've wrapped up in the past. On the Massanomics podcast, we've wrapped up 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and now 2020? Or did we start in 2017? We would have wrapped up 17, 18, 19, 20 maybe. Maybe. I don't know. Something like that.

All I know is I recently, Tanner, I updated some of our YouTube channel art. Oh, yeah. I was in there. How old did it say? How old it was? It was funny because on my computer, I went to my Masonomics folder, and I'm like, I don't know. I could see myself keeping this, and I typed YouTube,

and I had a YouTube folder for Masonomics dated 2015. That's a long time ago. That is. That is a long time ago. Yeah, that is funny. We were pioneers. It's crazy to think that Masonomics existed in ago. That is. That is a long time ago. That is funny. We were pioneers. It's crazy to think that massonomics existed in 2015. It did.

It seems like way too long ago for that to be a thing. Right. So what did we get to in 2020 then? So 2020, looking back, what- The massonomics year in review, really, right? Yeah, the massonomics year in review of 2020. And we were talking about this a little bit. And one of the biggest conversation pieces for anyone in this business

is going to be the whole Arnold thing. And we've talked about that many times on the show. So we probably don't need to go a whole lot in-depth there. But just the very quick version of it is Arnold getting canceled the day before we're going to leave. It really felt like, well, the year financially, the fiscal year from asinovic isn't going to exist there was a point in time there where we are accepting the fact that we were the goals we had set out before 2020 started there's no way we're going to hit them now no way it was like this year will just be a

fraction yeah like in the best case scenario this year would be a fraction of what the year before was right right like it's just not going to happen and then um turns out that didn't that didn't matter at all like like i actually think we i think you should think we sold more the weekend being home from the arnold than we did last year at the arnold yeah it was at least in the right ballpark yeah like it was uh and not to say we don't want to go like we know there's and we've talked about it too there's just so many other bonuses of like other valuable things of being at the arnold besides just the number of t-shirts we sell that day that we're at the arnold you know those days that weekend yeah but that was i mean that was really the start to the year yeah and then uh from that it was like okay maybe maybe there was something going on here and for us

really i would say like when i think about massonomics like this was just such a year of it seems it's a dumb thing to say but it's such a year of growth like in like not just like sales but like product we have the most product we ever came out with ever this year in 2020 yeah yeah a much wider variety of product too yeah much much wider variety like different than like if you looked at what existed product wise pre-2020 and then just this year like it it's a like 8-bit things didn't exist prior to 2020 you know and i guess this this yeah this don't curl me it was around in 2019 but um yeah just we came with a lot of new stuff this

year yeah it went over pretty well. Like it was actually went over really, really well. Yeah. Different products to like not just apparel. We had some different drinkware items. We had the ammonia. The silly pints was a big one. The ammonia, the collaboration that we just finished up here with kind of fit kind of fat.

All brand new stuff that we hadn't explored with prior to 2020. So like that, that was cool and then um not even on the merchandise thing side but like looking at the podcast like the podcast went through like its 10th studio now well we also going through the covid uh year oh yeah we actually we learned to record remotely for like months yeah we did probably what eight weeks yeah maybe even 12 of remote remote recordings yeah so we not that we prefer to do that but we do have that in our back pocket it's an option yeah we that's what we said we're like oh if anything ever does happen we now know that as long as we have the equipment at our houses we just need to set aside an hour we can always record a podcast because that's possible we we have still never missed a week and

now 247 weeks so it is good to know that we have an ace in the hole of like preventing because it would i would just i would hate to miss a week at this like it would just be like such a a blow to it would be like because i don't want to say yeah we're we've been going for 300 episodes but there was one week we missed in there you know like that would be like wow these guys can't commit to anything i knew they were gonna miss a week after their first five years so yeah the podcast was in you know more most recently here we've we've revamped the whole look and you know it's a way more polished look than anything we've ever done in the past it's actually really funny tanner before this uh i i was just looking at uh comments on youtube from the previous week's episode just like what the views are what people were saying yeah i

realized i hadn't uh hadn't checked on that since like the minute was released and then um i actually hit the next button you know on youtube and it went to a prior episode yeah it seems like it would just go to like to the previous video yeah but it jumped us to i had to laugh it jumped us to a video in tyler's basement you're wearing your work clothes with your shirt tucked in you have your hair trimmed all nice yeah um i'm 30 pounds heavier yeah um tan are tyler's there and tyler looks very different than what he looks now that was pre-euroEurope and now he's back from Europe. And like,

it's like, oh man, how the world has changed in, uh, all through the course of the podcast. Yeah. Over that course of, you know,

something I like to think about how it changes. And almost nobody would ever notice this because people don't listen to the podcast through our website, but you can listen to the podcast through our website. There's a page, the audio file is embedded on the website and there's always a little we have the little excerpt excerpt how do you say that word i say excerpt excerpt it's a you know it's there's an x and a c and an erpt that is a word you just, I just say quickly. And then like, did he say that right or not?

He said it so quick. The other one everyone messes up is et cetera. Everyone says et cetera. It's et cetera. Yeah, right. Just like E-T-C. Yeah, exactly. It is E-T-C-E-R.

Okay. Excerpt. It's like, I don't know if he said it right, but he did it so quickly. Is he exerting himself or is there something? okay. Excerpt. Yeah. It's like, I don't know if he said it right, but he did it so quickly. Is he exerting himself? Or is there something? Um,

then at the bottom of it, we have, there's always like a, Hey, check out our store. We're talking back on the website. Yeah. Back on the website thing on each episode. There's a thing that says,

Hey, check out our store. Subscribe, subscribe to our newsletter, uh, review the podcast. And then it says, vote like at the bottom it says vote

vote massonomics for president 2020 well back when that was originally written it said vote for massonomics and president in 2016 then it said vote for massonomics and president 2020 but we had to switch that like 2017 now it says vote for massonomics president in 2024 so to be curious to see how many how many presidential terms we can it can outlive yeah yeah because we're now in our um obama was president when we started the massonomics podcast yeah i think i don't know yeah yeah okay yeah okay yeah yeah and we were we had started by then right yeah yeah thanks obama thanks for the podcast uh one other thing about the podcast this year you talked about all the video stuff we redid

in the studio and that sign i don't know if we don't talk about this neon sign near enough probably probably don't actually but earlier in the year we upgraded this audio equipment too and uh this is something that on the listeners end they don't notice a huge difference but just actually though you might oh yeah that's true the quality is better yeah one of these and then you went back to like episode 20 i think you would notice a difference um like even if you even just on my phone it's like oh it's a lot quieter and tinier sounding and not quite as nice. So on the decent sounds, it's going to be probably. So there is actually an audio difference.

There is, I think, an improvement. Even a bigger difference, I think, is on our end of the equipment that we have. Yeah, just as far as us knowing what the hell is going on. Because we had no idea. It was like, okay, we're recording. I hope this comes out when it's done there was a couple times not many there's a couple times that bit us in the butt before we put some money on on this board here but in uh in conjunction with this new board it opened up the

the uh avenues that we have with having interviews with people right that and that's what changed that's a new direction for the podcast this year that didn't exist before yep yep so we've basically gone with at that because i think we started at 200 we're on 247 now we've basically been doing an a year of uh call-in interviews close to it yeah actually yeah it'll yeah it's just it's so weird how because four it's like well four weeks is but four weeks is a month like but but are you aware that time flies when you're having fun apparently it does that's a general good general rule wow yeah so it was overall um a pretty awesome year for yeah one other thing i was thinking that changed is our um since we, you know, I think in 2019 was the first year that

we're like, oh, this is a company, like we can continue to all do this stuff that's all fun. And also we could kind of maybe make money if we do this well. And then in 2020, it's like, ah, yes, we can do that. And not, you know, like we figured that out. So it is more financially rewarding. But then the really plus side of that is of course we can buy this stuff like what we're talking about here but then we've been able to we gave away 500 for a contest multiple times yeah yes we gave we gave away a texas power bar you know the apple like applebee's gift cards i mean say no more um we've made a billboard like but but my point there like the uh the medium-sized check came

around all that stuff like the financial freedom of just having a business that makes a little money we get to do these fun things with the money like we don't even have to think twice about right oh let's just do this and see what happens yeah multiple video contests right people get to do all types of crazy things like yeah it's just given us a lot of opportunities that uh i think we've kind of always had these ideas but we've just never been able to act on them well yeah we don't have any money you know we can't do those things start to act on some of these ideas and uh we've said it before but we have we have some big plans for 2021 um big things are coming things are coming big things are coming and actually that reminds me of the road to 300 there are now 276 really 276 in the road to 300 so like is there a warning sound that's like

we should probably find one here yeah i think that's it right that applies to everything close enough okay massonomics yeah there we go so the road to 300 has officially officially if we're off the road to the road to 300 and we're just straight up on the road to 300 and you all know what happens when we get to 300 i mean we don't even need to say no if you don't know just go back and listen to some episodes from this right and you can get a taste of it. It's going to be this. If you thought last time was big, this time is going to be big with a capital B.

Maybe even a capital I in it too. Yes. That's how big it's going to be. Yeah, I'm excited. It's going to be good. So is that our year in review for Masonomics? One other thing, we actually started doing Massonomics podcast supporting memberships. We did, yes.

We started accepting official friends of the podcast. We started allowing people to be friends of the podcast. Yes, yes. That was also one that was very surprising for us, that people would want to support this financially when you don't have to. No. I mean, you won't be our friend. You don't get to ever say you're a friend.

But yeah, it has been pretty shocking, actually, to see the number of people that, one, want to support us, and then, two, support us at the levels they choose to is always surprising. So yeah, for everyone that has become a supporting member, thank you. Thank you very much. That does mean a lot to us. And for those of you that haven become a supporting member thank you thank you very much it's uh that does mean a lot to us and for those of you that haven't we still appreciate you but maybe you

want to just not we just don't really yeah you're just not a friend you're not we're not friends with you but and uh for the people that are signed up they do know there are some benefits that come with that it is a it is a friends with benefits relationship it is friends with benefits so for uh those of you that are not signed up, you might want to look into that. Massanomics.com slash join. Yep. Should we hop into some ads here?

I think so. And then we'll get our guest on the board. Now that we're done reminiscing. Yep. So that was 2020 in a nutshell. Oh, this has been a nutshell. How did I get this bloody nutshell? You guys should see Tanner.

It's not watching. Tanner is in a nutshell right now. Attention, strength athletes. Attention, attention. Tanner, do I have it? You had me at attention. Lifting Large is announcing the return of their Get Sponsored Like a Pro contest.

I can see you're interested over there, Tanner. Yes, I will. Yes, I will tell you more. Tell me more now. Three lucky female and three lucky male athletes will each receive gift card gift certificates totaling 750 dollars to spend on the lifting large website i know what you're thinking and yes that is a lot of groundlocked deadlift slippers tanner especially if you're using mass 20 at checkout that's really a lot of ground and yes you are

correct to think that because it is a lot um in addition to ground like devs with slippers though each winner are in the ability to buy them yeah a whole bunch of them with 750 dollars each winner you know they actually lifting large says they're always in stock if every one of them bought all 750 worth of uh like those slippers they might not be in stock anymore. We might have to get all the winners on board with tying it just to test them and make sure that they're really always in stock. See if they can stay true to their word there. Each winner will also receive a lifting large gear and lots of other goodies. The contest is open to any strength athlete anywhere in the world,

not just America. The sponsorship term will be February 1st, 2021 through December 31st, 2021. The winners will be chosen around the end of January and the entry deadline is January 13th. So by the time you listen to this, you got about two weeks to get your act together. Okay, two weeks.

Lifting Large will determine the six winners of the contest based on the entries received and the entrance devotion to strength sports and their desire to excel and promote their respective sport. The winners will be judged not solely on the amount of weight lifted or their level of success in the sport. The winners will be also determined on their ability and willingness to represent Lifting Large for the year 2021. To learn more and to enter yourself, visit liftinglarge.com

and click on the 2021 Sponsorship Contest button that you see on their homepage. The Mathsonomics Podcast is also brought to you by Spud, Inc. and the Spud, Inc. Dumbbell Handle or the Cartoon Dumbbell Handles, as Spud likes to call them. He calls them this because they can hold a ridiculous amount of weight. They can actually hold 525 pounds, Tanner. That's it? That's nothing for me.

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that that is unless you live in alaska hawaii it's not included then so you guys don't count in this part but you can check out the spudding dumbbell handle online at spud-ink-straps.com today's show is also brought to you by texas power bars buddy caps first started lifting weights in the late 60s and began power lifting in the mid-70s. At the time, he was working for Image Barbell building gym equipment. Around 1976, a local machine shop started making Olympic bars for them, calling it the Image Bar. In 1977, Image Barbell became Champion Barbell. It was then that Buddy started looking at the bars with an intent of changing them for the better in 1979 buddy bought his first lathe to begin addressing the known issues in 1980 his passion drive and purpose now had a greater mission but he set out on his own to make what he believed

was the greatest bar he'd ever seen and trained with and the texas power bar was born it was strong as a house with the best knurling and was maintenance free hundreds of state national international world and massonomics powerlifting records have been and continue to be set and broken on the texas power bar to learn more about texas power bars and buy one of the legendary bars visit texaspowerbars.com tanner refresh my memory i know i'm going to say this wrong who did we give the texas power bar to big nate it's okay it was okay i was gonna say i was gonna say nate and i'm like no i'm mixing it okay yes no matt won the media size check okay so nate um he said uh the bar has set numerous state national and massonomics our state national

international and massonomics parlor records he forgot to include world in that equation that's where he went wrong that is where he went wrong but other than that he was all all yeah still good yeah but it did show up too it didn't take too long he did so we actually make good on our uh bar bar looked really good what what was it is that just uh it's it was the black zinc in the picture he had i thought it looked all chrome the whole way through yeah it's it was black yep all right he asked why we went why you got that why we decided to give him the black zinc and because you also could get bare steel and i said uh we have black zinc at massonomics gym so you get the you that's what you got and he goes ah i got the full massonomics experience as seen in massonomics gym yeah and this episode is also

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use code MASS, that's M-A-S-S in all caps for 5% off membership to all programs for the life of your membership. Thank you to our sponsors. Should we get our guest on the horn for this episode now? Our custom belt tailor? Yes. Yes. We have our belt tailor on the phone.

Our belt guy is on the line. Yes. And we're calling him now. Oh, good. it's ringing hello matt is this you this is matt awesome we're excited to have you on this is tanner and tommy what's up matt what's up man uh good great so just to give you a quick introduction introduction here this is matt don't call me hayden haddon of pioneer belts um i think people get your name wrong sometimes you ever notice that uh my whole life yes sir yeah and i guess i should say of general leathercraft uh manufacturing and and

pioneer both that's correct everybody knows this by pioneer so we'll just go with that yep fair enough out of coleman texas the big metro area of central texas okay uh central texas yeah okay how big is coleman too and it's not real big is it uh 4 500 people okay what is your closest like city uh all of the big areas like dallas fort worth austin san antonio they're all 150 200 miles from here our biggest city that's close to us is Abilene. It's got about a hundred thousand people. Okay. All right.

Yeah. So Matt, our, our, uh, massonomics history with pioneer goes back pretty far actually. And we have never, hadn't been able to have you on the podcast yet.

So we are excited to get you on here. But, um, for those that haven't read it, there's actually an article out there that we put on our website and it was back in, I think, probably like early 2017. Does that sound right to you, Tommy? Something like that? I wouldn't be surprised if it's earlier. Okay. Okay. It could be. And we did an interview with you and we kind of did a story on the history of Pioneer Belts.

Can you remember back that far too, Matt? history of pioneer belts can you remember back that far too matt absolutely i remember meeting you guys at the arnold and i think it was early 17th march 17th yeah yeah that's that's so funny actually now because it's like us writing an article yeah we don't do that anymore like how the masonomics world has changed yeah just trying to figure out what to do at the time but what i would say that is actually a cool article and it's a kind of a cool art. Yeah. It's a cool article about the history of pioneer. And I would imagine even if you read it now, it probably could be in some severe use of some updating and in how things have

even changed in the last three or four years. You know, it's been, it's, it's been a pretty rapid pace in our neck of the woods um all of it still all the history stuff still rings true though so right yeah and then we did get to meet you at the that was probably at the 2017 arnold then i suppose right i think that was yeah i think so and was that your last last trip to the arnold then believe so. I, we went twice and I think it was 16 and 17. So yeah, probably so. Okay. So a lot has changed with pioneer over that, that period of time. Like one thing that I was thinking of wanting to ask you about is you got into, um, I don't know what

the right word is, but backing meets or kind of organizing meets or getting more involved directly into meets. How has that process gone? Have you enjoyed that? Yeah, so we did that tribute a couple of years and then we did the Pioneer Open this year and we'll do that again next year. tried to support um i mean i have this i have this saying that i actually truly believe uh supporting those who support us and uh you know just giving back to the people that you know that buy our stuff and they're you know make it everything that we do possible really monetarily uh so it only made sense you know i remember the the u.s open with those big money meets and i knew the powerlifters spend so much time and effort and you know money to you know hone their craft they needed some sort of monetary outlet and not just you know a trophy at the end

of the deal so it fit it felt right. Those meets all have ran well so far, thanks to Bobby Morgan, USPA Texas mostly. But this year we're going to do, hopefully, well, 2021, we're going to do a Strongman event too and try to give back to the people in the Strongman realm and show some love there. Yeah, that's really cool. And I'm sure you guys will have no problem filling that roster up.

I hope not. I want to throw at least 10,000 at them. Hopefully afford it. Um, craziness going on, but, uh, yeah,

we'll throw some money there and throw some money at the pioneer open. And, you know, I would, I don't, uh, go out and shop around for, not shop around, but try to find sponsors anymore.

That was one of the biggest things with the tribute that I didn't like so much was being told no. You know, no, we don't have, no, we can't do this, we can't do that. And I just said, well, screw it, and we'll just do our own. And if anybody wants to join, they can,

but I'm not going to go out and hunt them down. So, yeah. And that, I mean, that part turns into like almost more work than anything, doesn't it? It really does. And it's disheartening because, you know, if you're heartening is in the right place, you know, all I'm trying to do is get more money back to the, to the lifters and, and the companies that, you know, for a long, I mean, I still respect them now, but you know, if they just, they just flat out said, no, we can't give you 500 bucks.

I'm like, either you're struggling or you just don't like what we've got going on here. Right. I mean, one of them I understand, the struggle, but not liking trying to give back doesn't really sit well. And you can't really differentiate. I mean, you can't tell which one's which. So me being the pessimist I am, I'm thinking these guys are going to get bored. Right, right. Another big change I was thinking about, and maybe this is all 2020.

I don't know if it's been the last couple of years. But most recently you just did the adjustable lever belt. But even the Pioneer Cut is pretty new. Certainly not something that was even on the horizon at the time we talked to you back in 2017 like uh it's just funny like what you've even what you even said back then the quote like uh uh how much more can you do with a belt or and you'll know the quote but like what else can really be done with a belt and here you've come out with these things you wouldn't even thought about it two or three years ago,

and now it's probably a huge part of what you've got going on there. In the Pioneer Cut, I think, I don't know if it really put us on the map. I think the customizations did that, but everybody started to realize how legitimate it was once a couple of people got it in their hands, and they were like, holy shit, this actually makes a big difference. It wasn't just a placebo or a ploy for sales. The Pioneer Cat wasn't.

No, in 2017, we had no idea. I think that came out. It would have been in late 2018, I guess. COVID has pushed back our patent pending, so it's still pending. I haven't heard back from the patent office on that and then uh the adjustable lever the idea has always kind of been there i mean once nobody everybody that's used the old lever that everybody's had used for the last 20 years ends or i think patented it a long time ago uh there's always been gripes about having to use a screwdriver, you know, the same one-inch spacings and not being able to get a perfect fit.

And then, you know, SBD kind of, they came out with their version that they eliminated the screwdriver, but everything was still set at an inch. So that kind of lit a fire. I got a hold of a couple of different engineers, gave them an idea that I wanted to, you know, retrofit. I wanted to lever a closing mechanism that would retrofit with all of the existing belts that have been on the market for 30 years. So nobody had to spend $250 on a new belt if they just wanted to lever. And I was actually pretty vocal about that with SVD.

I thought that they did a great job doing what they did. I mean, I think that lever serves its purpose, but they left a lot to be desired. But not really that. They just made it to where everybody had to buy a new belt, and that's not really what they wanted to do. They just wanted the lever. And it wasn't in a super affordable belt either. Right, right. When it first came out, it was like $270 or $240.

Yeah, it was not cheap. It's slightly lower now at like 210 but it's still pretty pretty expensive for really all they want is the buckle yeah and so i think what's what's so awesome about both of those ideas like it seems like every good event every good invention it's like after it's done it's like well it's so obvious why didn't i think about that and like both of those i feel like fit that so well, but they work so good too. And you know, we have, we have a, we have a whole bunch of pioneer cut. Yeah.

Pioneer cut belts. And like, like now that those are on the rack, it seems like those are the only ones that anyone ever, ever grabs. Like the other ones are, they're all awesome belts, but like everyone just wants the pioneer cut. Cause it's so nice to have that extra adjustment. Single prongs and double prongs are obsolete. Yeah.

Now they're really just, there's no reason. There's no reason for a single prongs and double prongs are obsolete yeah now they're really just there's no reason there's no reason for a single prong anymore you know what i mean i mean it's just it doesn't it doesn't offer anything it offers less than what the pioneer cut right why would you not get the pioneer cut one really i mean why would you not i don't know what what the rationale would be behind that yeah exactly school i guess yeah yeah taking a stand yeah possibly you know and it's funny even like mentally when that was new it looked weird legit it looked different to me when i saw that i'm like ah that i haven't seen that before and now it's that's what i look at yeah that's what it in my brain has been like trained like that's

the default of what a you know a prong belt looks like to me now you know even in our shop we do you know for all of the power belts that we do um i would venture to say that 85 to 90 percent of them are pioneer cuts yeah that's yeah the massive majority uh some of our wholesale customers still do single prongs, but I don't know why. I think it's just cheap. There is an upcharge for the Pioneer kit, and that's probably why some of those wholesalers, they're just trying to go with the least expensive options to be able to make their margins. From our perspective, it seemed like it was pretty quick, but was it actually a quick

adoption for people to get on board with it? Yeah. it was pretty quick but like was like was it actually a quick adoption for people to get on board with it yeah so we came i didn't i i'm gonna set the record i don't know i mean i've said this several times i don't know if you guys know but uh the idea wasn't born in my brain uh steve strome uh from us so i think it was a starting strength forum uh or maybe exodus strength anyways he reached out to me um out of the blue i didn't know steve at the time he sent me a drawing was like hey man i don't really like how my belt fits me right now sometimes it fits great sometimes it doesn't fit very good it's either too tight or too loose and here's an idea why don't you take your stagger hole or your inline nine holes and offset another inline nine holes and see if that works. Well, it ended up really working well.

I mean, we use, so the way our dies are made, all of those holes are punched at the same time. They're not like, we don't measure them all out and punch them all by hand, if that makes sense. So I just, I offset it off center punch those those holes and then i just kind of manipulated that cutting die a little bit and punched another set of holes and it worked out great it was literally the first one it's actually in my office um and then we notched out the prong so that it could slide up and down the bar and it just it just worked really well so when i got that um steve was super happy with it i shot a video um put it on instagram and seriously like in in 10 minutes we had like 20 000 views and several hundred comments and right i got a hold of steve i was like well this

is a big deal i'm gonna take this shit down we gotta get it patented yeah yeah we took it off of social media we tried to delete it everywhere at that time i'm sure it was shared you know multiple times right they went through the patent process got it back up on social media and it sold really well. And I think for the most part, I think a lot of people looked at it like you guys did. Like, well, that makes sense. Why the shit has that been around forever? Us too. I mean, we've been around for 40 years.

My grandfather and father and myself. I mean, we looked at belts all day for years and years and years. And nobody thought of it. And an outside guy did. And it just worked out really well once we got the patent on there we got it up on the website um we gave it to a couple of our uh you know a couple of my friends really which are big name powerlifters and you know they loved it and when they love it you know they shout it out to their bunches of people that follow them and

social media works like that so it's pretty rapid i would say yeah and you did bring up an interesting point there is that i think compared to a lot of companies in this space uh you know everyone does have an instagram presence but a lot of them feel probably more corporate where you're very like oh it's matt like you're kind of chilling with matt or you're getting you're getting the update and what's going on at the floor at Pioneer. What's kind of been your approach with Instagram through the years? So I don't want to, I'm not that smart.

Like I don't have, like I didn't come into this thing and be like, this is what needs to happen. Everybody else is, you know, they bake them out. These little small companies are made out to be like this is what needs to this is what needs to happen everybody else's uh that you know they make them out these little small companies made are made out to be like walmart's and you know these big corporate places like you're talking about and i didn't i didn't think of it like that i just i wanted social media to be able to not necessarily meet people you don't meet them online but get to know them i wanted to utilize that platform to get feedback on products and still i don't run it different today than i did when we first started it's just it's just me it was it was kind of my personal slash business account and now it's mostly business um but

there's still a lot of who i am and who we are as, as a team on there too. Um, I love that. I think our followers love that, you know, a majority of them, I think, um, you know,

they've kind of grown up. I mean, I think when I first started the kid, two of my kids weren't born. The twins were super young, you know, and hell when we'd like the pioneer open, we had all the kids out and it seems like

everybody even knew their names and would come up and you know say hi to the kids and i think that's cool as shit yeah yeah that's really cool yeah and it does seem to really i think exactly what you're saying it does seem to be working because it's a little different than say what your competitors are doing yeah i mean but they're just super business oriented right right all the other ones do just feel like it's like a marketing team like yeah okay we got to do this uh go get the guys in marketing to do it and like they're all super polished and slick and nice but it's a it is a very different vibe than uh than what you have going on exactly and like it's not by design it's just who i am and how i run the company, really. I mean, it's just those videos and shit that we put on there.

We have fun with it. I try to have fun with it. It's engaging. People, I think, respond a little bit better when you're like that. I'll throw a serious business-type post out there with a caption that is, you know, down to business and it doesn't get near the reaction as some silly belt with a funny caption on there. I mean, I could just post a belt,

line out exactly what it is and how to order it and how much it costs. And I just don't think it would, it wouldn't work with our, with our people now, our, our followers. Yeah. People,

I think people, I mean think people like to be entertained. We talk about it with Masonomics all the time. It's like there is a spot for that serious stuff. But people do like to hop on social media and be entertained at the end of the day. Well, it's an escape from reality. I mean, I think that's what I think a lot of people utilize social media for is you get on there. That's what I think a lot of people utilize social media for is you get on there. You get bombarded with shit news and a bunch of other stuff that's really stupid, but some of it's funny.

That couple of seconds you're sitting there with a big smile on your face kind of makes you feel weird. After a bad day at work, you get on TikTokok or instagram and and feel good i mean of course you're going to come back and keep doing it yeah for sure have you seen any of your competitors uh since the advent of the pioneer cut or your adjustable lever have you seen anyone come out with anything that uh like a response to that or their version? I honestly don't even know. Is there anything out there? Or has anyone done something that, like, has anyone tried to rip it off? Have you seen that at all? Chinese, Pakistan, yeah. Which is to be expected. I mean, when we did

that patent, we don't have a worldwide patent. And even if we did china and pakistan would still rip it off i've always been super critical especially of the pakistani fitness market um i mean if you go on like alibaba or whatever those websites are you literally see the pictures that i've posted in the past or even recent pictures and they'll put a price on their you know their version of that belt's like you know six or eight bucks and i don't obviously i don't think the quality is there for eight bucks you can buy a buckle for eight bucks i can't imagine a full belt would look like an eight dollars but um yeah we see some copycats here and there i think i got tagged on a post the

other day from um from korea um so there's there's going to be copycats if we get the patent you know the united states market will be protected um which that's our bread and butter we just ship to a bunch of other countries and we love all those other countries we just won't be really protected yeah that makes sense what about your local competitors do you get along love all those other countries we just we won't be really protected yeah that makes sense what about your local competitors do you get along with all those guys or how do you feel about them i have no quarrels with anybody i mean enzer and heighten are both here in texas okay they're both you know they're they're definitely major competitors of ours um john back in you know right when i first started you know we would buy levers from him he would buy levers from us if somebody needed buckles you know we would get

with each other and and we would you know share but should share buckle inventory if we couldn't find them somewhere else um i've never done any business with um pete down at inzer i i have high praises for their their product um i think both both competitors make a good product i mean i the only thing that i think you could probably say that i've ever been critical on anybody was that youtube video that i did where i dissected everybody's but that's a great video too that i love that that was awesome i didn't try to be negative no buddy and it didn't come across it came across as very open i think like just yeah right right yeah and that's exactly how i wanted it and i was careful about that too because i didn't want to sit there and bash anybody because honestly if you if you're buying an american

made good um as long as you can tell that the other whoever's making it is doing it the right way i'm all about it you don't have to buy it from pioneer you don't have to buy it from us it's just i i'm a big fan of supporting american made stuff and i i would hate to see either one of those two go out of business uh through covid or you know lack of sales or whatever the case may be. I respect both of them, for sure. There's some other smaller guys that are kind of shit talkers, but outside of a few instances, those two are the only ones I really ever kind of keep up with. It is kind of crazy that you guys are all in Texas.

Yeah, I don't know why that is. I mean, Inzer's over in East Texas in Tyler Longview area, and I think Titan's down in Corpus. It's down by the coast somewhere. It's just the way it's been, I guess. I know Inser came around in the, if I'm not mistaken, early 80s. Titan, I'm not real sure when Titan came around. They've been around for a while, though.

Yeah, it must be something in the water down there oh i know that uh when we first moved to texas our our manufacturing was in el paso and we had a lot of day laborers i believe from from Juarez. Um, I don't know how all that worked. I haven't really talked to dad much in deep, in, you know, in depth about that. But, uh, I do know that, you know, we had a couple of guys that moved to Coleman from El Paso. Uh, one of them was Luis. One of them was Albert. Um, there are a couple of, you know, a couple of day laborers that got their green cards and moved over to Coleman with us,

and they were with us for a long, long time before they moved back and missed their family and I think moved back to Mexico. But East Texas, I don't think they're having day laborers. That's a pretty good drive from over there. Right, right. What about the, I know you've touched on it several times over the years,

but people all like, it's always a little controversial or people like to hear about it is, uh, I don't know that you've talked about it for a while recently, but the IPF fees, uh, for your belt, um,

just touch on that again, like what your stance is on that and how you land at that. So we're going to go with a non-super business-like comment here. I think it's bullshit, honestly. I don't know how anybody can stomach spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to be on a list to sell to i think they i mean i have the exact number it was just over 10 000 registered lifters in the ipf worldwide right and it it doesn't make sense and i know that they're some sort of parental figure in the powerlifting federation world um but with us apl allowing for lifters to use belts wraps singlet you know all of the stuff that's on the ipf list for their what is it uh

local state regional level meets and that's most of the lifters in the USAPL anyways. So I couldn't stomach it. $190,000 is what they asked for over four years. And could I have afforded it? I mean, we probably could have taken the chance and afforded it. But that money wasn't going back to the lifters. I don't know where the hell that money was going. There was like a $50,000 mandatory sponsorship fee. And I tried pretty damn hard to go back and forth with these guys.

I'm like, look, I'll give you more money than that, but you're not going to tell me that I have to give you $50,000. Because if shit hits the fan and we don't have $50,000 to give you, we're not just going to get to you right up front and start doing all of your advertising work for you. We've got a decent following, and all of the companies that are involved in the IPF have a decent following. And they're getting paid to have other people advertise for them because you have to have stickers on all of your products, and you have to say that it's IPF approved on all of your websites and all this crap and i just i

think it's i mean the ipf brilliant people that support the ipf companies not people companies that support the ipf i don't know i don't i if so when i first started i think it was in 2016 they opened up submissions maybe it was no maybe it's 18 maybe hell it is good but 14 so 14 they opened up submissions it was going to be 35 000 for four years from 14 to 18, I believe. And at that time we had $35,000 was out of touch. There's no chance we could have afforded to try. Um, and then just fast forward to 2018 and they jumped it up to 190,000. So you can do the math. Inflation, right? You can do the math. Inflation, right?

Yeah. It was so much. I think if it jumps that same amount again, we're talking a half a million dollars. Yeah. And I will laugh and I will post it on social media and I will expose how stupid that number is that they can't do that. Honestly, I'm kind of upset with the USA, USPA for just charging 750 bucks. That's not a big deal.

We throw it out there and I support the USPA for it because I know there's a little bit of administrative work to make sure that the wraps that are going to be approved are actually approved. But it almost feels like from my perspective that we're paying for the, the meat directors and the head judges and everybody to just not have to do the work. So we're paying them to do less work when, you know, all they have to do is have a tape measure out and lay those wraps out on a gear check and make sure that they're to length or to width. You know what I mean? I know it's more work on the lead directors, and I'm all about it.

If the product fits the bill, if it's in specs, I think it should be allowed. I don't think you should have to pay for that allowance. It just hurts the lifters. You know, say you're all decked out in SBD gear, you spent $600 in gear and they dropped

their IPF approval. Well, now they've got to go out and spend another $600 on somebody else that spent a bunch of money to be an IPF approved vendor. Yeah, not ideal. That's for sure. Matt, we, we always play this little game with everyone that's a guest on the podcast.

It's called overrated or underrated. I don't know how familiar you are, you are with it, but we were hoping you'd be willing to play, play it here with us again today. On your stories. I do it every time I see it. All right. Perfect. We always like when that's the answer. play it here with us again today on your stories i do it every time i see all right perfect we always like when that's the answer so we've got a special uh pioneer version of topics for today and you've you've got your druthers to answer overrated or underrated but you have to pick one or the other you can't write you can't ride the middle you've got to come up with an answer

one side or the other and you get to elaborate as much as little as much or as little as you want to rapid fire let's go okay topic number one overrated or underrated copenhagen underrated there's not a better smokeless tobacco out there that's fair what what and what kind of what do you use if you're having a dip of cope uh long cut okay it's called long cut i don't know what it's no flavor i can't do flavor it burns my mouth too bad okay so no skull or i don't even know what that is yeah grizzly yeah yeah that's for weenies. Okay. So Copenhagen underrated, uh,

overrated or underrated patent leather. Uh, overrated. It's shiny. It looks fake. It does look fake though. Doesn't it? Yeah.

Do you know how they actually, how is it? Like, have you ever done a patent leather belt before? Uh, we've, we've been asked for shiny leather um it's just a finish you know they just it's a chrome tanned usually super inexpensive um with a super shiny um lacquer almost over the top of it it's it's it doesn't fit what uh the application. It's perfect for certain applications,

but not for lifting belts. Like Jordan 11s and dress shoes? Yeah. Yeah. Okay, overrated or underrated? Big Bertha drivers. Ooh. Now, are we talking Big Bertha or are we talking Callaway?

because Callaway drivers are pretty damn good now Big Bertha has been around for a while do they still make the Big Bertha though or is that done? I think they came out with a version a couple years ago but it's been out for a while so we want to say like the late 90s Big Bertha driver underrated, those were awesome they were top of the line they were um they were forefront in technology back then i feel like they really had

the marketing side behind them on that they were badass they were badass they're for sure underrated did you have have one in your uh golf bag at least one, over my years, I probably had three or four of them. I switched to Titleist when I got into high school, and I was Titleist all the way up until I bought a Callaway. Hell, it may have been a big birth. I don't have it here in my office or in my shop, but

I bought one several years ago, and now I have a custom one. Okay. Yeah, because for anyone that doesn't know, you were very serious into golfing at one point. It was the only thing I was good at for a long time. Then you learned how to make belts?

Yep. Now that's what I'm good at. Overrated or underrated? You're a Texas man. We know barbecue's big down there and everything, but overrated or underrated you're a texas man we know barbecue's big down there and everything but overrated or underrated brisket oh uh good brisket's underrated but there's some shitty brisket too so i'm gonna say under underrated brisket's good that's what we were talking before this is like brisket is one of those things that everyone's like yeah brisket's good but there's some people that they can they mess up brisket sometimes it can be pretty tough i've had some tough ones before it's gonna be you know texas kind of

known for that barbecue so long if you go to lockhart uh there's several different uh brisket places or barbecue places and all of them are really really good yeah it's a good brisket though so you did say underrated underrated okay well great news matt uh you passed the game uh you passed the flying colors actually so really great news what one other thing i was thinking that i had meant to ask and i didn't hear was, you said the custom belts were kind of a game changer and then the Pioneer Cut was a game changer. Do you at this point in time have your next big idea? Any more game changers up your sleeve? Yeah, right, right.

Have you thought of the next one yet? We've got to do some work internally i think the we're calling it the beltinator 9000 which is just it's an augmented reality kind of a digital uh mock-up of a belt oh it's kind of build designer for the website so uh over the years everybody asks you know hey can i see a mock-up of my belt before it gets made to make sure that i you know i'll like it and i never had that capability as well we're we're 90 done i'm hoping for an early to mid next month release of this augmented reality little thing on our website where you'll be able to pick a belt uh choose the colors get your embroidery on there and actually see it before you buy it which i think is i think it's going

to help a lot of people out. Now that we're getting into strongman advertising and doing some stuff in there, I've been asked multiple times that it needs to happen as stone sleeves. Yeah. Just sleeves in general. People have asked and I've toyed and tried for years and years off and on to, to get a good neoprene sleeve, uh, to compete with, you know, slingshot and SPD, some of the others. So those are still on the forefront of my brain. I just have to have the resources and the time to develop something.

And I'm not going to come out with something if it's, if I don't think it's the best so that's kind of where I've been I've come up with a couple of different uh designs and they just I don't I wasn't comfortable putting them out there yet yeah and I know a lot of people love the custom belts but I would just make a pitch for this I really like that you started doing the uh stock oh those ones are those ones are awesome. We've bought a pile of those for Massanomics Gym because I like to be able to have all the different sizes around. And then when you put them on sale, they're really cheap.

Yeah, very affordable for what you get. It's almost like, what's the catch? Yeah, yeah. So stock belts were something that people started getting, not upset, but you could tell they were not super happy with you know the four six eight week lead times uh through the busy season especially so those things have done extremely well and i do think it's probably due to price but also the quick ship aspect uh stock belts have honestly through this busy season,

it's been hard for us to keep them in stock. So I've actually broken up our, our team into two smaller teams. One of them handles stock belts and wholesale orders and the other team handles retail stuff. So, um, it's something that we're going to continue to do it's something that we possibly can expand on um there's a couple of different especially the with the new pal levers i think once we get those on to the stock lever belts they'll we'll have a hard time keeping up with demand so yeah stock belts are awesome uh less than 100 bucks especially when they're on sale uh discount codes and that kind of thing that happen from time to time guaranteed for life made with the same leather and the same processes that's one question that always gets brought up

how come these are cheap and these other ones aren't well it's because we can we can cut our costs down by doing a whole bunch of the same thing. Any manufacturer, I'll tell you that, you know, you're doing custom work. They all get babysat. You do, you know, a run of, you know, 50 of every size, you get them all cut at once, you get them all split at once, all glued, all sewn, all that stuff all done at once without having to change threads and you know, suede adds a lot of time. So we, you know, we opted for no suede versions of these last two stock belts that we've been

doing. And, uh, you know, I put them up there on sale a price that, uh, we were comfortable with and I thought the customers would be comfortable with because the time to make them really, I mean, it's not that, it's not that much. I mean, I could probably make one 20 minutes, 20, 30 minutes. And we can do a couple hundred of them a day when we get the team on them. Yeah, for sure. And everyone should have one.

That's our pitch for them right now. I mean, you should have like four or five. You should have a rack of them like we do. One other thing I wanted to make sure to say is you you brought up you know you you do a really good job supporting the athletes with uh meets and that sort of thing and stuff you did what what i've also also would say that we've noticed and we've experienced experienced it firsthand you do a good job supporting other companies in the space you know not necessarily specifically belt manufacturers, but companies

like ours, Lift Evil, a whole bunch of other companies that we've worked with. And, you know, that's meaningful when you've built up a significant audience of your own. You know, some things you've been able to do, even like sharing things of ours, like that actually has a significant impact with us over time. You know, that is one piece of the puzzle that allows us to build a larger following and us to have a more significant presence. So I think, you know, you know, there's a lot of businesses out there like us that appreciate and notice that you do that. Absolutely. Tanner, I remember it was like, what, probably three or four years ago, like when we were selling hardly nothing right and

there was one day you're like check your email look and it was like 10 shirts in an hour right what's going on here yeah matt shared a post of ours and like we i remember we were so jacked that day because like just having someone that had some eyes on things share something like made a big difference for us and uh that was really cool and, and we definitely remember those things. So thank you. You guys are my friends, man. I mean, I, I spent a lot of time on my phone,

not a lot of time trying to make friends locally and you guys run an awesome business. I love your Instagram page and all of the things that you guys come out with. It's, it's fucking fantastic. Excuse my French. And I do guys along with with there's a lot of small companies that man we're still small and we were small years ago and we all are you know we're all in the same space there's no reason for animosity towards one another i mean i i i truly appreciate what you guys do and i hope to you know come up with

opportunities to help everyone you know in the future yeah awesome for sure um is there anything else you have or need to get out there before we wrap this one up uh no i mean 2020 is almost over so we can all celebrate that yeah and i know we're ready for it to be over with everybody's still kind of scared what 2021 is going to bring and um and i'm in the same boat it's just it's nerve-wracking so uh there's been some bright spots and we'll hold on to those bright spots coming into the new year and hopefully make it better than this year. Awesome.

For sure. Be too hard. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We'll set our goals low. We should be able to hit it that way. All right,

Matt, we appreciate it. It's good catching up with you. Absolutely guys. I hope you guys have a Merry Christmas, happy holidays, and I appreciate y'all letting me on your awesome show. Yeah, you too.

Thanks a lot, man. And this will come out Monday, so stay tuned. It won't be long. All right, man. I'll make sure I share it, and we'll plug you guys in a couple other things. I appreciate y'all.

Hell yeah. Awesome. All right, see you, Matt. Thank you. Take care. That wasall. Hell yeah. Awesome. Alright, see you Matt. Thank you. Take care. That was Matt. Big Matt. That was Big Matt. A big pioneer. Also,

very cool beans. A guest isn't really complete without the cool beans, is it? It is never complete until the beans have dropped. Matt, cool dude yep and he really he hasn't changed he's been like from our first experiences he's been a cool dude and he's stayed a cool dude through the you know and i really meant that like us we it's like once we've got not that we're have a huge presence but we we have a known presence for a lot in the community.

Yeah, I mean, if you're on Instagram. Right, and we get shared by a lot of different things anymore. And like, I still always appreciate it. It just honestly doesn't mean as much anymore. But when we were very small, it didn't happen very often. And he was one of the first ones that like multiple times shared things of ours. And it's like, that made a significant, cause it's hard digging yourself out of the getting any traction.

Yeah. To get like the wheel started, you know, and obviously it just takes time. And we applied the what, what's that? Said it before. Just like a cockroach.

Yeah. The cockroach, the cockroach mentality. Yes, yes, that we just refuse to die. But that still won't even work if we never get anything from any of these other ones

with, you know, more presence than us. Yeah, yeah. And he's just big and he does it with a lot of companies besides just us too. And I see that. One thing I wanted to say,

and I was going to wait until Matt was off in case we were... You didn't want him to get the last word in. Oh, yeah. Nobody ever gets the last word on our show. You can save money at... He mentioned discounts.

We are aware of a discount that a friend of the MathSomics podcast has. Brandon Campbell does have a discount code. So here we're... And that's as good a one as any of these. Yeah, so we're kind of screwing Matt out of 10% here, but we're helping out Brandon because it probably helps him. So I just want to verify code basement. Okay, that's what I was going to say.

For 10% off. So if you listen to this and you're thinking, I do need a new Pioneer belt, use discount code basement. We don't get anything out of that, but Brandon does and Brandonon supports massonomics and matt probably is happy to sell it even if it's at a 10 discount so it's kind of a win for everyone yeah did you see uh i mean saying did you see i mean you know you did it but like i'll just say did you see so it sounds good for the podcast did you see that brandon camel has a newomics banner? The only black and white Masonomics banner in existence.

And it looks pretty good. And it is not for sale, so you can't have one. Yeah. Unless you send us a DM. They could probably get that arranged. At the right price. Yeah. It does look very nice.

It does look cool. It kind of made me want one of those. Did you experience that at all? Yeah, I did. That has a nice look to it. We're almost actually running out of wall space in the gym. Like, here on out, banners are almost like it has to be a special banner to go on the wall. That's true.

And Tom Callis just sent a Callis barbell banner. He's got a logo where it's a skull with a long beard and a hard hat. Kind of a cool, I like that. That's a cool piece of art, I think. Yep. I think he got that tattooed on himself did he made me think if i was a guy that had tattoos i would get our lift hard live easy skull tattooed on me i mean i do have a couple tattoos and i actually want some more tattoos but i just can't bring myself to get the tattoos if i was if

i ever like get the ball rolling on that i would consider getting the lift hard live easy tattoo on me because i you know i talked about the massonomics thing before i don't know that i'm could quite bring myself to just but if i'm starting to get tattoos uh-huh like and then i'm more open to tattoos i think i would get the lift hard live easy skull tattoo done that's a great place yeah and i want someone to do it before i do so i can see how it looks so that's people keep dming and saying things about getting a mass and i have to still hasn't happened yet so someone needs to finally put their money surprise me a little bit that there hasn't even been like someone that has like a tiny little let's do this what would we actually give someone if they get us legit massonomics tattoo like one of our what do you mean a legit

like it has to be big or you're saying like they get an actual massonomics tattoo like one of our what do you mean a legit like it has to be big or you're saying like they get an actual massonomics tattoo that it can't be tiny like what what i mean legit you have to look at it and say that is a massonomics tattoo like it can't be like a tiny m on the right side of your finger it can't be that um it needs to actually like be one of our logos or the massonomics logo or uh you know something and you don't look at and say uh that's a big tattoo and you kind of like squeaked in like something massonomics ish it needs to be like yes that's a massonomics tattoo like we share it because it's like look at this massonomics tattoo this out there yeah what would we give someone for that oh well i i think it would be we'd have to gauge it based there. Yeah. What would we give someone for that? Well, I think it would be

we'd have to gauge it based off our reaction. Right. We would for sure give somebody something for it. It just depends on what it depends on how balls out you go on it. I mean, you would get something. There would be a free reward for it.

If you or a loved one got a Masonomics tattoo, you may be entitled to compensation. What would we give if someone got the lift hard, live easy tattoo? We should get a thank you for giving them such a great idea. That's true. That's true. What would they give us, I guess, is more the thing.

They'd give us a picture of it. Yeah. But I do want to see a tattoo at some point in time i think it'll happen but use code basement 10 to save 10 off of pioneer belts this was not a paid paid uh advertised advertisement no but you know it is a paid advertisement oh i got a feeling i got a feeling our advertisements are a paid advertisement today's episode was brought to you by hybrid performance method they're your one-stop shop for all things fitness and online coaching

whether your goals are training related nutrition and body composition related or both hybrid has a program for you with dedicated and experienced coaches in each strength and fitness discipline you can rest assured that you are in the best hands possible. Use our discount code with them. It's MASS, M-A-S-S, and all caps, and that'll save you 5% off for any training or nutrition memberships for the entire life of your membership at hybridperformancemethod.com. Speaking of Texas companies, this episode is brought to you by Texas Power Bars. In 1980, Buddy Kapp set out on his own to make what he believed was the greatest bar

he had ever seen and trained with, and the Texas Power Bar was born. It was strong as a house with the best early, and it was maintenance-free. Hundreds of state, national, international, massonomics, and world, world powerlifting records. Really, the key word there is massonomics. Yeah, right. We don't need to overstate world. World and massonomics.

Massonomics. Continue to be set in broken.ics there we go uh learn more at texaspowerbars.com this episode is also brought to you by lifting large we learned about the uh lifting large opportunity you could win up to 700 uh be one of the six chosen winners there to buy 750 dollars for the groundlocked deadlift slippers yes yes no i believe you get to have your option of what you want to purchase we just no i believe you get to have your option of what you want to purchase we just strongly suggest yeah you get it in all ground lock deadlift slippers yeah um if someone gets a tattoo we will we will buy them a pair of ground lock

slippers they don't at least get that um uh and they do have until what was they they've got until january 13th i believe yeah you've got about a couple weeks to get signed up two weeks and they've got a form on their website where you can get signed up we also do have a discount code with them and it's mass 20 you can use that i'll save you 20 at checkout and this episode is brought to you by spudding straps their goal is to make products that sports support sports performance and help everyone achieve their training goals they make products that last forever, won't bust your budget,

and most importantly, leave no doubt about success when everything is on the line. Make sure to check them out online at spud-inc-straps. Ditkin. Whiplash. The Taco Monkey. Is that about all? They switched them out for some vikings players

you know uh oh no no no that's pizza ranch not taco pizza i'm getting my getting them confused again best food places uh did we talk about all the stuff that people need to i'm gonna read one podcast review just because i already saved that and i need to get it off my phone yep last one of the year better make it a good one. Can't hold anything back now. No, no, no. Joe Montagna. We've come too far. This is from King Throwaway Culture, titled With Everything Going On.

So you know with everything going on, this podcast about nothing truly is a podcast above the rest. Making things better in real life allows for the constant and consistent podcast of sparkling water excellence nestled tightly in western northeast south dakota this may come off as goofy but it's incredibly well done and is the highlight of my week getting to kick back with a piping hot bubbly allows for a true escape from reality easily the most elusive 10 of 10 jd power and associates award winner no one knows what they are no one knows what they are for but they deserve the highest ranks very true it actually

it like in my head it's very very funny to think of someone using the words escape from reality to describe this podcast escape from reality to describe this podcast yeah escape from reality escape from reality so that's it um follow us everywhere sign up for the newsletter become a supporting member watch out for the new stuff the restocks that we've got coming get on those restock notifications if you want to be in the know yep buy a pioneer belt and join the massanomics.com slash join. Become a friend. And Tommy, where do they find you on Instagram? You can find me at Tomahawk underscore D. You can find me at Tanner underscore Baird,

but make sure to follow Massanomics at Massanomics. See you. See you.