Massenomics Podcast - Ep. 271: Bryce Lewis

Episode Date: June 14, 2021

Bryce Lewis is the owner of TSA and the reigning 105kg USAPL national champion. So naturally, we almost don't talk to him about training at all. We do ask him about beanies, artificial intelligence, and the future of the USAPL! The Strength Co: https://www.thestrength.co/ Fusion Sports Performance: https://www.fusionsp.net/ MASS to save 20% on all FSP supplements 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. Welcome back, everyone, to episode 271 of the Massanomics podcast, the lifting podcast about nothing. Recorded live from western, northeast South Dakota. My name is Tanner. And my name is Tommy.

We're back, Tommy. Back. They didn't think we would do it,y we're back tommy they didn't they didn't think we would do it but we're back proving them wrong you know what i was thinking like we had our five-year anniversary episode not too long ago that was 260 i think was the big five year we're on 271 today we're it's not going to be that long until we hit 300 and that's kind of another big 300 is not very far away no it is it is fairly i mean as far as we're concerned it's pretty damn close yeah uh and that's going to be a big deal right it's gotta be right i mean if that's not a big deal then what is i know i've said it uh many times at this point but i just love all these meaningless or these uh some of them pretty relatively meaningless tanner marks i keep i keep grabbing

my headphones i hate to interrupt you but some i kept looking around something's off in the function you know what's off our giant enormous light in front of let me turn that on people and this is your opportunity if you don't watch us on youtube if you just listen to the audio on apple podcast or wherever you catch it, try us out on YouTube. You can see the lighting difference that Tommy just made there. Yeah, and I'm looking like, why is the monitor so gold? I had the light above us on, the one in front of us off. Do you feel better about it now?

I feel like we're podcasting now. Honestly, my brain was playing tricks on me there. Do we need to try that first part again, or do you think it's good? No, I don't know. I don't know. Maybe we just need to read the ad and just get the show roll with it. Speaking of ads, Tommy, do you know about Texas power bars? I mean a little, but I'd like to know more about the history. Great. You probably don't remember this now that you haven't read this for a week. It's just gone. Yeah. Today's show is 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 that time he was working for image barbell building gym equipment around 1976 a local machine shop started making olympic bars for them and calling them 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 and it was maintenance free hundreds of state national international massonomics and world

power lifting records have been and continue to be set and broken on the texas power bar to learn more and to check out all their great bars visit them at texaspowerbars.com tanner i appreciate you getting those numbers and dates right. Thank you. I totally redeemed myself from last week. You know, just quick observations, Tanner. This also falls under the weather report. It's been extremely hot lately.

And your choice of shoe is a moccasin right now. Typically a winter shoe. Yeah, I just thought this is just my house shoe uh-huh and coming out for the recording of the massonomics podcast podcast every week is so late that like this is just an extension of my okay this is all this is just my pajama shoe all right all right this is really uh uh i the only time these get worn out of the house is pretty much for the massonomics podcast because it's that one time of the week when i'm all showered up and ready for bed you're all clean and i'm like still go somewhere uh-huh so i always

hope that i don't have to make any other stops in between coming here and going back home yeah yeah you wouldn't want to be caught out on those they call the fashion police i don't i don't know if uh what brand these are like mini tonka or whatever um these if you ever get the laced ones this is like the third pair i've had oh don't even bother trying to tie them they do not stay tied they don't i would i would do it is not physically possible we might have talked about this before i would actually when i cared more yeah like because i had a pair once i come untied they never tie again no when i bought my new pair after that one was trashed, I took a hot glue gun and just glued it down right away.

It's a good choice. And it was good. It was good for almost the lifetime of the shoe. By the time the glue gives, you kind of got to assume, all right, the mocks are probably getting wore out. You cannot keep those tied. No, it doesn't. A leather rawhide lace might as well put a necklace around your shoe, I guess,

because it doesn't do a damn thing no um so that's the explanation on the okay the mini tonkas i'm glad we got to the bottom but i am a big fan of this them and i know we have talked about them at least once on the podcast over the years uh-huh um but my love for them has is on dying maybe we get a sponsorship from mini tonka yeah you know they're just a state over they're not too far away i'm assuming they're out of minnesota i guess i don't know i could be wrong it's probably made in china probably probably right actually i shouldn't be assuming that uh no but i do like those uh tanner it has been hot as the dickens so it's still it's not getting any

cooler it's staying like all highs of like the 90s to if not close to 100 for i don't know the foreseeable future the old grass is starting to die around it is burning up there's no doubt about that uh tanner quite a while ago you made a confession to us and told us that uh you're kind of a self-proclaimed record guy i am kind of a record guy well i have an update i have a bit of a confession oh go on i'm kind of a self-proclaimed record guy i am kind of a record guy well i have an update i have a bit of a confession oh go on i'm kind of a self-proclaimed f1 racing guy now oh you've taken i've to f1 racing i have taken to it uh even my wife is kind of aware of what's going on it's one of those things i've kind of always liked cars from like a design and cool standpoint

i'm never like i'm never gonna try to fix anything on my car. Like that's, I don't, I don't even really want to be in that world at all. Um, but from like, you know, cars are cool, like in there they're designed really well. And now they're becoming like more and more pieces of technology too. So there's cool things happening in the car world. I always like to just pay attention to see what's going on there. But and when i was younger you know fast and the furious came out when we were young still coming out now enrolled coming out uh less and less relevant to the world that we live in i mean as far as like playing by the rules of the world i guess like there was a point where they were a car about moot or a movie about cars doing things oh no that's um now the cars I guess are a part of it, but that's a,

they still, they have always taken some liberties about like people dramping things and jumping from like one car to the next. I don't need it to be realistic, but that franchise has made a bit of a pivot over the years. When you look at like it going from like these, these race, these street racing cars,

like robbing TVs to do whatever they're doing now saving the world yeah uh and you know we had like gran turismo and sega gt and all these games great great games and like i love those things as a kid so for speed need for speed yeah underground hot pursuit and uh netflix has a show called uh drive to survive where they kind of do i've seen they kind of sort of do the uh you know hbl is hard knocks for football where they kind of do they kind of sort of do the, you know, HBO's Hard Knocks for football. They kind of, Netflix sort of, it's kind of that take on the F1 racing circuit.

And so it covers, they have three seasons, 2018, 2019, 2020. You watch that and it's like, full, I'm caught up on the circuit. I know who the people are, what teams they're on, what these guys are like. There's only 20 people, so there's not that much to keep track of as far as that

goes. And now, the season, it's a quarter of the way underway. The races are almost always Sunday mornings. Who's the best? Lewis Hamilton's the best. He's won like seven years straight. Who's the best F1 driver ever? What are the names of people that would...

Michael Schumacher. He was the one when we were younger. He raced for Ferrari. He just won all the names of people that would like is it michael schumacher like he was the one when we were like younger he raced for ferrari like he just won all the time and that's like f1's guilty of it and i'll actually i would also say this to an extent all sports are guilty of this the team with the most money wins you know like that's yeah is f1 pretty international it's very international do they race in the united states there's one race in america it's in austin and i think there's one in toronto canada and one in like mexico city that's the only ones on this side of the world to be honest it took me quite into up until recently it i didn't really understand what or that there's a difference in indycar and f1 like i just saw the like because aren't they both open wheel cars i think they are but indycar does have a they have a like a cockpit over them or glass which ones are faster f1s are faster or i think technically

what did danica patrick do she was an indycar race no she was nascar wasn't she well yeah but prior to that she was uh indycar for sure yeah okay um i think from like a technical standpoint the f1 cars are more impressive in what they can do okay Okay. And typically they're on more the way I understand it. I don't, I don't watch anything IndyCar, so I don't know for sure, but the way I understand it is like F1 cars are doing more of like a street type circuit usually. Right.

So they're geared more, you know, maybe for acceleration versus the high end speed, like an IndyCar. Is the Le Mans F1? No, that's a completely different, that's a completely different racing thing.

Yeah. So anyways, though, I guess I've been waking up Sundays. You know, the races are usually on because it's in Europe almost always, like 7, 8 in the morning. If I don't get up at that time, I just DVR it and watch it. This last weekend, Azerbaijan is where the race was. Didn't really know for sure where that was at on the map, so I had to take a quick look.

Where was it? It's kind of, it's a really weird spot like between like the northwest middle east you know okay you're like northwest middle east and southeast europe it's kind of uh kind of in that area over there but uh it was a great race it got you know and the races are only like they're like 50 laps so it's like an hour and a half usually too so it's not the nascar where it's like because when i grew grew up, my dad liked to watch NASCAR when I grew up. I'm not actually sure he liked to watch it. I think it was something to put on in the background and take a nap. Yeah, I was going to say fall asleep.

Same thing with golf. He loved to watch golf. But it was also like, you're a kid. You're like, Dad, you like to watch this. Why are you sleeping right now? And now I'm starting to get that more and more. That's what I like about it. That's the whole point of this.

I can put it on and say I'm doing the thing and then I sleep. But yeah, my dad liked to watch NASCAR when I was a kid. And I hated it. It's like, it the whole point of this is like i can put it on and say i'm doing the thing and then i sleep uh but yeah my dad liked to watch nascar when i was a kid and i hated it it's like it's so boring they just go around and around and around yeah and um this 50 laps it's about an hour and a half it doesn't it doesn't take too long there's not too many guys to know like it's the same guys every weekend like they don't switch out right so um yeah it's been a little bit of my hobby lately and i don't have to worry about getting involved it's a hobby i do not have to worry that's not gonna happen like i don't have to worry about picking up this hobby i can purely be a spectator uh i don't think i've ever probably well i mean i've seen nascar on the television before of course but i've never watched any

amount of racing on my own free will on the television of any kind i've gone to our local dirt track speedway i've never been to that before either not in the last 15 years but i used like in high school i used to go all the time and it's actually you know there i understand exactly why people like it like it's certainly there's a level of excitement there it's also just extremely loud and dirty can you hear him from your house oh Oh yeah. Oh, you're closer than me. Yeah. Yeah. Cause I can hear them at here.

Yeah, it is. But when you're in the stands, it is deafening. Yeah. It like shakes you. Yeah. Yeah.

But that's dirt track racing. Basically the same fast ones that are, I don't know for people that are into racing late models are the, are the fast. They also race modifieds and super stock and street stock yeah see i don't know that that stuff good enough to you yeah i we're calling you know and then pure stock is like almost just a it's pure stock it's almost it's the cheapest entry level it's almost just your car off the street that's like painted okay that's like when it's like oh is

that a dodge dynasty yeah right going around the track it's like uh pure stock yeah okay and they don't look fast when they're out there no they don't yeah because you're used to seeing these late models that i have i don't know how much horsepower but they literally just like and a lot of money they shake you yeah yeah uh f1 that's interesting that i could see why that could be interesting it's just i don't know anything about it but i did i've seen a little bit of that show yeah you have you have to i would say if anyone's interested watch start at the beginning of the the drive to survive on netflix if after even a couple episodes it doesn't have your interest at all then yeah so there's no hope for you in liking this um but if you find the show interesting then i think uh i think you'd enjoy watching a race or two so you're kind of an f1

kind of becoming a bit of an F1 guy, Tanner. What's more of a preferred nomenclature, F1 or Formula 1? I think they call it F1. And it is Formula 1, though, right? Do you know why it's Formula 1? No, I know. Because it's the top formula. There's also F2, 3, and 4.

Oh, formula being what? Like the top tier, top level, top. That's how they refer to it like quality of car or racer or like car racing performance all of that so there's like uh junior divisions where yeah and so like a lot of the guys in f1 right now like they're so like there's a lot of like really really young guys right now like and when i say really young the youngest you can be is 18 but a lot of guys are between like 18 and 24 and most of them got to their seat because they were champions in f2 so gotcha you know the logical progression it's like the truck series in

nascar what yeah once again the nascar thing yeah really tying it all together um tanner should we hop into a can here oh i'd love to dive tongue first into a can well um taste buds also i don't know okay i don't think we've done this one so you can you can you can go uh go full in what's on the can on this so that means i'm donning my so tanner's suiting up maybe i can just do this no that doesn't work i don't like taking the headphones off I know it's such a hassle isn't it yeah it's a pain in the giblets

okay here we go here you are now I can't tell you for sure if we've done this one before believe it or not after doing so many of these I even forget what one we did last week so that's true so for all i know we

did this one last week we've got a bubbly oh this reminds me of something we had to have done this one before i just don't know how recently well this is one of those ones where i say something that's way off because i i know like this is the thing where i take a drink of it and it reminds me of like cherry coke and it's not right is and it's not at all that well because i'm laughing because like every couple months you you go through that speech pattern yeah and uh what i remember about that is that that was just completely wrong like not even uh anything in the right ballpark of that but this is the exact same flavor to me in my head but i just don't remember that what that actually was now when i when i let let me

try one more sip here i don't know. I swear to God, that's what it tastes like to me. But I know it's not that. I know it's not even close to that because I remember this. Go ahead and take a lick there, Tanner. A little licksy. Huh. Yeah, it's lemon lime or lime.

It's straight up lime. Oh, yeah. I think it's lime, isn't it? Yeah, it's just lime. Now that you say it, I think that is what you said the last time. Yeah, yeah. I think it's cherry Coke. And then you's just lime um and i now that you say it i think that is what you said last time yeah yeah i think it's cherry coke and then you go yeah this is definitely lime yes it tastes like lime i guess to me kind of but i still like i think every time i would try this like in a blind test i would think maybe it's the amount of carbonation like the crisp i don't know

it might just be something uh that's wired in my brain because like i i'm pretty sure i did that exact same thing and like that's not a coincidence that i would taste this and think that tastes like cherry coke to me yeah like that just must be something weird i would for sure give this lime bubbly for jd powers i might even give it four and a half like to me this is really really good like i really like one it is nice and refreshing isn't it uh it doesn't taste really like a sprite to me did you notice your uh your koozie there oh drink up bitches i didn't even notice what i was drinking out of i don't know we had a little party here a couple weeks ago and a lot of people were using koozies, and the massonomics ones seem to have gone missing.

I might have to talk to some people and see if I can get some new ones. We could build them at least, right? Yeah. I am going to read an ad, Tanner, so you can think while I'm talking over here. Today's show of the Massonomics podcast is brought to you by spud ink and the spud ink looper straps serious athletes know the strength that adding chains to your bench or squat will build the spud ink looper straps are designed for exactly that purpose

easily wrapping around any traditional or specialty bar to give you space for more than 10 chains on each side the looper straps can be adjusted to accommodate different lifter heights and chains can be placed at different positions in the adjuster loops to target your specific weak points outside of the big lifts the looper straps add an extra challenge to almost any exercise and even work with standalone alternatives to traditional barbell sorry dumbbell movements like the bicep curl or tricep extension. You don't want to mess up your looper straps. Oh, no. Like all amazing Sputnik products, these are made in America.

And you can find out more about the looper straps online at spud-ink-straps.com. Okay. Up next on the list of things here. Yeah, we got a couple notes in there of things we wanted to get to. Let's talk first about us. Yes. We've been making the rounds lately, Tanner. We've been getting around like a record, and I am kind of a record guy. Or like cars around a track.

Just like that. That's how it's all connected here. We both know what's going on here. We both know how to get around. Just one from metaphors and two because we lived it. But I was recently on the Bar Bend podcast, and you were recently on. Sane podcast with Big Andy. Show about nothing and everything, I think is what Sane is.

Which is right up our alley. Exactly. It is right up our alley. This was a little different for both of us because we did each of these solo yeah we've never done that have we we have not so it was uh you know it was it was scary i think for both of us we didn't know what to expect you know when one of us messes up there's no one there to save us that's true you got to really go it alone here but there is something about being the guest on we both come when we're going to do a podcast we both just naturally come from this position of like we're the hosts we gotta have shit prepared

yeah we need to know like like have an idea of what direction we're gonna push yeah like how should the flow go and it's like no no when you're the guest you can really just yeah that's not your job your job is literally just to answer and chill yeah so it was fun doing that it is fun doing that it is more chill just to answer and just sitting there and it doesn't matter if there's a break in conversation or whatever you're just the yeah you're along for the ride and it's also fun because you just get to talk about massonomics you know that is true it's very i did i did realize that uh mine was pretty i don't know how long my episode on the same podcast ended up being. I'm sure it was well over an hour, but I could have just talked for,

I could just keep talking about it to tell you the truth. I think mine was a little over 30 minutes on bar bend, and you forget when you're not the one doing it, that when you're just relaxing, chilling, that 30 minutes goes by so fast, like literally in five minutes you know we're at the 20 minute mark here and this has gone by fast but when someone else is actually asking you stuff it goes by and you're not worried about like okay where what am i what are we doing next what am i going to talk about next what i'm going to ask next you're just

sitting there hanging out talking about math and homics and it is a fun like both the conversations are fun because we don't every week show up. Like we haven't talked about massonomics technically yet on this podcast. You know, we haven't done it, but you know, it is a recurring topic on the massonomics podcast is massonomics. But when you're guessing someone else's, that's almost the only topic is massonomics. So it is fun because it's stuff, you know, really, really well, like there's nothing to prepare because it's just part of who you are.

You know this stuff. Yeah, absolutely. Some of it is sometimes it's hard to remember that it's been long enough it's like that's gosh i like he starts saying uh we start talking about the five years of podcasting and right away my brain goes was it five or four and like how many episodes have we recorded yeah did we just do like 200 and some or 260 or two where we like you start to forget some of those little details because it's like well we're just living in it like we don't really need to know that stuff right right uh when someone else is you know looking you up they do make notes on those things and you're kind of like all right thanks for thanks for making note of that

because i don't remember right uh no they're both really fun checking both out though they both published this week the week that we're recording this one so it may be like a week old by the time you're if you're hearing it here for the first time but it's on barbend and the other one is on the same podcast and i think they're both pretty cool yeah pretty cool pretty cool and then there's some big events coming up. We do have events coming up. It's actually funny how much we used to actually talk about events on the podcast. Yeah. And now it's just kind of like a note. Well, one, just the decline in the past year of events, but also the increase of Masonomics-related things going on

has really changed the amount of time we spend on those things. On some of the stuff outside of our area. Yeah, we used to do full episodes almost previewing what's going to come up, and then we for sure did lots of episodes that did full recaps, and that's not really a thing. Well, it's also not our best, strongest. No, we're clearly not the people meant for that. No, but USAPL Raw Nationals are coming up this week.

They start, I think, June 14th. And maybe our guests can tell us a little bit about that today. We've got a guest. Big Bryce is going to be able to fill us in much more on that. He'll know much, much more, just like this. He knows much more about it than we do, so it'll be great to ask him a little bit. And then the other thing that's going on,

World's Strongest Man in Sacramento is starting like the same day, June 15th. And I'm excited for both of those going on. There's going to be a lot of action. I know there's good matchups in USAPL. Russell Orhe taking on Sean Noriega. Bryce Lewis going against Ashton Ruska. There's other good ones out there. Those ones like come to mind.

Lots of other good ones. Yeah, yeah. Others. Other strong people of other good ones. Others. Other strong people against other strong people. But those are just a couple that I'm well aware of that I know that are going to go on. And World's Strongest Man, also very exciting. That's something we've casually talked before

as something we'd go to at some point in time. It wasn't really an option for us this year. But if it continues to be there, I we that's something we could be there for someday too which would be really cool even just from a spectator standpoint not just cool it'd be really fun it would be really fun it'd be a fun weekend uh it would be really fun especially out in sacramento where we you know have some connections but i'm excited to see how world's strongest man goes i'm really i'm really excited that travis ortmeyer is competing this year uh excited to see how he does and all of them do you have any predictions on who's gonna win world's strongest man no because i feel like any prediction i make is just so bad

always yeah alexei novikov is the return the returning champion he won last year so he's probably up there in consideration yeah you gotta think he's yeah ryan shaw's gonna be there so he's probably up there in consideration yeah you gotta think he's yeah brian shaw's gonna be there so he's probably in consideration for the podium you've said this now i have to remind you five years now i'm not gonna i'm not taking brian for the last time at least for the last three years yeah i'm not picking him this year so maybe this is the year that he surprises us all surprises us all this is when everyone gets hurt and he has a breakup performance tom Tom Stoltman, I think maybe he got second last year. He would be another one that a lot of people, you know, he'd be up there. Wasn't last year, was it going into the last event?

Was Jerry Pritchett, like, was he up there? He was way up there doing well, and he's back, of course, so he could do good. J.F. Caron is another one that's back. You think he got third last year? Yeah, he's another guy that's always right on the c year. A lot of people think that he could be in there. So there's some good competitive ones, but I'm also interested.

There's some younger American strongmen like Bobby Thompson, Trey Mitchell. I'm going to leave some other ones out. The guy from Texas that's really strong. I think he actually says Mexico. Yeah, right, right, right. Yes. Why can't I hear his name?

Something like that. I forget it, right, right. Yes. Why can't I get his name? Peña or something like that. I forget it, but deadlifts like almost the world record. I saw today that he did a set of like 900 for three. But there's a bunch of like up and coming really strong guys. Maybe they're beyond up and coming, I suppose. But like. As far as like. They're up and coming to like.

On the world's strongest man. Yeah, to be like, you know, in the potential podium guys or potential finals guys. Gabriel Pena, there you go. See how those younger American guys do. Yeah, and it is exciting to see that because there is a little bit of a changing of the guard going on there. Yeah, for sure.

So that's awesome. We'll be watching out, and I'm sure we'll recap it a little bit, but we won't do a full episode on the recap or anything like that. Unless something crazy happens. Something really crazy happens. People will just have to stay tuned and see. Yeah. Just a second.

Our guest just text breaking news. Yes. Here you read just what, what he wrote there. Pause for dramatic effect um i probably probably say the charger just because okay a lot of shit yeah okay people really get into behind the curtain looking this is how it plays out usually. I suppose we could do, like, a Zoom through the phone too, right? Like, he could be on his computer.

I guess it's possible if you can set it up on the fly. What was the other thing we were going to talk about here? You're saying you... Well, I'm just wondering uh he's throwing me for a loop here uh challenges yeah um i'm gonna ask him if we can still do the phone then i like that okay keeps it simple otherwise yeah we can figure something out. You know, I don't know. Maybe he's on a Mac, Tanner. We could say, well, we could FaceTime your Mac. Ah, yeah. That would work.

But then, does he have a Mac? And then two, does he have FaceTime set up on it? Right, right, right. Both valid questions. Right, right. If only people could see you texting away right now. Yeah, I guess if you're following us on youtube you could but okay we good we good we're good i think should i read another one of our ads while we're well we can but then we but then is the podcast going to be ready to go, Tanner?

Because we're ready for guests after this next ad. That's true. We'll have to see. Okay. This episode is also brought to you by Fusion Sport Performance Supplements. Do you know what's in your supplements? Oh, yeah. If you use Fusion Sports Performance, you always will.

Fusion SP prides itself on being fully transparent, never using proprietary blends, and always providing its customers with top quality products. They offer two pre-workout options with Super Soldier Pre-Workout and Mad Titan High Stim Pre-Workout. Both have proven ingredients at their full clinical doses to maximize performance, increase muscular endurance, improve focus, and get you

that much sought after pump. Both are favorites among strength sport athletes. Healing Factor post-workout combines BCAAs and a full serving of creatine monohydrate and other great ingredients to help maximize your efforts in the gym, build muscle, and recover fast. Fusion's whey protein isolate not only tastes great, it also has 27 grams of protein per scoop, zero fat, and low or no carbs, depending on the flavor. It doesn't contain any soy or gluten, and it won't cause any stomach discomfort. Available in vanilla ice cream, chocolate fudge, and frosted cinnamon roll flavors. Most orders are shipped within one business day, and every Fusion Sports Performance product comes fully backed.

With a 30-day money-back guarantee, go to FusionSP.net and use code MASS to save a huge 20% on your order. Tommy, are you ready to get our guests on the line? Are we good? I just knew it was going to work out. It worked out? Yeah, the MASSonomics gods. Okay, I thought maybe he was just going to say,

screw it, I'm done. The MASSonomics gods were ever in our favor all right all the hunger games well thank you fusion sports performance for that quick ad that we snuck in perfect timing hello hey bryce you're on the massonomics podcast with tanner and tommy what's up bryce hey i'm going well i'm doing well how. How are you guys doing? Great. Doing great. I mean, you kind of threw us for a curveball there. We almost had to rethink our whole podcast and set up the way we do it. We always, um, we talk, uh, talk mass dynamic shop for about 30 minutes before we were actually recording for 30 minutes before. So, right. So, uh, uh, then we, we try to shuffle through the text message as we're recording. It happens about once every other week when we're recording.

But we got it all figured out. Yeah. Sorry about that, guys. No, it kept us on our toes. No, we're super pumped to get you on here and talk to you, TSA, a little bit about your training, some of your philosophy and stuff, some USAPL IPF stuff. There's a lot going on, USAPL Nationals coming up here next week. So we're actually fortunate to catch you right now. It's kind of perfect timing. Yeah, yeah.

I don't know, 10 days out or maybe nine or something like that next Friday. Do you get nervous? I do. I get very nervous. When does the nervousness start like is it starting already is it a slow build or it is it's slow build um it's hard to say whether there's like a peak or something like that um competing like being one of the top five athletes in whatever your weight class is for me just feels like uh like just a a shit show of emotions you know there's high days where you feel like you can lift anything there's low days where you feel like

why am i doing any of this and just like everything in between uh and it only intensifies the closer it gets to competition and are you the there was no USAPL Nationals last year correct right correct so are you yeah you're still the reigning 105 champ then that's correct yeah 2019 was the last one and I won that um so I'm still the 105 champ so it's it's your title to defend and then so your stiffest competition I suppose uh maybe there's more but the one that comes to mind is would be Ashton Ruska. It would be for sure. Yeah. Okay. So it'll be a big showdown between you two. Do you also like going into something like USAPL nationals? Are you a tunnel focused on your,

yourself pretty closely, or I know with coaching and just you having a lot of connections there, are you interested in watching others too? Or do you have to spend most of your time focused on your own performance for that? You know, there's, I don't know, some soft line that I draw. So, like, I usually don't watch the 93s, even though a few of those people are my friends. I'll catch some of the 83s and then like, I'm totally fine watching everything else. Typically before competition, I try not to do a whole lot of watching just because the energy is so high. And like, I kind of project myself onto what I'm

watching. I think a lot of athletes do this where you start thinking about your own attempts and, uh, you know, just kind of like, uh, blending the two. And that's something that I try to want to avoid. Yeah. So like when Tanner and I go to a meet, we're kind of going in with, we have a pretty good game plan of what we think we're going to do. And whether there's one other person there or 50 other people, they are a national level competitor or a first time novice. It doesn't matter. Like we're going to stick to our plan. Like how much of what you do, you know, when you're at a very high level, you have to kind of be aware of what the other guys are doing. I would imagine like when it comes to calling attempts or are you totally? Yeah. Well, so you can basically stay in your lane until deadlift.

And then when deadlift comes, you start, uh, kind of seeing what the other guys are doing because the ultimate goal is to win. It's, it's not to put up any specific number and you know you have to reference what they're doing and sometimes play around with numbers see if you can come out on top um but you can really just kind of focus on yourself all the way down to deadlifts and fortunately if you end up with really good handlers um you don't have to do much of the looking at what anyone else is doing, and they just say, this is the number that we need on the barbell. Or they'll come to you and say, what do you think your top end is for deadlift right now?

And you say, oh, I think it's such and such a number. And they use that information to make the best decision and put you in the best chance possible, and the cards fall. You're in a position where you can pull for the win and then it's in your hands. And I think that's the best situation to be in. Yeah. I think, uh, talking about the handlers and that side of it, I think you come from like a very professional side of it where I'm not talking about necessarily the level of competition even but just where you like yeah calculated professional side of it how many of the other top USAPL Nationals competitors are most of them in that camp there's got to be a few guys there that are still just like like Dennis Cornelius I'm just thinking of you I don't know what they're like but like

Dennis Cornelius when he shows up does he have a handler that's helping call the shots? Are there a few guys like that that still come up and they're like, yeah, this is what I'm doing. Mark it down. Yeah. It's funny you mention that. Dennis is actually being handled by the same person I am. That's Matt and Susie Gary.

And we kind of cut our chops, like TSA kind of cut our chops, following in Matt and Susie Gary's footsteps, which is a very rigorous approach to attempt selection and you you'd be surprised how different um handling is at the very top level compared to let's say a local competition where you have to think about lot numbers and uh you know what someone weighed in at and are you lighter than your competitor and you know what are the national records you? Do you have a chip advantage that you can use? And those types of things, you don't want the athlete thinking about much at all. So you're kind of in this chess match in the back

room, crunching numbers, trying to figure out what to put on the bar. It's really, really fun if you've gotten a chance to do it. Yeah. That is a cool next level of the sport. Like Tommy's talking about us, very intermediate lifters. You know, we, if we go to one, we will help each other out. And you know,

when it's most more about like, how did that, uh, did that look fast? What, what RPE was that second attempt? Do you think I have, uh,

you know, and at least, you know, we do train with each other most of the time. So we have a pretty good gauge for what, uh, you know, what our training partners are doing. So it's not like we're asking a random person, but it's still a far cry from where you're at.

From like a top tier level of the sport. It's interesting to hear that and what that actually looks like, especially in the USAPL, I think, where at an event like RAW National specifically, there's that kind of level and depth of competition where like, that's kind of a thing that almost everyone is experiencing. Yeah. It's, it's pretty cool to see. Um, you thankfully, like the level of competition is so high in the United States that people are pushing each other. And I think part of it is that, you know, that makes everyone

rise. You know, you have to have really good training. You have to recover well. You have to make lifts in competition. I think that makes everyone better. So it's exciting to see that this kind of, I don't know, growth in raw in USA powerlifting both over the last five, six years or something like that. six years or something like that. Yeah. And talking about that, uh, we have a funny trip down memory lane, uh, correlation here. What was your first year at USAPL raw nationals? Uh, it was 2014. Uh, it was actually here in Denver. I'm in Fort Collins, Colorado right now. So it's about an hour South of me. Okay. Um, so we've been doing this podcast for over five years now, and we've got to have a lot of guests on. We're located in, we call it Western Northeast South Dakota. We're in the corner of South Dakota. We're not far from Minnesota or North Dakota. And one of our first guests that we ever had on,

we traveled to Minnesota to go visit him. He was, I don't know if he was the, I don't think he was the reigning 105 national champion at the time, but he is multiple many time one Oh five national champion. I believe Nick Ty Luki. Yeah. Do you remember competing against him at all? Nick, Nick was like the God when I, it's so like, this is such an interesting point of where the sport has gotten. I don't think at that point, uh, a one Oh five was squatting over 700. Cause that was the thing. Like he was,

you know, I actually had, uh, my first like peak into powerlifting was in college. I randomly got a roommate who was a training partner to Nick Ty Luki. You know, he trained with Brad Gillingham and Jackals, Jackalsals Jim this whole group of guys and he's telling me about these people and like this you know this is almost like pre YouTube kind of like this is like 2010 when I first heard about this and like yeah he's saying like don't even sound real to me like it sounds

like those things that people like lie about and then eventually like they I start to see some videos and it's like whoa this guy is squatting like 700 and some pounds like is that actually possible like can that be done yeah and yeah he was he was the one doing it man people don't know jackal's gym like if you wanted knee sleeves you had to go to jackal's gym if you if you wanted the blue rebound knee sleeves that's where you got i think they were i think they were the exclusive retailer for a while

at the time yeah you're right you're absolutely right and we've we've we're fortunate not that far away we've gotten to go train at jackal's gym and and get a little you know get some tips from brad gillingham on the deadlift like one of the highlights of lifting it was just such a fun experience and then uh you know getting to go sit down in nick ty luki's garage gym and uh ask him all about his training but it's just that was kind of the point i wanted to get at though what do you think nick was totaling at that point in time oh man when he was winning those um it couldn't have been over 1900 i think uh it must it must have been in the 1800s yeah and that's kind of what we figured we We thought it was something like, you know,

squatting and deadlifting and probably like low sevens and then benching like mid fours ish somewhere in there probably. Yeah, that sounds right. And now what's your best total? I still haven't crossed 2000. I like, if you count this mock me that I did in November, I crossed 2,000, but I just missed it at that 2019 competition. It was like 19-something, 1992 or 93, anyways. Yeah, that's been the highest I've done in competition, and I think this competition I should break 2,000 on my opening deadlift so I'll finally seal that so so it's uh almost a certainty that to win raw nationals now at the 105 you have to total over

2,000 pounds yeah yeah that's a lot of progress over less than a decade you know yeah it's really true you know uh it's it's cool to see yeah like more than a 10% gain in seven, eight years, whatever that is. Well, what I did was I looked at, this was maybe 2015 or something like that. You take a look at what the 93s are doing. You had Jesse Norris throwing up absurd numbers. Even if you give him a stiff bar, it's still absurd numbers. Then you look at the one twenties and you see Dennis Cornelius, you know, doing, I don't know, 2150 or 2100 or something like that. And you just kind of think, all right, well, the one of five is like, they're just kind of below that you'd expect it to be the average of the two. Right. And it just wasn't.

So it's finally catching up to that, uh, at midpoint. That's a good, interesting way to look at it. I always think like in my head because that was the last two meets i haven't done a meet now for like two years but the last two meets i did i was at 105 and it is like a it is a weird weight class in the way that all right you start to get to like the heavyweights i mean you can just pack on the pounds like it makes sense that the totals can go up and then even that yeah dennis cornelius like you can also depend on your body frame be a pretty big guy whereas the 105s it's still kind of like you can't be mass you can't be like six two six

three and have a ton of mass because then you're in the heavyweights again so it does still kind of require a specific body type at that size still yeah yeah i mean we still see some variations so like if we look around at the the world, we see a little bit more variation. But I mean, generally it's short stocky dudes. Rondell Hunt kind of being an exception there. He, you know, I don't know how he squats and benches and deadlifts what he does, but he seems to be like a little on the taller side compared to some of the other high level people. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. You guys know much about Rondell? I know the name. That's about it. Where's he from? Yeah, if you want to have your jaw drop a little bit, go look him up on Instagram and have some fun with that.

He's from Trinidad and Tobago. Okay. You said he's a little taller. Is he a high deadlifter then like is he's a high lift yeah he's a high everything yeah yeah when you go oh you don't have a specialty you're just good at really good at all of them okay right right okay yeah we will check that out then no i'm not that familiar with them but that's worth checking out uh what about us apl then we're talking i tommy and i are not super

super in the loop we've both done several us apl meets but as we're talking we do it pretty recreationally and it's just kind of a fun thing for us to do um we understand that there's some strife, you know, there's some issues. And we've heard that possibly, you know, USAPL could not be a IPF affiliate at some point in time. Do you have much of an opinion on any of that? Or I'm sure it affects like TSA in some ways, whether they're there or not. Maybe you don't look at it that way, but what's your take on all of that? Yeah, I think as far as TSA is concerned, we'll be okay either way. There will be athletes that need to be coached either way. We're not affiliated with the IPF or anything like that, although we coach drug-free lifters. We'll be coaching the same number of people regardless but yeah so i'm not sure how much you guys know so i'll kind of over explain to the best of my knowledge and then that's good because

we've probably explained it wrong in the past so that'll be helpful yeah um so yeah one of the all right the ipf really really really wants to be an Olympic sport. And as such, there are certain things that you have to do to become an Olympic sport. Your member nations also, they all need such and such a drug testing protocol. Their governing bodies need to be, you know, made up in such and such a way. The drug testing is kind of the last straw of a number of disagreements between usa powerlifting and the ipf larry maylee is the president of the ipf he will insist there's no bad blood between uh usa pl and the ipf i think the reality kind of shows a different story between the two um but the the last, as I was talking about, is essentially that

the IPF is insisting that the USAPL needs to change the way that they do drug testing. So currently, we use companies and have state referees or referees perform the drug testing. So immediately when someone, uh, comes off the competition, we select people that we think are using steroids. Um, so it's, you know,

we're trying to target people who are cheating the system and we drug test 10% of athletes at all levels of competition, local national level competitions. And, um, currently I think mostly, well, not currently,

but pretty recently they use a service called Redwood Toxicology. And the new rules state that all drug tests have to be WADA drug tests. That's a big problem. Not only that, but the drug testing has to be third party. So there can't be anyone from USA Powerlifting involved in it. The assumption there being, you know, what if someone cheats and switches samples for their best friend or something like that? It's an understandable worry. organization that it is fiscally impossible for us to meet that guideline, for us to meet that demand. It would take something like $4 million in drug testing alone to switch to WADA drug tests for 10% of the athletes. So to keep the amount of testing the same, there are two organizations that we could use. One is USADA, US Anti-Doping Agency. And the other is CES, which currently does Canada's

drug testing protocol. And they do WADA tests as well. Neither organization, let alone if we could pay it, neither organization has the personnel to be able to get it done. So basically, we have to reduce the amount of drug testing that we're doing at some portion, either local level, national level, up for debate to meet this demand. IPF has sent a number of cease and desist letters saying, stop doing this non-third-party testing. Here's a $50,000 fine. And, you know, USA Powerlifting is just not paying it. So this is kind of coming to a head. And where the organization stands, as I know it,

is that they value a level, fair playing field for all athletes. So basically, they value the 10% drug testing that we do as a core principle for what USA Powerlifting stands behind. More than they value sending national-level athletes to the IPF. If it came to one or the other, they choose 10% drug testing because that was, back in the 1970s, the principles upon which USA Powerlifting was founded. So you have this situation where USA Powerlifting is put in a really hard spot. You know, potentially, do we leave the IPF and keep our drug testing protocols the same? Or do we change our fundamental values and try to abide by what the IPF wants?

Who knows if we can do that? We'll probably have to charge our members much more than they're currently paying and not get anything more out of it other than not being booted out of the IPF. So we kind of expected to have the executive committee of the USA Power thing vote and leave the IPF already, maybe a few weeks ago when a lot of this news was kind of breaking. But nothing seems to have happened so far, and we're all kind of still waiting to see what's going to happen. There is a national governing body meeting that will take place during Raw Nationals. So it's possible there will be a vote. It's possible there will be more news that comes out on that. I think it's on

Sunday, right after all the competition is done. So if that happens, if USAID leaves the IPF, there's a lot of uncertainty as to what happens. And I think we can only speculate. Um, but certainly it will be the case that, sorry. Um, certainly it'll be the case that athletes like me are put in a hard position of deciding, you know, if there is a new USA affiliate to the IPF, do we go there or do we stay with USA Powerlifting? You know, what, what does that decision look like for us? And I'm sure people weigh that decision differently, whether it's, oh, I, you know, I care about USA Powerlifting. That's where all my buddies lift,

or I care about competing against best athletes in the world. I'm going to go find an IPF competition. competing against the best athletes in the world. I'm going to go find an IPF competition. But yeah, I think that USA Paralympic looks at their entire membership base and says, who do we please? The 22,000 of our athletes who mostly compete locally or the 300 athletes who compete internationally. And they're probably going with the local level, you know? Right. So what would that, I mean mean just thinking through possibilities here you know let's say they do go ahead with this

yep we're sticking to our guns we're staying what we're doing um we're no longer going to be an ipf affiliate for there to be a us ipf affiliate someone at that point would have to start a new federation, correct? Yes. But wouldn't that federation also need a ton of money to get this whole thing going and working at an IPF level? If they were going to be the same size that we send full teams to international competitions. So like at Classic Worlds, for instance, USA Powerlifting sends mostly full teams to international competitions you know so like at at classic worlds for instance usa powerlifting sends mostly full teams so what i mean by that is every weight class is filled all the way from sub junior up to masters four or something like that um if a new federation was to

start it certainly wouldn't start that way um because you know as we know the drug testing costs alone are pretty darn high not to mention team, like each team has to pay a certain fee there's travel and, and you know, all kinds of stuff, but to become an affiliate, it doesn't take a whole lot of money. Oh, it doesn't. Okay. It's like, it's like 400 euros or something like that. Oh, see, I assume that just to be an affiliate was like a crazy fee but like uh i feel like the last thing we would need is another federation like let's let's not further sub to subdivide like at least in the tested side it's pretty well not divided right now today um that would really suck if we all of a sudden like there's two i hope so i hope hope that isn't the case.

Wouldn't other countries be experiencing the same problem? Other country affiliates? Like isn't it expensive for them? Yes. So it seems to be the case that USA Powerlifting is getting picked on right now. Being made an example. And that the IPF is kind of turning a blind eye to other countries. And here's why it's, it's that we are doing drug testing.

That is, uh, it's not water drug testing. So here's a little bit of a funny thing. It's in the IPF size. It is worse that a country does, uh, 10% of drug testing that is nonADA than a country does zero drug testing at all. Right. That's the part that just from my outside perspective, it's like kicker. Yeah. I think USAPL is doing a good thing here. I'm like, just look at it logically. Statistically, you're always going to catch more people, whatever type of drug test you're doing than when you're doing zero, right? And if and if the concern is well it's not water approved so

is there potential for some sort of uh uh like you you mentioned a situation where it's your friend that's the referee or whatever like yeah i suppose it's possible um from my experiences i've certainly never witnessed a scenario where it would play out like that, but like, okay, even if it is, so be it. There's still like a lot of good drug testing that's getting done because, you know, because of the system that's in place now. Yeah. It's, it's really frustrating on that side of things, you know, like every, every year, every country is supposed to send in a drug testing report to the IPF and like 40% of countries just don't send anything in. And that's insane.

You know, like if we, if we really want a playing field, that should be something we take a look at. I've heard of a few innovative solutions. This is not just, you know, USAPL potentially leaving the IPF. I love this idea of like a pro division and a amateur division because that's what yeah like would it be that hard for the us apl just to say like okay yeah we do have the pro division like it has one different initial in its name and that's where you know the very top people go and so then you have a division that has a i don't know 100 competitors in a

year maybe like is that possible it seems it seems possible to me um i don't know, a hundred competitors in a year, maybe like, is that possible? It seems, it seems possible to me. Um, I don't see why that wouldn't be the most elegant solution out of, you know, some of these, in my opinion, catastrophic moves to, to leave the IPF. Um, because then what separates USA Palatine from USPA or, or anything like the big thing going for USA Palatine is this is your path to true world level competition, right? You know, like it's, it's no surprise that USPA is world championship, uh, is, you know, I hope I'm not offending anyone at USPA. Like, this is just a fact, like it's in Las Vegas every year. I don't know anything about that event. We talked about on the podcast too, like as much as people love to shit on the USAPL and IPF for maybe justifiable reasons, maybe not.

The one thing you can't say, the one thing that no one else can figure out is how to have an actual path to a world level tournament that like actually takes some merit to get there. Right. Yeah. So I think that is a really important thing. And it's a shame to just treat that so lightly. You know, like I would if I was on the executive committee and I'm not and I know there's probably a bunch of things that, you know, the three of us just are out of the loop on, you know, things that the executive committee just does not make public. However, you know, I would try a dozen different solutions before i considered leaving the ipf yeah yeah that makes sense so it so it is a big deal though it is a lot there's a lot going on there and so it could probably all come to a head to some level really anytime then i mean there could

well i mean technically based off what you said you could like get done lifting this weekend and then find out that like yeah there's no ipf or like you're not an ipf affiliate then i mean is that possible it's absolutely possible yeah we natalie and i were fully natalie's my girlfriend she's also 84 kilo world champion and a high level competitor in the equip side so uh she's more than my girlfriend she's my partner um just putting that out anyway um yeah i mean we both, we both thought that we were going to go into the national championships, uh, already with the fact that there was not going to be a path to the world championship and it would just be like, you win the nationals and then, well, shit, we don't know what's going to happen.

So yeah, I think something like that is still coming. Um, so I guess we're all just kind of waiting with bated breath. You're talking about, for some of the athletes, maybe the decision is I just want to compete against the best competition, however that is. And I know with the showdown meet, that's the – is that a USPA event then? I think it usually is. Okay, I'm not actually positive.

Bryce, you might know even too. But the showdown meet that's coming up in September in I think Kansas City would be a non-tested event meet that it sounds like some traditional USAPL IPF lifters have at least said at this point that they're planning on lifting there. I know I thought at one point I saw that Ashton said that he was planning on it and Danny Mello. And those are the two that come to my mind. Maybe there's more. Is that something that you would ever do? You know, yes, however, I said, all right. So there's a lot of talk and things change as you get closer to like actual reality in a few different ways.

Number one, if these USA powerlifting high level athletes who are on national teams do a high level competition in another federation, they accept a year ban from IPF competitions. Right. Dennis Cornelius did it before correct yeah he did he did um the la fit expo because he wanted uh like an all-time world record and took a year sanction uh as a result so i think it's easy to say yeah i'm gonna do that meet and then you know back out later on that kind of thing happens all the time and the other thing that I'm kind of frustrated about is these big money meets the payouts in actuality, like don't stack up to what they promise early on. I've seen this happen with the U S open a few times with some of the big, uh, what's that meet that's kind of in the middle of the country. Um, it's not a

pioneer. It's a. The tribute. It was the tribute. It's the tribute. Well, that is the showdown meet now, actually. I think it's what that is. That have formed into the showdown meet. They historically have issues getting the sponsorship dollars to do what they wanted to do. Right. And even if the sponsorship dollars all are there, when you break it down, you know, you know it's well it has to be a very

selective group that's getting money well and really even when if the the total price pool is even a hundred thousand dollars you know i suppose depending on where you're at in your life uh maybe five thousand dollars it means more or less or however you want to look at it but like to me i'm like boy that's like doesn't that's not even i and i to me, I'm like, boy, that's like, doesn't even, I don't know how to do it, but it's like, all right, already it's split in half because there's a woman's.

And then depending on how many different divisions and weight classes, they're going to, and then how many different placings are going to pay out to like a hundred thousand dollars disappears in a hurry. True. It does. It does. And so like,

you know, one of these, one of the ideas that was thrown around in USA powerlifting for a while, I think I heard on the Two White Lights podcast when they had Larry Maley on was like, oh, we're going to, we're going to keep the members in USA Powerlifting by having these money meets around. And I started crunching some numbers and like, it just doesn't end up seeming like a whole lot of money when all is said and done at the end of the day. end up seeming like a whole lot of money when all is said and done at the end of the day. Now, that said, the Arnold, if you really wanted to do what Jen Thompson or Bonica Brown does and do the Arnold and compete in a few different classes over the weekend, you do a pro deadlift at the end, you do a pro bench, and then you do a full power, you could walk away with like 10, 12 grand over the

weekend also you better hope you're as uh proficient in your individual position as bonica and john thompson are where it's like yeah i'm probably gonna win them all you know like it's yeah it's a pretty select group of people that could even hope that that's the spot that they're in you're absolutely right yeah absolutely right but i guess so these meets i do forget though they usually do split it don't they usually do like a lightweight wilks winner and like yeah they kind of which kind of also is like well then it it also depends on the three people that have the best wilks position but but like what you're saying it makes it a tough you really have to think about that it's not uh you can be crazy crazy strong and not actually be in the running

for that through those those prizes. Yeah. And also I think there's going to be opportunities within the USAPL IPF framework. It didn't happen yet, but the Sheffield was a huge one. And then some state director in Virginia is supposed to put on some really big money meets as well. money needs as well. So like there, there are still opportunities if, you know, your main, your main goal for palatability is to make money, which I certainly hope it's not because bad choice. You took a bad turn. I said last summer or last winter, I recreationally joined a bowling league and within months I had won more in bowling than I had ever in my life. Like a hobby I'm doing purely like to just hang out and drink beer.

I won more money than I ever did in powerlifting. And that's something I put way more effort into. Yeah, absolutely. I do think if you sat down and if you did a SWAT analysis on the USAPL, though, like that is a thing, though, an opportunity that's there is having if that's something that lifters really want and they feel like they're missing and could be drawing them to um these other events uh some money meets is a good opportunity i think because usapl if any federation has the support behind it from some uh companies

and spectators and athlete pool it's them you know if that federation can't put together a meet where it it can pay some athletes some money i don't know i mean they should be there's no hope right yeah i mean they should have the ability to do that as much as anyone yeah they should um i i think that the usapl needs to charge more for their yearly membership than they currently do and it's it's been a sticking point for the voting body for a number of years. Like it comes up at every national governing body meeting. Should we raise the price? And, you know, it goes up like $5, but like, imagine if it was doubled to like, I don't know, $120 and you get to compete in competitions per year, you know, like over 20,000 members or something like that,

that really gives you some wiggle room. Like USA Powerlifting, their budget is pretty open. You know, they're a nonprofit, so it's on the website. And there's this misconception that, you know, they're just like raking in the cash and they're being stingy with, you know, competitions and stuff like that. They're really not, you know, like they're throwing everything back at the lifters.

You know, it takes like a hundred grand to run usa powerlifting nationals and like um they're pretty honest with their numbers and they're just setting aside a little bit of money for a rainy day fund like uh you know six months of operating costs for usa powerlifting the um like a savvy like the bare minimum for a business like what they should do yeah exactly and um you know every year the secretary or treasurer or something like that gives a little presentation and says this is where we're at this is where we were last year we're doing worse we're doing better this is where our money's going you know and it's it's super transparent so i wish more people would see that so they don't get this perception like you know oh it's just these people to top that are just pocketing, you know, loads of cash. Like these are just fucking volunteers that need to get paid money, let alone a lot of money. Like,

and I think a lot of people do confuse the USAPL with meat directors too. Like those are two different things. And like, you could have a really good experience with the meat director, or you could also have a bad experience, but's not that meat director that's maybe charging a lot not doing much isn't the usapl taking all your money either you're absolutely right yep uh or or you know charging your ridiculous spectator fees or or something like that um certainly that's different from the governing body, from state directors, from any of that kind of stuff. Right, right. I mean, there is one full-time employee at USA Powerlifting, and it's the executive director. Other than that, everyone is either only part-time admin work or something like that, or it's volunteer work.

So it's off the backs of a bunch of well-meaning people that make this whole thing go around. Yeah. No, that all seems fair um i think we wanted to ask you a little bit about tsa too as long as we got you on here um a couple things i just wonder about the future of of coaching uh i guess more most specifically online coaching as you see it. I know there's been some stuff out there. I don't know what the right terminology here is, but like referenced as AI coaching that is marketed as AI coaching, that sort of thing. Do you see?

Or even just the rise of apps. Yeah, really that's what we're talking about. It seems like every coaching company now is getting to the point where they either have an app coming out or they're or they're they have one out now or they're having one come out soon. Yeah. Do you see like bigger changes down the pike from the way it operates as we know it today that where where you'll have to evolve what online coaching is to be the continue to be like one of the premium services? You're you're hitting all my buttons with this question. I kind of know that that's the case. That's the idea. I love this question.

That's the goal, yes. I think there will always be a place for one coach to one athlete detailed coaching. No matter how good you make, let's pretend the programming is identical. I think the level of human connection is something that can't be replaced. And I see markers of this in other industries. So for instance, I'll give you two examples. So if you have an algorithm make a decision for a patient in healthcare, let's say an algorithm says this surgery is the right surgery to have.

That means little to someone until a doctor says, I think, based on my expert opinion, that this is the surgery you need to have. So we still, at some level, even if the outcome is identical, value human expertise over algorithmic expertise. I think ultimately what I would love to see is AI-assisted coaching. So humans make better decisions because they have richer, more contextual data that is done by deep learning or machine learning or something like that. A few examples. You're writing someone's program and something pops up that says, Hey, Johnny's never done this amount of training volume before. Um, you know, keep that in mind or, Hey, um, 30% of athletes like Johnny, uh, get injured

when they're doing this amount of training volume or something like that. So essentially creating guideposts that make training more customized, safer, better. And I feel like that is a real path forward. So it's kind of one piece. Another little tidbit from another industry is self-driving cars. So it's not the case that self-driving cars have to be a hundred times better than humans are. They have to be nearly perfect. And this has to do with just trust of machines and algorithms. And so I see that there will always be a place for coaching. That said, I that does a better job than any of these things ever did. So the low-hanging fruit, first off, will go. Creating apps has gotten a lot cheaper than it is before.

So I really hope that we start to see Excel and Google Sheets kind of fade away for something that's better for athletes to work with. better for athletes to work with we're creating I'm creating something that I think will really fit the bill that avoids a lot of pitfalls that I've seen around and provide something that still has some human connection and some decision making some group stuff some education because those are kind of some of the things that I value but that allows people to get programming at a much lower cost because that, I think, is part of what we're seeing too. People just can't pay for high-level weekly coaching. They don't want weekly or they don't want like, you know, Candido's template or something like that. They want something more suited to them. So there does need to be a place to kind of hit that middle ground so i think i think that uh even though we don't see true ai in programming right now it's not long before we will see true ai in

programming um i've written a few like you know you just have to figure out some of the technical details you need a huge data set you need a few smart people to figure out how all that stuff works together. That's kind of one technological hill to crest. Even so, I wrote this essay about some of the problems with that. And a lot of them have to do with this black box idea. So AI says, you're going to do five sets of five today. And if you say, why am I doing five sets of five? There is no answer to that question besides the AI says so. Whereas a human would have reasons, the AI just has created a neural network

or machine learning algorithm built on thousands of people and this is the answer. And I think that's deeply unsettling for a lot of people. So I would like to see some solution to that down the road, but it's possible that it's just not solvable. So again, my best road forward is AI assisted coaching and not AI is delivering programming. Yeah. I never thought about that AI assisted part. And I could see like when you were talking about, like, those are awesome examples of like, yeah, 30% of people get hurt here. And you know, this person like, just, yeah, like the, almost like it's scanning the program and saying, did you know that this is the spot that this is the unknown territory we're going into?

And then when you also consider there is this huge data set at open powerlifting, maybe somehow that can incorporate into it too of we know all this data on what people have lifted at all these different spots. I can see how that would be really valuable. That does sound like a really cool thing um to possibly be part of lifting someday yeah are you concerned at all though that ai power lifting coaching is where skynet starts it's evolving by itself they're all doing volume blocks all the time it's too late I'm personally slightly worried about that. No, it's 10 sets of 10. Yeah. Yeah, that would be amazing.

And from a marketing perspective, it makes me crack up, but no, I don't see that happening. Yeah, right. Okay, that's cool. We've got this little game we like to play with every guest, Bryce. It's overrated, underrated. You're probably familiar with the premise. In our version, we do come up with a special set of topics for you. And the most important thing to remember with the overrated, underrated game is that you can't ride the line on any of these. You have to come up with a definitive answer of overrated, underrated. So if you're ready to play, we'd love to jump into it. Let's do it. All right, great. Overrated or underrated? Volleyball.

A sport of volleyball. Underrated. And I also should mention you can elaborate as much or as little as you would like to. So if you have anything else to... We know that you are a volleyball player. Yeah, I played six person indoor volleyball. And like, I think when people think of volleyball, they think of beach volleyball.

Everyone's going to get a chance to watch some high level volleyball at the Olympics this summer. And it is a fast paced, brutal game where you can get hit in the face with a hundred mile an hour ball. And like the athleticism is out of this world. People are jumping like 40 inches, um, play over the last 10 years has evolved to the point where like these sets are so quick. You're just like shooting a ball at

someone's face and hoping that they hit it in time over the net. It's just, it's wonderful to see. Um, it's really competitive and in the United States,'s volleyball isn't as big as women's volleyball if you go to like Brazil go to Italy go to Russia volleyball is huge and so I really enjoyed it I learned a ton from playing myself and it's just it's cool to watch to this day so underrated Tommy is pretty humble so he's not to openly brag to you about this, but we do have a pretty competitive city league here in Western Northeast, South Dakota. And Tommy has played on a team and been a contributing member.

You know, I have, I have been a multiple city league champion teams at the highest division in this town. Yeah. Tanner, you actually did tell me one time that someone you could hear them over talk or overheard some people talking about a guy playing volleyball with long hair and i'm like ah it's a small town i know that's tommy but on that note i would say um yeah i got i i when i first moved to town kind of got in with some people

that were into playing at uh on a more high level they would they would travel to different tournaments around the country and i found volleyball to to be very, very fun. It is a fun sport. And like you said, when I became aware of what the Olympic level was, I was like, whoa, this is a crazy thing that, yeah, these guys are all like 6'8", yeah, jumping like 40 inches, and they can hit a ball straight down if they want to yep it's it's really cool to see did you play at all prior to rally scoring i did yeah uh a rally scoring i think uh to be a a subtopic of uh to really be an advanced over and under topic could be a topic in itself but i've been familiar with volleyball long enough that i watched uh you know prior to

rally scoring or prior to like the Libro position and stuff. And it just seems quite a bit different now than when I was first familiar with it even. Yeah. They, they really try to make it more viewer friendly. Um, with, with the, uh, the rally scoring, you had to have serve to get a point. And so games would just last. Yeah. It's like 14 to 13 and it just goes back and forth and nobody, the scoreboard never changes.

Like that's usually not what you want as a spectator. Right. Yeah. So they, they've continually modified a few different rules. Like you can touch the net as long as you don't touch the top of the net now. Um,

it's been a few years since I played, so that might be a new one for me even. Yeah. All this, all this stuff is designed to make the play faster paced and punish people for real infractions. Okay, I like that. That's good.

Overrated or underrated? The topic is beanies, but we wanted to specifically talk... Tommy used the term slouch beanies. I don't know if you're familiar with that term at all, but I think you might know what we're talking about. Yeah. That specific genreouch beanies. I don't know if you're familiar with that term at all, but I think you might know what we're talking about. That specific genre of beanies. Maybe even the brand Neff, too, while we're at it.

You guys did your research. We're pretty advanced over here at Madison Ibex, too. Underrated. I love myself a good neff beanie makes me feel it's, it's like my portable, um, blanket that I just get to wear wherever. And I'm very sad when there's two months out of the year when it's hot as hell that I can't wear beanies. Um, yeah, definitely enjoy a beanie. It's underrated. Is the rule as long as it's not too hot for a beanie, a beanie will be on? You know, most of the time I've been diversifying. I've been trying to diversify. So

I've discovered baseball caps. I don't know if you've heard of them. But yeah, those are, those are good too. Okay. Oh, that's good. Okay. Overrated or underrated sport performance psychologists. Oh, underrated. Um, this is, so sports psychology is at least as far as powerlifting is concerned, relatively brand new. Um, I started learning about sports psychology when my head felt like a tornado during some preps leading into big competitions.

And I thought, you know, maybe there's a way to be better for this. And, you know, it turns out there's a whole branch of psychology dedicated just to athletes and how to optimize performance. And I think the problem is that a lot of people still think that, you know, you're going to get on a couch and you're going to lay down and, you know, you're going to talk about your parents. And it's, it's the exact opposite. It's, it's dedicated just to making you a better athlete. So, you know, you talk about how you warm up, what you're thinking about while you're training. Uh, you know, you go through like these practices that, you know, like if your thoughts start getting

negative, what do you do? Um, you know, if you start thinking about dropping a squat while you're squatting, like how do you recover that kind of stuff? And really, it's just kind of like you train your body. Let's train your mind a little bit, like even the smallest little bit. And the way I think about it is, you know, we've done let's go back to like this pre exercise science era of powerlifting. You know, and basically it's a bunch of bodybuilders like, you know, lift heavy weights and, you know, take beef liver pills and like, um, just, just like the, the prehistoric era of powerlifting. And in a lot of ways, we're still there for the brain side of this kind of stuff. And I just want to, I want to advocate for that and get people to at least try some of this stuff because it's made a

big difference for me. And so I think maybe it'll make a big difference for other people. So do you, are you working with someone like year round or like, what are your sessions? Like what's the frequency look like? I have before, um, especially going into like big competitions. I've done some big work around like confidence in my squat um that was a big one for me and like comparison against other people and uh you know just kind of like how to stay in the present moment you know not thinking about you know my athletes and and what i'm going to program for them when i'm trying to deadlift you know heavy triple or something so just like kind of like how to turn on sport mode and turn it off. And, um, I've worked with a few different people and we just brought a sports psychologist on our team at TSA so that any of our athletes

have access to that same type of stuff. And Amelia Potter is her name. She's amazing. And you can look her up on Instagram at pots. Thanks. two t's i think that's really cool i think that's uh pretty uh exciting stuff and one thing i was just thinking about it as we were talking maybe slightly related to it for a while there you were experimenting with i think you were using garbage bags placed yeah the barbells uh over the weights on the end of the bar when you were lifting. What did that? So did you have you had an idea of what range of weight you were going up to? Maybe like you knew it wasn't 135 or 810 pounds like. Yeah.

That's a wild thought. Like, yeah, but we like we would say it's kind of like when we would do a meet like before. Exactly. We had calibrated plates. It was like, God, there's plates on the bar. I'll just have to assume that what I think is on there is on there, but I'm just winging it, man. Right, right. Yeah. Yeah, I kind of wish I never learned, like, kilo plate math.

That's what reminds me of the time we were just talking about this week. talking about this week when you don't know when you're not familiar or comfortable with kilos pound plates you look at it and you know immediately 405 is 405 or 455 or you know 495 you know almost everyone in the gym knows it but with kilo plates if you never learn that you don't just know by looking and if you don't look at it closely you won't know yeah yeah absolutely thankfully i'm still ignorant to like what to what Ray Williams has in the bar. I can't count. I don't know. That's like 12 rants. I can't even count. They're too thin and close together. I'm not sure how many that is. Right. But yeah, so for your listeners, I attended this conference called the European Powerlifting Conference. And Hugh Gilmore, awesome sports psychologist who's worked with British weightlifting and still does active research, I think.

Anyway, he talked about like some pressure training that he was doing with some weightlifters where he would – I think he would put a curtain on the side of the bar or something like that. And they would leave the room, come back in, and not know what was on. And essentially you have to treat it like it's the heaviest thing possible. And I thought, well, that's cool. I've never seen that in powerlifting. And it just coincided with like this fear that I had squatting heavy weights for a while, like anything over 600 pounds, even if my max was like 715 at the time, like would give me this sense of anxiety and like, you can't do this. And so I would, Natalie and I would do this thing where I would warm up to a certain point. Uh, and then she would just kind of load the bar based on an RPE target for the day. So like, you know, a triple seven and a half

and, uh, you know, I would turn a chair around, she would load the bar cover back up with these trash bags and I would come back out and lift it. And I'm not saying it's a silver bullet or anything like that, but it did help. Yeah, I couldn't, I mean, it makes sense though. It does.

To me, it sounds like a really good, well thought out, elaborate plan to get someone else to load the plates for you. Yeah. You know, it was the hottest meme for about a week. Yeah.

Yeah. I remember that. Yeah. No, that's cool. That is interesting. Okay. It was the hottest meme for about a week. Yeah, yeah. I remember that. No, that's cool. That is interesting. Okay. Last overrated or underrated topic that we've got for you, and you correct me if I do not pronounce this correctly. Overrated or underrated grovlocks?

Oh, okay, okay. You're talking about basically like smoked salmon but like the the um swedish version of grovlocks okay grovlocks itself is overrated um smoked salmon uh you know i think if i had to be honest i think people think smoked salmon is really good um so it it's probably just it's like properly rated, but, uh, I know that's against the rules for what I'm supposed to say. Um, grovlox, uh, is usually, so I love smoked salmon a lot. I, I, most days I have a smoked salmon bagel with either hot smoked salmon, which is like, um, you've seen, it looks like a filet of fish intact and you can kind of break off

little flakes. It has this pellicle across the top, this kind of crusty brownish kind of texture. And, uh, it's, it's really, it's tasty, good stuff. Um, there is Scottish smoked or cold smoked salmon, which is smoked at like 90 to 110 degrees. And it's kind of like it's still squishy, but it's preserved because it's been cured and they slice it super thin. That goes on like, you know, every New York, New York bagel that you see, you know, like a New York style smoked salmon bagel with, you know, the works. And then gravlax is kind of different.

with uh you know the works and then grovlox is kind of different um it's cured but they use dill and it just it's always tasted really freaking weird to me and uh i've i've never liked it and so that is overrated okay so okay so like on the topic of kind of like cured correct me if i'm wrong i feel like for a while you had a lot of stuff in your stories. Were you like curing or smoking meats or something like that? Yeah, I made, um, I made salami, which was, uh, quite a process. I like, uh, you know, projects, um, especially things around food. And, um, I made salami from scratch. Like you just go, I went up the freeway and there's some farms up there and, and, uh, I bought some pork fat and some pork shoulder. You dice it up, you get meat grinder, you know, you have to mix it with, uh, like specific bacteria. You have to keep it a specific temperature and humidity.

And I went through all this work and like, it wasn't that good at the end. That was going to be my question. Was it worth it? work and like it wasn't that good at the end that was gonna be my question was it worth it no no it wasn't for for a few reasons like you know you finish and you have like 12 salamis like what am i gonna do with 12 salamis and it wasn't that good so it's funny prior to this conversation at this second in my life i've never thought that much about what is salami exactly i made salami yeah i went to the store and I came home and I cut it up and ate it. I made it. Right. All right, cool.

Well, good news, Bryce. I think you passed overrated and underrated, so flying colors, I would say even. Sweet. No, that kind of wraps up what we wanted to talk to you about. We're excited for you at USAPL Nationals. We'll be cheering for you, of course. Is there anything else that you need to get out there? I'm sure if people want to find you, it's The Strength Athlete and your Instagram. Anything else?

If you are dissatisfied with current options for cheap programming, stay tuned because we got you covered in like six weeks. Okay, cool. Other than that, you know, I post lots of pseudo philosophical musings on Instagram and you can find out any, anything more about coaching on our website, strengthathlete.com. And you guys have been awesome. This has been a lighthearted, amazing conversation. That's exactly what we're trying to do. The funny thing is, is this is probably the most and you guys have been awesome. This has been a lighthearted, amazing conversation. That's exactly what we try to do.

The funny thing is, is this is probably the most we've talked about lifting and programming in a very long time on this podcast. So this is the most, believe it or not, this is the most in-depth we've gone in quite a while. And we've had Greg Knuckles on. We've got Mike T coming on soon. I mean, we've talked to a lot of people that know a lot about it.

We just like to talk about grovlocks and volleyball and that sort of stuff. You guys choose your topics well. I'm pleased. Thanks, Bryce. We really appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thanks. See you guys. Cool grovlocks beans.

He got the double grovlocks beans. Ians. Cool beans. Cool beans. Cool Grovlox beans, Tanner. He got the double Grovlox beans. I'm just impressed that he chose, he says that the same way that I said it. Like kind of Grovlox, I guess. Yeah. Ever heard of that before today? Just rolls off the tongue. I've never heard of it. No.

I'm not a huge salmon guy. I was going to ask you. Talking about all that smoked salmon, that just sounds disgusting to me. For me. I don't want to offend Bryce and say that. Like salmon. I'll eat it. I don't, I'm like i i'm not gonna be like oh salmon no that's not who i am yeah um no i agree with that i'd be like i even sometimes there's a place in town that i think actually has a very good salmon dish that i i do occasionally order uh-huh but i do not like

salmon and sushi like for me that's probably the most common place i run across salmon at least around here right um for me salmon and sushi it doesn't matter what's in it it's the most overpowering ingredient in sushi all the other all the other fish varieties you can pick they all work together and go but salmon it's just like i'm straight up just tasting salmon like that's so i'm not a huge salmon guy and then like smoked salmon isn't something you find very often around here no that's i'm like you gotta go like out of your way to find i don't know exactly what he's talking about to tell you the honest truth like that you know talking about new york we uh it must be common you get an everything bagel with yeah like smoked salmon that's like

little thin layers of salmon yeah that sounds terrible to me that is not what i would shoot i could i could eat it but i have so many options. If I'm going to get a bagel, I want you to put cheese and an egg and like a piece of ham on it. Now that sounds like a good bagel. I want something that tastes good. Meats. But it could be good. Yeah, we probably haven't had the best sampling. I'm kind of like, yeah, someone that really knows it well.

We're close to the most landlocked place you could be in the country. Yeah, we're not getting like the ocean freshest fish. The catch of the day. Yeah. Right. Market priced fish. Right. All right.

I think that's awesome. Do we have any other topics we wanted to hit today? I mean, there's other topics. Should we hit them today hit them today probably not we got to save something for next we gotta save something yeah i'd be ashamed to run out of stuff at this point do did we do all four ad reads oh no we got one okay you got one left so that's all i do oh damn yeah i was i was over there waiting for you to read it tanner. Who's the goose? We got to hear about the Strength Co. Today's show is brought to you by the, geez, spoiler alert, Tanner. Oh, sorry. Shoot.

The Strength Co. The Strength Co. operates starting strength affiliate gyms out of Southern California. They have a staff of experienced starting strength coaches that know the best way to develop strength through the barbell movements. Grant, the owner of the Strength Co., co is a marine and he is passionate about obtaining quality american products and labor for all aspects of his business the strength co makes premium made in america barbell equipment including their machined and e-coated plates i would also add they fit the kabuki power bar like a glove all the all the bars in there really

they just like they they they fit every bar our texas power bars our rogue bars every bar they just have the cleanest tightest fit i bench with them for the first time you know i normally squat with them but i bench with them for the first time and i feel like there's a different level of connection you have when you're benching with them i think so too you know it's i think it's the bars it's the level it's the level you're not reaching out for it it's kind of it's right there you really's the height. You're not reaching up for it. It's kind of. It's right there. You really get to, like, as you're placing that plate on, you're really, like, you're just handling and looking at it.

Yeah, yeah, it's a good feeling on the bench. It brought me to a new level of respect. These plates are functional, easy to handle, accurate, and made to last a lifetime. The Strength Co. plates have become the go-to choice for all members at massonomics gym including uh massonomics co-host tommy certainly as heard in my previous testimonial as for just right now just rewind a minute ago check out their plates and all their other made in america

equipment online at the strength co.com that's the strength co.com thank you to our sponsors the strength co fusion sports performance spud inc and last but definitely not least tanner texas power bars exactly were you testing me it's only one way to find out that's right uh i was scrambling in my head for a second because i'd hate to leave one of the sponsors hanging few things we need you guys to do now we just did a lot for you we just gave you an hour 30 minutes, 32 minutes of just top shelf level content. And so we have a simple 30 minute sales pitch we're going to have to take you through now. What we need you to do is find 10 friends.

Yeah. And then get them to each find 10 friends. In maybe an order of importance. I don't actually know what the order importance so just in whatever order i think they're all the most important yeah all the priority go to our store online massonomics.com slash shop if you will buy whatever you want to we've got a lot of shirts just really rad shirts and so many different designs and shorts and flags shorts of course you guys know about the shorts at this point. If this is your first episode, we have these shorts.

They're really expensive. Yada, yada, yada. Listen to some other episodes. You'll get that. But there is, I was just looking at the numbers today, Tanner. There's a couple sweatshirts that only have like one or two. Actually, there's a good chance that your size probably isn't there, but there's a few sweatshirts that have like one or two items left.

Go ahead and buy those sweatshirts. I can take it off the site. Yeah, we'd love to do that. There's only a couple of those left. And then we have probably five or six different shirt styles on sale. The stack of my sweatshirts, isn't all of those styles combined is literally this tall. Tanner's holding up about a foot.

I would say about 18 inches. That's how many sweatshirts we have. This many sweatshirts left. And there's quite a few, or not quite a few. There's probably five or six t-shirt styles that are on sale. And when those are gone, they will be gone for quite a while. And those have been selling. Those have been selling.

People are taking advantage of the sale. So this is your chance on those. This is your chance. There's a few of them, and they're good designs too. And those things are all great, but what's really great is the new stuff we have coming out that's true like we always do and tank tops we still have the tank tops yep tank tops are still available but those are seasonal so yeah those could probably be gone for the season by the time they sell out and they're getting closer to that every day here

they are tank tops are moving quick uh we do have the new stuff we do have stuff coming later towards the end of this month yeah the other thing I would say on our shop though is the supporting podcast supporting membership if you're a big fan of the podcast you really like the podcast or you just really like giving people your money you could sign up to become a supporting member we got the thing for you we've got a great options there there's a lot of stuff that comes with it go onto the site and look up the supporting membership you can see some all the lucrative benefits that you get through that process so please go sign up uh it's great we love them and if you're not going to sign up then at least

tell like four people what the podcast yeah that would be the other thing grab their podcast player and hit subscribe for them hit subscribe and then also leave a five-star review we're almost on the road to the road to 400 podcast reviews i'll be really excited when we hit that 400 number because that means we're all soon to be on the road to 500 and you know what that means we don't even have to say it we don't even have to say everyone so please help us uh with those five star reviews then you can also uh follow us both on instagram tommy where you can find me at tomahawk underscore deep you can find me at tanner underscore baird but just please follow massonom at Masonomics. See ya.