Massenomics Podcast - Ep. 298: Max Aita

Episode Date: December 20, 2021

Marvelous Max Montana joins us for this one. He gives us the scoop on the future of weightlifting in the Olympics. We also talk about ridiculous Olympic sports that you won’t believe exist and Arby���s roast beef sandwiches. 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 podcasts and all the rest. You're doing a great job. Hope everybody keeps tuning in. You get a lot of good info, a lot of insights, understandings on how to get strong, how to stay strong, how to use your strength. You do a great job, dude. You make things better than they are in real life, I think.

If you don't follow Massanomics, y'all do it. Social media, website, everything. Massanomics. Here we are for episode 298 of the Massanomics podcast, the lifting podcast about nothing. If you came to learn how to get strong, how to stay strong, how to use your strength, came to the right spot, my name is Tanner. And my name is Tommy.

You're locked and loaded, Tanner. What's that? It's bringing the heat. Bring the heat. Gotta let people know that you're ready to go. We are locked and loaded and ready to bring the heat. Just like hybrid performance method. They're your solution for strength and no

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nutrition programming, their app, their full encompassing app that they've got. And with all of that, you know what the best part is? Discount code. And everyone say it with us. Four favorite letters. Mass. It'll save you a massive 5% off for the lifetime of any of those memberships at hybrid performance method.com.

Thank you. Hybrid performance method. Two 98. We got a lot of stuff this week, Tommy. We got a lot of good stuff. We got to go over. Do we?

Yeah. We've got a timely guests that we're going to limit the lighthearted banter to like the first 20 minutes. Well, it's kind of tricky because all the stuff we have to get to is also just banter. So we have to just limit the ad lib banter and go to the programmed banter. Okay, yeah. I get what you're saying. I had kind of a rough day today, Tanner.

A rough day at the office? Well, not exactly in the office, but everywhere else. I had to get a cavity filled this morning. Oh, yeah. First. A molar? Nope. It was kind of more towards the front, right next to the old canine.

And I still don't know for sure if I've ever had the cavity as an adult. This might be my first adult. I know I had cavities as a kid. Yeah. I just, a part of me thought I got one maybe as an adult many years ago but i can't actually remember the experience to know if i did for sure or not yeah it's not that bad though it wasn't terrible but i did it first thing in the morning and there's just enough novocaine or whatever they do to where it was funny because later on i was drinking water and i put like a lot of water

in my mouth and then when i went to swallow it and i'll just spray it out because i didn't have control over that side of my face um and it kind of'll just spray it out because i didn't have control over that side of my face um and it kind of ruined my lunch too because i still couldn't quite eat lunch it was like that whole side was kind of just dead that thing makes for great comedy in movies like getting nova candy just a dentist office in general seem to have all types of that's a that's a seinfeld episode when uh he gets that done and then uh I won't spoil the episode but there's a good Seinfeld episode where Kramer get uh has Novocaine and it leads just to just a lot of shenanigans did you see uh what's the one with Will Ferrell and uh Mark Wahlberg uh I have is it like daddy's home or something it's called daddy's

home it might actually be okay I think that is maybe what it's called is it like daddy's home or something it's called daddy's it might actually be okay i think that is maybe what it's called is it called daddy that's actually now that i said that's really funny i have to look at that's what it is okay um no i haven't is it yes it is it is daddy's home that can't be a good movie um no it's okay there's a couple spots in it that you laugh at because there's will ferrell in it like you laugh at. Because there's Will Ferrell in it. How can Will Ferrell not be in a movie and laugh a couple times? But this was really the only thing that I remember that had any takeaway out of it. There's two funny parts. One is, and maybe there's two of them.

Somehow I got roped into seeing both of these, which is a mistake right there. But one, Will Ferrell turns into a really good skateboarder and goes up so high that he hits the power line. That part was funny but in the first one for sure there is a running gag that will ferrell wants to have kids and he can't have kids he's sterile they don't really go into it and then later on they say how there was he had this tragic accident and then it shows and it's i don't know what happens at the dead he's at the dentist's office and for some reason the person running the x-ray like falls or something, and he's under anesthesia. So he's just getting x-rays to his balls nonstop,

and it's such just a stupid concept. And is that the one then when he goes streaking? To the quad? Or no, then he does the cannonball. That's a very important announcement to me. He's talking on the TV to San Diego. That's the one.ball okay that's a very important announcement yeah he's talking on the tv to san diego yeah that's the one yeah yeah that's the one okay yeah i have seen that one okay now we got this might be a little unorthodox but in the spirit of having a lot of stuff to get through what do you think about opening uh doing a can? I think we should get right to it.

No blindfolds necessary because this one has been prepared for us by the sender. This is coming from Shelby Grabanski from Fargo, North Dakota. Oh, should we read her address too? If people want to send thank you letters 899 39th

south that's not right but it's not it's just a variation of that so it's a number between one and a thousand directions for beverages better serve chilled I did pre-chill these so we're good there shake well before consuming, is this a trick? I don't know. And then third is lift hard, live easy. Thanks for all you do, fellas. At Grabansky Shelby. P.S. Sorry for how this

looks. You have a very big sheet of paper there, Tanner. Yeah. Okay. So there's parts that says not to read on air here i have not i have not pre-screened this at all so i'm doing is start reading this part that looks like it can be read on there okay so do you think we read the letter before the cans um i'll just start reading and if it gets to a point where uh where it says warning, flavor, spoiler. Yeah.

From Almost Big Shelby. From Central Southeast North Dakota. Hey, you silly gooses. Can we just recognize how incredible it is that two random gym owners in frickin' Aberdeen have created, not arguably, it is, the best lifting podcast for our ears to ever feast upon. My dudes, even though I'm from the superior Dakota, I am stoked for you guys and am praying that y'all can continue to grow. Having an egg econ background. Ooh, kudos to that.

I love the agronomy updates. She's really speaking her language, Tanner. Yeah, so Midwest, much wow. Definitely underrated segment. And Tanner's sack this week is a special beverage grown bottled and sold in good old fargo north dakota i don't know if i do i read more i don't want to spoil anything maybe we should do the i'm just gonna stop because i don't know if that spoils anything and i don't want to okay so it said shake well right okay so it's not a can if it was a can that said shake

well then i'd be like oh i think this is a trick but okay so yet we do have um it is very well covered here we don't know what's inside it's kind of like almost like a what i would describe as maybe like a sports or juice type bottle sports beverage and it has a twist off cap so shall we go for this yeah i almost want you to twist it off so it sprays all over you but i'm two feet from you so it's gonna happen to me too um holy i can't get my oh i got tape all over mine that's why i'm thinking what am i doing wrong i gotta peel back the table there we go i'm just smelling until you uh there we go get Oh, I'll get this tape off. Hmm. Here, maybe I got enough of it off here. There we go. I'll be curious to get your... Okay.

Initial says juice. Maybe like a grape of... Smell. Just off of smell, I'm saying grape or something. Yep. And the fact that it is kind of purpley. You know, North Dakota... Purple drank.

North Dakota is known for their grapes. Hmm. What do you think that that is? It isn't like... It's grapey. Artificially sweetened like to a heavy amount. That's for sure. Hmm.

While we think about that, I did also wanted to wish a happy birthday this week to Big Chris, beerbelly underscore lifts on Instagram. He has a Christmas birthday, and we just wanted to give him a special shout-out. We'll start doing a birthday segment. From his wife. We'll start doing a birthday segment every week on this show. And I think maybe he's listening here tonight, so he might he might see that how embarrassing right in front of all your friends okay should

i start peeling this apart or back some layers and maybe while you do that i'll read a little more now that it's not a spoiler in tanner sack this week is a special beverage grown bottled and sold in good old fargo nd It's not only local to my area, but it's way better than any other healthy water crap on the market. Good macros, great flavor. This flavor is my personal favorite of their brand. Of course, I am but a humble peasant in comparison to you two as constant connoisseurs of beverages.

I will defer to your expertise on how many JD Power and Associates Awards it gets. I'll buy five matching gym tuxedos, which is, of course, lift shorts paired with a lift shirt. I do like that's the gym tuxedo. That's actually really good. If you guys can guess the flavor, no cheating. Well, too late now. We said grape something.

Do you want to know what it is? I was going to also say like pomegranate or something like that. I would have agreed with you. This this is axe water it says oh she also said you have to guess the exact flavor none of this raspberry is close enough to blackberry funny business when gym tuxedos are so so we were we were off uh tanner it is well okay it's confusing because it says aronia berry lemon on here i don't know what aronia berry is never heard of that but then on the side of this it says aronia berries have higher antioxidant levels oh then cranberries blueberries and pomegranate so it's better than those tanner apparently it tastes good um i guess they're messing up because it just says bottled in the

oh yeah distributed by axe fit fargo okay but it does say bottled in the usa have you ever seen no never seen or heard of it it looks uh like a professional product yeah it looks like it's something that would have nationwide distribution and i think it tastes good especially yeah now that i know what it is like that pomegranate yeah now that i know what it is it's even better because you're always like is this like some weird kombucha thing that i right am i gonna be like tricked and it's like oh yeah that wasn't good but yeah um this is good i do like this yeah it's good um oh do you give it the i'm i guess this is kind of on a different scale five it's kind of almost on a different scale because it's sort of a different type of drink

but oh for sure a three and a half i give this a three and a half three and a half okay i could drink uh more than one of these yeah it goes down you know there's no bubbles it goes down a little smoother right right it's good though it's good stuff awesome okay who said this again then uh big uh she said almost big shelby that's not how it works around here it's just big shelby big shelby there's no almost and there is uh the private stuff um all the private stuff just pages and pages of private information yes like all the addresses and and such so that'll be interesting well we we appreciate that yeah thank you segment uh tommy segment. Tommy, I did prefer a special Christmas movie game because this comes out. Do we have game show music on there still? There's only one way to find out.

And by pur- Cool, cool. You know, thanks for watching. Ah, the last one. Even if I do a few of them twice okay actually i should say is this the type of show where you play the intro music and then read sponsored ads right away and then get yes because it is okay that's exactly the type so thank you for joining. Let's take a break for a hear a word from our sponsors here.

This episode of the Massonomics Podcast is brought to you by the Strength Co. Grant Brogy was born in the late 80s, nearly two decades after buddy caps began lifting. In the late 90s, Grant's brother Jordan bought him the new encyclopedia of modern bodybuilding by Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Grant's love for weightlifting began. In 2001, Grant joined the local YMCA and began training with weights. In 2009, Grant discovered the book Starting Strength, and in 2012, as lieutenant in the Marine Corps, he began teaching Marines this method. In 2017, Grant opened his first gym in Costa Mesa, California, and the Strength Co. was born. In 2020, during a major iron shortage, Grant sought to bring back quality manufacturing of Olympic barbell plates to America.

His innovation, adaptation, and can-do attitude brought about the greatest plates made in decades. The plates were accurate, anti-fragile, and instantly became the go-to plates of hundreds of lifters at massadomics gym you can check out the strength co plates online at the strengthco.com i love the strength co plates they are the best they are the best they are the best should we get back into this yeah welcome back okay okay okay all right so when i said prepared prepared is probably a loose term for this game but there is something here okay so it's going to be a quick tournament to to decide what is tommy's favorite christmas movie of this arbitrary list of christmas movies that i put together oh so and you can you're it's much like overrated underrated you're allowed to think out the this is tricky for me because i can already tell you right now i don't have any strong feelings

towards christmas movies that probably makes it better that's gonna be yeah okay uh we've got 11 of them here so one of them has to get a buy in this structure so home alone because it's at the top of my list right getting a buy that one should be that's get a buy in this structure so home alone because it's at the top of my list right getting a buy that one should be that's getting a buy so that wins the first round okay okay next one is polar express are you familiar with polar i know what it is have not seen okay and then versus national lampoon's christmas vacation that's yeah for sure that will go by yeah so you national lampoon's christ, gets the W there. I couldn't agree more. Polar Express, though, you're going to start watching.

I was going to say, I can see. Also, these kids ones, you're going to start to experience these a lot more, though. And I can see how that could put up more of a fight at a different time in my life, but right now. Polar Express, I would say, as far as the kids' Christmas movies, is a pretty good Christmas movie. Okay. And there's a hot chocolate song. Your kids are going to love it. It's catchy as hell. Oh, yes. Hot, hot, hot a hot chocolate song your kid yeah kids are gonna love it catchy as hell oh yes

hot hot hot chocolate uh polar express is weird though because tom hanks it's like a tom hanks movie and like it's this really weird animation it's almost like realistic animation but not it's like uh i think i do a video game um what's it called like when you're playing like a video game. What's it called? When you're playing like a cut scene. Yeah, it's a cut scene. That's exactly what it looks like. It's the cut scene on a video game where you're playing Bond and you get to the end of the level and then it goes

to, you know. Like, hey, this looks way better than I feel like it should right now. Right. Yes. So you're taking National Lampoon's Christmas Vac vacation in the in the winter there okay next uh how the grinch stole christmas the original the animated original the animated original like 1966 i'm gonna make up versus uh this one that you probably won't know because it's a kind of a more recent popular kids one it's called k-l-a-u-s so i think you say oh claws yeah i have not seen

that one either pretty good kids kids movie what is that a 3d thing or a it's god it's it's weird how that animation works to me now where i can't even like but it's not like people no no right right it's it's just like a it's just like a cgi yeah yeah it's like it's like to me it's almost just like this is like a screenshot of it here you know it's just it's just animation i guess yeah yeah i don't know what you call that even anymore it's weird they all kind of morph into one thing more cartoonish but it's still i would assume is probably mostly computer done on that um i got what was the first one you say again? The original.

Oh, yeah. I got to go with the original. Have you watched that recently ever? I have not watched it recently. I actually for for a boy, we were putting some music on the TV the day on YouTube. And I typed in the Grinch and the you're a mean one, Mr. Grinch. That song was on. And I'm thinking this might actually be a little scary for a little kid. I like the song.

But it is a catchy song. I have not actually watched that movie in its entirety in many, many years. But you're taking that as a winner. I'm going to take it as a winner. Okay. Next one. Things get tough on this one. Elf.

Speaking of Will Ferrell. Yep. Versus Jingle All the Way. Speaking of Arnold. Okay. Turboman. I want that Turboman doll, right versus elf like people people seem to really like elf right and also you like elf i do like i think elf is funny elf is funny yeah you know jingle all the way was filmed in minneapolis though tanner

it's all it has that whole upper regional yeah that upper midwest vibe to it i think i still gotta go with elf on this to me elf is the probably the closest we have to a modern day christmas classic in in these categories here okay i think you're taking out yeah i gotta go elf okay well next a christmas story which is the also made in the i don't know when, Ralphie, you'll shoot your eye out for Geely. Yeah. Certainly a classic. Everyone's a for sure. Versus Bad Santa.

What's Bad Santa? Billy Bob. Billy Bob Thornton. I've only seen that movie once. Some people really like some people do like that. I don't like bad Santa. I don't really like Billy Bob Thornton. I don't really care for him either.

Uh, usually in movies when like the whole shtick is that you're just an asshole the whole time. Yeah. Like to me, that's not like super entertaining to watch. Um, I'll go with, uh,

uh, um, what was the first one we talked about again? Already a Christmas story. Christmas story. Yeah. Okay. I'll go with the Christmas story. Okay. Last one in the first one we talked about again already? A Christmas story. Christmas story, yeah. Okay. I'll go with a Christmas story on this.

Okay. Last one in the first round. The Nightmare Before Christmas. Okay. Which is like, I think that's like Jack Scully, right? Yeah. Is it Jack Skellington? Is that?

Jack Skellington. There you go. Thank you. Versus Die Hard. I feel like it's a- And you can make your point whether Die Hard- I feel like you can make your make your point whether it's a weird

personality trait where people have to make a point yeah how edgy they are by saying die hard Christmas movie yeah

so I'm just gonna say I've ranked die hard solo on the Christmas movie scale that I'm gonna go the nightmare I'm gonna go with

the nightmare before Christmas okay so round two we're getting into just winners here. Home Alone first round by versus The Nightmare Before Christmas. Home Alone for sure. Home Alone we didn't get to talk

about. Great movie. It is. I've watched it multiple times over the last couple years with my son. It holds up though. Every year it holds up. Other than some. What about Home Alone 2? Home Alone 2 is not bad. It's not as good as the first one. years with my son it holds up though every year it holds up yep it doesn't i mean other than two is what about home alone two home alone two is not bad it's not as good as the first one it doesn't get it just the first one is just uh the real deal i mean once you assume that ignore the fact that his parents are just that whole dynamic seems a little off but yeah like this is a terrible this

is the time of year you start to see all the memes of like oh yeah never forget that like this family owns this house like yeah and uh that they can forget their kids and just all that stuff so okay yeah home alone yeah okay and then national lampoon's christmas vacation versus a christmas story i gotta go national lampoons on that one yeah correct i agree with that oh am i being judged here uh so then we're to last of the round two is elf versus how the grinch stole christmas i gotta go elf okay one elf so our final four is home alone national lampoon's christmas vacation elf and um did I say that right? I didn't say it last time after Elf.

I just said Elf. So what's next? Did we miss one there? Or wait. Do we just have three winners here? Home Alone, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, and Elf. I guess that's our final round. I guess that's what we're at here with.

So it's a triple threat match then. It's a triple threat. Or did I forget something? I don't know. Well, that's what we're at then. Okay. Home Alone, National Lampoon's... So it's a triple threat match. It's a triple threat. Or did I forget something? I don't know. Well, that's what we're at then. Okay. Home Alone, National Lampoons. So it's...

What did we pick between... Oh, yeah. I picked between Elf and Jingle All the Way, right? Yep. That was the first round. And then you went with Elf and How the Grinch... Yeah. Yeah.

One, two... Yeah. So we just have three winners. Okay. So the final round is a Royal Rumble. Okay. So we have Home Alone, lampoon's christmas vacation and elf those are our top three how do you rank them starting at third what is the third best out

of those three this is this is really actually man if i had to give these things like points like one to a hundred yeah they would be within like they're closely each other for sure so this is there is no clear i just watched national lampoon's christmas vacation and that would actually probably change my perspective too if i just watched all of them like in a one-week period yeah because i'm kind of going off of like not seeing these for a year maybe even more yeah i don't i don't think i've seen home alone all the way through for a couple years now, which is a trick. Like, it's on TV nonstop, but you never catch the whole thing in one watch. I'll probably go. Also good pizza and milk scenes in Home Alone.

I'll probably go Elf 3. I agree with that. That one was the easier one to decide. This is probably almost depends on who I'm watching them with too, what I'm going to go with. But I think I'll probably do Home Alone 2 and Home Alone. Sorry. Yeah, it's number two.

And National Lampoon's is number one, I think. God, that's a really tough one. I agree that that is a tough choice between those two. I don't know. I'm hard pressed. I might actually go Home Alone number one, now that I even say it out loud. I'm going to do that.

I'm going to say Home Alone. So you're saying Home Alone is the greatest Christmas movie ever made? With this lineup. Yeah. And off of a bad memory. memory yep that's what i'm going with i'm going home alone is definitively oh because i can tell you right now the best christmas movie is not an actual christmas christmas movie those are not the best christmas movies uh yep i'm doing that home alone one national lampoons two elf three i like that i can live with that. Yeah, I think that's good. Everyone else is wrong. I just watched National Lampoon's, like I said, and very funny. It is.

I know. It's really funny. There's several parts that made my wife and myself both laugh out loud. She normally doesn't like, you know, she doesn't like to laugh. Well, she doesn't like like Anchorman. Yeah. You know, and some of those ones. And I thought maybe she wouldn't really like this all that well. She was on board.

Yeah. Yeah. I need to put that on my to-do list this Christmas season to make sure I watch all three of those full, preferably without TV ads even in the middle, the full thing. And then I can give a real honest update, a revised list if i if need be um what does national lampoons mean isn't it uh it's kind of like a isn't like a group of writers so it kind of like mad magazine or something like that okay isn't that's what because don't didn't they have a magazine i do not um

i do not know that i I'm checking right now. I've always wondered and never bothered to pay attention. National Lampoon, well, the vacation. Well, a list of National Lampoon films. Yeah, because, oh, okay. Because that Animal is right it's lasting the lampoons too i didn't know that um so it is like a whole thing okay animal house class reunion movie mad oh is it like a is it like here's their list of movies are you ready yeah geez so it's like the avengers universe only it's it was the original adventures universe

only it was the national lampgers universe only it was the national lampoons universe it the yeah there's the greater the greater national lampoons you know first it was the national lampoons universe then avengers then the taco john's uh multiverse that's what it is yeah the last movie they have was 2015 national lampoon drunk stoned brilliant dead this van wilder national lampoons i think it is. Let's see. That's got to be early 2000s, right? Yeah. Yep.

National Lampoon's Van Wilder. Yeah. The Rise of Taj. I'm just trying to think. What's better, the National Lampoon's universe or the Avengers universe? Oh, Van Wilder was 2002. Rise of Taj 2006 must be the sequel. Would you say National Lampoon's universe or the Avengers universe? Oh, Van Wilder was 2002. Rise of Taj 2006 must be the sequel.

Would you say National Lampoon's are Avengers? Yeah. Boy. Probably National Lampoon's, right? I think so. Oh, I didn't realize they were that big of a thing. I thought they had some magazine thing too, but maybe it is just movies. Wow. The more

the... We're really learning stuff here. We are. So that was... They had a radio station too. Oh, and a magazine. They did with a magazine. That wasn't totally wrong. All right.

Verified. Humor Magazine ran from 70 to 98. They had a good run. They did. 28 years. We're at six. Oh. If you don't buy this magazine, we'll kill this dog.

It's a picture of them pointing a gun to a dog's head. Okay. That's one way. Pretty bold. That's one way to skin a cat. It is. So that does it with this edition of what is the best Christmas movie. More on that next Christmas.

Maybe next week even. That's true. Or two weeks. You know, it is the holiday season that is the season there could be a lot of follow-up in these next few weeks here uh we well you know what we haven't mentioned our new drop that we had oh well actually if you're listening to this you happen to be a massomics podcast supporting member you're listening live on the discord actually i don't know how what we didn't really pre-screen this how are we going to go about this are we going to tell the discord members what's on there or maybe we want to wait and we maybe we want to wait and share more details until after our guests and we'll do that and also people listening to this we'll find out technically a little early

too if we actually say what the items are right well no because that'll be this won't come out until monday yeah yeah drops tomorrow isn't it well no we're recording on tuesday two days off oh we're recording on a different night too so there's all kinds of uh what is time man that is a great question because my brain was really getting there was uh some talk in the discord, maybe this last week about time, uh, the concept of time. I've really missed that one. Yeah, I think,

and it is really weird, uh, heavy thought segment here. The concept of time, how we, uh, specific to massonomics, how we,

behind the scenes, we like to categorize periods of time as either successful or less successful and stuff. But when you really start to think about it, how arbitrary the periods of time are, we do it successful and stuff but when you really start to think about it how arbitrary the periods of time are we do it all i know that's what i mean we do it all the time yeah so we're like yep okay if this week comes all right that was a good week but then like well but also the week doesn't matter it's the month and then it's like why we're like but really the month doesn't matter as long as like the quarter's pretty good they're

like but also a quarter is a totally arbitrary time frame well it's all arbitrary the more you think about it that's i think it's the last time we said i go it's an arbitrary time frame you go but it all is right you're 100 right well because we probably most commonly think we talk about months all the time like was it was november a good month was august a good month was a good good month good month good month we hardly ever really talk about a specific week we don't say was it a good week no no we good month good month good month we hardly ever really talk about a specific week we don't say was it a good week no no we'll just be like oh damn things got kind of crazy for a few days there you notice the days weeks don't matter apparently to us the month does matter I think the month is just like that's an easy unit of time to digest that it's big enough

that it means something but small enough that it's not so much that it's over like six months is that's more what that that makes sense that's more what that's about than anything is it's just kind of an appropriate it's much easier to look at a month and like kind of wrap your head around that than it is six months it's like six months like around here the seasons change like four times in six months like i don't know other things happen too outside of just the massonomics world but a month it's a lot easier to wrap your head around that. That's my thought on that at least. It is interesting. The more you think about it, the less meaning that those blocks of time period can have.

Don't you think? And also that like quarters, like that comes from corporate America, right? Oh, yeah, absolutely. A quarter has no bearing on us. Like it doesn't. I mean, none of this has any bearing on us like it doesn't I mean none of this has any bearing on us actually right back to it doesn't mean anything right it's all well because even when you think about a year it's like well why are we you know you're just cutting off that uh and it makes it's how taxes work and other things but uh you would yeah that is where

but then you go so broad eventually like well you, well, you have to divide this into something. Exactly, yeah. Now you have to get it right back into a piece that you can digest and look at. So, yeah, time is weird. Time is really weird. Yeah. Time is of the essence. I know that.

It's on your side. It is on your side. If you ever heard of Time is a Flat Circle, it's on True Detective on HBO hbo i thought maybe you're gonna say it was on hangover like a circle is that what they did or no is that uh that's uh isn't it rob uh schneider isn't that his character on uh it's an adam sandler one isn't it that when he's marrying them well i thought that i was thinking that was on the hangar. Is that on a... Okay. Is it like Chuck and...

I pronounce you Chuck and Larry or one of those movies? Okay. Yeah. A circle. Yeah. So is that... I feel like someone's going to pop it.

It has to be Rob Schneider. It's a circle. It has to be one of those. Happy Gilmore? It's not Happy Gilmore. No. No way. It's Happy Gilmore.

But yeah, you're right, though. It's like, because he's like marrying them. Isn't it like the... He's like playing an Asian man or whatever. Yeah, he's like marrying them. He's like playing... I'm going to find this right now. Here we go.

Rob Schneider. It's a circle, yep. And I'll pronounce you Chuck and Larry. Yeah, of course they. Rob Schneider. It's a circle. Yep. And I'll pronounce you Chuck and Larry. It's like, of course they get Rob Schneider to play the Asian guy. Rob Schneider is a banana. That's the old South Park bit, right?

Rob Schneider is a stapler. I don't remember what else it was. It was a band, too, wasn't it? Yeah, I don't know. I just remember the stapler for sure. Because, yeah, me and my friends would always say that all the time. The stapler. But I don't remember what else he was.

Rab Schneider is. They kind of nailed it, though. Except that time he was playing the hot chick. I don't even. Oh, the male prostitute. It never ends. That's kind of a racist thing, isn't it? Does that fly?

I don't know if people would cast that that way anymore. But also, people don't make comedy movies anymore, either. That's true, too. Oh, we did kind of skip the drop, Tanner. So the drop, do we just talk about it and then the people that listen okay yeah so those that uh are supporting members and choose to tune in live to this are going to get to know this ahead of time uh if you want to get in on that sort of thing uh get on our discord community you could also become a supporting member it's very easy you go

to massonomics.com join is that right time that is correct and you can sign up there uh there's a lot of exclusive benefits you know getting to know on the drops early that's part of it but there's special discount code not plural that you can get in on fun banter about time there's a lot of banter you get to listen to the podcast i think most people probably be actually the biggest takeaway they'd probably get from the discord is how active it actually is. It is very active. If you want a community, um, it's,

I kind of, it's like a little bit of an escape from reality that you can always get to of a group of people that all kind of like the same things that you do. Yeah. If you like lifting and you like this podcast, you would like the group on the discord the most serious the conversations ever get is people talking about like lifting equipment yeah maybe a little bit about their training uh yeah like like actually just like you don't have to worry

about like there's a thread for that so it doesn't not all the threads have to get serious but there's like one or two but i'm saying like it's not like an annoying ass facebook feed where it's like oh god spare me like that's not a thing at all right uh so yeah you can sign up and get to know early drop so anyways our drop uh for everyone else that's listening you've already seen this by now i i think our drop was uh two items in this kind of smaller it's kind of small little last chance before christmas drop sort of thing and what do we have tommy uh the first one would be we brought the icon t back yeah it's back the icon t and it's in a new color a stylish classic it is a stylish classic and

first one went over really good and it sold out so we thought you know what rather than bring it back as the exact same thing we'll switch it up a little bit so the people that maybe miss it the first time have a second incentive and maybe if you got the first one, maybe you want a second one now because it's in that new color. It is a cool that I really do like. And it's a color we've never made before. Yeah, it's like kind of a heather blue sort of. Yeah, but it's a different blue than any of the other ones we've done before. You just have to see that to understand, I think.

And it's the only way you could really know is to buy one. Yeah, it's got like a silver print on it. It is really cool. Does it pop? I don don't know i don't describe that shirt as it's a little more it's almost like stylish yeah it's more subtle yeah it's a little subtle subtle stylish tea and then the lower body garment which everyone always wants to know what is the lower body garment we have a a run of the feel the burn shorts coming out and this print is significantly different than any other print we've done on shorts before yeah because our feel the burn imprint is so large that this imprint goes i don't know it's probably like five inches by like eight like it kind of is

the one whole thigh almost and it's on the black champion mesh shorts and those are perennial favorites yes they are and it looks and the uh it is that that design does pop in comparison to other uh big uh shorts designs it's unlike all the others in many ways so that was the drop um if you're hearing this you could still try and well wait if you're listening to this at the very beginning of the week, you know I would order immediately, and maybe it's going to get to you before Christmas, probably. Yeah, if you're listening to this at the beginning of the week, you have to order, like, right now,

and then there's maybe, possibly a chance that it might maybe show up to you. That's basically what the USPS says. Like, that's kind of what their version is. It was, like, recommended time for suggested deliveries, possibly by Christmas. It was kind of like the way they phrased it. Like, oh, yeah. You give yourself like five outs on that. But as always, what I

can guarantee is we're going to do everything we can to get it out as quick as possible. And it's out there by Christmas. It should be there shortly after. Assuming you live in America. Canadians will ship it out to you as fast as possible too, but you know it gets stuck in the black hole around

that Chicago area. What's the Chicago distribution center? Yeah, it's been going to a... I forgot what it is too. I only see the name get brought up every single day. One of our Canadian Discord members will know where their packages sit for weeks at a time. We'll see if they pop that in there.

But I did want to tell you that this episode is brought to you by Texas Power Bars. 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, a local machine shop started making Olympic bars for them, calling it the Image Bar. In 1977, Image Barbell became Champion Barbell. It was then that Buddy started looking at the bars with an intent of changing them for the better. In 1979, Buddy bought his first lathe

to begin dressing the known issues. In 1980, his passion, drive, and purpose now had a greater mission. Buddy set on his own to make what he believed was the greatest bar he'd ever seen and trained with, and the Texas Power Bar was born. It was strong as a house with the best knurling and was maintenance-free.

Hundreds of state, national, international, and world powerlifting records have been and continue to be set and broken on the Texas Power Bar. To learn more, check them out at texaspowerbars.com. Woo-hoo. Should we say bye-bye, Discord? Yeah. Someone said Carroll Stream.

Carroll Stream, that's the place. That is the actual name of the town? That's the place. That sounds like a made-up place. Yep. That's where Canadian-bound packages go to die. Bye, Discord. See you, Discordians.

Now Tommy, should we get our guest on the horn here? Let's do it. On the proverbial horn. Big Max. We didn't get a literal horn this week? Not this time. We'll just get him on the proverbial horn. Big Max, is that you it's me uh we are of course joined as always by marvelous max montana just wanted to pretend to be chad on that one for a second it's been a it's been a long time

since i heard that uh you're here with Tanner, and Tommy's here also. What's up, Max? What's up, guys? How are you doing? Oh, we're good. We're excited to get you on. And just coincidentally, this ended up being a great timely guest for us to have you this week because there was weightlifting news, and we almost don't know much about weightlifting

at all. So it's perfect to have someone that does kind of know about weightlifting with us this week. Yeah. Or me who can pretend to know about it, make things up. That's you fit in. Yeah. You're a perfect guest for the show then. So actually to jump into that, it's kind of interesting.

I think we don't spend a lot of time talking about Olympic weightlifting, but we spend a lot more time talking about powerlifting and strongman and what's going out there. But obviously, weightlifting is adjacent to those things. And anything that's Olympic wise is always interesting news, I think. And so what is the status? What what came out? It seemed like things were moving around just this week on that. Yeah. uh, moving around just this week on that. Yeah. So as far as I know, like if you kind of go back,

you rewind a few, maybe I guess last year or something. Um, and really, really more than that, the whole history of weightlifting in the Olympics has been on this rocky road for the last couple of years, uh, where the major issue that the IOC, the International Olympic Committee, is concerned with is the corruption that exists in weightlifting, where, you know, the IWF is, you know, they're generating huge, huge incomes from doping positives. So like, let's say you're a Kazakhstan team, nine members fail tests, and then you've got to like pay the IWF to get reinstated. And it's like, you know, half a million euros or something. And so this kind of thing was going on where there's just a lot of corruption as far as like bribes and paying people off and who controls doping samples. and paying people off and who controls doping samples, you know,

and basically the IWF is running a sort of typical, like, you know, mob scheme where they're basically extorting countries or offering protection. And, you know, it was getting to be a point where it's like, everyone kind of knew this was happening. You know, the whole, like, Icarus film that came out, you know, was really like anyone who had been involved in weightlifting or who had met like you know russian athletes had heard those stories before like verbatim the same kind of stuff um and uh and you know that kind of came out was a little more eye-opening kind of started to get more traction and and so you know this

whole mclaren report came out and basically like exposed all this stuff going on. And the situation was one in which the IOC said to the IWF, hey, you guys need to rewrite your constitution and you need to elect, you know, officials that we believe we can trust. elect you know officials that we believe we can trust and so you know this is like pre-thailand worlds 2019 they uh the entire thailand team fails drug tests right so like they just get blown out of the water they're done but they're still going to host the the worlds at that meet uh obviously thailand's got a problem with doping. Probably, you know, at the leadership level, they know what's going on. Well, I think they have a problem with getting caught, not a problem with doping. That's true.

That's true. Yeah. When the 48 kilo, you know, female, when the 48 kilo competitor first and second place both have thicker mustaches than tom sellick um you know but anyway so this this goes on right they oust the the the the you know i did with president thomas ion who in and of himself is like this it's like the characters involved in this sport you couldn't even you couldn't write this into a movie. It's like,

this guy is like, he's like four and a half feet tall. And he has what looks to be like five thumbs. Like he's got really short, little thick sausage, Vienna sausage fingers. And just like bizarre guy. But like,

you know, they're just these crazy, crazy people. He's like a Bond. Yeah. Oh yeah. Like the carny who talks about an Austin Powers. That's who he's describing. And he owns like, you know, six, six, like, you know, Italian villas in the South of France. Right. And you're like, how does he do this on a salary of, you know, $200,000 a year? Um, you know, how did I, how did daddy buff generate $45 million of income? Um,

but so this whole thing, he gets kicked out, right. And this is all long winded, but he gets kicked out and you know, we're like, okay, Hey, we were, we elect a us official. Uh, you know, she kind of takes the interim job and like, it looks like shit's going to work. Like they were, they were going to kick us out of 2024. It looks like we're going to be back in all good. And then they oust her and they elect the fucking tie guy. The IOC is like, what the fuck is this? You can't take this take this guy like and so it's just like this back and forth and then finally you know it finally comes down to like recently you know six months

ago or something they they basically had another situation iwf rewrites the constitution they all ratify it we're all good and and then uh as far as i know i'm kind of vague on this last part so i don't really i didn't follow it that closely at the end. But they basically didn't get the same, didn't get the level of, you know, the quality of individual they expected. People just basically kept going the same route. Like, you know, they just couldn't, they couldn't stop, you know. And so they just keep electing these corrupt people and trying to squeeze corrupt people in. And so, you know, it's like, they're just like, well, see you later. You're out.

Apparently it looks like we're out permanently in 2028. I could be totally wrong about that, but you know, that if I say convincingly, it sounds right. So do you think like with getting this, like the news of your being out, is that enough to actually make people step back and be like, okay, we need to change? Or is it just going to be like, no, okay, well, that just means we have to wait a few more years before we can get our sticky little fingers all over this money again. Okay. Well, think about this, right? This is what I don't get. Think about, imagine you're a guy

who robs 7-Elevens, right? Like that's your job. Yeah. That's like, yeah, you guys can relate so so you you rob 7-elevens and you're getting away with it right and then the cops kind of know you're you're into it right and then you know they catch you but they can't pin it on you and they let you out that day like maybe the first thing you would do is like lay low for a few weeks like i'm just not going to rob anything for a few weeks kind of like you know going to rob anything for a few weeks kind of like you know just kind of disappear or like go to a circle k instead right yeah right so instead you're like fuck this like you just have the like you walk from the police station right to a 7-eleven ah the perfect the perfect plan i never expect perfect time yeah so well they didn't catch me last time yeah so

this is like the equivalent of what the iwf does like these guys just cannot keep their hand out of cookie jar they can't stop it's like they can't stop doping they can't stop the corruption it's like every single chance they possibly have and so you know it's like it's almost like at that point you're kind of like yeah we should i can get out like you get, it's like, it's almost like at that point, you're kind of like, yeah, we should get kicked out. Like, yeah, get rid of this. Like, we're not going to stop. It's just too bad. So, so when them, them being kicked out though, that should like kind of turn off the faucet for money. You shouldn't it. So that's, this is the big question we've all got. There's a couple of different scenarios I think might happen. One, the long-term scenario is that like, let's say you're, you know, China has no interest in being, you know, dumping money into a sport that's not at the Olympics,

right? So countries like China, probably not in like Russia or Eastern Bloc countries, because it's kind of a cultural thing there. It's still ingrained in there, but funding will dry up largely in a lot of these countries where, you know, so you're going to lose a lot of that top talent. And that's going to, who knows the long-term effect of that, right? It could be that the whole sport just kind of shrinks and contracts into this thing where it's like, you know, like a more of a powerlifting style thing where the world's, you know, world championships are, you know, they're, they're a big event, but they certainly don't have the same level of talent in them, um, that they did, you know, when the Olympics was around, uh, which is good for Western countries, right?

It's good for us. The second thing is we don't know what that, what happens to USA weightlifting because without that sort of pathway, do people just kind of walk away from it? At the top level, it's like how do you convince a 17, 18, 19-year-old kid to postpone a bunch of their life to train for this and compete? And when there's really kind of that pipeline doesn't exist. Worlds is cool, but it's like it's not you know the potential right right and then the third thing which is actually my favorite thing is that think about what every single lifter is doing right now knowing that 2024 is like the fucking last flash it's the last blowout like like they're everyone's like all the stops so 2024

is still gonna have weightlifting is yeah well that's part of my question why is it if if it's like yeah we're definitely gonna get rid of this thing but not for this one that's for you guys are really really bad so we're gonna give you actually a couple more years like what is it because like the wheels are so in motion you can't not do it? I was curious about that too. Yeah, I don't know. My guess is that there's probably – so the other speculation is that like these are – if we step back and think, okay, the IWF is corrupt and they're making a bunch of money hand over fist. Well, the IOC might want a cut of that and they're not getting it. And so they're like, well, you're fucking out until you figure this out yeah and so it's like that's that's one theory i don't you know i don't know if it's true or not but like you could imagine

that hey i mean people think about the olympics they think about weightlifting i mean that's like that's the only time to think about it it's like so you're you know you're you're robbing us of that but uh yeah i don't know i mean it could be something where they're like dangling in front of us hoping that there's some stronger changes we might have a chance to get back in in a different format or a different style like maybe the sport has to sort of revamp itself a lot and come back in a different way no one's No one's really sure exactly. I do like the idea that it could just be this one big

YOLO lifting event. Every single Google search in every little mountain village in Kazakhstan is for like, how do I source trend? How many anadrol can I take before before die?

Up the dose. Yeah. Yeah. There's like a, everyone's sitting there just thinking like, how can we just fucking, you know, have the greatest fucking meat ever.

I was saying it'd be cool. I want to see someone go out there and do some, you know, insane 300 kilo cleaning jerk and then just die on the platform just like just heart heart explode done dead well all the corruption and stuff you know maybe instead of looking at as a negative you know is there a way do you have any plan like maybe the three of us could figure something out and get a piece of the pie. Yeah. I mean, I feel like it's up for grabs right now. Right. Instead of like working against the system, maybe we could be a part of it.

Yeah. Like they take all the money and funnel it up. We just have to get into that funnel. Like where do we fit in the upside down pyramid? Yeah. Well, it's also, I mean, you guys, you know, it's, you know, people think the big money is in like, you know, weird Bulgarian sausage sponsorships and whatnot as a lifter. But the reality is we know the money is in the executive branch, right? That's where you're going to make a killing, right?

The administration. Yes. Selling clean urine samples and whatnot. The old white collar crime. So we made a little quick little list of of things that are olympic because what i would say is to me it's kind of a shame i'm not that uh big of a fan of weightlifting but i am curious about weightlifting when it's just exactly what you said like when it's on olympics i like this i like strength sports and i want to see anyone that participates anyone that lifts anything should be able to appreciate that. Right. And it,

to me, like fundamentally, it's a little bit of a shame if there's not something in the Olympics that is who is the strongest person, like out of all these things we test of people, like just at the most basic level, like fastest. Yeah. Like who's the strongest?

Yeah. Like that's kind of insanity to me that like, that's no longer somehow. A test of strength doesn't exist. Out of all the things that are in the Olympics, like that would potentially not be one anymore. So that's kind of insane. But then just to like highlight that even further,

we looked up a few things that still are in the Olympics. And I'd be curious if you're aware of any of these. Maybe save some of the best for last. But trampoline jumping is one of them. I don't know exactly how that's scored. But trampolining. I would assume probably like gymnastics. Yeah, it's basically like gymnastics on a trampoline. Badminton. Which I don't think of athleticism. But although I'm sure it's one of those things you watch the Olympic guys and you're like what how do they like take this to that level you know it's probably

one of those um right race walking which is so interesting to me so it's a race but we're gonna we want to put these limitations on this like it it's a race, but like you can only move your body in this certain way. Like it's going to drastically slow down how fast you are. It is. That is a strange one. That is like, yeah, that's a weird sport.

Cause it's like, it's gotta, it's gotta be either like a test, some kind of endurance test, because if you limit the technique of something so dramatically, like everyone's kind of stuck, right? Yeah.

Everyone would be the same. Right. And like, what is the ideal body type for race walking? Well, ideally you're, you're not suited to be good at any other more popular sports. So you fuck like you've eventually,

how deep is the talent pool for something like that though? If you wonder, right, it's deep. It's deep. I guess. What are the differentiators actually that make people better at it? There's about 6 billion people that could be good at it.

Yeah. True. True. Yeah. It could all probably be pretty competitive. Now that you say it, I do know a lot of people that know how to walk. It does.

But do they know how to do it kind of in a funny way where you're really like dramatically not running but moving as fast as you can? And like only one of your feet can ever be off the ground at any one time. Which I also am very curious like how strictly that's actually enforced, right? Oh, that's got to be really strict. I imagine because that's the entire essence of this. But how do you like every step of every person? But don't those events go for like hours on end? So like does each person have a specific judge following them the entire time?

No, it's both for you. That's what I don't get is how you actually enforce that. That's true. Yeah, that's a good point. So that's silly in many ways. Maybe it's an honor system. It's the honor system. Yeah.

That usually works pretty good. Call your own. And then look, the craziest one to me. what was the other one you brought up tommy was a break dancing break dancing is going to be in which i don't i don't think it's in yet but it's coming i'm curious to see how that one plays out it could be really cool i just don't know what a break dancing actual competition looks like right and that's like such a subjective thing right where it's like how do you but it's the old it's the figure skating gymnastics thing. You have the panel and, um, I'm sure. Yeah. You start getting that chain going or whatever. And I guess if your feet touch, like, is it the

same thing? Your feet touch and it's that many point reduction. I would be genuinely curious to watch one of those though. The wildest one to me that I like to think about, okay, this is an Olympic sport and weightlifting might not be any longer, is dressage. With the horses. Yeah, it's basically like horse dancing. So

like horse dancing is a thing. Well, so those horse ones, so like all the equestrian sports are kind of interesting. I know someone we were looking into this a while back and the equestrian sports are kind of interesting i know someone we were looking into this a while back and the equestrian sports are basically to me if you really step back from it they got to be the most corrupt of all the sports well we just said it might as well just

be like the barrier it might just say are you interested in the sport do you have a million dollars like if no see other sports that's what i said nobody ever got into this sport whose family's net worth was under $100 million, I assume. Or based surely on talent. You're not getting into that sport because of your talent. You're going to do it because of your money. Yeah. There's no 30 for 30 on ESPN where they're talking to some down and out guy who's like,

I was living on the streets and then I found a horse. That's how I got into dressage. Train that damn horse to dance like none of the, yeah. I pulled myself up by my bootstraps and got the Olympics. Yeah, pulling myself up by my bootstraps wasn't hard. It was that heavy ass horse holding me back the whole time. Who's the winner in that case? Is it the horse or the rider or just a combination, I suppose?

It's the audience. That's the only one that wins. Yeah, that treat for the senses yes uh no that's good okay well that's that's interesting information we certainly understand that better than we than we did before uh I think it's a I think it is a shame though that weightlifting wouldn't be um I guess I I have a funny feeling about that because you know people talk about power lift, wanting the power, wanting powerlifting to be in the Olympics. I, I like powerlifting, but I don't see that that's, I'm not a big proponent of that. I don't really see how that's necessary or why that matters, but on the flip side of the token, I would, uh, be, feel sad for weightlifting to come out of the Olympics? Yeah, I mean, I don't know.

I mean, I would be absolutely shocked ever if powerlifting was ever considered because one of the main problems with sports like weightlifting is that they take up a significant number of athletes, and there's not that many medals to win, and they don't generate a lot of money. So it's like something like skateboarding. You can get a significant number of people, but there's so much more money involved in the sport. And so it makes sense, right? It makes sense to pull a sport like skateboarding in and try to generate income for the IOC. Palo Alto and Way of Thing are probably both.

There's just not a lot of money. Countries don't have a chance to win lots of medals. So the medal counts can't be higher. weightlifting are probably both they just there's just not a lot of not a lot of money countries don't have a chance to win lots of medals so the medal counts can't be higher so it's like it doesn't really help anyone we're a sport like swimming is like fucking great it's a gold mine you know you can win 27 medals in one event you know um and and they're all basically the same event anyways so at the end of the day it's like you know it's like of course you're good at all of them like they're all swimming yeah yeah and so that's like where i see powerlifting we just have this massive hurdle um and it's like you know for us like fans of the stuff like we don't necessarily think about that from from that perspective initially like you know okay what does the

ioc want to do here they want it they want to get more people involved and more countries winning and more people spending money. And something like weightlifting or powerlifting, it's just not going to bring in the dollars. Well, didn't Olympic lifting just kind of kill powerlifting shot at it being like, we're supposedly maybe the more established big brother that has this figured out

and we clearly don't. So why would this other sport that is even less organized have it figured out well us and a sport that also specifically has like a on tested you know like that like yeah there's a whole bunch of people where on tested is a huge part of the sport um and that you know the ioc can't look at that favorably i wouldn't think even though it might not be the people that are coming in but there is this whole segment of the sport where that is a big thing. Well, then it also comes down to the question of would they go for equipped or raw? And because equipped lifting is still really big around the world. And that just becomes a question of

it's sort of difficult to relate to that. People don't know what's going on with the gear and all this, you know? Well, something that I think you said that flies in the face of powerlifting, you said there's not that many medals to be won. That's not the powerlifting that I know. Oh, that's. Like, but, but that's why it can't go in the Olympics. If there's not that many medals to be won in the Olympics,

that does not fit the powerlifting mold. Yeah, yeah. If there's not that many medals to be won in powerlifting, Steve Dennison, hold my beer. It's like, how does this one sport allow juniors, masters, and submasters? No other sport allows that in the Olympics. What did they do here? I went to a USPA meet. Good meet, all this.

And at the end of the meet, 11 o'clock at night, Steve Dennison pulls out a printer. And literally there was like a sum. I mean, there was 77 people and maybe two of them didn't get a trophy or an

award. And some of them got seven. Yeah. It's just – I forgot about that, right? They could offer that. Maybe the Olympics has every single state or province or parish. Are you between 35 and 37 and a half? Come on. Is someone born in January?

We got criteria to meet here. Those born on leap year. Yes. So, Max, you own your own gym now. That's correct. Max's gym. I was wondering, how'd you come up with the name? correct? Max's Gym. I was wondering, how'd you come up with the name?

So we, you know, we never actually had a name for it. People just called it Max's Gym. And so being the narcissist that I am, I was like, this works out perfectly. It just stuck. So is it mostly weightlifting then? Or what all goes on in the doors of Max's gym? It's 50-50. We've got a bunch of powerlifting, powerlifters, weightlifters. I mean, yeah, it's probably half and half now. We've had a pretty good crew of powerlifters through the years. It just comes and goes.

You know, it's a weird place to have a gym if you want to train a lot of really strong people um because it's in the bay area so it's like you know it's it's super expensive out here and you don't attract the kind of you know younger talented people that are maybe not necessarily you know they don't have jobs they can afford you know affluent enough yeah right yeah So, you know, it's mostly like hobbyists and people like that that are coming in. But we've had some strong people come through. That's cool. We were talking about the Jug Life podcast and we kind of alluded to it at the beginning.

And I think we're both big fans of that. I mean, I'm not putting words in your mouth when I say that in my time either. Oh, no, not at all. We love that. And I think that had its run there where that was, you know, we have our own club, Mastinomics Gym, and, you know, obviously talking to a lot of the people lifting,

and, like, that's kind of the podcast that people were talking about. Like, oh, did you listen to it, and did you see what those guys were up to? Yeah, like you'd always go to the gym and talk about it. That was definitely a thing for a while. That's cool. So we look back at that very fondly. Do you miss that at all ever? Do you miss recording a weekly podcast and doing that stuff?

Or how do you think about it looking back now? Yeah, that was a ton of fun. The drug life was really cool. We kind of hit on a great time there because right around like 2016, 2017, like powerlifting was really coming up. There was a lot of cool stuff going on. Weightlifting, the beginning of that quad, you know, till the 2020 Olympics was just starting. So like it was a ton of fun to do that. It's also tough, you know.

It's like you guys do podcasts it's like it's a tough one because we were always kind of doing podcasts and sort of doing those like you know talking about training on some of them and eventually you get to a point where you've done so many of these that you feel like you're kind of repeating you know you're repeating the same stuff and so you know but i i always enjoyed the the interviews we. I think maybe 2018, we did a bunch of traveling. We'd travel to like Texas and do like five or six podcasts in a week or like three days and then, you know, get a bunch of cool interviews. And that stuff was a lot of fun. I really liked that. I think it was a good, fun, interesting product. And I also, you know, the podcast was great. And I also really liked just the little schticks,

the things that you guys pulled out throughout the time, you know, the stepbrothers, you know, just some of the photo shoots and stuff you guys did. It was just Mighty Ducks, all that stuff. It was just good, creative, funny. I think just right up our alley of stuff we like. Yeah, that stuff was probably the most fun. I mean, we would, we had, man, it's kind of a bummer because we had this one plan early on was to do a,

to get like all these, all these lifters, like Brandon Allen and all these guys together and do a calendar. No. a calendar uh no uh a guy can dream right well that was just in my that was just what i was thinking about last night uh by the way i'm pretty sure chad owns juggerbear.com website i think i think it redirects back to juggernaut said we're going to do like an over the top where all the characters will be in there

and that would have been a ton of fun and we never quite got to that but yeah it was a fun time doing those little parody things in the beginning was a blast Is there any chance any Snowball's chance in hell that it would ever

start back up again? Yeah, maybe. It really just depends. I don't even know where we would start with it, but yeah, possibly. You can ask Chad. Yeah. Put a bug in his ear.

Yeah. No, that's cool. Yeah, I think you had a really cool thing there and we all enjoyed it. Thanks. No, that's good. Yeah, I think you had a really cool thing there, and we all enjoyed it. Thanks. No, that's good. What else do we have? Oh, that's what we wanted to ask you about.

So you were trained by some very interesting people in the weightlifting world. Boris, what's the correct pronunciation? Is it Sheikow or sheiko or how do you i i i never knew i assume it's sheiko okay and so i don't know and then what's the the guy that you the bulgarian guy uh abajayov or what abajayov yeah abajayov and you were kind of directly trained by him for a period of time then, correct? What was the most interesting advice, just one little nugget that either of them or

both of them ever gave you? I mean, nothing really profound. I mean, probably the shit that came out of Abhijit's mouth was insane. The things he would say were just like you couldn't believe what he was... The's mouth was insane. The things he would say were just like you couldn't believe

what he was like. The guy was fucking insane. He didn't sleep a single night in his bed. He slept in his closet every night and I assume every night of his life. Vertical? Why? Because he was afraid

of the KGB. They were going to come get him. He's living in Beniciaicia california in a subject like a suburb like and he was really fearful of the kgb you think like yeah oh yeah you got to imagine right this guy is like most people's stories of growing up in communism is is from a different perspective than his because he was like high up he was like a big deal they protected him he was very important right he was winning and kicking russia's ass right uh so he was like a big deal so you know he must have been exposed to who knows what fucking weird you know what kind of weird shit he had to deal with and what he knew was going

to happen to him if he you know good whatever you know so he was fucking paranoid like that but he would like one time he brought down from his room this fucking bottle of liquor that he had distilled in the the tank of his toilet i don't think he actually had the liquor in the toilet it was in a bottle but he was hiding it in the toilet um but he had like distilled it he made It was in a bottle, but he was hiding it in the toilet. But he had distilled it, and he made us all take a shot of it, and it was just the most vile. It was made out of fucking roots or something. That was so bad.

He was just such a weird, very odd guy. The way his brain worked was so different. I watched him. He had this dog. So they got him a dog and the dog would go in the yard and the dog would like dig a little hole in the yard and he'd go out there and he was like, you know, this dog's digging his hole. And so he'd get like this like vinegar and he pour a little vinegar on the hole and the dog would stop digging there. And was like see see this is uh it works and

i'm like yeah but he just moved over like 10 inches you're gonna run out of vinegar just to give you a perspective on how fucking nuts this guy was like he just like shit like that didn't make sense to him but then you know i mean to some degree he was kind of a mastermind in weightlifting i mean he he definitely changed a lot of the way people train i mean there's probably huge influence from him in everything you know strength sports since since what he did um you know i mean people when he started coaching people they were doing you know people were training like three days a week people believed that like training was was like uh

was hurting you that training would like would cause death if you did too much of it and so he you know when he started this is like back in the 50s right people were like you know well you can't train more than that many times a week you're going to get hurt or whatever and uh and so he started pushing people harder and harder and you know eventually built this system where that was totally insane but you know people like that kind of drive the whole everybody forward right um yeah i mean he had crazy stories too like this guy started this guy started before steroids were really a thing and then obviously became

like the fucking master of you know he became the number one fan right but yeah he was telling a story that was really cool that I thought was really interesting he said that when they first got the Anibal in Bulgaria they all started taking it like this team started taking it and

they were all really scared of it and so they would take like you know one five milligram pill right before training you know three or four times a week or whatever and like everybody kind of got a little bit stronger um but no one got like like way better you know they got stronger but it was kind of like not a huge difference then one dude this guy must have been nuts but he was like i'm gonna take more and so he started taking like five or ten or 15 or 20 and so he was taking you know 20 pills a day and then he got way stronger than everybody else and so then everybody was like fuck this yeah and so then they all started taking it right and it just went down

this this road of like you know this one guy was like yeah i think i'm gonna take 10 times as many as everybody else what happened uh the pioneers yeah right yeah a lot to those guys. And here we are 2028, no Olympics. Yup. Max, we've got this little game. We like to play with everyone that we have on the show, overrated,

underrated. And we got a special Max Ada set of topics, handpicked topics for you here. And it's your job to decide if they're overrated, underrated, you can elaborate as much or as little on each one as you'd like, but you do just have to come up with a final decision of overrated or underrated. You can't ride the line.

So if you're ready to play, we'll hit you with them. Overrated or underrated Nike Air Monarchs? Underrated. Grossly underrated. Most comfortable shoe a man can wear are they actually comfortable you know i bought them as a joke when i started when i when i wore them the first time and that was a mistake it was like it's like if you were joking with your buddies like hey i'm gonna i'm gonna shoot heroin today just for fun and you can't stop now now you're here you can't stop

it's just too good okay so do you uh do you have a certain colorway that you prefer? I mean, white. Yeah. Some people are kind of rebels and they go with the black and red, you know? I mean, if I'm going to like a wedding or a funeral, yeah, I'll bust out the black ones. Something classy. Makes sense. I do believe I heard one time that, and this could have changed through the years, but at one point, by volume, that was the number one selling Nike shoe.

Really? By physical volume? By number of units. Probably actually by how much space they take up. So you said underrated, though, for sure. Underrated, for sure. No line writing on that one. Okay.

So this next one, they don't call you marvelous and all the other terms that Chad used over the years, Max Montana, for no reason. You were born and raised in Montana, correct? Yeah. Okay, so overrated or underrated yellowstone the tv series the paramount tv series with kevin costner oh man i've never i've never seen it are you familiar with it on some level i i'm only familiar with the fact that it's Kevin Costner. Okay. I'm going to say possibly overrated.

I don't know. I think you're correct. Like in even only knowing what you know, that's probably a safe answer. It seems like not like real, like Montana is, there's like two types of Montana, right? There's like people that are like grew up there

and live there that are like, you know, they work, you know, regular jobs and everyone's kind are like you know they work you know regular jobs and and everyone's kind of you know there's not a lot of money and then there's like this other layer of montana which is like really fucking rich people like crazy money that comes in and buys giant ranches and and all this shit and and so it's like my impression is the show kind of like plays it off like oh yeah this is montana like we're cowboys but we all have like you know cadillac you know cadillacs and fucking helicopters and shit like yeah yeah that's not how it is right and we're from south dakota

so not far down the road and uh yeah we we can relate to that to an extent too. Yeah, you guys know. What part of Montana were you from? Bozeman. I was born in Bozeman. Excellent. Been through Bozeman once. Excellent. Chad always called me that, Montana, because Montana is my middle name.

Oh, really? Okay. Are you named after the state that you... They're like, I don't know. Looking at things in the room. Montana. Crucifix? No, that doesn't work. Montana? The doctor came in asking for the birth certificate

and my parents freaked out. Looked around the room. Maximum. Max. Let's do another M word okay overrated or underrated bulgaria the country uh i haven't been um you know i'm gonna say it's probably it's probably underrated i've heard it's pretty cool there's some cool stuff there. Yeah, I mean, the best summary of Bulgaria that I could give was from a Bulgarian lifter. He said, you know, every country has criminals, but in Bulgaria

the criminals have a country. That's pretty profound. Yeah. Good. Okay, last one one here and this is probably the most important one we usually save the best for last uh everything comes down to this your whole performance on the show is weighted on it so a lot of pressure here overrated or underrated arby's big montana roast beef sandwich man i uh i don't think i've been to an arby's and probably i mean is arby's still around we have one in south dakota here we do yeah okay i still put a lot of ads on tv you're you're totally not montana anymore you you moved away and like you forgot where your your roots so so

i was actually when i grew up in when i was growing up as a kid there was a restaurant i don't know if anyone listening will get this reference but there was a restaurant that was literally exactly like arby's the roast beef sandwich everything the same but the name of the restaurant was racks r-a-x okay and i fucking i was probably like seven at the time i fucking loved it because they would give you this like little alligator water bottle with like you know orange soda in it and so i mean i'm kind of old school i'm gonna say racks was was better i'd have to say arby's is overrated including Including the Big Montana, the half-pound roast beef sandwich. Arby's got the state.

Arby's fucked us over as a state because when we had no speed limit, when Montana had no speed limit, Arby's would put all these ads up about drive as fast as you want to Arby's and get five roast beef sandwiches and put them in your mouth. That became national news

and they brought too much attention to it. Too much. They fucked us. Did you have Taco John's in Montana? Yeah. Excellent. What do you think of Taco John's? Taco John's is a recurring theme on the

Mastodonics podcast. We talk about it surprisingly frequently. What do you do you think about what do you remember and think about taco john's uh i i taco john's is pretty good you know for what it was um i you know like the first 30 minutes of it was good and you know that's actually a great way to do it yeah yeah it is you guys it is better than taco bell, though. Oh, yeah, for sure. I always thought it was more of a local thing. I guess it must just be like a...

Well, it's out of Wyoming, isn't it? Oh, okay. I think they're based out of Wyoming. We should have the statistics ready, but if I was to guess, I think it's probably in about 20 states. I always thought it was kind of upper Midwest. Well, it makes a lot of sense that they're based out of Wyoming.

That's exactly what I expect from a Mexican restaurant. Named Taco John's. Taco John's, yeah. That really sums it up for everybody. No one has ever experienced it. It's a Mexican restaurant based out of Wyoming named Taco John's. Okay, were you ever around in the Taco John's vicinity when their mascot was a monkey that rode a dog?

It's called Whiplash the Cowboy Monkey. Yes, I think I remember that. Marketing genius. No follow-up. We just wanted to know if you're aware of that. If not, you can share the memory okay well really good news it looks like you passed overrated underrated and therefore you know you passed the show and we uh will air it because of that reason awesome i'm glad i'm glad biggest accomplishment you didn't just waste waste like 40 minutes of your life.

Yeah. Obviously, you know, if there's anything, you know, I suppose, you know, people can join your gym if they're in the Bay Area. But what about coaching or anything like that? Is there online services that you provide in that way? Yeah, you can go to JTSstrength.com, check out all the coaching offerings and whatnot we got there that's our best way to get in touch with me awesome well we really appreciate it max this is good good stuff yeah yeah it's real fun i'm glad you've been on it all right thanks awesome thanks max cool guys all right see ya oh oh oh that's cool beans very cool beans. Beans. Cool beans. That's cool beans.

Very cool beans. That was fun. That was good. Max didn't disappoint, did he? He did not disappoint one bit. It was worth the wait. Worth all the hype all these years. The alliteration stumbled me up on my words that one time

when I was trying to say marvelous Max Montana. It is tricky. It is tricky magnificent max montana joined us always by magnificent max montana chad had all those years of experience saying it's true he just knew how to do it but he did it's not something just any person can pull off no you know what i can pull off please tell me i can pull off uh reading this ad for Fusion Sports Performance Supplements. I was hoping you weren't going to say your pants because I can't. Whoa, come on. Now we can finally get to what these 298 episodes have been leading up to. Do you know what's in your supplements?

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and come with endless loops that are big enough to fit any typical pull-up bar you can check out the spud ink hanging ab straps online at spud-ink-straps.com good job awesome tommy we have a sack segment this week in addition to our send in we do yes I kind of thought this was the sack when you mentioned earlier it's almost a double sack it's a two sack item kind of week yep wow I'm gonna be I gotta go to bed I'm gonna be so jacked and hyped up from this I'm gonna have trouble sleeping tonight would you like to see I was worried at one point in time that there was caffeine in this I thought about that for a second, too, actually.

I thought you read something, and then you never told me. So I'm like, I assume by him not telling me, there was not caffeine in it. Yeah, I actually went back and looked again. Because I drank the whole bottle. If there's caffeine in this, then we're screwed. I'm in for a bad night. I don't think there is, though. I'm just riding a natural high from all these organic sugars.

From all this great conversation. Okay. We have a sack right here, and this is from our friends at Appleton Coffee Co. Oh. Do you want to see what we got from them? You got a few things. So here's number one. Oh, sweet.

What do you got there? Packers glasses. Appleton, Wisconsin. What do you got there? Packers glasses. Appleton, Wisconsin. Okay. Check that bad boy out. That is a cool coffee mug. Yeah, it is, isn't it? Wow.

Kind of reminds me of our Highland Games. Very similar, is it not? Yes. I have six of those now, and I just think this is going to be a seventh in that collection. That's really cool. Yeah. And it says Appleton Coffee Co. on there.

Dishwasher and microwave safe. I always assume things like this aren't able to handle that, but it says right on the bottom, dishwasher and microwave safe. So that means I'll actually use it. Yeah. Very cool mug. Actually, I think we should get mugs like this. That would be really cool, actually.

We should look into that. Yeah. Luckily for us, the name's on here. We can track down. get mugs like this that would be really cool actually we should look into that yeah luckily for us the names on here we can track down uh that is a really cool coffee mug that they've got there though um here's something else you got there i believe this is an air fresher and you have to assume it's coffee scented right from appleton coffee probably that would make sense funny is it says calgary barbell on the back of them too i'm not sure what the because isn't that uh who's who is calgary bryce right yeah whatever however you

would say that last name yeah it starts with a k yep um believe there's a coaster in there sweet you can never have too many coasters are always good and then here you go the uh pistola resistance i'll let you take a look at that. Whoa, whoa. Appleton Coffee Co., barrel-aged coffee, 30 days medium roast. Your friends at Appleton Coffee Co. remind you to drink more than one cup of coffee. It's even ground for us. He did ask about that because they offer both ground and whole bean. And do you have a coffee grinder?

I don't. I do not. If I ever fuck it up and buy beans, I just throw them, and I don't want to waste them. I just throw them in my blender and get them into tiny little pieces. And I know that's not what you're supposed to do. Let me hit that again. There's the tiny little blowhole here.

It smells like coffee. I'd like to taste it yeah it smells good so yeah appleton coffee so if you want to check them out with uh i can't we can't review their coffee in full faith yet because we i can tell you it smells really good i can review their mugs and their mug is awesome their mug is really cool really cool. The smell is very good. I like that. We'll try it out. But check them out at AppletonCoffee.com.

They sell coffee. Sweet. Thanks, Appleton Coffee Co. Yeah, and obviously a listener of the Mastodonomics podcast, so that alone makes me like them. They've been vetted at least to that level, so you know that they're mostly okay's the most extreme level of vetting yeah so that's cool beans uh that kind of was most stuff i had on my list was there anything else we really needed to get to today merry christmas

well merry lift miss is it it's not is it christmas this whole it's dumb but this whole recording on a tuesday yeah god it is christmas next okay it's christmas on a saturday right so this will come out on monday and like i'm like isn't christmas like two weeks away this will be the episode that comes out the week of christmas wow we will there will not be another episode that comes out before christmas that means we only got one more episode left of 2021 yeah so, so next week we'll record 299. The week of Christmas we'll record 299. And then the week of New Year's we will record the granddaddy of them all.

Tree Honda. The number that everyone said we couldn't get to. That everyone said was impossible. And then we kind of joked about this earlier, but we are planning on stopping at 300, right? Yep. Packing it up. What if that's not a joke, though?

Just everyone, all the first commenters are just confused, wondering what's going on, and there's no podcast. What if at 300 we literally, and we delete everything. Massanom just goes away. The website's down. It's just ghosted, and we never communicate with anyone all the orders we took for a week leading up to that we just kept the money and didn't ship them it just disappeared how would people even track uh what would people even do in that case like

it's so hard to get i think there's enough people that know who we are it would it could literally come to necessarily be easy but i think some people would get some feelers out for us right right there'd be doing, there'd be some digging going on. So we're probably not doing that though. Yeah, probably not. I guess we'll give it 300 more and then decide.

What if we are doing that? What if we really are ending the podcast? We probably won't unless we do. Bum, bum, bum. Like, I don't think we should,

unless you want to Tanner. Haha. That'd be funny if we did, though, wouldn't it? It just sounds like a joke unless you think it actually is a good idea. Yeah, that'd be funny, but we could if you want. I guess, whatever. But whatever, I don't care either way. I was joking, though, unless you weren't. Unless you're serious about it, we could quit.

Yeah. Buy our stuff from our new drop. This is, like we talked about, kind of your last chance to get something made before Christmas here. We'll send it as soon as you order. We still have a few sweatshirts left. You know, the Raw Power Crew Neck sweatshirt. Got a couple of those around.

We got the Massanomics Gym Hooded gym hooded zip up which is uh the coat actually it's a coat at this point in time but just be clear about that it's a coat we have that available it's a great deal on a coat actually it's a great price on a coat you would usually expect oftentimes what wouldn't a coat be a hundred dollars hundreds yeah hundreds you know supply chain issue we're like we're basically like burlington coat factory over here with things we're selling and then the joggers there's a few pairs of those left but not joking when we say there's not many pairs left of any sizes of any of those things they're still decent selection but just only you know really just one or two there's a good chance your order will be

the one that uh puts it out of stock in that size yeah and then uh restock i think of uh puts it out of stock in that size. Yeah, and then restock, I think, of lift ship tee and lift tee are coming back in. If you've been... If you like to lift. Yeah, what's the lift? Is it the gym tuxedo? You get the lift shorts and the lift shirt.

I do really like that. Yeah, with the lift hat. Someone in the Discord said if you have the Feel the Burn t-shirt, I'm going to add this one in. If you have the Feel the Burn... Oh, okay, nope, this changed it. What was said in the Discord is if you have the Feel the Burn t-shirt and you get the shorts, then you now have second-degree burns.

But you have to have a third degree now, I guess, for the spicy air. Yes, the Feel the Burn ammonia. And we still have some of that around too, so buy yourself some. And that's not coming back. You know, that is a limited edition run. And it has been getting rave reviews. People are feeling the burn ammonia. And we still have some of that around too. So buy yourself some, and that's not coming back. I, you know, that is a limited edition. It has been getting rave reviews. It's they,

people are feeling the burn. They said, wow, this burns. I don't know if it was positive or negative. It really, really burns. Yeah.

These guys aren't joking. Like, no, this is actually burning. Like I, my eyes hurt and like, this is bad. Please make it stop. This is bad in the best way

the worst best way we have firemen on call at mass dynamics gym uh-huh we have a couple firemen that are members luckily because that people have been feeling the burn they're not actually real firemen they're the sexy stripper firemen but we just keep them around to keep morale which are really the best firemen, right? It's a morale thing. That's why they come to the gym. Oh, there he is in his no shirt and overalls. Oh, he slid down the pole today.

Okay. Like us on YouTube. Like our Facebook. Please become a supporting member. If you've been listening to the podcast for a long time, we'd love to have you become a supporting member. More next week. Stick around next week.

Tune in so we can discuss what happens potentially now that we reached 400 five-star reviews on Apple Podcasts. We didn't discuss it this week. Oh, yeah. Too much other good stuff to talk about. But we've certainly got plans for big things, don't we? And plans are big. And we did hit the milestone.

We're over the 400. So we're going to see some big things. There's big, big, big gears are turning right now, aren't they? They're moving. Some big ones.

It's going to be power moves over here. Tommy, where do they find you? You can find me at Tomahawk underscore D. You can follow me at Tanner underscore Baird, but just make sure to follow massonomics at massonomics see ya