Massenomics Podcast - Ep. 297: Sean Noriega

Episode Date: December 13, 2021

Big Sean joined us for this one to talk about USAPL Vs. Powerlifting America, competition in powerlifting, and if everyone that goes to MIT is a nerd. Do your lateral raises. The Strength Co: https://www.thestrength.co/ Hybrid Performance Method: https://www.hybridperformancemethod.com/ MASS to save 5% on all training & nutrition 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 podcast and all the rest. You're doing a great job. I 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! side everything massonomics welcome back everyone and welcome to episode 297 of the massonomics 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, for another banger 297. We're getting dangerously close to 300. And at 300, we're pulling out all the stops.

So for now, there's still a few stops. But when we get to 300, all the stops are going away. We're throwing them away. Another big milestone episode for us. So exciting to see what we got in store for that one. Does no one, the Discord is talking to us right now. Does no one have video on the Discord? Can we get just a picture of me is all they say, huh? Okay, Tanner.

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MAS. MAS. M-A-S-S. It'll'll save you a massive 20 on your entire order at fusion sp.net sounds like you figured out the video i did probably you know the whole just quit it and start it up again oldest trick in the book try holding down the power button that's all you gotta do that's that's been my secret all along okay well our weather changed significantly okay yeah we got just last episode is when we're talking how it was 60 degrees yep that was one week ago today you know it was funny because i was talking to a family member saying are we good

it was sunday morning we're eating breakfast and i go are we supposed to get snow is snow in the forecast and they're like i think and later in the week and it was like three hours later the snow was coming down yep how's that for timing that's and it got us we i think we got did you have to shovel your uh walk i did have to do a little shoveling not much just a little yeah you know we have a south facing driveway you let old mother nature handle it for you. Yeah, I suppose that does help. Yeah, we had to bust the shovel out. And that's always a, it's always a, ah. And the tricky part is, too, I have a snowblower. Anyone that doesn't live in an area where you don't have to deal with the snow,

you don't know about these struggles. But it was a, maybe we got like three inches. Yeah, and it was really light stuff, too. Yeah, so it wasn't that much. So it's like, ah, it's not hardly worth getting the snowblower out and then about halfway through shoveling i'm like man i should have just done the snowblower it just takes it just takes so long i both actually take a long time so it doesn't it's not really necessarily speed when you have that uh really wide driveway it makes shoveling kind of a pain in the ass yeah the three stall that was uh my old driveway was more of a narrow two stall.

Oh, so mine was like a very, my old one was a very narrow two stall, which you could stand in the middle and just throw snow across no problem, which is like, yeah, no big deal. But, yeah, once you get that wider driveway, you got to be a little strategic with how you clear that thing off with a shovel. That is true. So that's what we're doing that's what we're living now it's cold and snowy everything's all shitty and dirty everywhere

yeah that is like the vehicles get all crappy then though too oh god pull in your garage and it like all melts on and it's like why is everything melting off of it pure black yeah everything's just like it's like now when you go down the road the busier roads and all the snow just brown and all shitty on the sides it looks so disgusting everywhere, it's like now when you go down the road, the busier roads, and all the snow's just brown and all shitty on the sides. It looks so disgusting everywhere. Yeah. It's like, this is where we live for six months of the year. Yeah, we're in it now. We're in that shit.

But speaking of the season, Tanner, you know, the Christmas season is just around the corner. It's true. Which means one thing. Nachos Navidad is upon us. Feliz. Tis the season we should maybe for uh for the christmas episode we should get nachos navidad we probably should yeah the feast and crunch into uh tortilla chips basically be an ad for taco john we should probably talk to them about sponsoring right right they already they already have whiplash the cowboy monkey so why not get masonomics

isn't dumber than that i can tell you that like it might be as dumb yeah it's not dumber than whiplash than a cowboy monkey yeah i mean that is pretty cool yeah but yeah i like whiplash i did too but we would fit we'd fit right in great with whiplash no i think so they could they could make a like a new they could do an origin story of whiplash the cowboy monkey and say that we were like his trainers. Yep. That would be a great one. I like that.

I think that's how Mastodonomics fits into the Taco John... Universe? Yeah. The extended universe of Taco Johns. Right, right, right. What? Taco Johns doesn't get... Taco Johns is having an extended universe

with a lot of players and movers and shakers. Taco Johns doesn't get wild enough, though, like what we've talked about. taco john's having an extended universe with a lot of players and movers and shakers taco john's doesn't get wild enough though on the main like what we've talked about yeah they're not that crazy creation kitchen like taco bellas no they got something to work on then they just they go crazy with their mascots i i uh re-watched the ronnie coleman documentary i don't know if you ever watched that before i think we did we do an episode about it we probably did and i uh it popped up on something or i saw someone else watching it and i re-watched king yeah i think that's what it's called right yeah buddy definitely it wasn't called the blade

or the shadow and i don't think it was called the gift so no it was the king yeah probably probably the king he is one guy like i don't think he needs a nickname yeah you know yeah he does not he doesn't really need a nickname like he just transcends nicknames even um but that is that's tough like he's in i don't know what his progress is in the last two or three years i think it's more of the same essentially maybe even worse isn't it i don't know yeah couldn't be much worse because he could barely walk well didn't they was it at the arnold that they did in like what was it september when we were at the uh showdown there was an arnold right uh yeah right there didn't they didn't they present him with some award there okay and didn't he like basically

not couldn't he like not even get up to hardly accept it yeah oof yeah i guess it is uh interesting watching him though and he's pretty much in the field of no regrets. So then I'm like, yeah. Well, he is. I guess I don't feel bad, actually. Yeah, you don't. That's the approach. But the weird part was is when you,

because it was about a year ago, he had an interview on Joe Rogan. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And when Joe, it kind of felt like he was the first person that ever asked him these questions. He's like, oh. Should you go to another doctor?

Have you ever seen an, or yeah, this one doctor is fused. Like every vertebrae in my back, like my entire back is fused. I think is almost what he said, which doesn't even sound real, but right. Basically said, yep. Every single bone in my back is fused. And he goes, oh, have you got a lot of second opinions? He's like, nope, just my one doctor. He's done every one of my surgeries.

He's like, oh, just the same one. You didn't want to go to anyone else. He's like, nope, just my same guy. That done every one of my surgeries he's like oh just the same one you didn't want to go to anyone else he's like no just my same guy that seems maybe a little suspect there you get the feeling almost that he's maybe a little too trusting yeah those people are it's like you know maybe it wouldn't hurt at this point to check it out with somebody else i don't know if it if i guess if if your options are be in severe pain and not be able to walk or be in severe pain and be able to walk, like were those the options? I don't even know.

Because it seems like he's had all these surgeries and he's still in severe pain and still can't walk. Right. Well, yeah, he said he was taking like five. Did he say he was taking two? Yeah, he was taking way too much. He was taking a lot of Codone or something today. He even admitted he was two? Yeah. He was taking too much. Or something today. He's like,

I think I was taking too much for a while. Yeah. Yeah. I think he said something, something about that. Yeah. That's, uh,

but that guy's not really a feel good documentary though. Like on that stuff. I'm like, Oh yeah, that's rough. Like then the, the guy that owns a Metro flex, you know,

they interview him at the end and he's, you know, in tears talking about how tough it is for him. Like the time that he walked in like that it was just like oh because he was like the biggest baddest man on the planet and now it's you know like yeah at what cost yeah right right old ronnie old ronnie yep but it was still worth a good watch because i haven't seen it for a while so it was still worth a good watch because I haven't seen it for a while, so it was still entertaining to me again.

Yeah, I can tell you I probably won't watch that one again. I actually, it's a little depressing though. Yeah, I know. I feel like that was my takeaway from it that I left with it like, yep, I guess I got that. I'm good now. Yeah.

Put that in the list of movies that probably don't need to watch again in my life. Speaking of iconic people in strength sports, this week there was a couple big lifters that returned to the platform. There were. A couple big power lifters that have been names in the sport for the last decade plus. We had Dan Green out of Boss Barbell out of California. Came back for his first meet,

and I think he might have even said his first competition in like six years that's that's the number i saw too six years which that seems insane yeah that's a long time like powerlifting existed in 2015 right yeah that's a lot that's that's a long time ago and so he he squatted what uh which i was. So he squatted, I think, 804, which was a PR for him in sleeves. And the surprising thing there is 804, doesn't everyone do that now? Right, right, which is kind of, you know, of the elite powerlifters. It's not completely true, but you don't go crazy over hearing someone have an 800-pound squat anymore. Right, and a part of it being the most he's ever squatted in sleeves before

is I don't know how much he competed in sleeves before also because in the last six years i think there's been a little bit of a shift over that period of time where there's a lot more people competing in sleeves now than there were six years ago where wraps were more i mean there's still people squatting in wraps but a lot of the big big meats are going away from wraps yeah like that used to be the thing is all the biggest meats were in wraps. And that's becoming less the case every year. So he squatted that 804. He benched like, I don't know if it was low 400s. And then he deadlifted.

He only got his opener deadlift, which I think was 770 or somewhere in there. So he ended up, his total I think was 2006 pounds. Which is also crazy because 2,000 pounds is just... I mean, for us, it'd be a whole... It's really strong for us and it's still really strong. It's still insane. It's in the 220-pound weight class. It's a lot, but it's...

And he's still crazy strong. There's no doubt about that, but it's just showing how much the world has changed. Right. A lot of the big meets, like that number. Well, that was what we joked about at the showdown with a bunch of people competing. It's like, oh, 2,000. Everyone used to say,

oh, it used to be a big deal to get 2,000 pound total. Now it's like, well, everyone here has that. Yes, 2,000 is still remarkable. You're still insanely strong if you're doing 2,000. But in the scheme of elite powerlifting, 2,000 just feels like it's starting to mean less and less all the time. Yeah.

Yeah, it does. But it's interesting. I'll be exciting. I assume he's going to keep competing now, and maybe it's a building block for him. That will be the interesting part is to see if there is more. I mean, I wouldn't fault the guy if he said, I'm going to retire.

He's been around a while. Do you know how old he is no i have no clue how old he is either i feel like uh is he 40 that's what i want i wanted to say closer to 40 than 30 yeah right he's got to be older than us isn't he be really unusual if he wasn't yeah uh yeah maybe my guess is he's uh let's just take wild guesses i'm gonna say he's 38 let's see who can get closer i'm gonna say 39 okay it's like you've prices right and if we if either of us get exactly right we get a 100 bill and extra cool beans yeah okay tanner would you like to know yes he is 39 years old as of damn it as of december 1st so if we would have done this about two weeks ago you would have beat me but so we're both pretty good guessers on that one aren't we so he's not quite masters yet then

either is he not quite he's in that old sub masters according to well oh yeah wikipedia here his best lifts in the 242 pound class are an 848 pound squat a 530 pound bench and an 837 pound deadlift i think some of his injuries really have hampered his bench press specifically like i bet there's been some things and he had some pretty bad ones in there yeah like yeah if yeah, if you're at that high of a level and you have to take six years off, unless you're just... I don't think he was taking six years off for the hell of it.

I think he got hurt that many times over that course of time. Unless you're doing it for fun, there's probably a reason. And yeah, it did, by the sounds of it, he had a lot of injuries in there. I think I'll officially be in the submasters class here in, like, a month. I'll be a submasters submasters class here in like a month. I'll be a submaster.

Really? That's early. What? Yeah. 35 is submasters. Really? That's when it starts. Yeah.

35 to 40. I don't know what submasters even is. I didn't, wasn't even all that aware of it until recently. I heard people talk about it. It was brought to your attention. Right. Right.

But yes, a whole new set of submasters I think is 35 to 40. And I don't know if all things recognize records in that class or why that's even a group i'm like why do you need to be a class for 35 to 40 that's just five years of a subset of a subset right yeah that's but i think technically that's what people can consider submasters so like next month i'll be submasters i'd have to have a submasters party a whole new lease on life over here yeah geez going through a submasters life crisis i'm gonna go buy a corvette and uh start racing the neighborhood yeah wow well that's good to know

i guess um okay so dan yeah dan had his what was that was record breakers right yeah yeah that was Well, that's good to know, I guess. Okay, so Dan. Yeah, Dan had his. What was it? That was Record Breakers, right? Yeah. Yeah. That was eight. I didn't see any.

Man Strong Record Breakers or something. I didn't catch anything else from there. No, actually, that's weird. I'm not aware of anything else. It didn't dawn on me until right now that I did not see a thing on any other pages outside of that. No, I don't know that I really saw. I did not see anything else of it. Which now that's got me curious.

Are we just that out of the loop, Tanner? Which is probably the answer. Or was there nothing remarkable? I'm curious if I can very quickly find meets on Open Power. Are we going to do an open power lifting stat of the week uh throwback yeah for any of you in the that used to be a segment that we had was open power lifting stat of the week eight man record breakers here we go oh yeah hunter henderson i did oh yeah

that's right that is what i said i forgot that i just didn't wasn't associating that that was at uh record breakers yeah that actually didn't click in my brain either. Outside of that, just looking really quick, I don't recognize. I have to say I either didn't realize or had forgotten just how big and muscular her legs are. Yeah. Where I'm like, holy crap. Like the size of her. Okay. holy crap like the size of her okay well this is what's kind of weird is that record breakers uh dan green from what i can tell is the only person there to total over 2000 okay so that's

certainly not the showdown meet then is it yeah your other big totals would be there was a guy that did 1940 chris garcia um and then an 1800 1840 1970 17 18 and then it all drops into the 15s and 14s so okay not it's an odd meet that is an odd meet well it's an odd name at the very least that's what i'm saying it's an odd meet that it's record breakers yeah and i guess those could be like it's powerlifting those could very well be records of some kind well they were all records of some like you said it is powerlifting but uh it's not not the records that typically are noteworthy in the situations the other guy that was or wait do we need to do it to him we need to we need to do it to him for sure right now. We've been on a cliffhanger then. It's called building tension. I'm on a cliff.

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thank you thank you strength co uh what was the cliffhanger there tanner the other guy big guy that uh did some competing this step back on the stage this weekend was uh mr optimus prime did some competing step back on the stage this weekend, was Mr. Optimist Prime, longtime friend of the podcast Ray Williams. Yeah. We might have to get Big Ray on the podcast sometime. Yeah, we probably should. We never have, have we?

He's been keeping a pretty low profile the last couple years. It's always money time, though. It is always money time. He's told us that before. Yeah, he has. I never forget it. Every time I think, is it money time? Is it time to go home? Oh, no, it's just money time. No, it's money time. Oh, yeah, it's it money time god this is time to go home oh no it's just no it's money

time right oh yeah it's always money time baby uh so he did come back he squatted over a thousand pounds which that's after guys gone a while you you wonder is that still in there yeah you wouldn't blame him if it wasn't but apparently when you're ray williams you just always squat a thousand pounds no matter what the videos of him uh going at that look just as exciting as they always have you know uh I imagine the whole place gets like that was the thing at the Arnold like when Ray Williams go to squat like the whole place is like you can't you don't you have to be there early in order to outside of the strongman events nothing else felt like it was at that level of excitement. Right, right.

It was like specifically Ray Williams' squat and probably like his second and third attempts. He was at that time really busting barriers with that though. That's true too. That was such uncharted territory. It's good to see him do over 1,000 and it's kind of the same question as like, okay, is this him being back?

And then like he's going to be able to build off that now and like make some progress back towards, you know because he for a while there it kept uh he's pushing so close to 1100 pound squat in sleeves like i think he did 1080 maybe or something that he had in there yeah i think it was right up there yeah so but right it was like the virginia pro is what this was so was. Actually, we'll talk about this. Yeah, we'll talk about it with our guests this week, I suppose. I don't know. You can say what you want about other meets and everything,

but I still don't know if anyone makes a meet that looks that cool. Yeah. Like they got it down how to put on a show. It is. Like a lot of meets, you're lucky to get a backdrop with sponsored logos that are legible on it. Yep, that's right. And here they're on to like big-ass video boards.

It's just a totally, totally different vibe at these things. And they pay out pretty crazy money too. Yeah, I think the three, they paid out for the top three at least. I saw them holding the checks, you know, Ashton Ruska won. It was like 15 grand or something. Yeah, yeah. Nothing to shake a stick at. You know, I'm sure he just woke up that morning and was like, oh, I'll go lift today. And then he village 15 grand or something yeah yeah not bad for nothing to shake a stick at you know i'm sure he just woke up that morning was like i'll go lift today and then he made 15 grand

isn't that how that usually goes uh that's that's how i remember it yeah you got a can anything uh for oh i do over there this week i have a beverage for a standard we've done this one before okay so i'm not going to make you play where uh what's can. Okay. But you can try and take a guess at what the actual flavor is. I'll just, I won't. Okay, you're not going to put the blindfold. Since it's not what's in the can, I won't put on my protective blindfold.

I'll just. You'll skip the formalities. Yeah. Still good though. Oh yeah, what is that? It's good. I always enjoy reading the guesses on Discord. You know, it's a sparkling water.

Is it like... It's creamy like creamy in the way that cherry coke is creamy no no it's creamy and fruity i don't know if it's oh is it like it's like the orange creamsicle thing that you you know like the orange popsicle creamsicle that's like my cream there you go orange vanilla orange vanilla yeah that's what it is yeah it took me a second it really tastes like those orange uh creamsicle yeah that's what the flavor is this is a good one though this is one of the good ones one of the best it's very good and that's uh polar polar people at polar are onto something over there they know how to do it to them don't't they? Their flavor profiles are dialed in.

I do like it. Someone had a really interesting one. Was that today I shared it in our story? I want to check if that's still out there. Oh, yeah, this one. Oh, yeah, what was that? Vanilla. Vanilla cherry soda.

Well, didn't we get that one sent to us? Well, that was the ugly that we had right no that was the ugly was cherry did we get those or was it the root beer ones that they sent us from canada yeah i don't think we had because this would be essentially vanilla cherry coke and i don't i would i think i would have oh yeah yeah you're right i don't yeah i'm getting because i'm thinking of was it the it was was that when we discovered the labels in canada for root beer pink yeah is that what it was yeah i think so okay what's this brand then is it just called I'm getting, because I'm thinking of, was that when we discovered the labels in Canada for root beer pink? Yeah.

Is that what it was? Yeah, I think so. Okay. Because what's this brand then? Is it just called Sparklin Water with an exclamation point or something like that? I don't know. There's just like weird Canadian writing on it. President's Choice.

Yes, yes. Yeah. That's what it is. But I want one of those, President's Choice Vanilla, or what is that? Vanilla Cherry Cola. Be pretty good, I bet. it is but i want one of those president's choice vanilla or what is that vanilla cherry cola be pretty good i bet yes it would be um do you know who david burn is david burns yeah yeah i just we've been listening to quite a bit of talking heads yeah and Yeah? Like just any specific one or just?

Just all of it. Okay. Really all of it. And they're just so wacky. Like that whole group, they're also, like have you seen, watched them before? And like they're just basically their shtick in the way that they look and the way that they perform. Okay, I think I'm thinking of the wrong thing. Yeah.

David. I'm thinking of the wrong thing. Yeah, David. I'm maybe I'm saying it wrong. David Burns or day is a David or Dave. You know, I'm thinking I'm thinking of Ken Burns. Who's Ken? He does all the doctor burns from.

No, no. I don't know who Dave. I do not know. Oh, you don't know. No, I'm thinking of. Is it Ken? I don't know who dave i do not know oh you don't know no i'm thinking of is it ken i don't know who ken burns is i know who mr burns is yeah ken burns is the one that has all like the pbs documentaries where it's like photos of the civil war soldier and here they're doing this and that's uh that's ken burns yeah he has all these war documents. This is a good picture of David Burns right here. David Burn.

There should be no S at the end. David Burn and the Talking Heads. This is what he looks like. Oh, I have no idea. Oh, so what is this? He's, you've never heard, like, David Burn. I shouldn't say you've never heard of him. I barely can remember his name, but, like, I shouldn't say you've never heard of him. I barely can remember his name,

but like, I don't know what his most popular songs are. Like he's a member of the, like it's, it's his band. It's his group. He's a member of the talking heads. Right.

Right. Right. I thought you were saying like talking. So that's also a thing when people talk on camera, it's the talking. Oh no. I'm saying literally like the musical group. I'm thinking Ken Burns documentary,

a person talking on the screen. That's what I'm like. Oh, what one? Like, I'm thinking you're like listening to documentaries all the time no no no whoo yeah man okay okay i don't know what their most favorite i don't know the titles of their songs even uh yes when you find yourself yes yes yes yes okay yeah now i feel better that uh yes yes okay yeah now i feel better that uh psycho killer uh this must be the place that's maybe that's the one um burning down the house yes uh they have a very much a cult following yeah i wonder what all they're on like what do you think are their drugs of choice probably a

lot of stuff yeah that is uh wow that took a long time to get there, Tanner. That probably took me way too long to get there. But you know what the important thing is? I got there? We got there. Yep. Talking heads. That is funny.

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Can't afford to not do it. Essentially millions of dollars it comes out to. If you put pen to paper and really calculate it out it's it's millions of dollars now should we get our guest on the horn let's do it you know what we got to do before we do that though what we got to say goodbye to our other friends okay okay goodbye neighbors bye discord i said no wait too late they're gone. Now we'll get our other guests on the horn.

There it is. Maybe. Hello? hello big sean is this you this is sir how are you great this is uh tanner and tommy you're live on the massonomics podcast what's up sean tanner and tommy how you guys doing we're great we're great we're excited to get you on here no i appreciate it thank you for having me excellent we're just going to hop right into all kinds of questions that we've got for you, if that's all right with you. Sounds good. Absolutely. I guess just a tiny bit of background. First, you're number two USAPL lifter, 83-kilogram class.

I think at Nationals this last year, you got a second to just Mr. Or he, is that correct? Well, based on overall rankings, so based on totals, I'm second, but I actually got injured at this year's nationals.

Oh, right. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yep. But yeah, for the past several years,

you know, based on nationals performances as well as, you know, just total rankings. I'm sitting at number two right now in the 83s. Okay, excellent. So first question then is, we obviously know that there's been big changes in the USAPL and the IPF world.

We don't specifically only cover that portion of powerlifting, but we are aware of it. We don't know as much as someone that's heavily involved in it as you, but our first question would be, so what are you doing? Are you doing going forward? Are you doing USAPL or powerlifting America? So that's a great question. I actually just put out a YouTube video today. We saw that just before we were getting ready and we're like, we really should have had time to watch this, but the perfect't. So we don't, we don't know what was out there on that. So it'll be news to us. might not know, basically the USAPL has done third-party testing to accomplish more drug testing, but with the IPF wanting them to be WADA compliant, they wanted the USAPL to be subject to explicitly or exclusively WADA tests, but because of how much more expensive those are,

the USAPL wouldn't have been able to test at the frequency they wanted to, so eventually there was a split because this couldn't be reconciled. But with how frequently a lot of countries in the IPF test, I think from a moral standpoint, I side with the USAPL and with what's been laid out with the whole pro series set up and what's promised. And I think that the USAPL has been doing a good job of getting people who are more in the trenches, some of the younger people who are coaching and are more involved. The USAPL is doing a better job getting them involved in administrative decisions and media stuff. So overall, I'm optimistic for the USAPL. PL. But for this coming year, my plan is to do powerlifting America solely because, you know,

obviously with nationals getting injured, I wasn't really able to put up any sort of performance indicative of what training was like. And I know Russell Orhe is wanting to go the IPF route this year because I think his long-term goal is you know to do like sheffield which is like the big money meet that spd is putting on and you know for me i i really like the the layout that they've come up with for this pro series like you know the this past weekend in virginia looked really cool um but what drives me as a competitor is that head to head within weight classes. And it's just been years of back and forth between Russ and me. And, you know, that is the ultimate goal for me in this sport. Like I want to win the 83 kilo weight class. And I think that if I were to just abandon that, it would be very unfulfilling for me

as a lifter. That makes sense. it would be very unfulfilling for me as a lifter. That makes sense. It's hard to say now because the USAPL with this whole thing is so new, but if over time more and more people start to leave the Powerlifting America IPF branch and go to the USAPL route, does that start to take some of the shine off of going after a world title? Like with the idea that a lot of the shine off of going after a world title like with the idea that a lot of the top competitors are in america and if they do move like does that make a world title

seem less appealing or less exciting so i mean i definitely think so and i think that this has already been an issue and it's probably why a lot of you know high level usapl lifters decided to stay um because in a lot of weight classes especially on the men's side you know the high level USAPL lifters decided to stay. Because in a lot of weight classes, especially on the men's side, you know, the US does dominate. And you'll see so many, you know, weight classes where one through five in USAPL at nationals could win a world championship if any of them were selected. But just based on the nomination process, you know, only one person per weight class per country is allowed to go. You know, it's not like the Olympics where you

can have a podium that's all American, right? It's one person selected. So I think that's already led a lot of people to stay. You know, you look at Ashton Ruska, you look at Brandon Petrie, a lot of these guys are would-be contenders at the IPF level but choose to stay. And with powerlifting, it is true that anything could happen, but it's a lot more cut and dry than playing baseball or football where there's a lot more variables that anybody really could win on the day. But I ultimately think the USAPL wins out long-term. I think that the USAPL, you know, has freed up a lot of cash in not paying dues to the IPF. Um, you have a lot of the top competitors staying. Sponsorships are not exclusive to the IPF. And, you know, I'm hearing rumors that like other countries are going to, uh, leave and, you leave and participate in this international umbrella

that the USAPL is looking to create long term. So hypothetically, what if... First of all, everything you're saying makes total sense to me. I get that decision process for sure. But what if tomorrow Russ said, for whatever reason, he said, yeah, actually, I changed my mind. I'm going to do, I'm going USAPL route instead. Would that influence you at all? You know, because of the competition thing, especially with him being, you know, you two, like you said, going back and forth. Would you want, would that, would something like that ever potentially sway your decision short term? Or would you be like no absolutely yeah so so i guess to be very very cut and dry about it like i i genuinely

don't care about the ipf world championship okay so it is really the competition with russ then at that point exactly okay yeah so you know with with the landscape of 83 kilo competitors you know, with, with the landscape of 83 kilo competitors, you know, Brett Gibbs has been out for quite a while and he was like the international standard as an 83. Uh, but once he stopped competing, right, the, the pinnacle of the weight class has existed in the U S and, and I just, my sole goal is to just, you know, primarily compete against Russ, but at a more fundamental level, just go where the competition is. And the next, you know, the next most competitive lifter is also a U S lifter, Delaney Wallace. Um, and he's a friend of mine. I've spoken to him and I asked him, you know, what are your plans? Are you looking to do powerlifting American nationals? Are you looking

to stay? And he was like, I'm just waiting to see what you guys do. I want to compete against you. I want to compete against you too. So whatever ends up happening, I'm going waiting to see what you guys do. I want to compete against you. I want to compete against you too. So whatever ends up happening, I'm going to give myself the best chance to compete against you guys. So yeah, I mean, if he decided to come back, then I would stay. That would make my life easier because I almost feel like I'm almost going back

on what I believe on a principle level because I definitely do side with the USAPL from a moral standpoint, but I'm letting my own, you know, selfish desires kind of override that. So, I mean, I think it would make things easier for me if that were the case,

but yeah, I don't, I haven't spoken to Russ about it, but I, I know that that's what he's looking to do in the short term as far as the future. I'm not, I'm not really sure. Yeah. interesting there's yeah that's what like as you know someone that follows

this stuff it's going to be really interesting to see what happens over like the next year year and a half two years well as more contests get up and going and people have more chances to compete and uh you know more money's involved and just better incentives to compete in USAPL. You said the competition. So does the scoring, whether it's dots or good lift points or whatever the scoring is used across multiple weight classes, does that interest you at all? Say, for example, the Virginia Pro style,

are you more interested in the specific weight class competition i'm definitely more interested in the specific weight class competition you know i think i think i compare uh the pro series is very comparable to me to like the arnold which for me i've done almost every year and i think it's one of the most fun meets to compete in but to me it's like right? It's like a, an all-star game or, you know, a home run derby type thing where it's like, all right, everybody just shows what they have. And obviously having a standardizing score allows you to compete against other people. But I mean, to me, it's not the same, right? You're not ever, you know, training in the heart of an

off season and looking to see what ray williams is hitting and you're like oh well his dots is five points higher than mine i better step up my shit it's like no you're comparing yourself directly to the guy that you're either going to win against or lose against so for me it like it it if you if the federation doesn't prioritize like the weight class head-to-head which has obviously been the big difference between the untested side of powerlifting and the tested side. Because so much of the untested side has just become these big money meets where everyone just competes against everyone and it's based on an overall. Those meets are fun to watch from a spectator standpoint. spectator standpoint and you know like i said i've had fun competing in meets like the arnold but like the for me like the soul of competing and like that that you know grit and the the rivalries

and all that stuff it's like that to me is what's exciting and and i don't think you get that without you know going head to head directly against someone in your class yeah i kind of agree bringing up the ray williams part of it is you know the extreme example where it's like what what how is it working out that this is what i'm comparing myself yeah i like to think of like yeah some really lightweight guy being like oh if i did this i could get ray by like three wilkes points like you know something that makes yeah nobody's thinking like that right right right yeah so what do you think oh go ahead no I was going to say was I wasn't at the pro invitational because, you know, neither, you know, myself or Daniela, my, you know, my girlfriend did it. just a mess trying to like calculate right you know what you needed based on uh good lift points comparing across all these different people's you know weight classes and totals and stuff like that

you know it's it's just a mess so yeah it's it's a cool it's a cool setup but i really hope that uh the usapl still preserves like that the or rather prioritizes the the marketing and the excitement still for like the national level events and doesn't just completely go you know full bore with the the pro series with you know dissolved weight classes well yeah at a certain point the weight class is dissolved is the right word where if that's the standard like at a certain point they don't they don't need to exist it's just you weigh what you weigh and that's how you fit into your uh formula well and even just think like from a marketing standpoint like building up like yeah the clash in the 83s is way cooler than like oh or ray

williams against sean noriega like well that doesn't really make sense you know right yeah i mean that's like like if you go on youtube and you look up like some of the most know, powerlifting matchups, like the literally the one that comes to mind most, you know, in the most extreme way is Daniela Mello, Amanda Lawrence at world in 2019. I think that white lights media video has like, 5 million views, something ridiculous like that, like watching that head to head. And obviously, the way that it was filmed, know, influences, uh, you know, the, the watch, the viewability of it, but like clearly with several million people watching it, it's drawing, you know, uh, attention from people who aren't involved in powerlifting. And, you know, you watch that video, you see two girls who are like very similar builds, very similar strength. They're literally in the same weight class and it's like it's enticing to watch like you can feel the tension you can feel the back and forth and i think that you lose that when you just have this you know flight of lifters going from 66 kilos up to you know 120 yeah yeah you don't you don't feel the you know ooh that person missed and now this person has the upper hand. Like you just, you're just taking each lifter as their own. And to me, that just ruins the, um, the, the,

the high, it takes away the stakes of the meat. It's exciting in a fun way, but it's not exciting in like a nail biting way. No, that makes sense. So the USAPL pro circuit or pro series, what do you think specifically of that word or that designation pro like does that excite you or interest you or do you think it's irrelevant or silly or just wondering i mean how do you how do you take that so i think that the designation overall is is like a positive so like i think that a lot has to happen for pro to really mean something for a lot of people right like as long as you know ashton ruska is doing meets like nobody's winning any significant cash if the payout structure is what it is now because he's just

gonna clean sweep pretty much every comp yeah but i think i think that it's it's important to take yourself seriously in that regard like i think a a lot of people in powerlifting and in fitness tend to be like very like self-deprecating or like, you know, downplay like what it is that they're doing. So I think it's important that we take the step and are like, yes, this is like a professional sport now. Because like I really do think the USAPL can succeed with this structure. with this structure and if they're trying to become the new international umbrella but they're treating it like a real pro sport with the lights and the walk-ups and all that stuff like it it very much reminds me of you know like a ufc type setup where like if you really put the effort in to nail it um you know i think that a lot of lifters can end up you know making a decent amount of money from it i think you know it's not, um, you know, have as much of a draw as a lot of other, you know, sports, you know, maybe

not like the draw of actual, you know, UFC or anything like that. But I do think that it's important to, you know, give the designation and act the part, um, you know, before taking the, the steps down the road to hopefully make it a more you know lucrative uh endeavor for for a lot of these lifters yeah how did you feel about uh candido's profile picture leading up to nationals this last year so so i mean i didn't support him him putting that up you didn't like I didn't support him putting that up. You didn't tell him, like, no, seriously, do this. Like, here, I made this picture. I cropped this image for you.

Like, here, please put this on your profile. No, I absolutely did not. Like, that's the one thing that, like, I've always made a point about, like, emphasizing, which is that, you know, going into competitions, I'm never going to say I'm going to do X, Y, or Z, right? Like I, I very much have respect for like respect for the fact that you have to be able to do your best on the day. And it doesn't matter what's going on leading up to it. Like you have to show up and be able to execute. And like, if you're a betting man, you're going to bet on Russ every time. Right. Because even though, you know, on paper, we were very comparable, you know, anybody speculating would look at past performances and

draw conclusions from it. Right. You can only, you know, you have to look to history to make any sort of, you know know confident conclusion about what's going to happen I felt very confident in my own ability but I remember at the time that that Johnny did that he just kind of sent it in the group chat that we're in and was like hey fuck it like I made this my profile picture and like Johnny and I are really good friends but I know that like I can't tell him to do shit like if he if he wants to put that up like i'm not going to be able to convince him otherwise um so yeah i mean

that was i was definitely not a fan of that like i don't you know it's it's funny it's funny but like um i guess the thing that i didn't want was like people to think that I like co-sign that because of what I just said before, which is, yeah, exactly. And that's the thing that I was saying before. It's like, I've always made it a point to not speak before I do things. Um, and you know, I would only ever, you know, make the claim that I could do something if I did it and going into nationals, right. It's, it was training is training. Training means nothing, right. You have to be able to actually

accomplish the thing to say that you did it. So, you know, I didn't want people thinking that I was saying I was going to do this or do that. You know, I have my own, uh, you know, confidence and belief in my ability to execute, but you know, there's only, there's only so much I can control. So, so, so do you think you'll, uh, talk Johnny into doing that again before the next time you and Russ? Hopefully, yeah, hopefully Johnny doesn't do that again. Maybe, maybe he, maybe he'll he'll do uh maybe he's a one step ahead and he knows it has an ability to jinx people so maybe he'll use that to his advantage yeah right yep okay did you did you okay on the on the topic of powerlifting america

did you see was there like did i run across like a troll page that someone set up on instagram do you know what i'm talking about at all oh it's still up oh is it still there yeah what's hilarious what's hilarious about that troll page is that when powerlifting America like the real federation started their Instagram the troll page told people on their story to report the real one as a fake and because the fake one had so many followers, they got the real one taken down. Wow. Like the first red flag is, I don't know what it was tagged in. Cause someone I saw, I think I was reading a comment and someone tagged it in good faith, the wrong one. And I clicked on it cause I was unfamiliar with it at the time. And one of the first posts I read

said something like, um, uh, you know, so happy to be a part of the IPF and our continued goal to test to drug test zero people. It was something along those lines. And I'm like, whoa, that's a really weird way of phrasing that. And then it was, it was something like, like the bare minimum to do the bare minimum. I imagine that's causing a little bit of heartburn and stuff for the real people behind the, the real Federation and stuff, but that's pretty funny. Oh, it's hilarious. Yeah. Oh, it's amazing.

Doing good work there. Who do you think the best power couple is in powerlifting? The best power couple? I'm biased, man. I'm going to have to say me and Daniela. What would be your competition? Does anyone come to your mind? That's a good question.

be your competition uh does anyone come to your mind that's a good question uh i mean i guess like uh who michael michael c and jasmine penn right there there you know michael's placed i think second in the 74s and jasmine's one the 76s um trying to think who else there is i i feel like i'm not familiar with too many the only other one that came to my mind when I thought about it on the untested side of powerlifting would be Joe Sullivan and Brianni. There's a good one right there, too. Yeah. So power coupling. It's quite the matchup. Do you and your girlfriend, do you talk about power lifting all the time as little as

possible or somewhere in between um probably not that much honestly like we yeah i mean so i definitely am one to talk about it more usually within the context of like my own training because i'm just very i mean just putting it bluntly like I'm very obsessive about my own lifting. Like I'm just like always thinking ahead, you know, whenever things are going well, I'm very excited about it. When they're not going well, I'm fixated on how to do things better. But you know, within a day to day, I would say that we don't really talk about it that much. You know, Daniela is, Daniela has a lot of different things that she loves to do and is interested in. And powerlifting is, I would say, amongst other things. There are other things that she does where powerlifting is equally as much of her time.

So I wouldn't say it's... She's definitely not one of those people who's made it as much of her identity or allocates as much energy toward it from a mental standpoint like as I do. So, yeah, no, I mean, probably not too much. Yeah, I can picture that. Sometimes it's frustrating. There's people like that where it's almost like they're not as worried about it and they're still just as good. You're supposed to devote all of your waking moments to talking about it. Yeah, like why are you still to talking about it. Yeah.

Like, why are you still so good at it? Yeah, right. No, I mean, it's funny because like when Daniela, you know, when she first started powerlifting, I think the first time that she ever deadlifted, she deadlifted three plates. The first time she ever squatted, she squatted three plates. Like, it's just absurd stuff. Yeah. And when she, yeah. And when she first started powerlifting

you know i think she very quickly like rose to the top and it almost happened at a pace that she didn't expect because she did her first meet in summer of 2016 and she qualified for nationals and she was like oh i you know she had no you know she signed up for a meet not knowing what powerlifting really was at a higher level and she was like oh okay that's, you know, she had no, you know, she signed up for a meet, not knowing what power lifting really was at a higher level. And she was like, oh, okay, that's cool. I guess I'll do nationals. And then her first national, she takes second. Right. So it's like one of those things that she was just very gifted in from an early point in time where she went very, very quickly from doing something for enjoyment to, oh, I'm the best at this. I guess I'm, you know, going ham on, on powerlifting training. So, you know, she's, she's taken a hiatus from competing

and I know that she's itching to get back to it, but I think that it's been, you know, I think good for her mentally that she hasn't been as like, um, you know, she's not as like obsessive about it as, as some other people, because I think she did get thrown into it like very, very quickly at a high level. And, you know, it almost like I said, you know, almost happened like too fast to even realize like, oh, shit, like I have, you know, so much riding on on, you know, winning nationals or winning worlds kind of thing. And I think that she's enjoyed the decompression time and is excited to start competing again. Yeah, Tanner and I can relate to that because a lot of times we do things and we're like,

whoa, we're accidentally the best in the world with this. Like, let's slow down. We have to pump the brakes a lot because our skill level and everything is just so ridiculous. It's like, I really stumbled into that one on accident. Oh, not again. No, I just won the bobsled gold medal. Great, put it with the other ones.

We kind of have a reputation with our listeners that it's kind of a joke we don't talk sets and reps is kind of a thing. And sometimes our listeners will try and goad us into talking about sets and reps is kind of a thing and sometimes our listeners will try and goad us into talking about sets and reps but um this isn't exactly sets and reps but i did have a question to you about uh more about technique it's kind of something tommy and i were talking about earlier where you are a lifter that certainly has some i don't know if perfectly unique you know unique i don't know if unique exactly in the

sense that nobody else lifts exactly like you do but uh different than maybe what exactly normal is and i know you you you have a team of coaches and you coach a lot of lifters and something i see from a lot of lifters maybe a lot of beginners or even intermediates and stuff is they have this idea that uh they see someone else lift a certain way and they even intermediates and stuff is they have this idea that uh they see someone else lift a certain way and they want to try and emulate their lifts after that person that line of thought does that make sense to you is that is that bad thinking and i think it's particularly an interesting question with you too because you have you know kind of these unique uh you know kind of these unique uh execution of lifts yeah right yeah i mean i think i think from the perspective of emulating like highly powerlifting specific technique i i definitely

think is a negative um you know i've i've talked about this a bunch of times and how you know it's great that so many young kids are finding powerlifting in that it's provided them organization and understanding training in a quantifiable way. And they're not just going into the gym and just doing dumb shit. But I think that there is some value to kind of that. You know, like when I started lifting, like my, the context in which I lifted was, you know, bodybuilding stuff. Like people liked doing, you know, the big three, but, you know, when you're in high school, at least when I was in high school, you know, people just wanted to get jacked. Right. And I think that that is a very like sensitive period

of your life as a new lifter, where you have an opportunity to build a ton of muscle to learn how to move in so many different directions through various ranges of motion and like a lot of the people that you see start power lifting at a young age and they just throw themselves into this like i need to have spd days i need to do the competition lift three times you know three plus times a week i need to you know get an arch on bench press. It's like you're completely missing the point, right? It's like you have such an opportunity to just build a ton of muscle or at least try to, right? And I think that you almost limit yourself in trying to just maximize technique when you have, you know, like 14 and down.

Right, right, yeah right yeah yeah that makes sense um what the hell is your sleep or life schedule like you say that you you go to bed at like four or five in the morning normally yeah no i'm a mess man so like it's it's it's uh growing up i never i guess slept that much like much. When you go to high school or whatever, you're in school by 7 a.m. and I would be able to live off of five hours of sleep. Once I got to college, that wasn't the case because as you get older and things get more taxing and stressful, you feel it when you don't sleep, but I just developed a habit being in college of, you know, staying up super late to do work and pulling all-nighters from time to time. And my schedule day to day was usually to wake up, go to class, eat, train until maybe 9, 30, 10 o'clock at night, eat again, and then start doing work or studying at 11. So I would usually

work from like 11 to 4, 11 to 5, and then wake up fairly late, 11, 12. I worked a normal person job at one point, and I had to reverse that schedule for about a year. But since taking on coaching full time, it's just been easy to fall back into those patterns. I try at times to get back into some semblance of a healthy sleep schedule. But yeah, I mean, there's something about, at least for me, being up late and feeling more productive. When everyone else is asleep and it feels like the world is asleep. I feel like that time to myself, I can just think better and work better. Whereas during the day, I feel like there's so much going on. And obviously with me, um, you know, just answer answering clients all day, you know, I don't feel like I have

the mental clarity or the time to even like sit down and do things that I need to work on, obviously outside of, you know, answering lifters. Um, but yeah, I mean, I'm usually, I'm usually up until say on average, you know, maybe three. Um, but there are certainly days where I, where I push past that for sure. So you're saying if your lifters want to get ahold of you, they should just shoot for like midnight to three. That's the best. Exactly. Like I have, I have so many responsible lifters who like train in the morning and have normal jobs and all that stuff. And, you know, I'll wake up every day to like 15, you know, text messages from people who trained early in the morning. Um, but yeah, I mean, and also,

you know, with having international lif, and also, you know, with having international lifters, it, you know, it's another excuse to stay up late. You know, I have lifters who are in, uh, Australia, for example, where, you know, right around that time of the middle of the night for me is when they're, when they're training. So, so I'm all, I'm all over. Would you say like average, are you, are you averaging six hours of sleep a night? Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. No, I, I'm not, it's gotten to the point where if I don't sleep enough consistently, like I'll feel it, you know, it's, I'm not a, uh, you know, I'm not able to, to subsist off of minimal sleep, especially with training. You

know, I definitely feel it when I don't. So I'm definitely getting good sleep. It's just my schedule is shifted back pretty hard. That's interesting. I would struggle with, you know, you put it in the lights of the positives of what you can do at that evening time when you have the free time. My anxiety would get the best of me though. Like once I go to bed at four and then say i look i kind of wake up and it's 9 a.m and i'm like shit what am i missing right now what bomb went off right yeah yeah that i wouldn't be able to relax well good enough once uh once i felt like everyone else was was doing something i'd feel like i'm missing out on something i need to be doing no that's Like I, I definitely get that feeling if I go to bed,

you know, really, really late and then wake up really late. Um, like for example, the other day I had, I had a female lifter competing. Um, she's from Hungary and she was competing at, uh, the European championship. So it's like the, you know, the next level below IPF and it was on Sunday and Sunday's the day that I do the majority of my programming. And I usually finish around like four, like Sundays are usually my latest night. I start working early on in the day and it usually takes until the middle of the night. And that's when she started competing. And originally I was like, you know, she's, you know, we've gone over attempts already. She's getting, you know, she has her handler, whatever.

I'll just wake up and then that'll be probably around the time she finishes. But I was up at the time that she was squatting and like she went three for three with a big squat PR. And then like the girl that was competing with her for bronze, Mr. Third squat. She was behind by a lot. So I was like, oh, shit, I got to stay up for this. And then I ended up going to sleep at like literally 8am. So we'll try again in a day, I guess. Yeah. Trying to fall asleep when it's just straight up bright outside is not great. Yeah. Your apparel business looks like it's expanded quite a bit in the last year or I don't know time recently it's it's it's grown probably quite a bit we've we've been doing apparel for for quite a while and so we have

experience with that I'm wondering uh how you feel what do you think about that are you enjoying it or um just any thoughts on the apparel game trials and tribulations lessons yeah no i'm i'm loving this like it is is honestly one of my um like favorite professional endeavors you know i so i guess to give some additional context like i have always been like a very despite you know going the the stem route academically have always been just like more personally inclined growing up um toward like art and like i used to act and i wanted to be an actor so like having creative endeavors for me at this point has been like very rewarding um and like i've enjoyed you know working with the designers that i have in the design process. And I'm just very thankful that people are supporting it the way that they have. I guess the biggest struggle for me is definitely

marketing because I know that that's not something I'm well-versed in at all. And I don't have someone who does it for me. And I think that that's probably something that's, you know, definitely a necessary step that I'll have to undertake sooner rather than later. You know, if I want it to grow to the level that I want to see it at. But yeah, I mean, that's probably the biggest thing that's held things back. But overall, I mean, yeah, I started the business, uh, October of 2020. And since then, I mean, it's been, you know, each launch has been bigger than the last, this next one that I have coming up. Um, you know, it's, I have like 11 or 12, uh, items dropping and, you know, usually it's been, you know, two or three at most. So I'm really excited for it, but then also obviously nervous. I'm very confident that people are going to like everything. I put a lot of effort into figuring out which blanks I wanted to use with things, the designs themselves. I'm very confident in that. It's just more so, am I going to get this in front of enough eyes to sell to the, you know, the level

that I want. And, you know, I think my Instagram has certainly been, uh, been hit by some, some shadow banning or, you know, at least decreased engagement over the past year. So that's definitely not helped. Is that because of something specifically you were doing that you could pinpoint or so i think i think honestly like okay i genuinely got shadow banned last year during the election cycle and then that was completely let up but i noticed just engagement wise you know i have i have like 48 000 followers and it used to be the case that you know every story post I would put up would get like anywhere between like nine and 12,000 views. And since around that time, like I've been lucky to average like a little over 4,000. So, you know, I don't know, I don't know if that's ever,

uh, reconcilable, you know, if there's ever any solution to this, but just noticing stuff like that, you know, I, I realized that, okay, you know, I need to put that much more effort into, you know, marketing the apparel, which means, you know, maybe putting more effort into the photo shoots that we do, or maybe, you know, having more people post it, whatever it might be, you know, I just recognize that, um, there's a lot more work to be done on the promotional side. You know, if I want to, to sell at the level that I want to sell at. Yeah, that's, uh, it's, we understand literally everything you said, these conversations we've had as crazy as it is, like actually making the product is like 20% of the work and the marketing is like 80% of it. Oh, absolutely.

It is funny too. Like, um, you talked about how you. Oh, absolutely. It is funny too. Like you talked about how you're excited about new stuff. It's funny. And maybe you haven't experienced this, but probably will at some point in time, how certain things usually have a pretty good beat on it of what's going to be success. You know, what's going to be very successful. Some you're a little less sure about. But it is sometimes you get surprised where you're like, really, that's the was the best yeah item out of that uh group of like that's the one that resonated the second you start to have the audience figure out like the one that you think like this is a

home run just does nothing and the one you think why are we even releasing this how did we get to this point kills it and like it's about it'll happen to you at some point if it hasn't already but yeah it is weird how that goes yeah i've definitely and that's and that's the thing it's the the uh i guess dilemma of deciding between like what you personally think is you know right uh going to sell and you know it's hard to remove those those biases and then what ends up actually selling. I did have one product like that actually in my last launch where from the previous launch, I had doubled the inventory I ordered just because of how quickly the previous one had sold out. And there was one shirt that I more than doubled. I was like, okay, this design is just so in-depth. The colors are sick. I was like, this one is definitely going to sell. And it was the worst one out of all

of them. And I, and I probably can attribute some of that, like I said, to the marketing for it. Cause that's the, this is the other thing that I was going to mention that I'm sure you guys have dealt with. It's like, whenever you think you can have stuff ready by, it usually takes like several months. Whether it's the rate limiting step is with the designer, whether it's with the printer, like it's going to happen at some point or another. So that launch ended up being, you know, I put a launch date. I was like, oh, yeah, we're definitely going to have enough time. Put a launch date. I was like, oh, yeah, we're definitely going to have enough time.

And then it just got to the point where things got delayed and ended up being more rushed than I wanted to and probably wasn't able to promote stuff since I didn't have it on hand with enough time. But, yeah, there was one shirt. It was like the Terminator one that I had done. And I was like, oh, yeah, this one's going to crush it. And then it just didn't. I was like, what the fuck? This was easily – we spent the most time on this design yeah this is easily the most expensive one to make i was like this one's definitely going to be the best and it just yeah i don't know so you know you you learn um yeah you know sometimes sometimes

the really simple ones do well like my yes the the no bad days ones that i released i've restocked that shirt like three times i've probably sold like several hundreds of the several hundred of those like it's just been you know that one's been a hot seller so you know it's hard because there are things that i'll make as drafts and i'm like this is fucking sick and then i'll send it to people that i really you know whose opinions i really trust and they're like yeah and then there will be, wait a second. I no longer trust your opinion. You're wrong. Yeah. I know. And then there will be others that I'm just indifferent about. And they're like, yep, fucking sell it. And then they end up doing well. So it's, it's interesting because when it comes to something that's like, so, you know, important to us, this us this you know trying to put what we believe

our brand represents into art we're putting it on clothing it has this like very you know uh sentimental value and it's hard to clear away those biases because they are so strong and you know other people might resonate with your brand but like when they see something they're going to interpret it very differently than you do um so but that's that's been the the fun part of it just trying to figure out what you you know you think people will like but then that also you feel are true to the brand and you know balancing those two things i think that's very well said for anyone that's ever curious about some of the books you know what what that is like i think that's really really well said and really accurate that is and like you don't want every design run it by like turn it into a committee thing like hey does everyone like this like yeah

you can do that to an extent but at some point it's like well are you running the business or are you just like shopping it all out to to let everyone else decide if it's going to be good or not and also people will say they like things that they're not buy it too so you can't you can't base it on that either it's right it is, uh, it's, you just got to go with it at some point. Absolutely. No, that's, that's cool. Um, so we've got this game we like to play. Uh, we, we love to play it. Actually we play it with every single guest that we have on and it's called overrated or underrated. And, uh, we handpicked a certain number of Nori topics for you. They're special hand to handpick for you and we'll read them off certain number of nori topics for you they're special hand handpicked for

you and we'll read them off and it's your job to decide if they're overrated or underrated you can elaborate that on that as much or as little as you'd like to but the main thing to remember is you do have to uh come up with an overrated or underrated at then you cannot ride the line so okay if you're ready to play we'll uh fire them over at you all right let's do it overrated or underrated lateral raises underrated absolutely from a body so i've i uh i've always just for some reason enjoyed doing them from a personal standpoint. Like when I first started lifting, I hated doing arms as many people can probably tell by my very underwhelming size. But when I first started lifting, I just loved doing, you know, squats, deadlifts, lunges,

all that sort of stuff. The one upper body exercise that I loved doing was shoulders. For whatever reason, I just love doing lateral raises. And I remember, you know, I worked with Alberto Nunez as a nutrition coach for a couple of years, and he was definitely a great mentor for me. We always talked about bodybuilding stuff because I told him, you know, whenever I hit my midlife crisis, I'm going to hit you up for bodybuilding coaching. and he's just always talked about if you want big shoulders you know the lateral raises are going to be better than any pressing movement

that you can do um so I mean I don't know how much carry over it's giving any power lifter but I think if you want to look jacked you know you better do your lateral raises and you can fucking crush yourself with them like it'd be pretty hard to overdo it on lateral raises. Do you have like one or two tips for how to do the proper, the best lateral raise? Honestly, yeah. I really like doing them single arms. Like you see a lot of people just doing both arms, just dumbbell lateral raises. I really like doing one arm at a time. I mean, I tend to do a lot of unilateral work for bodybuilding. I just find that it's a lot easier if you can make the, you know, the limiter or the the bottleneck, the actual muscle that you're trying to fatigue. You know, I think doing them one arm at a time is really good. I really like doing them with like a forward lean. Like I think doing them one arm at a time is really good. I really like doing them with a forward lean.

I think it just lines up better with the fiber orientation of the delt. I like doing cable lateral raises, both leaning toward the machine or away from the machine, depending on if I'm trying to bias the lengthened or shortened position. I've gotten really into a lot of bodybuilding stuff in the offseason. Well, that's good. I'm all about it. So the moral is and do your lateral raises then.

Do your damn lateral raises. Alright, good stuff. Overrated or underrated? MIT. Ooh. That's a tough one. I'm going to say... Oh, man. You're making me think about a lot of things.

There's a lot going on. Run us through what's going on here. Yeah, let's do some flesh and animal thought process here. On one hand, I'm like, well, I'm not using my degree for shit right now. You'd probably be like, alright, this is

overrated. Well, a lot of people can sympathize with that regardless of where they went to school. Yeah, that's fair. That's fair. It definitely, from a personal standpoint felt like a big you know it was a big it was a big decision and a very stressful one to go from like all right i have an engineering degree and i'm pre-med and i'm working at the nih now fuck it let me drop all that and start coaching powerlifting so yeah what Was there some people in your family that was like,

yeah, that's the right move? Or was there a little hesitation on that? What? So I was very lucky that my parents overall have been very supportive of everything that I've done. So to not get into too much backstory, my dad actually uh went to mit and at no point in growing up did he push me to go or even apply and in fact like right before i went

he was like i never pushed you to go here because it was miserable he was like it's just a lot of fucking work like you're gonna be hump he's like the big thing he told me is like you're gonna be humbled when you're there he was absolutely right um but yeah i don't know i i honestly you know the thing that makes me say underrated i think i'm gonna go with underrated and the reason i say that is you know i'll meet random people and they'll ask where i went to school and honestly way fewer people know what MIT is than I thought. Really? Yeah, I thought that was like up to Harvard. If I said Harvard, everyone would be like, oh, whatever, big man.

But people are like, is that in Michigan? Is that in New York? Wow. What is that? So from just a general consensus standpoint, I'll say that there are far fewer people who know like the magnitude of it than I thought there would be. But honestly, like from a personal development standpoint, you know, degree stuff aside, for me, I think that having been put in the situation of like, if you're not ahead, you're behind. And like, there are a lot of times where

you're going to put everything into something and it's still not going to go your way like you know you're told as a kid you know you work hard at whatever and you'll get you know you know as long as you work hard at things you know you try your hardest you'll succeed whatever and it's like no there are plenty of times you'll bust your ass and you still won't and i think i think that when it happens in a semi-controlled environment, like in academics, I think it's almost, you know, I think it's a good learning experience. I think it made me more resilient, you know, from a just academic standpoint. Like I became a much better problem solver. But yeah, I mean, it was despite the fact that I'm not using my degree. And granted, my, I guess, opinion would be very different if I, you know, had student loans to pay off or something like that.

Like, I was very fortunate that I didn't. But I definitely would not have it any other way. You know, having gone there was like huge for my personal development. you know having gone there was like huge for my personal development and i think mostly because of just how difficult it was from from a work standpoint um so yeah i'll go i'll go underrated as my final answer all right that was uh that was well thought out is it uh at all like is campus or the environment at all like what i would have seen on movies before where like the kevin spacey counting cards movie where there's uh say like a bunch of uh guys in glasses and pocket protectors like fine-tuning their robots on the quad or like that sort is that ever did you ever see that once so so yes and no i think i think the one thing the one thing that you learn when you get to MIT is that there are a lot of people who are normal-looking people who have varied interests who happen to be complete geniuses.

The way that MIT is set up from a campus standpoint is there's an East campus and there's a West campus. And West campus is where a lot of the freshman dorms are and also the dorms where a lot of the athletes live. And then some of the on-campus fraternity and sorority. So that side of campus is the more social side. And then the East side of campus is a lot of the kids who like building stuff. For example, when you get to campus for orientation the week before school starts, on east campus, one of the traditions of east campus is that they'll literally build a roller coaster within a week. They'll literally build a roller coaster within like a week they'll literally build like a

fucking roller like a mini roller coaster for the you know incoming uh freshman class to like just try out like that's like the culture there so like you'll definitely see far more of the stereotypical like mit students in certain pockets on campus usually on the east side of campus. But there's a very large portion of the, of the student body. That's like, you would just look at them. You'd be like, Oh,

you're a normal dude. Oh, you're a fucking genius. Oh, okay. So do they also have like the nineties east side, west side rivalry there too? Oh yeah,

absolutely. Okay, good. That's what I like to imagine. Okay. All right. That's cool. Overrated or underrated Russell or he? Definitely underrated. Well, not overrated. I don't think

he's overrated. I think that he's proven that he is the best in our weight class. I think that he's proven that he can execute as a powerlifter. you know, the best in our weight class. I think that he's proven that he can execute, you know, as a power lifter. Yeah, I mean, I don't... Oh, that's tough. I feel like he's perfectly rated, but I can't say that, you know, I can't ride the line.

It's always really tough when you ask someone that's, like, the best at something if they're overrated. That's some of the tough... They're already ranked the highest, but are they overrated? Yeah. Could you give us a sound clip of saying that he's overrated and we'll use that out of context?

I was just about to say, like, okay, what am I, what incriminating thing am I going to say? You know, I think if we've got you saying the word overrated in Russell's name, so I think we're good. I think we're good here. Yeah, we can move on from that one. Then we've got what we needed.

Okay, that's good. Okay, so this is the last one. Last one's always the most important, and kind of everything comes down to the last one. Your performance of overrated and underrated comes down to that, and in fact, your entire performance of the podcast comes down to this. So it's very important. I just want to stress last one. Your performance of overrated and underrated comes down to that. And in fact, your entire performance of the podcast comes down to this. So it's very important. I just want to stress that first.

Then I also want to say we managed to go this whole episode without talking about your bench arch. So we want to fix that. So overrated or underrated? McDonald's and their golden arches. McDonald's and their golden arches mcdonald's and their golden arches mcdonald's mcdonald's is underrated for sure especially their breakfast menu i don't know if you guys

have ever had mcgrittles but they are those don't do it for me those do not do it for me what i really like McGriddles. It's the juxtaposition of the sweet and the savory. See, no, I don't. McGriddles are the best thing on McDonald's menu, and I will die on that. To me, the best thing I've actually genuinely impressed is their new spicy chicken sandwich.

Oh, that is good. I've had that, too. I'm down for that thing. That thing is... I haven't had that. They had to keep up on the spicy chicken sandwich game. Yeah, I thought it was all marketing hype, but I got to give them props on that one. That's pretty good that too. I'm down for that thing. I haven't had that. I kind of thought it was all marketing hype, but I got to give them props on that one. That's pretty good.

They pulled it off on that one. But yeah, McGriddles, I don't know. You guys are crazy. Yeah, I don't think McDonald's could be overrated. I think it's regarded in the public as garbage food. People just think it's for absolute swamp donkeys, for people with dumpster pallets. Let's be clear. It is also for those people.

Oh yeah, those people do love it. Sure, absolutely. But everybody loves it. But I think that people try to act like it's just completely inedible. And it's just always solid. Even if it's bad, it's just solid. I don't think that you're ever going to go to McDonald's, get a Big Mac, and be like, oh, this was worse than the Big Mac I expected. It's like, no, they just deliver what you, you know. So I'm a big fan of, like, fine dining. Like, I go to very, very nice steak houses and sushi restaurants and all this stuff. And I always say, like, you just adjust your palate down.

You know what you're getting. And they just meet that expectation every time. Yeah. I think their consistency is probably the best in the fast food industry. For sure. Yeah. I'm going to say underrated. I think I agree with that.

I'm not sure where I would have weighed in on that. I would have had to do some thinking. I'm sold to say underrated. I think I agree with that. I'm not sure where I would have weighed in on that. I would have had to do some thinking. I'm sold on that. I would have been leaning towards the line, so I would have had to debate this one a long time in my head to arrive at a conclusion. Do you think you can arch more or less than the McDonald's arches? Yeah, I'm going to have to say they have me beat on that one

they're pretty i mean it's severe archie what about in comparison to the st louis the gateway to the west arch i think i think they have me as well yeah i mean it's surely large i might not get a start command with my butt in the air, but we'll do our best. Yeah. Okay. Well, that's good. We got to talk about the bench arch then still. And really good news, you passed overrated and underrated then, it looks like.

Excellent. We will air this episode. I was really nervous there for a second. Yeah, that was, if you don't pass, we don't air the episode. So yeah, there was a lot of pressure. You just scrap it. And your career would have certainly... Fuck you for wasting your time.

Yeah, your career would have been very downhill from there. No, that kind of wraps up most of what we wanted to talk to you about. We were really glad to get you on. And if you wanted to let people know if coaching, apparel, any and all that stuff that you want to get out there, have at it. Yeah, sure. I'll take no hesitation in the selfless, shameless plug here. This will be your, this is good.

Once you do this, you're good for marketing for the next year. You don't have to worry about it. This really solves that marketing puzzle that we were talking about earlier. You don't have to worry about marketing at all. I'll cancel my photo shoot for next year. I think it'll be good for this one. But yeah, I I mean if you

want to follow me my Instagram handle is at hamstring poppy if you're looking to shop Nori apparel it's team Nori dot com slash shop and if you're looking for coaches granted a lot

of our coaching staff is either at capacity or near capacity so we're really only looking for people who are serious about long-term development and competition and powerlifting but if that's something that appeals to you team nori.com slash coaches um and yeah on youtube i'm just sean oriega and i upload very infrequently and inconsistently so I'm not promising anything there but if you want to check it out go for it cool you've reminded me something your handle on Instagram uh hamstring poppy I'm sure we're not the first people to mention this but was there was the irony lost on you like that that you had a hamstring injury at nationals oh yeah i mean i i read i read a bunch of the

comments okay i got hurt of people being like oh yeah the hamstring poppied all right yeah exactly exactly irony is a great thing no that's that's cool we'll we'll be cheering you on as you uh continue to compete compete then and go against Russ. You did agree to come on and made time for us, and we appreciate that. Russ has not, so we'll certainly be cheering for you. No, I appreciate it. I really enjoyed this episode. It stands out to me as one of the more enjoyable podcasts that I've done. So I've really enjoyed this. And in general, I just like being on and talking and, you know,

having good conversations. So thank you guys for having me on. Awesome. We appreciate it. A lot of fun. Thanks. Thanks, Sean. Yeah, absolutely. Take care, guys. Yep. Bye. Tanner, what do you think? Tanner, what do you think? Cool beans! Cool beans! Cool beans! That was really good.

That was fun. That was a great episode. Yeah. I'll be straight up on it. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. That was a great fucking episode right there. That was double cool beans. You know what else is really cool beans, Tommy? Texas power bars.

There's a real good Texas power bars meme on the Massanomics Instagram page. There is. Selfless plug there. Buddy Caps first started lifting weights in the late 60s and began powerlifting in the mid 70s. At that time he was working for Image Barbell building gym equipment. Around 1976 the local machine shop started making Olympic bars

for them calling it the Image Barbell. In 1977 Image Barbell became Champion Barbellbell it was then the 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 buddy set out on his own to make what he believed was the greatest bar he had ever seen and trained with, and the Texas Power Bar was born. It was strong as a house with the best knurling, and it was maintenance-free. Hundreds of state, national,

international, and world powerlifting records have been and continue to be set and broken on the Texas Power Bar. To learn more, visit them at TexasPowerBars.com. Oh, what's he got over there? I saw that. It went away. Okay. I, I was a little shy.

Last three sentences. I kept thinking I have to finish this before I sneeze. Made it. You did it. I made it. And you can too, with a Texas power bar, anything is possible with the Texas power bar. Ladies.

If your man is strong as a house, maintenance free. And has won hundreds of records, that ain't your man, that's a Texas power bar. So, you know, all memes are based in reality and, you know, a lot of people have been saying that, a lot of women have been approaching us saying they thought they were dating someone

only to find out it was actually a Texas power bar. It's like, that's weak. Now that I think about it, he's never spoken and he only weighs 45 pounds. He's been kind of cold lately. Just never seems to move. He's always just like just sitting on the, in the rack hooks there.

Like, yeah, ladies, that's a Texas power bar. I've been catfished. I've been Texas power barred. That's funny. Like, it's like Tinder, and you're swiping,

and it's just Tinder for, like, gym equipment, you know? It's like, ah, swipe right on Texas power bar. Which way do you want to swipe is good? Right, right, right, right, right. I think right. Left, you're sending them back. Right, you're pushing. Okay.

Well, that makes sense to me. Right is forward. Yeah, I think right. Left, you're sending them back. Right, you're pushing them. Well, that makes sense to me. Right is forward. Yeah, I think so. Okay. I'm pretty sure it's quite right. Yeah. I'm not sure. I mean, I believe you, but I don't know.

I did like it when he was talking about marketing. I want to be like, oh, there's this little thing, ace up the sleeve called a meme. You pull that out. That's our go-to marketing world of marketing can change in a hurry yeah and especially meme in the form of when like some a product can become a meme all on its own now that is the perfect unfortunately it's kind of like lightning in a bottle and it's hard for the businesses you can't take any of your products seriously

yeah this is the massonomic school of business everything is a joke very self deprecating a lot of lifters like self deprecating oh how many business owners you know are self deprecating we'll take that challenge on let's our challenge is to make someone deprecate on themselves more than we do

I'm gonna fill this room with deprecation it kind of sounds like shit I'm going to fill this room with deprecation. It kind of sounds like shit. Yeah. Marketing 101. Put out the memes. And keep them coming. And don't stop. Do not stop beating that horse ever.

Lift shorts. Exhibit A. Lift shorts. Exhibit A. Lift shorts. That was a good episode though, wasn't it? Yeah, it was a lot of fun. You don't know what to expect with some people. When I say some people, I mean any person.

Almost every single person we've ever had on. Every person we've never met in person, you don't know what to expect. Before the year's over Some people, I mean, any person, almost every single person, every person we've never met in person, you don't know what to expect. I'm going to before the year's over on Instagram, I'm going to post the comprehensive list of every guest that we had for like this year. I think it'll be interesting to see. And it'd be like, wow, we talked to all those people in 2021, huh? Yeah, man, these guys need to get a life.

Yeah. What are they doing? Come in on our podcast with us. We do have a lot more people that we're trying to wrangle up, and it's tough. It is. It just gets harder all the time. That's what she said.

As the actress said to the bishop. Yes. It does just get harder all the time. You can only fit so much in there. But like Robert Oberst is one he said he is down to come on but it's a matter of getting it you know getting him to continue to communicate and obviously he's a big busy guy with getting a lot of messages and stuff so actually just getting it scheduled is uh yeah scheduling conflicts are uh a lot tougher than you would

imagine talked about having lane norton on and he's agreed he'd like to. That's another difficult schedule. Some of these guys on the East Coast, they're not all like Sean, and they don't like to stay up until 4 a.m. So when I tell them, yeah, we're going to call you, it's going to be about 10 o'clock your time, they're like, whoa, I go to bed at like 8. And it's like, well, shoot, dang it.

So it's easier usually to get our West Coast guys on than it is, or women, than it is the East Coast. But we've got some more good ones coming up, I think. It'll be exciting to find out. If the next eight episodes are just us talking, well, then we don't have some more good ones coming up. Then we lied to you. Yeah.

If we have anything to do with it so we'll keep that rolling I'm going to read us an ad here okay perfect while you get your thing going there perfect

this episode of the Massanomics podcast is also brought to you by Spud Inc and what could it be the hooker straps oh he did it

no not that kind of hooker these straps are designed to be used to assist lifts while using the hook grip just like any wrist straps these straps work for deadlifts snatches cleans etc instead of being worn around the wrist these straps just go on your thumb the coolest thing about the hookers is that it still gives you that hook grip feeling but lets you hang on to the bar past the point of grip failure using these straps will also help to lengthen the thumb

just a little so when you go back to using a regular hook grip the bar will feel tiny and your grip will feel rock solid check out the spud ink hooker straps online at spud-ink-straps.com i just thought quick a couple other people that i've talked to that have agreed, love to come on and get it figured out. Just got to finalize it. One is Jordan Shallow, the muscle doc. I think that'd be an interesting one that a lot of people would be excited about. And then another one that I think would be really cool is Evan Santopani. I think I say his last name right, but longtime bodybuilder and longtime animal sponsored athlete.

He's on that poster in our gym right now and like that poster is i'm not sure how old yeah right 50 years old i think but he's followed along with massonomics for quite a long time and i saw him commenting yeah something this week yeah and uh i think he'd be a really fun one for us to get in kind of talk about like the uh he's probably seen something. Yeah. Like even just like the evolution of animal as a company, some of that stuff I think is interesting. So who owns animal? Isn't it universal nutrition?

Okay. And I don't know who owns that. Yeah. It's kind of weird in this day and age to think of like things in the fitness industry as being kind of like faceless companies. Right. But they kind of do feel like faceless, faceless companies. But yeah, I mean their faces are, they like faceless companies. Right. But they kind of do feel like faceless companies.

Like they are. Yeah, I mean, their faces are their just sponsored athletes. Yeah, and their athlete, yeah. But like who own, you know, because that'd be an interesting person to have on who's whoever owns Animal. Or see, I guess that's the thing. It's whoever owns Universal Nutrition, I suppose.

Yeah. They're probably not as interesting as we think they are probably not that's probably the problem so we'll get we'll get on evan and that will actually be good uh i wanted to hit us with a couple uh podcast reviews and you know why i wanted to talk about a couple podcast reviews we're on the road we are getting dangerously close to 400 podcast reviews by the time this episode comes out, we could be at 400 podcast reviews. By the time you're hearing this, yep, we could be there.

By the time you're hearing this, make sure to go leave one because you could very well be the 400 reviewer and there's a little bit of lag in those reviews. So if you see the numbers 398 or 399 or 397, leave it right away because the other ones could already be in there. You need to get that in

right away and you could be number 400 and you know what happens when you're number 400 we don't even need to say yeah we don't we let's everyone knows what happens when you're number 400 everyone knows uh so here's a couple reviews this podcast saved my marriage from qc another one of those add it to the list. Yep. Tick. I recently mustered the courage to talk to my gym crush. During the conversation, I asked overrated or underrated deadlift bars. She indicated that she didn't understand the question.

Long story short, she is no longer my gym crush and my marriage is safe. Nice. Well done there. Next one is from n borlay use code mass from this podcast i've learned how to get strong stay strong and use my strength there's no lesson i value more cool beans nice nice next one is from damninger i assume this this is Big Chris. So it's not just me that thinks...

A complete overuse of the word yeah or is it yeah with an accent? Yeah. So I guess to be specific he said Y-A-H or is it Y-E-A-H? See I never write Y-A-H.

No, I don't know that I've ever written that. That's not allowed around these parts. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Next one is from August N-U-E. Weather and corn talk. First time listening to the podcast and it starts with weather talk.

Followed by corn talk. This episode also started with weather talk. A podcast that dares you to turn out immediately i am in these guys don't give a fuck not one now they are talking about atlantis this is just a huge middle finger to everyone awesome wait was this pod about bodybuilding and weightlifting culture i may have misread i like that you're like a podcast that dares you to turn out immediately these guys uh it's uh it's very it's very challenging yet rewarding there's some good quotes in this one this is just a huge middle finger to everyone uh that's the hardest i've laughed at a review in quite a while who is that one by

that one is by august anyway wow well well done august august not just a month anymore it's also somebody that leaves good podcast reviews where your parents september and october isn't it ironic don't you think uh we didn't get any corn talk and actually everything's combined there's no corn talk left corn talk's done for the year i guess we could uh you know car talk i know a little car talk no but the show car talk oh no no oh nope nope really really long running supersedes podcast i think it's an npr oh it might be is that the one where people call in and sometimes they'll even ask questions well and the guys have yeah and the guys have very strong accents yeah and they're like mechanics aren't they um i don't know yeah

they might be their ex let me see there was northeast accents. I don't know what it is, but they have really thick accents. There was one. I've been getting more and more into cars lately. You need to listen to car talk. There was one that I downloaded because it was one of the most popular ones. And then as I downloaded it, I'm like, well, this isn't quite the car thing I'm interested in at the moment. Yeah, I think this was the one. Because they talk a lot more about, yeah.

Like people were like asking for repair questions. And I'm'm like i don't want to know the technicalities i just want people to talk about the design right things that the cars do and i wanted to see when did tark car talk start yeah like here episode number 21 59 assuming that's how they're numbering them do you what did they say well this says 2159 but i don't but I don't know if it's season 21, episode 59. No, guess how much they superseded podcasts. Car Talk launched as a local show in, do you want to guess the year that they started? Just because you're saying a long time ago, 88? 77, 1977.

Oh, man. time ago 88 77 1977 oh man a decade later the show went national and became an enormous and enduring hit on npr geez maybe i need to give that a second chance here then yeah that's that's probably just caught the wrong one it was like someone calling in complaining about like some something on their civic or accord and i'm like oh this isn't i don't want to hear like troubleshooting on air yeah uh it was hosted by brothers tom and ray magliozzi known as click and clack wow they won a peabody award peabody we don't got one of those yet body barely even know her peabody or i hardly know the gal. That doesn't really make sense, does it?

No, I think it does. It works. It works. So, yeah, this episode is brought to you by Car Talk. They're grooming us to be their replacements. Yes. So if you guys can make this lifting thing work, then cars should be no problem.

People are actually interested in cars. People actually pay lots of money to have a car. Yeah. You know what else everyone could pay a lot of money for? Our products. Our stiff. Yeah, we got everything on the website. Right now, there's drink spotters in the one-inch variety.

There's no five-eighths. But what I would recommend you do is get on there and uh sign up for our back and stock emails if you want that five inch five-eighths inch pin size because we do have a new order those in the works and that way you'll get first dibs on those we'll send out that email notification to everyone before we uh kind of notify everyone else and you can say you got it in it before the marketing blitz hit because oh when that marketing blitz hits it's going to go hard and fast that's uh what she said so stay tuned for that you can also buy our lift shorts we have lift lift shorts right now there's still time if you order something now you still get it before christmas you know unless you probably live in other countries because some shipping

has been pretty slow what what we can guarantee is we're going to get it out as fast as possible. Yeah, we will have it out of here within 24 to 48 hours. Pretty much. Yeah, pretty much. Almost guaranteed within 24. Actually, no. Not guaranteed within 24. Most likely within 24.

Yeah, like the order on Saturday morning. It's not going to go Sunday morning. So we will get it out as fast as possible if you want to order something for Christmas. Just say we're not the bottleneck here. No, we're not going to go Sunday morning. So we will get it out as fast as possible if you want to order something for Christmas. Just say we're not the bottleneck here. No, we're not going to be. It's the United States Postal Service. And interesting, I hear them advertising on the radio this morning. I'm like, why does the United States Postal Service need to even advertise?

Yeah. Yeah. Like, it was like a 30-second radio ad about how they're you know how they bought more trucks a whole bunch more trucks for their fleet this year and hiring more employees unless that's more of a public service announcement like hey don't worry we're beefing up so things don't suck yeah i mean that's kind of what it was but it was presented for sure as an ad you know it's very like it wasn't like this just in united states you know it was like it was an ad like absolutely an ad well maybe they were wrapping it in a smile yeah right and

i suppose that's probably kind of what it is but um i'm not sure if they're accurate though and what they're said because they said they're beefing up and like gonna get things are we having like domestic packages go slow right now are they they pretty good? They're slower than normal times of the year, but this is the time of year when they get locked out. I think UPS and FedEx are both saying they're probably slower. They are too. I mean, that is the time of year. But it's not like last year at this time.

It was like weeks, right? Oh, it was real bad for a while. No, it's not like that. If you order now, it'll still get there before Christmas for sure. You know, you even got some time there. What I was going to say, though, we also do have Lyft cards on the website if you uh don't know what that special someone wants you can order a lift card did i say that correctly yeah it's not a gift card it's a lift

card at massonomics so you can get that in kind of whatever denomination you would want to and um also we got kind of all haven't seen one order a five thousand dollar lift card yet no waiting on that that would be pretty sick. You could be the first person. I would love to see that come in. We do have a decent stock of our winter merch, winter fall merch too. We've got the zip-up gym hoodie. It's a great one.

Classic. The coat. We'll just get that out of the way. They're all great. We'll get that part out of the way right now. You're wearing the Raw Power T. We've got a few of the raw power crew necks still. And then I'm wearing the long sleeve tee.

But this has probably become my favorite thing. I wore mine to the gym Saturday. Did it disappoint? Did not. The only thing that disappointed me was there was no one there to see me wearing it. Kind of pissed me off. That is disappointing. It's like, I wore my one of my really good ones. I showed up and I went, look at me, everyone. And then there was no one there to see me wearing it kind of pissed me off that is disappointing it's like i wore my one of my really good ones i showed up and i went look at me everyone and

then there was no one there i was just talking to myself crickets yeah felt so stupid yeah well now everyone knows that you did it though so it's kind of like they were there yeah now they know uh yeah so grab one of these joggers still have joggers it's kind of working out good our sizes on all we don't we have very limited stock of all these items left. But they're all still there. But most of the sizes are. There's a few sizes that are gone. But it's literally like if one or two sell, those sizes will just start disappearing.

Right. Right. So do hop on any of those. Is that most of our hot button stuff? I think so. We restocked Cur teas yeah recently yeah merchandise so when does this come out so because we know i don't think we have to worry about oh wait a second wait a minute this what is the date here this comes out on the 13th oh yeah

yeah so we have a couple i'm glad we made it made it to the hour and 45 minute mark to do this. So we have a couple items coming out later this week. Yes. That you're listening to this. Yeah. It's not an enormous drop. Just a little something. It's a very good drop, though.

There's going to be a tea in there that you're going to want. For all you ladies listening. You can get that special guy in your life something yeah last minute yes um it's cool beans a really cool color colorway on this thing it's a shirt that we already know that a lot of people like we'll say that maybe there's even uh gonna be a lower body garment in there for all we know i'd hate to say more lift underwear finally lift snow pants it's a seasonal thing it's very seasonal very regional do you have snow pants i do snow from snowboarding okay so yeah i have uh i have over uh oh yeah the more the more regional dialect you could say uh although not great for rolling around in the snow because those get

soaking wet oh do they really hang on to yeah yeah like the typical like the carhartt style oh yeah i don't know if that had like uh some kind of maybe some are better than others to it or not i suppose some have that but it is not like snow pants like it it i suppose it is kind of just canvas sort of right it once it gets wet uh it's gonna be wet until so like i'll go and it's it's fine and it works to a certain extent but not like snow pants does like you are going to get it wet eventually through those i never thought about it's like when you're out there building the snowman with the kids in the wet snow the stuff that makes the good snowman i'm i'm making snowman is fun for anyone that lives in somewhere where you don't get to do that yeah i'm getting excited for my boy to kind of wrap his head like he's at the point where we can put him in the

little sled and pull him around the yard yeah he thinks it is the oh yeah best thing in the world playing in the snow is fun underrated with the kids playing in the snow. I always loved playing in the snow. Oh, yeah. Like, you'd go out until literally your appendages are like, well, I'm not sure if it's going to be frostbit, like, forever. If, like, I'm going to gain sensation back. I'm so cold, but I'm sweating so much because of.

And also, my nose has run for so long, everything is covered in snot. Yep. Yeah, we do a lot of snow activities. This last snow, though, not conducive for snowmen. Not really. You had to really pack it. It's frustrating. It was okay snow for a snowball.

Yeah, I suppose. You could do that okay. My favorite thing is to build giant snowmen. Yeah, you guys always do have the really big ones. It's like a competition for the neighbors. Like, wait until a couple of the neighbors build, like, very modest snowmen. Yeah. And then come out with, like, this thing.

Wait for the amateur hour to be done with. We're literally, like, there was quite a bit of snow in your yard. The grass is now all exposed again because all the snow is in the snowman. Their yard melted and turned into a man. And then you get to practice Atlas stones too, because to get that second decker on there, it is, it is an Atlas stone lift at that point. Yeah.

So yeah, buy our snow. This, this episode was also brought to you by snow, snow, Tommy, you have any? Where do they find you at in the snow?

You can find me at Tomahawk underscore D. You can follow me at Tanner underscore Baird, but just make sure to follow Masonomics at Masonomics. See ya.